December 1, 2024 • 50 mins
Librarians just read all day, right? Wrong! Nicole, Killian, and Drew discuss all sorts of strange occurrences, unexpected skills, and unique questions they've encountered as librarians in this episode
This episode was recorded live at the BCTV Back-to-School event in September 2024 as a behind-the-scenes look at the process of recording a podcast with BCTV.
Want to join the conversation? Email us at distracted@btpl.org.
Many thanks to BCTV for their support in recording, editing, and releasing this podcast; and to the Friends of the Library for sponsoring closed captioning on every episode.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
(bright music)
(bright music continues)
Nicole (00:16):
Hello, and welcome to today's podcast episode
where we dive into theweird and wonderful tasks
that fall under other dutiesas assigned, I'm Nicole.
Killian (00:27):
I'm Killian.
Drew (00:28):
I'm Drew.
Nicole:Today's episode is very unusual
because we're recording infront of a live studio audience.
Let's hear from them.
(audience applauding)(audience cheering)
So why are we doing this today?
Well, we're doing a special event
at the Bloomfield Cable TV Studio
where community members can learn
(00:48):
all about the greatresources here at BCTV.
So let's talk about our topic.
Yes.
Nicole (00:55):
All right, so what do librarians actually do?
How can we explain thisin the best way possible?
Killian (01:02):
This is very much not the things
we went to school intending to do.
These are the thingsthat kind of popped up
when we got the jobs
and just became part of our jobs
or things that we have to deal with.
Drew (01:15):
Yeah, on every application,
you see other duties asassigned down at the bottom
and I don't know if it'sunique to librarianship,
but ours are just weird.
Nicole (01:24):
They're very weird, and I think
when I first started working in libraries,
I was like hmm, I wonderwhat that's all about?
So we're gonna talk aboutsome of those things today.
Let's discuss some of the odd things
that have just become part of our job.
Killian (01:43):
The weird thing for me has always been the things
that I'm interested in outside of work
that then become part of work.
So personally I am into games a lot
and so I do video games, board games,
tabletop role playing games,
that sort of thing,
and that has really become a big part
of what I do at the library.
(02:03):
I do a lot of,
I've done some D&D sessions for kids.
I have done escape room design.
And if you had told grad school me
who was going to be a librarian
hey, you're gonna berunning Dungeons and Dragons
and designing escape rooms,
I never would've believed it.
Nicole (02:21):
Yeah, but that's the beautiful thing
about working in libraries.
In some cases, we're ableto really create programming
that kind of feeds intowhat our strengths are
and I don't know that you really find that
in a lot of other careers
where we're able to have a program.
For example, one of my coworkers
(02:44):
started a program called Crayon to Crochet
which is a program that we did
for the summer reading program this year.
And kids were able to draw a creature
of some kind, a literary creature,
something that has to do withthe summer reading program
on a white sheet of paper
and then they would turn them into us.
(03:05):
And we then went through almost 150...
Drew (03:12):
Submissions?
Nicole (03:12):
Submissions that were given to us
and we chose six of those things
to turn into actual crocheted creatures
that we then gave to those kids.
So bringing in somethingfrom home that we really like
and being able to do it in the library
and then also know, offeringthat to the community,
(03:33):
I think that's really cool.
Killian (03:35):
It was also so fun to watch you guys do those.
They ended up so cute.
Nicole (03:38):
Oh, my gosh, the kids,
we had a reception for them.
So the kids got to come in,
they could bring their families,
and we had special treats for them,
and then we did a great reveal
and the kids were just so happy to see
this little creature thatthey created themselves.
It was really, really fun.
Drew (03:55):
I'm still obsessed with Rhino Train.
Nicole (03:58):
Rhino Truck, Rhino Truck.
Drew (03:59):
Rhino Truck, I'm so sorry to the creator of
Rhino Truck.
Nicole (04:02):
Yes, oh, my goodness.
Drew (04:04):
My favorite thing about the library world in general
is how each individual librarian
sort of crafts what they want to do.
Even in my adult andteen services department
where we have I think 10 librarians,
none of our jobs look remotely similar
other than existing onthe public service desk
(04:24):
for three hours a day.
One of the things that I got to create
once I got here that Ihad no idea it was coming
was the English LanguageConversation Group at the library.
It started because when Igot hired in the library
and who left ran the WorldLanguages Collection,
and that's how it fell into my lap.
(04:47):
It started as a patron comment
I think that came in on a comment card
and the supervisor was like,
"Hey, you wanna do this,it's your collection?"
And I'm like that's wonderful,I've never, okay, sure.
It started off terribly.
We actually canceled it once
and just let it die for six months.
But then I ended upteaming up with a tutor
(05:09):
of the Oakland Literacy Council
and we've grown it into thisreally, really cool thing
that meets every week for two hours.
And when Covid hit,
we switched to all-Zoom programming
and that let us reach outto a lot of former members.
(05:30):
Here in Michigan, we get a lot of families
who are here on three-year work exchanges
and oftentimes the spouses
don't get work visas when they come,
so they need things to fill their time.
But it means we havea really rotating cast
of characters in that group.
So we were able to reachout to past members
and several of them arestill meeting with us
(05:51):
every week from their home countries so.
Nicole (05:54):
Do you guys ever have parties
and everybody brings in food from?
Drew (05:58):
We do. Nicole
We do, we do that every December.
But yeah, I never got a librarian degree
thinking I'd be on aweekly conference call
with Italy and Mexico and South Korea.
That's not a thing.
Nicole (06:13):
Right, right, right, totally.
Killian (06:16):
Kind of related, this.
Drew (06:19):
Right?
Killian (06:20):
None of us went in the libraries expecting to do
this.
Nicole (06:24):
The funny thing about the podcast is it had started
off as Emily, our other partner in crime,
was doing this lovely read-aloud program
where you could listen toher read classic stories.
And I had heard that read-aloud
and I was like oh, I wanna do a podcast,
(06:44):
but maybe we should kind ofpiggyback on what Emily's doing.
And so we did something similarfor the youth department
and I read "My Father'sDragon" in a series of chapters
and Killian was in on thattoo and another librarian.
And it wasn't wildlypopular as you can imagine.
(07:05):
However I was able toconvince my supervisor
that we could still dosomething like that,
but maybe make it more conversational
and have it be more interdepartmental
because Drew is from adult services
and Killian and I are from youth services.
So the four of us,
what was the four of us
and what will be the four of us,
(07:28):
having the differentexperiences that we have
as librarians in the library
is all kind of an interestinglittle melting pot so.
Drew (07:38):
It was interesting how it all came together too,
is I got full-time at the library
about a year and a half ago
and in the interview process
said that it was something thatI'd be interested in doing.
And when the interview process was over
and I was already working at the library
for years and years after that
or before that rather,
(07:59):
so I sat with my department head after
and I was like, "Hey, doyou really wanna do this?"
And I'm like, "Absolutely, sign me up,"
and it snowballed from there.
Nicole (08:09):
I mean, it's been a process,
but we all have such a great time
doing this, it's really fun.
What are some of the other things
that you've done for the library then?
Odd things that, yeah, okay.
A presenter's assistant,so sometimes at the library
we have large programs that come in.
(08:30):
Especially during summer reading,
we'll have outside groups come in
and for the youth departmentwe do really fun things
like we'll have animal groups
or we'll have BafflingBill who's a magician
come into the library.
And because I'm the one helping
or wrangling this presenter,
I get to be their honorary assistant.
(08:50):
So when Baffling Bill came in,
he has this little rabbit named Gus
and Gus is lovely, he's wonderful.
And yes, literally pulling a rabbit
out of the hat situation.
But after the program,
Baffling Bill wanted me to just hold Gus
and let every person thatwas in that program pet him.
So I held him in this little magic hat
(09:11):
and let all of the kidspet this little rabbit,
and that just makes me so happy.
It was not part of my job,
but it became part of my job,
and that's cool so.
Killian (09:22):
The other thing for me is getting involved
with all of the social media
and marketing for the library.
We have people throughout the library
doing marketing for different departments
and different events and things like that.
And then each department sends
one or two people toour marketing committee
and when another librarianin our department
(09:43):
wanted to kind of stop doing that
to focus on something else,
I was asked to step in,
and I have since becomeone of the go-to people
for our social media forthe youth department.
So my phone gallery now isthe most chaotic thing ever
because it's full of all of these pictures
where I take picturesof our stuffed animals
(10:04):
playing with our STEAM kits,
or looking out the window,
or trying to read a book.
And I did not expect to be wrestling
with the giant teddy bearto get it to hold a book
because it doesn't in facthave hands that hold things.
And so now my phone is full
of all of these really random pictures.
Drew (10:25):
What's the name of the teddy bear, Killian?
Killian (10:27):
Ted E. Bear.
Drew (10:30):
There it is.
Nicole (10:31):
Yep, and that was decided
by our lovely littlepatrons at the library
which is very cute.
Drew (10:38):
And at a previous job that I worked,
I was a digital services librarian there,
so I started a memory lab
and that was sort of expected for the gig
because it applied totechnology and all of that.
But it was an area
where we could convertpeople's old media files.
(10:59):
So they were on camcorder tapes, or VHS,
or things like that
and get them into digital format.
Going into it, I had
sort of a clinical understanding of that,
but then you get sort ofinto the specific patrons
and you're watching people's
holiday celebrations in the 70s
(11:21):
and their home videoson the boat in the 90s,
and they're pointing to themselves
like yeah, I was that little 4-year-old.
What is happening, what is my life?
Nicole (11:32):
That's really, really cool, wow.
I'm sure people reallyappreciated that too.
Drew (11:37):
It's a cool service.
Nicole (11:38):
It is a cool service, yeah.
Okay, so another thing thatwe sometimes think about
is the odd events thathappen in the library.
A library is a public space
and let's be honest,
public spaces sometimes are just...
Killian (11:55):
Chaos.
Nicole (11:58):
It can be strange sometimes.
Drew (11:59):
Is this when I get to talk about the squirrel?
Nicole (12:00):
Yes, please, please talk about the squirrel.
Drew (12:02):
Okay, this summer we had two squirrels in the library.
So we had our bricks
treated for weathertreatments on our terrace
and because of that,
the trash can got movedsignificantly closer to the door.
We didn't realize this was the catalyst
for what was gonna happen,
but a squirrel got into thelibrary one morning like 11:30
(12:25):
and every single person with head
or director in their job title
was chasing the squirrelaround with butterfly nets and-
Nicole (12:36):
Anything we could find.
Killian (12:37):
Cardboard boxes.
Drew (12:38):
Yard sign that had not been picked up yet.
Nicole (12:40):
People were taking their sweaters
off of their chairs in their offices
and trying to just corralthe squirrel out the door.
The squirrel refused, did not want
anything to do with that door.
Drew (12:52):
So we got the squirrel,
they got the squirrel out,
and then an hour and a halflater a second squirrel got in
because we hadn't realized
that the trash can was the problem.
Nicole (13:04):
And the door was open
again, when we let the other squirrel out.
Drew (13:08):
And that squirrel lived in the library for four days?
Nicole (13:13):
Yes, yeah.
Killian (13:14):
Something like that 'cause it was out for a day
before any of us knew it was out
and so we were all very concerned.
Drew (13:21):
So we learned our lesson from the first squirrel
and sort of just wrangled it into a corner
and trapped it with tables
and blankets in a booth.
And then we just left it there overnight
and let animal control comein first thing in the morning.
They were gonna be there
two hours before the library opened.
Everything was gonna beperfect, they showed up.
(13:42):
They released the squirrel,
they did not catch the squirrel and...
Nicole (13:45):
It just continued to run
around our adult fiction collection
and science fiction collection.
Killian (13:51):
And it of course, learned from this experience.
It became a lot harder to trap
and to get in places.
So there were traps thatwere brought in to try
and lure it in with food.
I wasn't there for any of this.
I'm getting updatesabout this via Messenger
and just going I left fora few days, what happened?
Drew (14:10):
And we leaned fully into it.
We did a social media post
that our assistant director put up
with a short video ofall of the staff members
chasing the squirrel with the caption,
"If you want to learnmore about squirrels,
you can find them at 599.36
in the Dewey Decimalsystem," it was chaos.
Killian (14:29):
To this day, at least as of this recording,
there is still a stuffed squirrelsitting on the youth desk
that does in fact have
a Bloomfield TownshipLibrary staff badge so.
Nicole (14:42):
Yeah, Timmy Tiptoes is what we named him.
Drew (14:45):
There was contention on that too
because every departmentwanted to claim a name.
I think one of them wantedto call him Marvin or Martin
or something along those lines.
But you guys already had the template
for creating fake staff badges.
Nicole (15:01):
Yes, we did, 'cause we needed it for our
giant skeleton.
Killian (15:05):
And then Ted.
Nicole (15:06):
And then Ted, yes.
Drew (15:08):
I miss Garbanzo.
Nicole (15:09):
Yeah, I miss Garbanzo too.
Speaking of which, Garbanzo,
that's an event in the library.
Garbanzo was our youth servicesmascot for a good long time.
He was a life-sized skeleton and lovely,
and he would just move around the library
and kids would come in
and they'd take pictures with it
and they'd hug him.
And then a patronaccidentally took him apart
(15:33):
in front of children,
took his body parts apart.
It was like just rippedhim into two pieces
and we were like no, Garbanzo,
and we had to find a new mascot.
Killian (15:44):
And in the process of doing that,
did in fact throw him a retirement party
within the department complete with a cake
and he has retired to one ofour department members' homes
for the Halloween season so.
Drew (16:00):
I didn't know that part.
Killian (16:01):
Oh, yeah. Nicole
Drew (16:03):
That's amazing.
Nicole (16:05):
All right, so other odd events in the library.
Killian (16:08):
Sometimes things just don't go the way we
plan them.
We've had a few eventsthat we really don't expect
to be quite as popularas they end up being.
The biggest one and probablymost impactful for me
personally was the 2017 eclipse event.
Nicole (16:28):
Which doesn't sound like it would be a big deal,
but it was at the library.
Drew (16:32):
So we made some critical errors in that one.
Killian (16:36):
We didn't realize that the media hype
was going to tell everyoneto go to libraries,
and we had a good numberof eclipse classes
and we were like yes, okay.
This is going to be great, we're solid.
Drew (16:52):
We had something like 1,300.
Killian (16:53):
It was, yeah, and there were just so many people
and there was no way to expect
that it was going tobe quite that chaotic.
I think it was the perfectstorm of, like I said,
the media talking it up
and talking specifically about go
to your libraries to get glasses.
The fact that it was the middle of summer
so people could bring their kids
and wanted to make a whole event of it
(17:15):
'cause the last eclipsewasn't nearly as chaotic,
but it was the middle of the school year.
Drew (17:20):
That's also where we learned our lesson.
When we did the one in 2017,
we didn't release theglasses until that day
and that was the big problem
because when people showed up to get them,
they started forming a line
And then that line snakedaround the building,
and then went out of the building,
(17:40):
and then went into the parking lot,
and then down Timberlake andstarted affecting Telegraph,
and we had no idea what to do.
Killian (17:48):
Yeah, but that also ended up,
when we had summer reading,wehad last year, 2023,
we had way more people show up
for the kickoff for that as well.
So we've started for anything
that we think might be really big,
looking into alternate-
Nicole (18:02):
Alternative parking and having shuttles
and things to bring people to the library.
And we're so blessed
because it's like we're so glad
that people are using the library.
These are wonderful events.
It really shows that thecommunity appreciates us,
but sometimes we're just not ready.
We're just not ready forthat number of people.
Killian (18:20):
We underestimate the interest, and yeah.
Drew (18:24):
Another one that happened too for me,
back when I was working in the youth room,
they did a weird sciences program,
and one of the stations was a kiddie pool
that they filled with soap
and put a cinder block in the center of.
And then the kids wouldstep onto the cinder block
and a staff member,which ended up being me,
(18:45):
would take a hula hoop from the soap water
and raise it up above the child
so they could be encasedin a bubble cocoon.
Killian (18:53):
It was you 'cause you're tall, wasn't it?
Drew (18:54):
It was me because I'm tall,
and that was a blast.
The kids had so much fun.
They would try and poke the bubbles
and it would pop all around them.
They had so much fun.
The people in the room can probably tell
I am not the most athletically inclined
and I was not physically prepared
for what three hoursworth of squats would do
(19:15):
to my life and my body.
I ended up having tocall in sick the next day
because I could not walk.
The knees were not kneeing.
Nicole (19:28):
That's fantastic.
Drew (19:30):
It was bad.
Nicole (19:31):
And a small part of me
is like we should do thatagain for the library,
but we're not asking Drew to do it
Killian (19:38):
And not for three hours.
Nicole (19:39):
Okay, so let's move on to weird questions.
We do get weird questions.
We work at the public service desk
and people will ask weirdquestions sometimes,
and we're always like hmm,where did that come from?
Drew (19:52):
My personal favorite is always a variant
of will you come home with me?
Nicole (19:56):
Yes, but not in any particular way.
It's more like will you come do
a birthday party for my children?
Drew (20:03):
Mine was always will you come set up my printer
or my streaming services?
(all laughing)
Nicole (20:08):
Yeah, and for the record, we can't do that.
The library would not be veryhappy with us if we did that.
Killian (20:13):
There are several of my programs that we've had
people, oh, can you come dothis just for my kid and their
friends or for a birthday party.
I was like no, no I can't.
Nicole (20:22):
I did an origami program
and one of the families hadapproached me afterwards
and said, "Could you tutororigami for my child?"
And I was like, "This soundslike a great opportunity,
but I'm gonna have to pass on that."
It sounded like it would be really fun.
Killian (20:38):
It's one of those things
if I had more free time inmy life, maybe, but I don't.
Drew (20:46):
One of my favorite weird was a couple
who wanted to have their engagement photos
taken in the library.
So they showed up.
They were fully decked out, it was-
Nicole (20:56):
They just showed up at to do it.
Drew (20:58):
They did arrange it with admin,
but we had no idea.
Nicole (21:01):
Oh, okay.
Drew (21:02):
So they asked us
and our response was,"That sounds really cool.
Talk to the people you should talk to."
And then it was two months later
they did just come and show up
and none of us were really expecting it.
Fully arranged, theywere within their rights,
but the people at the desk had no idea.
(21:23):
So they spent I think 20 minutes
taking really, really cute photos.
The bride would lay on theshort, wavy stacks that we have.
It was super, super cute.
Nicole (21:36):
That's a cute idea.
Killian (21:38):
That's the thing with being
such a geographically large library,
but also we've got several departments
that are all kind ofdoing their own thing.
Sometimes things just geta little bit misdirected
as we get through things
and it causes some weirdmiscommunication things like that.
Nicole (21:54):
Yeah, when I worked at a different library
that was in, part of thelibrary was a historic home,
I once had a group comeup to the reference desk
and ask if they could stay the night
because they wanted to setup their ghost watching gear.
And I was like,
"I'm gonna have you askmy director about that,"
'cause I can't answer that question.
(22:16):
Great idea, but it's up to my boss.
Killian (22:19):
It would've been so cool.
Nicole (22:19):
It would've been so cool, yeah.
Drew (22:21):
One of my favorites that happened in the past
when I was working at a different library,
a guy in I wanna say his 80scalled me over to his computer,
I was working the computerhelp desk at the time,
and he wanted me to read over
what his planned response was going to be
on his dating apps that hehad pulled up on the computer.
(22:45):
And at first I thought he wanted me
to just proof it for grammar
and I'm like sure, this is a little weird,
but I can absolutely do this for you.
And then he said, "No,no, I know that's good,
but does this sound likesomething you'd say?"
And my I think exactwords back to him were,
"Sir, I'm gay and in my 20's,
(23:05):
you don't want it to sound like me."
(all laughing)
Nicole (23:09):
That would not be helpful for you, oh, my goodness.
Killian (23:12):
That's kind of up there
with all of the fillingthings out on the computer.
People need help withcomputers a lot in libraries
and it's one of the great things
that libraries are able to offer.
We also aren't experts ina bunch of other fields,
so we can't do things likehelp you fill out your taxes
or help with legal paperwork
(23:32):
or things like that,
but they do get asked frequently.
You don't want me doing that.
It will not go well.
I don't know how to do that actually.
Nicole (23:42):
We must look awfully trustworthy.
Killian (23:43):
We must.
Nicole (23:45):
Yeah, yeah, okay, so librarians,
because of all of these thingsthat we talked about today,
I feel like we havesuperpowers in some ways
or we have acquired superpowers,
and so we have these surprising skills
that we've developed overtime as working as librarians.
So one of the things that Ihave learned is that I can sing
(24:09):
and dance in front of anybody.
I'm not gonna do that today,
but I can because I doit in front of children
pretty regularly and it's great,
and so yeah, what about you guys?
Killian (24:20):
I think my favorite,
it's not particularlystrange in the library world,
but it is one of my favorite skills
is to be able to take a verylimited description of a book
or something that someone is looking for,
and usually betweenmyself and the internet,
figure out what someone is looking for.
Because people are always really impressed
(24:41):
when they come in with a vagueplot point that they remember
and that the cover was blue.
Nicole (24:48):
Yes, the cover is blue and there's a dog.
Can you find it for me?
Killian (24:52):
And the ability to just get them
to give you more informationthan they think they have
and then figure out
with all those little bits and pieces
what book it is is really fun.
Drew (25:03):
I think connected to that is also the ability
to talk about anything,whether I've read it or not.
I end up with a end up witha lot of book talk programs.
We have a regular speeddating with a book program
that happens twice a year.
I'll do quarterly visitsto the senior center
and do book talks.
And I am a relatively fast reader
(25:26):
but especially with current titles,
I'm not the most up-to-date,
but I have to be the most up-to-date.
So I fake being the most up-to-date
and it goes shockingly well at this point.
Killian (25:37):
We do that a lot in youth too with our visits
to schools at the end of the year.
There are some peoplethat are very insistent
they will have read everypart of every single book
that they're book talking.
Nicole (25:48):
That's me.
Killian (25:49):
I cannot, it used to be me,
but I have too many otherthings that I wanna read
and not enough time,
so I have figured out how to do it.
It is better when I've read them
and I do try to read asmany of them as possible,
but I still can evenwithout having read them.
Nicole (26:05):
I love the personal challenge sometimes
when families come into the library
and they're like, "My childjust doesn't like to read.
Can you help me?"
And that is always a very fun thing.
Yes, I can help you.
I will find you a book, I promise.
So that's a superpower.
Killian (26:21):
That's always fun.
Nicole (26:22):
Yeah.
Drew (26:23):
I think one of my weirder skills
have come from it, and youtwo call it weird as well,
is being able to hold ontonumbers really well in my head.
Nicole (26:31):
Yes, it is eerie.
Drew (26:33):
I maintain that comes from library world
and holding onto call numbers,and library card numbers,
and all of that
because this was not somethingI could do in college.
I would've loved to beable to do this in college.
Really, really nice,
but I have like a reallygood head for numbers
and dates now that high schoolme would be so jealous of.
Nicole (26:54):
Totally, I did a Minecraft program
when I was working at another library
and had never playedMinecraft before at all,
but knew that it was popular.
And fortunately therewas a page at the library
who was very well-versed in Minecraft
and so he sat down and trained me,
and then I was able to havea weekly Minecraft program
(27:17):
that the kids absolutely loved
and now I play Minecraft with my kids,
so it worked out pretty well.
Killian (27:22):
Programming in general just gives you
so many weird skillsincluding just the ability
to event plan like no other.
I remember when Istarted doing story times
as a brand new librarian
and it would take so long to plan,
and now I'm like okay, a fewof them take longer to plan,
but certain story times,
(27:43):
I can plan a good story time so quickly
and then that translates outside of this.
I also coach color guard.
I can plan a rehearsal really quickly.
I can plan our fundraisers really quickly.
Tie in the marketing stuff that I do,
I can do all of my flyers
and stuff on Canva reallyeasily and really quickly.
So that's been really helpful.
Drew (28:03):
I think the thing that seems least like a superpower
to the outside world,
but isn't the most rare of qualities
is the whole being comfortablesaying I don't know.
Because people come to us
expecting us to be able toprovide them with answers
(28:24):
and we love being able to do that,
but that doesn't make usauthorities on any of them.
So they'll come in with theirrelatively niche questions
and we have to be really confident with,
"I don't know, but let's find out."
And let's poke around
and figure out how to find an answer.
And it's something that I've learned
dealing with my familymore than anything else
(28:46):
is that none of them
are really comfortable not knowing things.
Nicole (28:49):
Yeah, like saying I don't know?
Drew (28:52):
Yeah, Nicole
Killian (28:54):
No, the whole thing with librarians
is we don't have to know everything.
We just have to know how to find
the answers to everything.
Nicole (29:00):
Exactly, definitely, well, I think that
it's important to say thatout of all of these things,
the weird events and the oddthings that we didn't think
that we really needed for our jobs,
they really make what we do for a living
really very fun for us,
and I don't know, justbetter people in general,
Killian (29:25):
The things that I tell people
about oh, what do you do for work?
How is your day at work?
The things that I tell peopleare the weird, bizarre ones
that you wouldn't expect
because they're the most fun,
they're the most interesting.
Drew (29:36):
And if we ever get bored,
we can just change our entire workflow,
and plan new programs,
and acquire new collections,
and completely revamp what we're doing
on a day-to-day basis.
Nicole (29:47):
Definitely, all right, well that is all for now
and we will see you next time.
(audience applauding)(presenters laughing)
BCTV (30:03):
We've been doing a Q&A.
So if anybody has a question,I have a microphone.
Is this part of the podcast, the Q&A?
No, it's not, okay.
I can start, so we had a gentleman
here earlier who is lamenting to me
that he has several old home movies
including some of his grandfatherthe day to the mid-1920s
and he was wondering where he would go
to convert these things.
(30:23):
So I had no idea that wassomething you guys do.
What's the process ifyou have old home movies?
Drew (30:28):
So that's not at Bloomfield.
That's at Troy Library.
Audience Member (30:31):
And Birmingham.
Drew (30:32):
And Birmingham, yes, but they have a few laptops
that are set up withthe installation package
to use the equipment.
And then it's basically just things
that the library haswhere they'll have the VCR
and the connector toput it in the computer,
or I think they have that
for VHS, reel-to-reel, camcordertapes, and audio cassettes.
(30:58):
So you can just hit play on it
and record it to the computer,
and then save it digitally
and take it home with you.
BCTV (31:04):
Very cool, any other questions?
Audience Member (31:07):
I have a question.
Just a quick question.
How do you guys know when toend is, where's the clock?
How are you watching that?
Nicole (31:15):
That guy right there.
Well, just today he kindof popped into the hallway
and he started waving at us.
But when we're in theroom, there are monitors
and sometimes what we'll do is we'll ask
for a five-minute, just the little warning
so that we know if we're filling time
or if we're close, that kind of thing.
Killian (31:34):
And they just type messages to us.
Some of us also run a timer onour phones in front of us so.
Drew (31:41):
Yeah, what their messages tend to be
is we count to half an hour
'cause that's what we
generally like the episode lengths to be.
So they'll give us a 10minute, five minute warning
and just let us know hey,you're getting close,
and then yeah, we can keepgoing if we don't feel
we're finished with the topic yet.
But once we start getting those notices,
it'll be like okay,
we can feel good aboutthe episode at this point.
Audience Member (32:03):
How long did it take you
to prepare for this podcast
and what is your process
for coming up with topics typically?
- So the whole thing in general,
we started talking about in May of 2023
and then started doingrecordings in October of 2023.
(32:25):
Yes, that's what they look like
when they go to thingsin the podcast room.
When we started getting
into the cycle of actually recording,
we meet generally a weekbefore to kind of decide
which topics we're gonna do that week
or that month rather,
but we have a runninglist of different things
(32:47):
that we've been like this
would be interesting to talk about,
that would be interesting to talk about.
We also know on our calendar
which episodes are getting released when,
so we record ahead of things.
We've already recorded our October topics
a few months back, that sort of thing.
Drew (33:02):
This episode I think is coming out December 1st
for those looking tohear your claps on audio.
Killian:And we just pullwhichever ones make sense
for the dates, the next comingdates that need episodes.
Nicole (33:17):
Yeah, and sometimes we have topics
that are more daunting than others
and so sometimes those getpushed back a little bit,
and we'll do it next time
and those will take alittle bit more preparation.
And sometimes we sit
and we worry about how it's gonna work out
and all of that stuff,
(33:38):
but everything has beenreally, really great.
Killian (33:40):
We're also kind of a mix of like planners
versus pantsers, so Nicolealways comes in with this
very lovely outline andall of these points,
and this is more notes that I've had
for anything that we've ever done
and I don't know what to do with them.
So we kind of bring ourown process individually
(34:00):
and it's been working so far.
Nicole (34:05):
Does that answer your question, okay.
Audience Member (34:09):
I have a couple questions,
but the first one is whose idea was this?
How did you come up with the idea?
Because I found it very interesting.
How did you come up withthe idea that people
would be interested inwhat librarians deal with
on a daily basis?
Nicole (34:24):
I think all of us listen to podcasts
and I tend to like theconversational ones.
I think that that's more interesting
because you're kind ofgetting to know the people
that are talking aboutthe different topics
and things like that.
I thought in terms of the community
and representing the library,
(34:45):
this is a great way forpeople to get to know us
in a more personal wayinstead of just the people
that are sitting at the desks
that you might ask if youcould get "Old Yeller" from,
that kind of thing.
So we have our own verypersonal responses to things.
It's more of an opinion sort of podcast
(35:06):
and I don't know, we havea lot of fun just talking
about whatever we would talk about
in our back rooms at work,
these are a lot of the topics
that we'll bring to the podcast.
Things that we feel passionateabout at the moment.
We'll just bring it into the studio
and let everybody hear about it so.
Killian (35:23):
It also helped that Drew and I have been friends
for years even beforeworking at the same library.
People have told us on occasionthat we should be a sitcom
or reality show or a podcast
and we were like yeah, that's funny,
and then we were like but what if?
And Emily and Nicolehad already been doing
some podcasty type things at the library
(35:44):
and we were like hey, hey, youwanna do this thing with us?
Nicole (35:47):
Yeah, it was really like who wants to do this?
And when four people raised their hands,
it was like okay, well guess that's us.
Killian (35:54):
And we got lucky and it worked really, really well.
Nicole (35:56):
Yeah, yeah.
Drew (35:57):
In terms of the approach,
we landed on the sortof "distracted" label
so that we could bounce around
and do different thingsepisode to episode.
We figured it would get a little dry
not only for the listeners,
but for us if all we were doing
is talking about library functions and...
Nicole (36:12):
Or books, so we talk about games and music
and a lot of other media too, yeah.
Audience Member:That's interesting,
I love the squirrel story.
And my second question is,
'cause you said that you record
multiple episodes a monthly,
how do you break those out
and then you decide whichshows they're gonna be?
(36:34):
But then who pushes it out to the Spotifys
and all of those other podcast places?
Yeah, so we use Podbean
which is a streaming service for podcasts
and it's been really helpful to us.
It's relatively inexpensive,so if podcasting
is something that you're interested in,
there is that service.
There are other streaming services
(36:55):
available too that you could look into,
but we just wanted somethingthat was gonna be able to fill
the need for us to get it toas many different podcasts,
wherever you find podcasts out there.
Drew (37:11):
But in terms of who pushes it out, that's really us.
Nicole (37:14):
Yeah, any of us at any time.
Drew (37:16):
Steve and BCTV will take the files
and get them to us in whatis ready to be put out,
and then we'll upload it to Pod Bean,
and send it to Rev to get captioning done,
and upload it ourselves.
Do the marketing for itthrough the library accounts.
Killian (37:35):
And part of the reason that we do all of that
is because we wanted to havecontrol over our release
and all of that
and also our stats becauseI am kind of a stats nerd,
and it's the marketing thing.
So that access was really important to us,
but BCTV also has it ontheir YouTube channel
(37:57):
and hosts it there for us as well.
Nicole (37:58):
Yeah, and BCTV is able to,
I believe you guys have a Podbean,
you have some of those services.
So if you did a podcast through them,
it's up to you.
You can do it yourself
or you can have themput it out for you too.
BCTV (38:13):
Yeah, their podcast is a bit of a unique situation
where they handle all of that,
but that is something we do
for all the other communityproducers as well.
We can handle the maintenanceof uploading and distribution.
So any other questions?
Audience Member (38:30):
If you were interviewing someone,
I think this is a questionmore for you guys,
and you wanted to include B roll,
do you have to have the Broll before you do the podcast
or after as you're rewatching it
and trying to figure it out?
Or can you even add B roll to the podcast?
(38:53):
(indistinct)
BCTV (38:54):
Sure, so the answer is yeah,
we can absolutely include B roll
and if it's B-roll that theguest you're interviewing needs
to be able to watch alongside you,
then you need to have it done beforehand.
If it's something that canbe gathered after the fact,
it's not necessary for that,
it can be done in post so.
Is that agreeable, Steve, yeah, okay.
(39:16):
Anybody else?
Has doing your own podcastchanged the way that you listen
to your favorite podcasts at all?
Drew (39:24):
Kind of.
Nicole (39:25):
Yeah, yeah, it does, yeah.
But I think it makes it more enjoyable
'cause I know the amount of work
that's involved behind it too.
So I'm like I know what you're doing.
Drew (39:38):
It's made me a lot more interested
in the conversational ones
because what I tended to do with podcasts
were either the ones thatwere sort of radio stories
or the ones that were aboutmedia that I really liked
like all of the ones thatare popping up these days
with actors of former shows
(39:58):
going through and doing rewatches of them.
I still do really love those,
but the more general conversational ones
I wasn't into until we started this.
- And also any craft type thing,
they tend to say yes, ifyou wanna make something,
you kind of have to consume that media
as well to learn about it.
Great writers read a lot.
(40:19):
Great painters see otherpeople's paintings a lot.
You learn by seeing other people do things
and mimicking the parts of it you like
or expanding on the things that you like
and making decisions to not do the things
that you don't like.
So I think we bring all of the pieces
that we like about differentthings to this podcast.
Nicole (40:41):
And we're always changing too.
As we move forward,
I know there are things that we would like
to kind of make adjustmentsto as we go along
that we weren't aware of whenwe first started the podcast
because we had never,
I had never been in frontof a microphone before,
let alone ready to havea whole conversation
for 30 minutes that peopleare gonna listen to.
(41:03):
So now that we've been doingthis for a little while,
there are little things thatwe take from other podcasts
or I don't know, maybe we should make this
a little bit shorter.
We should have make adjustments here,
and that has been helpful.
I can see that we'readapting and we're evolving.
Killian (41:20):
So we also never stop just looking
at the numbers of people seeing
and going oh, people like us, cool.
Nicole (41:27):
It's surprising, I mean, really.
Yeah, go ahead.
BCTV (41:31):
I'm sorry to interrupt,
two more things, so whyaudio only instead of doing
the video as well along with audio?
Drew (41:40):
I think at the start it was just
what we were comfortable with.
None of us came into thisany sort of media experience
and I think the audio onlywas a nice, measured step
that we could take that wasn'tthe whole hog as it were.
Audience Member (41:56):
So you feel more comfortable?
Nicole (41:58):
Yeah, there's something a little safer about it
knowing, Not which cameraam I supposed to look at?
That kind of stuff so.
BCTV (42:05):
And do you have another question?
Do you have a question?
Sorry, before let me dothis real quick though,
but earlier in the Canvasegment that Amy did,
she was talking aboutmarketing your podcast.
Well, I believe Killianprobably did this, right?
Killian (42:22):
Nope, one of our admin clerks
actually did our logo and our flyers.
BCTV (42:26):
So they have their podcast name,
"Distracted Librarians" and make pins.
Nicole (42:30):
We have business cards too if anybody wants one.
BCTV (42:32):
So we'll pass those out there at the end for you.
So there you go.
So make sure you grab that on the way out.
Nicole (42:38):
You're supposed to have them with you.
Killian (42:39):
I know.
Audience Member (42:41):
Yeah, I'm not sure if my question is for
you or them, but so you were to ask them
about why did they just focus on audio?
So if there's anotheroption of having video
as well where you can see the podcasters,
is that what you mean?
BCTV (42:54):
Yes, most of our podcasts are,
I mean, we were corrected.
It's vodcast if you're using video.
So probably about 95%
of our studio podcast shows are vodcasts,
so it's audio and video.
And this show is,
and I thought there was one,
oh, and one more.
"Let's Plan Houses" arethe only two audio-only,
(43:16):
so a true podcast with just audio files.
So but mostly all the other shows,
not mostly, but all the othershows are video and audio.
So it's like an interview.
So we have three cameras,
so technically there's a lotmore cameras in here today,
but there's actually only three of them
that are running right now.
So one would focus ona closeup of the person
on that side of the table.
(43:37):
The other camera focuses on a closeup
on the person on this side
and the camera in the back
is the wide-shot establishing shot.
So as the action's happening,we're cutting that.
So we did actually recordvideo today of them
and I thought they did really well,
so they might want to change their mind.
Nicole (43:55):
You can talk to us about that.
Drew (43:56):
We'll have a conversation.
BCTV (43:58):
I would've loved to put it
on these monitors as we're switching,
but I think it would'vebeen very distracting.
So most of the shows that we do,
we just show either the Broll that they wanna see
or we use this as a teleprompter.
If you have a script you wanna do,
we have a teleprompter
or we'll use it as time cues only,
and that's a lot lessdistracting for all the hosts
(44:22):
that are volunteering their time.
But there are a few hoststhat want to see the program.
They wanna know what camera'sbeing live at that time.
So does that answer your question?
Yeah, so you have the option,
either doing like a video-audio show
or just audio only,
or you could just do a silent film too
(44:42):
as you saw in the film documentary.
Audience Member (44:50):
You said you've been surprised at the
growing audience. What kind ofnumbers feedback do you get?
Nicole (44:57):
The nice thing about Podbean,
the service that we use,
is they give us statistics on first day,
first week, first month.
We are able to look
and see what areas of the country
or outside of the countrypeople are listening to us from.
So we have viewers, they're not really,
we have audience membersthat are in Europe,
(45:19):
that are in different countries
which that makes me really excited
because how on earth didthey find us for one thing?
But second of all,
we might have an a little bit more appeal
outside of this community,and that's exciting.
Killian (45:35):
And it's been really interesting.
There's one episode thatwe did that on YouTube
just really got a ton of views on it.
Our episode about guilty pleasure reading
and watching and listening and stuff
has almost 200 views on it,
and that's not where the rest of them are.
And we're just like oh, okay, cool, so.
Drew (45:57):
Yeah, I don't want to make it sound
like we've made it, quote, unquote.
We're still a littlebaby community podcast,
Nicole (46:04):
I mean, 10 people listening to us is pretty good
Drew (46:07):
But we're seeing the growth in it
as we go through the year.
Audience Member (46:11):
So I have a question about how people
like to access these episodes
which maybe have some insight from this
or maybe from media in general.
So you're putting this outon all podcast platforms
through Podbean likeApple, Spotify, et cetera
(46:33):
and then the township is alsodoing the YouTube channel
which is like why it makes sense
that they're like whydon't you be on camera
because we're on YouTube.
Nicole (46:46):
It's like it's a cable TV thing.
Audience MemberYeah, well,that, but also YouTube
is wildly popular, so that makes sense.
I think most people havelike a platform they go to,
so do you compare thenumbers between the two
to see where are your listeners?
What is their preferred platform?
(47:06):
We are able to do that.
Killian (47:08):
Yeah, Podbean gives us a breakdown
of how episodes are being accessed
that are put out through Podbean.
YouTube just has itsnormal YouTube analytics,
so we have access to looking at those but.
Audience Member (47:23):
What's the most?
Killian (47:25):
Mostly it is Apple
I believe pretty consistentlythe most popular.
There's been a little bitof some shuffling around
as Google podcast went away
'cause that one was showing up
a little bit higher for a little while.
But then Google podcast went away
and now it's just YouTube music so,
(47:45):
and I don't think that goesthrough Podbean anymore.
I think that's justthrough the YouTube channel
which changes things too.
Drew (47:53):
Yeah, I think Apple and Spotify,
of the places people get podcasts,
tend to be the mostpopular for us at least.
BCTV (48:00):
Yeah, as far as podcasts just doing it without video,
I didn't wanna say no
because as I've said to some of you,
I like to say yes to everything
and the library has beena tremendous partner
for many, many years,long before I was here,
and we wanted to be able to do the show
that they wanted to do.
But we are here because of cable
(48:22):
and because we broadcast video on cable.
So we really try and encourage,
as we still try to encourage you,
to do the video.
I think that we are evolving
and so that we can do mediain all other ways as well.
But I think we need to remember
and I need to remember,
and this is part of whatI learned in coming here,
(48:44):
is that we are video
and cable first for the foreseeable future
until the funding changes
and however that's going to happen.
It's still evolving as the whole industry
is being disrupted rightnow, all of entertainment.
Everything, the way it's produced.
The way that contractsare made with actors,
it's all kind of a influx right now.
(49:05):
So I just wanna thankyou all for coming today.
Thank you so much.
Nicole (49:10):
Thank you for being here.
BCTV (49:11):
For doing our podcast
and I hope that many of you who came
and were a part of today willtell your neighbors about us,
and we'll see you doing yourown podcast in the future.
And if you have any questions for us,
did you have something else, yes?
They can always help volunteer
behind the scenes too.
(indistinct)
(49:31):
That's right, that's where Steve
likes to be most of the time.
So you'd be with Steve all the time
and that would be a goodplace to be as well.
So thank you all for coming
and we're gonna send out a short survey
so you can give us feedbackon how we did today
(light music)
and what you'd like tosee more in the future.
So thanks very much.
(audience applauding)
(light music continues)
(49:58):
(light music continues)
(bright music)
(bright music continues)
Nicole (00:16):
Hello, and welcome to today's podcast episode
where we dive into theweird and wonderful tasks
that fall under other dutiesas assigned, I'm Nicole.
Killian (00:27):
I'm Killian.
Drew (00:28):
I'm Drew.
Nicole:Today's episode is very unusual
because we're recording infront of a live studio audience.
Let's hear from them.
(audience applauding)(audience cheering)
So why are we doing this today?
Well, we're doing a special event
at the Bloomfield Cable TV Studio
where community members can learn
(00:48):
all about the greatresources here at BCTV.
So let's talk about our topic.
Yes.
Nicole (00:55):
All right, so what do librarians actually do?
How can we explain thisin the best way possible?
Killian (01:02):
This is very much not the things
we went to school intending to do.
These are the thingsthat kind of popped up
when we got the jobs
and just became part of our jobs
or things that we have to deal with.
Drew (01:15):
Yeah, on every application,
you see other duties asassigned down at the bottom
and I don't know if it'sunique to librarianship,
but ours are just weird.
Nicole (01:24):
They're very weird, and I think
when I first started working in libraries,
I was like hmm, I wonderwhat that's all about?
So we're gonna talk aboutsome of those things today.
Let's discuss some of the odd things
that have just become part of our job.
Killian (01:43):
The weird thing for me has always been the things
that I'm interested in outside of work
that then become part of work.
So personally I am into games a lot
and so I do video games, board games,
tabletop role playing games,
that sort of thing,
and that has really become a big part
of what I do at the library.
(02:03):
I do a lot of,
I've done some D&D sessions for kids.
I have done escape room design.
And if you had told grad school me
who was going to be a librarian
hey, you're gonna berunning Dungeons and Dragons
and designing escape rooms,
I never would've believed it.
Nicole (02:21):
Yeah, but that's the beautiful thing
about working in libraries.
In some cases, we're ableto really create programming
that kind of feeds intowhat our strengths are
and I don't know that you really find that
in a lot of other careers
where we're able to have a program.
For example, one of my coworkers
(02:44):
started a program called Crayon to Crochet
which is a program that we did
for the summer reading program this year.
And kids were able to draw a creature
of some kind, a literary creature,
something that has to do withthe summer reading program
on a white sheet of paper
and then they would turn them into us.
(03:05):
And we then went through almost 150...
Drew (03:12):
Submissions?
Nicole (03:12):
Submissions that were given to us
and we chose six of those things
to turn into actual crocheted creatures
that we then gave to those kids.
So bringing in somethingfrom home that we really like
and being able to do it in the library
and then also know, offeringthat to the community,
(03:33):
I think that's really cool.
Killian (03:35):
It was also so fun to watch you guys do those.
They ended up so cute.
Nicole (03:38):
Oh, my gosh, the kids,
we had a reception for them.
So the kids got to come in,
they could bring their families,
and we had special treats for them,
and then we did a great reveal
and the kids were just so happy to see
this little creature thatthey created themselves.
It was really, really fun.
Drew (03:55):
I'm still obsessed with Rhino Train.
Nicole (03:58):
Rhino Truck, Rhino Truck.
Drew (03:59):
Rhino Truck, I'm so sorry to the creator of
Rhino Truck.
Nicole (04:02):
Yes, oh, my goodness.
Drew (04:04):
My favorite thing about the library world in general
is how each individual librarian
sort of crafts what they want to do.
Even in my adult andteen services department
where we have I think 10 librarians,
none of our jobs look remotely similar
other than existing onthe public service desk
(04:24):
for three hours a day.
One of the things that I got to create
once I got here that Ihad no idea it was coming
was the English LanguageConversation Group at the library.
It started because when Igot hired in the library
and who left ran the WorldLanguages Collection,
and that's how it fell into my lap.
(04:47):
It started as a patron comment
I think that came in on a comment card
and the supervisor was like,
"Hey, you wanna do this,it's your collection?"
And I'm like that's wonderful,I've never, okay, sure.
It started off terribly.
We actually canceled it once
and just let it die for six months.
But then I ended upteaming up with a tutor
(05:09):
of the Oakland Literacy Council
and we've grown it into thisreally, really cool thing
that meets every week for two hours.
And when Covid hit,
we switched to all-Zoom programming
and that let us reach outto a lot of former members.
(05:30):
Here in Michigan, we get a lot of families
who are here on three-year work exchanges
and oftentimes the spouses
don't get work visas when they come,
so they need things to fill their time.
But it means we havea really rotating cast
of characters in that group.
So we were able to reachout to past members
and several of them arestill meeting with us
(05:51):
every week from their home countries so.
Nicole (05:54):
Do you guys ever have parties
and everybody brings in food from?
Drew (05:58):
We do. Nicole
We do, we do that every December.
But yeah, I never got a librarian degree
thinking I'd be on aweekly conference call
with Italy and Mexico and South Korea.
That's not a thing.
Nicole (06:13):
Right, right, right, totally.
Killian (06:16):
Kind of related, this.
Drew (06:19):
Right?
Killian (06:20):
None of us went in the libraries expecting to do
this.
Nicole (06:24):
The funny thing about the podcast is it had started
off as Emily, our other partner in crime,
was doing this lovely read-aloud program
where you could listen toher read classic stories.
And I had heard that read-aloud
and I was like oh, I wanna do a podcast,
(06:44):
but maybe we should kind ofpiggyback on what Emily's doing.
And so we did something similarfor the youth department
and I read "My Father'sDragon" in a series of chapters
and Killian was in on thattoo and another librarian.
And it wasn't wildlypopular as you can imagine.
(07:05):
However I was able toconvince my supervisor
that we could still dosomething like that,
but maybe make it more conversational
and have it be more interdepartmental
because Drew is from adult services
and Killian and I are from youth services.
So the four of us,
what was the four of us
and what will be the four of us,
(07:28):
having the differentexperiences that we have
as librarians in the library
is all kind of an interestinglittle melting pot so.
Drew (07:38):
It was interesting how it all came together too,
is I got full-time at the library
about a year and a half ago
and in the interview process
said that it was something thatI'd be interested in doing.
And when the interview process was over
and I was already working at the library
for years and years after that
or before that rather,
(07:59):
so I sat with my department head after
and I was like, "Hey, doyou really wanna do this?"
And I'm like, "Absolutely, sign me up,"
and it snowballed from there.
Nicole (08:09):
I mean, it's been a process,
but we all have such a great time
doing this, it's really fun.
What are some of the other things
that you've done for the library then?
Odd things that, yeah, okay.
A presenter's assistant,so sometimes at the library
we have large programs that come in.
(08:30):
Especially during summer reading,
we'll have outside groups come in
and for the youth departmentwe do really fun things
like we'll have animal groups
or we'll have BafflingBill who's a magician
come into the library.
And because I'm the one helping
or wrangling this presenter,
I get to be their honorary assistant.
(08:50):
So when Baffling Bill came in,
he has this little rabbit named Gus
and Gus is lovely, he's wonderful.
And yes, literally pulling a rabbit
out of the hat situation.
But after the program,
Baffling Bill wanted me to just hold Gus
and let every person thatwas in that program pet him.
So I held him in this little magic hat
(09:11):
and let all of the kidspet this little rabbit,
and that just makes me so happy.
It was not part of my job,
but it became part of my job,
and that's cool so.
Killian (09:22):
The other thing for me is getting involved
with all of the social media
and marketing for the library.
We have people throughout the library
doing marketing for different departments
and different events and things like that.
And then each department sends
one or two people toour marketing committee
and when another librarianin our department
(09:43):
wanted to kind of stop doing that
to focus on something else,
I was asked to step in,
and I have since becomeone of the go-to people
for our social media forthe youth department.
So my phone gallery now isthe most chaotic thing ever
because it's full of all of these pictures
where I take picturesof our stuffed animals
(10:04):
playing with our STEAM kits,
or looking out the window,
or trying to read a book.
And I did not expect to be wrestling
with the giant teddy bearto get it to hold a book
because it doesn't in facthave hands that hold things.
And so now my phone is full
of all of these really random pictures.
Drew (10:25):
What's the name of the teddy bear, Killian?
Killian (10:27):
Ted E. Bear.
Drew (10:30):
There it is.
Nicole (10:31):
Yep, and that was decided
by our lovely littlepatrons at the library
which is very cute.
Drew (10:38):
And at a previous job that I worked,
I was a digital services librarian there,
so I started a memory lab
and that was sort of expected for the gig
because it applied totechnology and all of that.
But it was an area
where we could convertpeople's old media files.
(10:59):
So they were on camcorder tapes, or VHS,
or things like that
and get them into digital format.
Going into it, I had
sort of a clinical understanding of that,
but then you get sort ofinto the specific patrons
and you're watching people's
holiday celebrations in the 70s
(11:21):
and their home videoson the boat in the 90s,
and they're pointing to themselves
like yeah, I was that little 4-year-old.
What is happening, what is my life?
Nicole (11:32):
That's really, really cool, wow.
I'm sure people reallyappreciated that too.
Drew (11:37):
It's a cool service.
Nicole (11:38):
It is a cool service, yeah.
Okay, so another thing thatwe sometimes think about
is the odd events thathappen in the library.
A library is a public space
and let's be honest,
public spaces sometimes are just...
Killian (11:55):
Chaos.
Nicole (11:58):
It can be strange sometimes.
Drew (11:59):
Is this when I get to talk about the squirrel?
Nicole (12:00):
Yes, please, please talk about the squirrel.
Drew (12:02):
Okay, this summer we had two squirrels in the library.
So we had our bricks
treated for weathertreatments on our terrace
and because of that,
the trash can got movedsignificantly closer to the door.
We didn't realize this was the catalyst
for what was gonna happen,
but a squirrel got into thelibrary one morning like 11:30
(12:25):
and every single person with head
or director in their job title
was chasing the squirrelaround with butterfly nets and-
Nicole (12:36):
Anything we could find.
Killian (12:37):
Cardboard boxes.
Drew (12:38):
Yard sign that had not been picked up yet.
Nicole (12:40):
People were taking their sweaters
off of their chairs in their offices
and trying to just corralthe squirrel out the door.
The squirrel refused, did not want
anything to do with that door.
Drew (12:52):
So we got the squirrel,
they got the squirrel out,
and then an hour and a halflater a second squirrel got in
because we hadn't realized
that the trash can was the problem.
Nicole (13:04):
And the door was open
again, when we let the other squirrel out.
Drew (13:08):
And that squirrel lived in the library for four days?
Nicole (13:13):
Yes, yeah.
Killian (13:14):
Something like that 'cause it was out for a day
before any of us knew it was out
and so we were all very concerned.
Drew (13:21):
So we learned our lesson from the first squirrel
and sort of just wrangled it into a corner
and trapped it with tables
and blankets in a booth.
And then we just left it there overnight
and let animal control comein first thing in the morning.
They were gonna be there
two hours before the library opened.
Everything was gonna beperfect, they showed up.
(13:42):
They released the squirrel,
they did not catch the squirrel and...
Nicole (13:45):
It just continued to run
around our adult fiction collection
and science fiction collection.
Killian (13:51):
And it of course, learned from this experience.
It became a lot harder to trap
and to get in places.
So there were traps thatwere brought in to try
and lure it in with food.
I wasn't there for any of this.
I'm getting updatesabout this via Messenger
and just going I left fora few days, what happened?
Drew (14:10):
And we leaned fully into it.
We did a social media post
that our assistant director put up
with a short video ofall of the staff members
chasing the squirrel with the caption,
"If you want to learnmore about squirrels,
you can find them at 599.36
in the Dewey Decimalsystem," it was chaos.
Killian (14:29):
To this day, at least as of this recording,
there is still a stuffed squirrelsitting on the youth desk
that does in fact have
a Bloomfield TownshipLibrary staff badge so.
Nicole (14:42):
Yeah, Timmy Tiptoes is what we named him.
Drew (14:45):
There was contention on that too
because every departmentwanted to claim a name.
I think one of them wantedto call him Marvin or Martin
or something along those lines.
But you guys already had the template
for creating fake staff badges.
Nicole (15:01):
Yes, we did, 'cause we needed it for our
giant skeleton.
Killian (15:05):
And then Ted.
Nicole (15:06):
And then Ted, yes.
Drew (15:08):
I miss Garbanzo.
Nicole (15:09):
Yeah, I miss Garbanzo too.
Speaking of which, Garbanzo,
that's an event in the library.
Garbanzo was our youth servicesmascot for a good long time.
He was a life-sized skeleton and lovely,
and he would just move around the library
and kids would come in
and they'd take pictures with it
and they'd hug him.
And then a patronaccidentally took him apart
(15:33):
in front of children,
took his body parts apart.
It was like just rippedhim into two pieces
and we were like no, Garbanzo,
and we had to find a new mascot.
Killian (15:44):
And in the process of doing that,
did in fact throw him a retirement party
within the department complete with a cake
and he has retired to one ofour department members' homes
for the Halloween season so.
Drew (16:00):
I didn't know that part.
Killian (16:01):
Oh, yeah. Nicole
Drew (16:03):
That's amazing.
Nicole (16:05):
All right, so other odd events in the library.
Killian (16:08):
Sometimes things just don't go the way we
plan them.
We've had a few eventsthat we really don't expect
to be quite as popularas they end up being.
The biggest one and probablymost impactful for me
personally was the 2017 eclipse event.
Nicole (16:28):
Which doesn't sound like it would be a big deal,
but it was at the library.
Drew (16:32):
So we made some critical errors in that one.
Killian (16:36):
We didn't realize that the media hype
was going to tell everyoneto go to libraries,
and we had a good numberof eclipse classes
and we were like yes, okay.
This is going to be great, we're solid.
Drew (16:52):
We had something like 1,300.
Killian (16:53):
It was, yeah, and there were just so many people
and there was no way to expect
that it was going tobe quite that chaotic.
I think it was the perfectstorm of, like I said,
the media talking it up
and talking specifically about go
to your libraries to get glasses.
The fact that it was the middle of summer
so people could bring their kids
and wanted to make a whole event of it
(17:15):
'cause the last eclipsewasn't nearly as chaotic,
but it was the middle of the school year.
Drew (17:20):
That's also where we learned our lesson.
When we did the one in 2017,
we didn't release theglasses until that day
and that was the big problem
because when people showed up to get them,
they started forming a line
And then that line snakedaround the building,
and then went out of the building,
(17:40):
and then went into the parking lot,
and then down Timberlake andstarted affecting Telegraph,
and we had no idea what to do.
Killian (17:48):
Yeah, but that also ended up,
when we had summer reading,wehad last year, 2023,
we had way more people show up
for the kickoff for that as well.
So we've started for anything
that we think might be really big,
looking into alternate-
Nicole (18:02):
Alternative parking and having shuttles
and things to bring people to the library.
And we're so blessed
because it's like we're so glad
that people are using the library.
These are wonderful events.
It really shows that thecommunity appreciates us,
but sometimes we're just not ready.
We're just not ready forthat number of people.
Killian (18:20):
We underestimate the interest, and yeah.
Drew (18:24):
Another one that happened too for me,
back when I was working in the youth room,
they did a weird sciences program,
and one of the stations was a kiddie pool
that they filled with soap
and put a cinder block in the center of.
And then the kids wouldstep onto the cinder block
and a staff member,which ended up being me,
(18:45):
would take a hula hoop from the soap water
and raise it up above the child
so they could be encasedin a bubble cocoon.
Killian (18:53):
It was you 'cause you're tall, wasn't it?
Drew (18:54):
It was me because I'm tall,
and that was a blast.
The kids had so much fun.
They would try and poke the bubbles
and it would pop all around them.
They had so much fun.
The people in the room can probably tell
I am not the most athletically inclined
and I was not physically prepared
for what three hoursworth of squats would do
(19:15):
to my life and my body.
I ended up having tocall in sick the next day
because I could not walk.
The knees were not kneeing.
Nicole (19:28):
That's fantastic.
Drew (19:30):
It was bad.
Nicole (19:31):
And a small part of me
is like we should do thatagain for the library,
but we're not asking Drew to do it
Killian (19:38):
And not for three hours.
Nicole (19:39):
Okay, so let's move on to weird questions.
We do get weird questions.
We work at the public service desk
and people will ask weirdquestions sometimes,
and we're always like hmm,where did that come from?
Drew (19:52):
My personal favorite is always a variant
of will you come home with me?
Nicole (19:56):
Yes, but not in any particular way.
It's more like will you come do
a birthday party for my children?
Drew (20:03):
Mine was always will you come set up my printer
or my streaming services?
(all laughing)
Nicole (20:08):
Yeah, and for the record, we can't do that.
The library would not be veryhappy with us if we did that.
Killian (20:13):
There are several of my programs that we've had
people, oh, can you come dothis just for my kid and their
friends or for a birthday party.
I was like no, no I can't.
Nicole (20:22):
I did an origami program
and one of the families hadapproached me afterwards
and said, "Could you tutororigami for my child?"
And I was like, "This soundslike a great opportunity,
but I'm gonna have to pass on that."
It sounded like it would be really fun.
Killian (20:38):
It's one of those things
if I had more free time inmy life, maybe, but I don't.
Drew (20:46):
One of my favorite weird was a couple
who wanted to have their engagement photos
taken in the library.
So they showed up.
They were fully decked out, it was-
Nicole (20:56):
They just showed up at to do it.
Drew (20:58):
They did arrange it with admin,
but we had no idea.
Nicole (21:01):
Oh, okay.
Drew (21:02):
So they asked us
and our response was,"That sounds really cool.
Talk to the people you should talk to."
And then it was two months later
they did just come and show up
and none of us were really expecting it.
Fully arranged, theywere within their rights,
but the people at the desk had no idea.
(21:23):
So they spent I think 20 minutes
taking really, really cute photos.
The bride would lay on theshort, wavy stacks that we have.
It was super, super cute.
Nicole (21:36):
That's a cute idea.
Killian (21:38):
That's the thing with being
such a geographically large library,
but also we've got several departments
that are all kind ofdoing their own thing.
Sometimes things just geta little bit misdirected
as we get through things
and it causes some weirdmiscommunication things like that.
Nicole (21:54):
Yeah, when I worked at a different library
that was in, part of thelibrary was a historic home,
I once had a group comeup to the reference desk
and ask if they could stay the night
because they wanted to setup their ghost watching gear.
And I was like,
"I'm gonna have you askmy director about that,"
'cause I can't answer that question.
(22:16):
Great idea, but it's up to my boss.
Killian (22:19):
It would've been so cool.
Nicole (22:19):
It would've been so cool, yeah.
Drew (22:21):
One of my favorites that happened in the past
when I was working at a different library,
a guy in I wanna say his 80scalled me over to his computer,
I was working the computerhelp desk at the time,
and he wanted me to read over
what his planned response was going to be
on his dating apps that hehad pulled up on the computer.
(22:45):
And at first I thought he wanted me
to just proof it for grammar
and I'm like sure, this is a little weird,
but I can absolutely do this for you.
And then he said, "No,no, I know that's good,
but does this sound likesomething you'd say?"
And my I think exactwords back to him were,
"Sir, I'm gay and in my 20's,
(23:05):
you don't want it to sound like me."
(all laughing)
Nicole (23:09):
That would not be helpful for you, oh, my goodness.
Killian (23:12):
That's kind of up there
with all of the fillingthings out on the computer.
People need help withcomputers a lot in libraries
and it's one of the great things
that libraries are able to offer.
We also aren't experts ina bunch of other fields,
so we can't do things likehelp you fill out your taxes
or help with legal paperwork
(23:32):
or things like that,
but they do get asked frequently.
You don't want me doing that.
It will not go well.
I don't know how to do that actually.
Nicole (23:42):
We must look awfully trustworthy.
Killian (23:43):
We must.
Nicole (23:45):
Yeah, yeah, okay, so librarians,
because of all of these thingsthat we talked about today,
I feel like we havesuperpowers in some ways
or we have acquired superpowers,
and so we have these surprising skills
that we've developed overtime as working as librarians.
So one of the things that Ihave learned is that I can sing
(24:09):
and dance in front of anybody.
I'm not gonna do that today,
but I can because I doit in front of children
pretty regularly and it's great,
and so yeah, what about you guys?
Killian (24:20):
I think my favorite,
it's not particularlystrange in the library world,
but it is one of my favorite skills
is to be able to take a verylimited description of a book
or something that someone is looking for,
and usually betweenmyself and the internet,
figure out what someone is looking for.
Because people are always really impressed
(24:41):
when they come in with a vagueplot point that they remember
and that the cover was blue.
Nicole (24:48):
Yes, the cover is blue and there's a dog.
Can you find it for me?
Killian (24:52):
And the ability to just get them
to give you more informationthan they think they have
and then figure out
with all those little bits and pieces
what book it is is really fun.
Drew (25:03):
I think connected to that is also the ability
to talk about anything,whether I've read it or not.
I end up with a end up witha lot of book talk programs.
We have a regular speeddating with a book program
that happens twice a year.
I'll do quarterly visitsto the senior center
and do book talks.
And I am a relatively fast reader
(25:26):
but especially with current titles,
I'm not the most up-to-date,
but I have to be the most up-to-date.
So I fake being the most up-to-date
and it goes shockingly well at this point.
Killian (25:37):
We do that a lot in youth too with our visits
to schools at the end of the year.
There are some peoplethat are very insistent
they will have read everypart of every single book
that they're book talking.
Nicole (25:48):
That's me.
Killian (25:49):
I cannot, it used to be me,
but I have too many otherthings that I wanna read
and not enough time,
so I have figured out how to do it.
It is better when I've read them
and I do try to read asmany of them as possible,
but I still can evenwithout having read them.
Nicole (26:05):
I love the personal challenge sometimes
when families come into the library
and they're like, "My childjust doesn't like to read.
Can you help me?"
And that is always a very fun thing.
Yes, I can help you.
I will find you a book, I promise.
So that's a superpower.
Killian (26:21):
That's always fun.
Nicole (26:22):
Yeah.
Drew (26:23):
I think one of my weirder skills
have come from it, and youtwo call it weird as well,
is being able to hold ontonumbers really well in my head.
Nicole (26:31):
Yes, it is eerie.
Drew (26:33):
I maintain that comes from library world
and holding onto call numbers,and library card numbers,
and all of that
because this was not somethingI could do in college.
I would've loved to beable to do this in college.
Really, really nice,
but I have like a reallygood head for numbers
and dates now that high schoolme would be so jealous of.
Nicole (26:54):
Totally, I did a Minecraft program
when I was working at another library
and had never playedMinecraft before at all,
but knew that it was popular.
And fortunately therewas a page at the library
who was very well-versed in Minecraft
and so he sat down and trained me,
and then I was able to havea weekly Minecraft program
(27:17):
that the kids absolutely loved
and now I play Minecraft with my kids,
so it worked out pretty well.
Killian (27:22):
Programming in general just gives you
so many weird skillsincluding just the ability
to event plan like no other.
I remember when Istarted doing story times
as a brand new librarian
and it would take so long to plan,
and now I'm like okay, a fewof them take longer to plan,
but certain story times,
(27:43):
I can plan a good story time so quickly
and then that translates outside of this.
I also coach color guard.
I can plan a rehearsal really quickly.
I can plan our fundraisers really quickly.
Tie in the marketing stuff that I do,
I can do all of my flyers
and stuff on Canva reallyeasily and really quickly.
So that's been really helpful.
Drew (28:03):
I think the thing that seems least like a superpower
to the outside world,
but isn't the most rare of qualities
is the whole being comfortablesaying I don't know.
Because people come to us
expecting us to be able toprovide them with answers
(28:24):
and we love being able to do that,
but that doesn't make usauthorities on any of them.
So they'll come in with theirrelatively niche questions
and we have to be really confident with,
"I don't know, but let's find out."
And let's poke around
and figure out how to find an answer.
And it's something that I've learned
dealing with my familymore than anything else
(28:46):
is that none of them
are really comfortable not knowing things.
Nicole (28:49):
Yeah, like saying I don't know?
Drew (28:52):
Yeah, Nicole
Killian (28:54):
No, the whole thing with librarians
is we don't have to know everything.
We just have to know how to find
the answers to everything.
Nicole (29:00):
Exactly, definitely, well, I think that
it's important to say thatout of all of these things,
the weird events and the oddthings that we didn't think
that we really needed for our jobs,
they really make what we do for a living
really very fun for us,
and I don't know, justbetter people in general,
Killian (29:25):
The things that I tell people
about oh, what do you do for work?
How is your day at work?
The things that I tell peopleare the weird, bizarre ones
that you wouldn't expect
because they're the most fun,
they're the most interesting.
Drew (29:36):
And if we ever get bored,
we can just change our entire workflow,
and plan new programs,
and acquire new collections,
and completely revamp what we're doing
on a day-to-day basis.
Nicole (29:47):
Definitely, all right, well that is all for now
and we will see you next time.
(audience applauding)(presenters laughing)
BCTV (30:03):
We've been doing a Q&A.
So if anybody has a question,I have a microphone.
Is this part of the podcast, the Q&A?
No, it's not, okay.
I can start, so we had a gentleman
here earlier who is lamenting to me
that he has several old home movies
including some of his grandfatherthe day to the mid-1920s
and he was wondering where he would go
to convert these things.
(30:23):
So I had no idea that wassomething you guys do.
What's the process ifyou have old home movies?
Drew (30:28):
So that's not at Bloomfield.
That's at Troy Library.
Audience Member (30:31):
And Birmingham.
Drew (30:32):
And Birmingham, yes, but they have a few laptops
that are set up withthe installation package
to use the equipment.
And then it's basically just things
that the library haswhere they'll have the VCR
and the connector toput it in the computer,
or I think they have that
for VHS, reel-to-reel, camcordertapes, and audio cassettes.
(30:58):
So you can just hit play on it
and record it to the computer,
and then save it digitally
and take it home with you.
BCTV (31:04):
Very cool, any other questions?
Audience Member (31:07):
I have a question.
Just a quick question.
How do you guys know when toend is, where's the clock?
How are you watching that?
Nicole (31:15):
That guy right there.
Well, just today he kindof popped into the hallway
and he started waving at us.
But when we're in theroom, there are monitors
and sometimes what we'll do is we'll ask
for a five-minute, just the little warning
so that we know if we're filling time
or if we're close, that kind of thing.
Killian (31:34):
And they just type messages to us.
Some of us also run a timer onour phones in front of us so.
Drew (31:41):
Yeah, what their messages tend to be
is we count to half an hour
'cause that's what we
generally like the episode lengths to be.
So they'll give us a 10minute, five minute warning
and just let us know hey,you're getting close,
and then yeah, we can keepgoing if we don't feel
we're finished with the topic yet.
But once we start getting those notices,
it'll be like okay,
we can feel good aboutthe episode at this point.
Audience Member (32:03):
How long did it take you
to prepare for this podcast
and what is your process
for coming up with topics typically?
- So the whole thing in general,
we started talking about in May of 2023
and then started doingrecordings in October of 2023.
(32:25):
Yes, that's what they look like
when they go to thingsin the podcast room.
When we started getting
into the cycle of actually recording,
we meet generally a weekbefore to kind of decide
which topics we're gonna do that week
or that month rather,
but we have a runninglist of different things
(32:47):
that we've been like this
would be interesting to talk about,
that would be interesting to talk about.
We also know on our calendar
which episodes are getting released when,
so we record ahead of things.
We've already recorded our October topics
a few months back, that sort of thing.
Drew (33:02):
This episode I think is coming out December 1st
for those looking tohear your claps on audio.
Killian:And we just pullwhichever ones make sense
for the dates, the next comingdates that need episodes.
Nicole (33:17):
Yeah, and sometimes we have topics
that are more daunting than others
and so sometimes those getpushed back a little bit,
and we'll do it next time
and those will take alittle bit more preparation.
And sometimes we sit
and we worry about how it's gonna work out
and all of that stuff,
(33:38):
but everything has beenreally, really great.
Killian (33:40):
We're also kind of a mix of like planners
versus pantsers, so Nicolealways comes in with this
very lovely outline andall of these points,
and this is more notes that I've had
for anything that we've ever done
and I don't know what to do with them.
So we kind of bring ourown process individually
(34:00):
and it's been working so far.
Nicole (34:05):
Does that answer your question, okay.
Audience Member (34:09):
I have a couple questions,
but the first one is whose idea was this?
How did you come up with the idea?
Because I found it very interesting.
How did you come up withthe idea that people
would be interested inwhat librarians deal with
on a daily basis?
Nicole (34:24):
I think all of us listen to podcasts
and I tend to like theconversational ones.
I think that that's more interesting
because you're kind ofgetting to know the people
that are talking aboutthe different topics
and things like that.
I thought in terms of the community
and representing the library,
(34:45):
this is a great way forpeople to get to know us
in a more personal wayinstead of just the people
that are sitting at the desks
that you might ask if youcould get "Old Yeller" from,
that kind of thing.
So we have our own verypersonal responses to things.
It's more of an opinion sort of podcast
(35:06):
and I don't know, we havea lot of fun just talking
about whatever we would talk about
in our back rooms at work,
these are a lot of the topics
that we'll bring to the podcast.
Things that we feel passionateabout at the moment.
We'll just bring it into the studio
and let everybody hear about it so.
Killian (35:23):
It also helped that Drew and I have been friends
for years even beforeworking at the same library.
People have told us on occasionthat we should be a sitcom
or reality show or a podcast
and we were like yeah, that's funny,
and then we were like but what if?
And Emily and Nicolehad already been doing
some podcasty type things at the library
(35:44):
and we were like hey, hey, youwanna do this thing with us?
Nicole (35:47):
Yeah, it was really like who wants to do this?
And when four people raised their hands,
it was like okay, well guess that's us.
Killian (35:54):
And we got lucky and it worked really, really well.
Nicole (35:56):
Yeah, yeah.
Drew (35:57):
In terms of the approach,
we landed on the sortof "distracted" label
so that we could bounce around
and do different thingsepisode to episode.
We figured it would get a little dry
not only for the listeners,
but for us if all we were doing
is talking about library functions and...
Nicole (36:12):
Or books, so we talk about games and music
and a lot of other media too, yeah.
Audience Member:That's interesting,
I love the squirrel story.
And my second question is,
'cause you said that you record
multiple episodes a monthly,
how do you break those out
and then you decide whichshows they're gonna be?
(36:34):
But then who pushes it out to the Spotifys
and all of those other podcast places?
Yeah, so we use Podbean
which is a streaming service for podcasts
and it's been really helpful to us.
It's relatively inexpensive,so if podcasting
is something that you're interested in,
there is that service.
There are other streaming services
(36:55):
available too that you could look into,
but we just wanted somethingthat was gonna be able to fill
the need for us to get it toas many different podcasts,
wherever you find podcasts out there.
Drew (37:11):
But in terms of who pushes it out, that's really us.
Nicole (37:14):
Yeah, any of us at any time.
Drew (37:16):
Steve and BCTV will take the files
and get them to us in whatis ready to be put out,
and then we'll upload it to Pod Bean,
and send it to Rev to get captioning done,
and upload it ourselves.
Do the marketing for itthrough the library accounts.
Killian (37:35):
And part of the reason that we do all of that
is because we wanted to havecontrol over our release
and all of that
and also our stats becauseI am kind of a stats nerd,
and it's the marketing thing.
So that access was really important to us,
but BCTV also has it ontheir YouTube channel
(37:57):
and hosts it there for us as well.
Nicole (37:58):
Yeah, and BCTV is able to,
I believe you guys have a Podbean,
you have some of those services.
So if you did a podcast through them,
it's up to you.
You can do it yourself
or you can have themput it out for you too.
BCTV (38:13):
Yeah, their podcast is a bit of a unique situation
where they handle all of that,
but that is something we do
for all the other communityproducers as well.
We can handle the maintenanceof uploading and distribution.
So any other questions?
Audience Member (38:30):
If you were interviewing someone,
I think this is a questionmore for you guys,
and you wanted to include B roll,
do you have to have the Broll before you do the podcast
or after as you're rewatching it
and trying to figure it out?
Or can you even add B roll to the podcast?
(38:53):
(indistinct)
BCTV (38:54):
Sure, so the answer is yeah,
we can absolutely include B roll
and if it's B-roll that theguest you're interviewing needs
to be able to watch alongside you,
then you need to have it done beforehand.
If it's something that canbe gathered after the fact,
it's not necessary for that,
it can be done in post so.
Is that agreeable, Steve, yeah, okay.
(39:16):
Anybody else?
Has doing your own podcastchanged the way that you listen
to your favorite podcasts at all?
Drew (39:24):
Kind of.
Nicole (39:25):
Yeah, yeah, it does, yeah.
But I think it makes it more enjoyable
'cause I know the amount of work
that's involved behind it too.
So I'm like I know what you're doing.
Drew (39:38):
It's made me a lot more interested
in the conversational ones
because what I tended to do with podcasts
were either the ones thatwere sort of radio stories
or the ones that were aboutmedia that I really liked
like all of the ones thatare popping up these days
with actors of former shows
(39:58):
going through and doing rewatches of them.
I still do really love those,
but the more general conversational ones
I wasn't into until we started this.
- And also any craft type thing,
they tend to say yes, ifyou wanna make something,
you kind of have to consume that media
as well to learn about it.
Great writers read a lot.
(40:19):
Great painters see otherpeople's paintings a lot.
You learn by seeing other people do things
and mimicking the parts of it you like
or expanding on the things that you like
and making decisions to not do the things
that you don't like.
So I think we bring all of the pieces
that we like about differentthings to this podcast.
Nicole (40:41):
And we're always changing too.
As we move forward,
I know there are things that we would like
to kind of make adjustmentsto as we go along
that we weren't aware of whenwe first started the podcast
because we had never,
I had never been in frontof a microphone before,
let alone ready to havea whole conversation
for 30 minutes that peopleare gonna listen to.
(41:03):
So now that we've been doingthis for a little while,
there are little things thatwe take from other podcasts
or I don't know, maybe we should make this
a little bit shorter.
We should have make adjustments here,
and that has been helpful.
I can see that we'readapting and we're evolving.
Killian (41:20):
So we also never stop just looking
at the numbers of people seeing
and going oh, people like us, cool.
Nicole (41:27):
It's surprising, I mean, really.
Yeah, go ahead.
BCTV (41:31):
I'm sorry to interrupt,
two more things, so whyaudio only instead of doing
the video as well along with audio?
Drew (41:40):
I think at the start it was just
what we were comfortable with.
None of us came into thisany sort of media experience
and I think the audio onlywas a nice, measured step
that we could take that wasn'tthe whole hog as it were.
Audience Member (41:56):
So you feel more comfortable?
Nicole (41:58):
Yeah, there's something a little safer about it
knowing, Not which cameraam I supposed to look at?
That kind of stuff so.
BCTV (42:05):
And do you have another question?
Do you have a question?
Sorry, before let me dothis real quick though,
but earlier in the Canvasegment that Amy did,
she was talking aboutmarketing your podcast.
Well, I believe Killianprobably did this, right?
Killian (42:22):
Nope, one of our admin clerks
actually did our logo and our flyers.
BCTV (42:26):
So they have their podcast name,
"Distracted Librarians" and make pins.
Nicole (42:30):
We have business cards too if anybody wants one.
BCTV (42:32):
So we'll pass those out there at the end for you.
So there you go.
So make sure you grab that on the way out.
Nicole (42:38):
You're supposed to have them with you.
Killian (42:39):
I know.
Audience Member (42:41):
Yeah, I'm not sure if my question is for
you or them, but so you were to ask them
about why did they just focus on audio?
So if there's anotheroption of having video
as well where you can see the podcasters,
is that what you mean?
BCTV (42:54):
Yes, most of our podcasts are,
I mean, we were corrected.
It's vodcast if you're using video.
So probably about 95%
of our studio podcast shows are vodcasts,
so it's audio and video.
And this show is,
and I thought there was one,
oh, and one more.
"Let's Plan Houses" arethe only two audio-only,
(43:16):
so a true podcast with just audio files.
So but mostly all the other shows,
not mostly, but all the othershows are video and audio.
So it's like an interview.
So we have three cameras,
so technically there's a lotmore cameras in here today,
but there's actually only three of them
that are running right now.
So one would focus ona closeup of the person
on that side of the table.
(43:37):
The other camera focuses on a closeup
on the person on this side
and the camera in the back
is the wide-shot establishing shot.
So as the action's happening,we're cutting that.
So we did actually recordvideo today of them
and I thought they did really well,
so they might want to change their mind.
Nicole (43:55):
You can talk to us about that.
Drew (43:56):
We'll have a conversation.
BCTV (43:58):
I would've loved to put it
on these monitors as we're switching,
but I think it would'vebeen very distracting.
So most of the shows that we do,
we just show either the Broll that they wanna see
or we use this as a teleprompter.
If you have a script you wanna do,
we have a teleprompter
or we'll use it as time cues only,
and that's a lot lessdistracting for all the hosts
(44:22):
that are volunteering their time.
But there are a few hoststhat want to see the program.
They wanna know what camera'sbeing live at that time.
So does that answer your question?
Yeah, so you have the option,
either doing like a video-audio show
or just audio only,
or you could just do a silent film too
(44:42):
as you saw in the film documentary.
Audience Member (44:50):
You said you've been surprised at the
growing audience. What kind ofnumbers feedback do you get?
Nicole (44:57):
The nice thing about Podbean,
the service that we use,
is they give us statistics on first day,
first week, first month.
We are able to look
and see what areas of the country
or outside of the countrypeople are listening to us from.
So we have viewers, they're not really,
we have audience membersthat are in Europe,
(45:19):
that are in different countries
which that makes me really excited
because how on earth didthey find us for one thing?
But second of all,
we might have an a little bit more appeal
outside of this community,and that's exciting.
Killian (45:35):
And it's been really interesting.
There's one episode thatwe did that on YouTube
just really got a ton of views on it.
Our episode about guilty pleasure reading
and watching and listening and stuff
has almost 200 views on it,
and that's not where the rest of them are.
And we're just like oh, okay, cool, so.
Drew (45:57):
Yeah, I don't want to make it sound
like we've made it, quote, unquote.
We're still a littlebaby community podcast,
Nicole (46:04):
I mean, 10 people listening to us is pretty good
Drew (46:07):
But we're seeing the growth in it
as we go through the year.
Audience Member (46:11):
So I have a question about how people
like to access these episodes
which maybe have some insight from this
or maybe from media in general.
So you're putting this outon all podcast platforms
through Podbean likeApple, Spotify, et cetera
(46:33):
and then the township is alsodoing the YouTube channel
which is like why it makes sense
that they're like whydon't you be on camera
because we're on YouTube.
Nicole (46:46):
It's like it's a cable TV thing.
Audience MemberYeah, well,that, but also YouTube
is wildly popular, so that makes sense.
I think most people havelike a platform they go to,
so do you compare thenumbers between the two
to see where are your listeners?
What is their preferred platform?
(47:06):
We are able to do that.
Killian (47:08):
Yeah, Podbean gives us a breakdown
of how episodes are being accessed
that are put out through Podbean.
YouTube just has itsnormal YouTube analytics,
so we have access to looking at those but.
Audience Member (47:23):
What's the most?
Killian (47:25):
Mostly it is Apple
I believe pretty consistentlythe most popular.
There's been a little bitof some shuffling around
as Google podcast went away
'cause that one was showing up
a little bit higher for a little while.
But then Google podcast went away
and now it's just YouTube music so,
(47:45):
and I don't think that goesthrough Podbean anymore.
I think that's justthrough the YouTube channel
which changes things too.
Drew (47:53):
Yeah, I think Apple and Spotify,
of the places people get podcasts,
tend to be the mostpopular for us at least.
BCTV (48:00):
Yeah, as far as podcasts just doing it without video,
I didn't wanna say no
because as I've said to some of you,
I like to say yes to everything
and the library has beena tremendous partner
for many, many years,long before I was here,
and we wanted to be able to do the show
that they wanted to do.
But we are here because of cable
(48:22):
and because we broadcast video on cable.
So we really try and encourage,
as we still try to encourage you,
to do the video.
I think that we are evolving
and so that we can do mediain all other ways as well.
But I think we need to remember
and I need to remember,
and this is part of whatI learned in coming here,
(48:44):
is that we are video
and cable first for the foreseeable future
until the funding changes
and however that's going to happen.
It's still evolving as the whole industry
is being disrupted rightnow, all of entertainment.
Everything, the way it's produced.
The way that contractsare made with actors,
it's all kind of a influx right now.
(49:05):
So I just wanna thankyou all for coming today.
Thank you so much.
Nicole (49:10):
Thank you for being here.
BCTV (49:11):
For doing our podcast
and I hope that many of you who came
and were a part of today willtell your neighbors about us,
and we'll see you doing yourown podcast in the future.
And if you have any questions for us,
did you have something else, yes?
They can always help volunteer
behind the scenes too.
(indistinct)
(49:31):
That's right, that's where Steve
likes to be most of the time.
So you'd be with Steve all the time
and that would be a goodplace to be as well.
So thank you all for coming
and we're gonna send out a short survey
so you can give us feedbackon how we did today
(light music)
and what you'd like tosee more in the future.
So thanks very much.
(audience applauding)
(light music continues)
(49:58):
(light music continues)
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