Mark Huizenga: ⁓ this is another episode of conversations with Mark, And today we have with us Lance Warner. Lance is with the Kent district library. So excited to have Lance here. He is really, one of the amazing leaders in ⁓ not only our area here, but across the and is widely recognized in the great work that he does with libraries. I'll start off with a simple one, Lance. You know, when people talk about libraries in our area here, people have such an affinity, whether it's Rockford or Granville, they know that library. feels like a community resource, but there's so much more to it. most people probably don't know this, but the municipality owns the library, but you run a lot of the operational side of things. But it's the behind the scenes thing is really the magic. I think that makes our libraries really, really special in our area. Well, thank you so much. ⁓ And I agree. I think that everybody has an affinity for their local branch and When I think of the Kent District Library, think a lot of times they think of the building, but you're right. The buildings are owned by the municipalities, but we are the service providers that reside in those buildings. And I think that the real trick to it, to kind of create that feeling where people feel included and they feel welcome, is to ⁓ get to know the community and really respond to the needs of the individual community. And we established that by... relationships we have with people in the community, what people tell us when they come in. And then even our collections are community tailored. that circulate in a community, there's a particular genre that's of interest, say mystery. If mystery was really popular in Kentwood, then the collection by way of operation would start having more mystery in it to respond to the additional need. So ⁓ we try to incorporate that into the way we plan our ⁓ and what we do at the branch. really want it to be as dialed in as possible. You think about your local diner that you love so much. We'd like the library to be kind of feel like that, kind of like your local spot. This is my spot. I belong here. I'm part of this family. This belongs to me. And that's the whole point. But the Kettnistrick Library's model is kind of based on this idea of kind of relationships and coming together and combining resources to provide a service. We serve 27 different municipalities. if each municipality had its own ⁓ that they were in charge of, you'd have 27 different library directors. You'd have 27 HR departments. ⁓ have replication of all of these things, which isn't a great use of taxpayer money. ⁓ by combining resources, we're able to centralize a lot of that and gain greater efficiency and even purchasing power. We buy more so we get a better rate than people would get if they were just buying one or two. of a particular item. so it's like that efficiency. mean, these are, these are taxpayer dollars. These are things that people want and like in their community. But by doing it this way, not only is it economies of scale, but it saves the taxpayer dollars, but it also adds so much more to the portfolio, whether it's electronic books or just like you said, how to tailor the portfolio of materials at one facility versus another. That's just got to be one of the greatest values with what KDL is it kind of that magic behind the scenes again. It really is. It's really responding to the needs of the community and being really involved with the community and listening to what people have to say. Our motto here is we exist to further all people through kindness, empathy, and love. And we believe that the library is kind of a table and everybody in the community has a seat at the table. And so we're very interested in who's in the community, what they're interested in, and kind of responding to that. So some of our libraries will have programs, for instance, in some of our rural areas that are about, you know, gathering mushrooms because there's an interest in that area. And so we kind of tailor our programs that way. We do it with children's programs too. I mean, and we also do it with our wonder nooks, which are the sort of children's play spaces. Each of them is themed in the branch because we want it to reflect something that the community is particularly proud about. I know in Rockford where I'm from, they have the dam the dam has been such a sort of a central place in Rockford. I remember when I first moved to town. watching the fireworks display there in the summertime. And it's just one of those things. Well, know, my earliest memory of libraries is as kid, I grew up in South Walker, but we went to Granville just because it was closer. But the Granville library had story hour. ⁓ And a lot of times, especially when I go from school to school in March, is reading month to talk to kids about reading and why it's important is that when you open a book, when you hear a story, it really gets your brain thinking. And it's that power of imagination in ⁓ creativity is building and it's just amazing to see this transformation that occurs. But I think probably most people think about the library story hour as probably one of their first things. Maybe it's for their kid or their grand kid or something like that. But you know, libraries have something for everybody. And I think that's the part that oftentimes people might miss is that there really is something for everybody here. Well, there really is. And it goes beyond just books. mean, it goes to different things we offer that are Non book related. I mean, we offer things, we have programs to teach people new skills. There really is something for anybody who has an interest at the library. And the story hours are actually how I actually came to learn about the library. When I was young, I remember I have great memories of, I lived in on Ellsworth, Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota. And I remember going to the library and going to story hours there. And I remember doing the parachute. thing we have all the kids in the parachute. ⁓ I loved it. And I remember Clifford the big red dog. It was before Pete the cat. we really liked to see that. Now the most important thing about story hours. So yes, it's something to do and it's good for the kids. But if you're a caregiver, it's also a great chance for you to kind of watch what's going on and emulate that at home. ⁓ One of the ways that we can get Michigan out of the sort of the rut around third grade literacy is to have people sort of internalize the idea that having a value around literacy and reading at home is very, important. So we encourage parents and families to read together and make it part of what they do. you know, so we come to the story hours. If you have questions about what that might look like or how does it work, we're happy to demonstrate and happy to model that behavior. just so you know, my favorite memory of story hour is not the first story hours, but the book, The Borrowers. I think probably people that read know that book and I can see by the love of your face that you have a memory too. And I just remember like it was like channeling so much creativity and just thinking like, how would this actually work and how cool would that be? And that's really the power of reading and the power of what literacy does to you. You know, right now ⁓ things are tough. Gas prices are high, electric prices are high, food prices are high. They're all staying high. Rent is high. But probably one of the ⁓ great equalizers in our county is that the library system is here for all of us and all those resources are the same for everybody. So I think when families think about what can we do, they could go to the library. There's literally something for everybody. And I know that maybe 15 years ago or so when the internet got to be more popular, people thought, well, this is the end of libraries, but you guys really didn't just say, well, we're gonna move on. You said, how do we embrace this? And I always astounded by your ebook circulation. Can you tell us a little bit about what those numbers look like and how that compares to regular books? ⁓ absolutely. Well, I mean, our ebook circulation is actually the equivalent of our regular books at this point is slightly below. ⁓ We circulated over five million items last year and yeah, just about half of them are ebooks and ebooks. thing that we about ebooks is that ebooks permit us to be where people are at. So you don't need to come to the library to get an ebook. You can get it from home. or you can get it while you're on a trip to Florida, all you need is your KDL card. So we're really excited about that. And we're also excited about the return on investment that we provide people in the county. I mean, we recognize these are difficult times. As you recall, we went for a millage decrease last time around, which was a little unusual. We were able to do that because- A little bit unusual? We never talk about tax decreases. You did that. Yeah, that's big deal. ⁓ And we were able to do it because ⁓ we really concentrate on- using money in a very responsible, fiscally responsible way and to make sure we're holding ourselves to a higher standard. But the average family, and we did this about two years ago when we were campaigning because we wanted to know, the average family in Kent County pays $200 per year for library service. And if you have a library card per individual, you receive over $1,300 of service back if you use the library. If you don't use the library, you don't. If you use the library, you do. And that is a great return on investment. So we're really excited about that. And I think about now, you know, the internet is a tool. And I remember those conversations as well about these. This is the thing that's going to destroy the library. It's always the thing that's going to destroy the library. Lately, thing has been ⁓ around, you know, conversations around AI, artificial intelligence. But artificial intelligence is a tool. And we don't see artificial intelligence as anything a tool. I mean, we... ⁓ We incorporate it. ⁓ And actually, I think most people do, whether they realize it or not, if you're doing any shopping online, you are. And so we look at it as a tool and we embrace it. ⁓ know, it's interesting on some of the writing competitions that we do, we have to screen the to make sure that they haven't been written by artificial intelligence. So ⁓ yeah, some new hiccups, but you know, we take it all in stride. We have a very advanced ⁓ artificial group here who's ⁓ looking into it making sure that it's being used responsibly and that we're doing in a way that's beneficial to the residents of Kent County. One of the things that we talked about was the importance of reading, learning to read, and that that's the foundation of academics. But the is so much more than that. What other kind of tools and things do you have for young readers to help them do better educationally? Maybe whether it's giving them the confidence to read. to read better or just frankly the love of learning which is really such a great gift in itself. ⁓ Well, we like to gamify everything and so we do a lot of sort of competitions and not competing against everybody else but you competing against yourself and I mean that's what summer reading is all about. You can earn prizes as go along but also I mean when you think of people that like kids particularly children that are kind of pre-reading age play is a great way to learn. Letting them use their imagination, recognizing that that books, whether they're e-books or physical books, are really vehicles of the imagination. I remember after reading The Borrowers, know, and how wild my mind was when I'd go anywhere, you know, and be looking around and just imagining things. And so giving kids an outlet for creativity is really, really important, and reading is a good step in that direction. And, you know, we actually, it doesn't matter how kids are, they could be very young, even teenagers, have outlets. ⁓ We have a poetry contest. We have writing contests. We have an e-sports group that gets together. We know gaming is a great way to reach the boys. so we just want everybody's sort of imaginations to be challenged a little bit and be a place that's fun and exciting to go to. I think that the academic sort of model of public librarianship that used to exist where it was a place where you'd come in and go, shh, and be quiet, it's gone. It's not Kent District Library at all. We want to be. Kind of like you're, you're, you know, you're living in, want to be the house on the block where all the kids like to come and hang out and where people feel welcome. Well, I think you've done a good job of that because when I go to a library, it's not just a place to, you know, use a Dewey decimal system and pull out the cards and find the book that you want, but it's a place to have meetings. It's a gathering place. It's a place to have access to all kinds of different tools, whether it's the meeting room or a place for a college kids to study. I mean, you provide a. all those things, but probably more that I don't even know about. What other kind of community-based things happen in libraries here? Well, we have a lot of people that come in and utilize spaces for programs that they're interested ⁓ in having that aren't necessarily library-sponsored programs. And we encourage that. ⁓ We've had people come in ⁓ and do financial literacy for teens and adults, a lot of coursework and programs around creating new things, arts and home improvement. and so on and so forth. really willing to, people think that there's a need of something they're interested in seeing, we're really interested in trying to make that happen. So we have a KDL Vibes, which highlights sort of from the local musical acts and kind of makes their music available more widely. And then one of the things that I'm kind of tales here, and maybe I should, it's too early to say, but we're actually working on trying to get a... sort of local history story project together where people can, you might recall that NPR did something similar some years ago. Story Corps? Yeah, Story Corps. And so we're interested in having a Story Corps here to kind of remember some of the stuff that's going on in Kent County and have it saved for future generations. And we recognize that people's stories are what carries forward after we're gone. Yeah. Archiving that information is so important to educate the next generation, but you'll never get all that out of, you know, just a journal, but really documenting that like that is pretty cool. What's next for KDL? I mean, we talked a little bit about AI, but what does the future hold? ⁓ Well, I think the biggest thing about the future, there's not a clear answer in that this is where we're going. What I will say we won't let sentimental sort of values ⁓ hold us up. We're not going to look back to look forward. We're interested in shifting and being dynamic and meeting people where they're at always. providing the highest level of service we can provide, make them feel cared for and loved because we do care and love the community and providing them resources that they need and want. We're a popular materials library and we always are interested in having people feel entertained and enriched at the same time. So when I think about what we're going to provide going forward, I think the electronic materials like eBooks will continue to become more more popular. I think we'll always have physical materials, but I think the space will become more and more dynamic and kind of think of it as a, you know, kind of like coworking space, except for it'll be like co-living space. So where people can come in and utilize the space wherever they might need it for. Maybe they have a yoga class they, they want to have there. Maybe they want to have a home office, but they don't want to go to a coworking space. They come to the library and that already happens. That's right. Or you want to meet your friends or anything. know, we've also seen not only just the, the success of the libraries, but growth. Rockford library, we helped get some appropriation dollars there to enhance that. That was, I remember you talked to me in saying that it is by concentration by square footage, the busiest library by square foot. So enhancing that one will make a big deal. know Walker's building a new library as libraries continue to grow, you continue to serve the people. And I can't say thank you enough for building community and ⁓ for educating the next generation. Lance Warner, thank you so much for joining us in the podcast today. Have a great day and thanks for all the great work you do. Thank you, Senator Heising and I have to return the thank you to you. You've been such an advocate for libraries and we know that we feel so proud of the work that you've done just on all of our behalf ⁓ West Michigan, but we really appreciate your support of libraries and that has been unwavering the whole time. You ⁓ a library champion. Thank you. Thank you.