We'll listen Donaldson is here from the Racine Public Library.
She is the head of digital services and innovation at the Racine Library, plus the digital literacy
fairs coming up.
We'll talk about that in a minute.
Thank you for bailing me out there.
All of a sudden Freddie Mac could, I just subohamie anirhapsody again recently.
So that three times in theaters, I started like three times on Blu-ray and all of a sudden
I couldn't think of Queen.
I don't know if it's just my brain went dead and we were talking about this five-hour
energy I take and it's supposed to help your brain, it didn't help at all, help you
and you didn't take it.
All right.
So what is your job and talent that were seen public library?
Now you've been here before and we've talked about it for people who don't know.
Head of digital services and innovation.
What does that mean?
So my team, we are the library's IT staff and we are also the community's IT staff.
So we provide tech help to our community, teach them how to figure out how to use their
device.
If they're not quite sure if the something's working right, we could take a look at it and
see if it's just user error or if it's something we can help train them how to use better
that kind of thing.
We host various programs throughout the year in the innovation lab on the second floor
at the library.
We do everything.
I've seen you there before when I go look at my DVDs of the library, I see you there
in the innovation lab.
Yeah.
Now I'm one of these people that doesn't know.
I can't figure out phones, computers.
I just can't because I've dependent on other people to do it for me so I've never learned
anything about it.
And I've got a good friend who helps me out with the computers and with the phone,
I still have an iPhone 8, but it works.
You know, that does everything I wanted to do when it stops working, I'll have to get
a new one.
But people, how can you use that?
I said, that phone does exactly everything your phone is doing.
There's no difference.
Ish.
No, there's, my wife has a brand new phone.
The latest one, her phone doesn't do any, is it a little bigger than mine, but that's
about it.
But it doesn't do anything faster or anything else.
What do you think?
I see, I see the wheels are turning there.
I disagree only because there's some really cool features in the newer iPhones that have
like, for example, I have like, if you send me calls and they're not in my contacts, they
have to, there's like a pre-message on there, so they have to tell me, they have to tell
me.
Because I get so much junk calls on my phone.
I don't want those though.
If you, I know, but I don't want them, but this helps me screen them out.
Oh, you know, I screen them out.
It's a spam risk on my thing.
Immediately block.
Oh, I do that too, but like this, okay, so that's one feature.
What else?
It's one.
Face ID is nice.
I don't want that.
Let's see what else.
I mean, they're really not super different.
There's just changes.
You know what I, one of the things when I got this phone was my previous iPhone had 16
gigabytes of space.
It was an early iPhone.
Yeah.
And it ran out of space.
I had to start deleting stuff all the time.
So I said, I want big space.
So I got 254 gigabytes of space.
Now, I've had this phone for years.
I'm only up to 50.
I got to get a bunch.
I said, what do you have with a lot of space?
He goes, well, I got to want 254 gigabytes.
And he said, okay, I'll probably never run out of that.
And so far, after all these years, I'm not even close to running out, but that's what
I wanted.
That's what I got.
Digital digital literacy fair.
And I'm one of these people who was illiterate when it comes to digital technology.
I just rely on other people helping me out with this stuff.
And once you talk about what's coming up and when it's coming up.
Yeah.
So the digital literacy fair is now a program that was created by the former digital divide
roundtable, which was something this city every scene had put on.
And now part of the digital coalition of southeastern Wisconsin.
And it's where a group of us just get together and share what we have in terms of digital
literacy, kind of bringing all the digital literacy groups into one room where people can
stop and talk to various organizations like the Financial Empowerment Center, United
Way Racing County.
Spectrum is going to be there.
There's a whole bunch of organizations that are coming.
Yeah.
It's going to be a good day.
Okay.
So Spectrum, which is the cable company?
Yep.
What more are they involved in digital technology?
Well, so like they provide their big sponsor bars like they're donating.
Good for them.
Android tablets to our raffle.
So attendees can earn raffle tickets and put their tickets into win various prizes.
And they have given one of them.
They were going to be doing, I'm going to find out hopefully this morning.
But they were talking about doing a fiber splicing, kind of a cable splicing demonstration.
Oh, no.
So I thought that was kind of cool.
And they also there to talk about the lifeline program.
So like people who are on the low income spectrum that they can get cheaper internet.
So my, let me hear my wife had an iPhone as in phones began, then she said, I'm getting
a flip phone.
This is just like that last year.
I'm getting rid of all this, I just want to flip phone just to make phone calls.
So as we went out to the 18th store, we got a flip phone and the guy didn't know, he said,
I don't think we have them.
My wife said, yeah, it's right there for seven, right there, 70 bucks, he didn't know
it.
So we got the flip phone.
He didn't even had to hook it up.
You know, get her phone because it was, you know, it's such an old style type phone.
But she got it.
One month later, she said, I got to get another phone because you said, do you remember
how to send a text message on a flip phone?
Oh, yeah.
Terrible.
It's, you got three choices for each number and it took you a year and a day to spit
out a word on it.
She said, none of this.
But after having iPhones all her life, she got an Android, okay.
Which didn't mess up with anything with my phone.
So we had to, you know, find my phone didn't work anymore because I had to get a new one
because she had an Android.
So the question becomes, is there, is, could you ask the question, which is better Android
or iPhone?
I know.
Yeah.
It really comes down to personal preference, but what is different about them?
The UI is different.
What's that?
The user interface is different.
How it, what do you have?
I have iPhone, but I have an employee who has Android and they've always had Android.
My husband always has Android.
My girls and I, we're all Apple.
I'm still married to him.
I am.
Yeah.
You know, is that Android?
Yep.
I mean, that's grounds for divorce.
No, not really.
But, but yeah, so, yeah, no, it's really just personal preference.
Okay.
Because I don't know.
I have people with Android.
Oh, guy, it's the most popular phone you got to get Android.
What does it do differently than my phone won't do?
It makes phone calls.
It goes on the internet.
That's all I wanted my phone to do.
Your phone is fine.
You know what I mean?
That, you know, it's like really what your preference is.
Like, my husband likes to tinker on his phone and he doesn't care if it quite works
right.
I want to make sure that my phone works right all the time.
So.
You know what I do with my phone?
I go on Facebook and watch those videos of police getting, you know, uh, sovereign
citizens out of their cars, uh, people robbing target and saying, I didn't do anything.
I didn't do anything.
What do you, and then they got all these clothes stuffed into their, it was 12 and good
stuff into their jackets.
I love watching those videos.
They have nauseam.
I love them.
We're talking to Melissa Donaldson.
She is the head of digital services and innovation at the Racine Public Library.
The digital literacy fair is coming up.
What date is that by the way?
It is March 21st.
It's coming up.
Yep.
A couple of weeks.
Um, and it'll be from 11 a.m.
to 2 p.m.
Let's talk about the classes.
You got a whole bunch of classes on that day starting at 11 o'clock.
Let's talk about that.
We have a variety of classes from turning at 11 a.m.
We'll have, turn your hobby into a business 11 30.
We'll have LinkedIn learning.
We'll talk about how to access the service through the library.
Marine Credit Union will be doing safe banking and then, um, what's the deal with AI will
be from a, uh, Zander library and from Kenosha Public Library.
And then our digital navigators are going to do a class on how to stay safe online.
How much to go?
It is absolutely free.
Absolutely free.
Yeah.
All right.
I knew it was.
It's what they're just saying.
By the way, you know what I like about AI when I go to Google, I can ask any dopey question
and very specific question I want and their AI on Google gives me the exact answer.
I asked the question the other day and I said, then I'm going to know this was.
It was about Jennifer Runyon and I said, she had a rolling ghost busters.
What was it?
I came up.
Jennifer Runyon had a small role student in the opening scene with Bill.
It came up with the whole thing.
That's great.
I mean, that's a good use of AI.
It helps me out and it's very specific.
So yeah, good, good, good, good, good, but AI could be bad too.
As with all technology, there is good and bad.
It's just how, how do we want to use it?
How do we want as a society?
How we want to use it?
And I don't think we quite come to consensus on that yet.
No, I watch enough of these videos to know people make fake checks and try to cash
them at the bank and drain people's credit cards and do all that kind of stuff and that's
not good.
That's naughty.
Okay.
Now, you'd actually have a raffle coming up.
Talk about the passport.
What is that?
So when everybody comes to the fair, the each adult will get a passport.
It's just a little card that has a bunch of little spaces and people will go to various
tables and they'll get a stamp from each of our vendors there, each of our nonprofits
and for profits that are there.
And then they'll take that stamp or that card and turn it in at the welcome table for
tickets to enter into the raffles.
We have a lot of great raffles.
The community has really shown up for this event this year.
We're very, very excited.
So you'll get one ticket for every five stamps and you can only win one prizes here this
year.
We're trying to spread the wealth a little bit.
Last year we had a few people win a few prizes.
So we're just trying to spread the wealth and you can only win one prize and you must be
present to win this year.
Some of our raffle prizes this year include Chase, Taekwondo, Donated, a gift certificate
for a month of classes in a uniform.
The library purchased a Bamboo A1 mini with funds from the friends of the racing public
library.
You also purchased a robot kit with money from the friends that will be in there and two
Kindle fires as well.
Wait a minute.
Let's get down to that three month cringle of the month membership.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
You kind of glossed over some of these prizes.
Yeah.
Well, I only made a halfway down the list.
So we have like Divino Gelato's donated, I dental donated, Marine Credit Union has
donated, Spectrum is donated.
But yeah, cringle of the month membership from racing cringle, they donated that so it's
a raffle prize you can enter and you'll get a free cringle of the month for three months.
So.
You know, I don't know.
My daughter is better at this than I am when it comes to technology.
Our room, if I show you what her and her husband built in their house, it looks like this
star fleet, you know, from Star Trek, it's got the lights, it's got the big chairs and
they live when they're in their downtime, they're always on their computers playing games
with people all over the world, which can be dangerous too because it doesn't let them
get into your computer.
Not.
You don't think so?
Not necessarily.
See, I am leery of everybody, you know, I have people like even in this company said,
well, I'm trying to figure something out.
Well, let me get on your computer.
Oh, no, no, no, no, you're not getting on my computer.
I said, I'll go stupid through life, but you're not going to get on this computer.
I don't trust them because once you're in, you're in.
Now I, in my laptop, I don't have any information on my phone.
I do, because I do my, I don't do banking on the phone, but I do other things on the phone.
You know, my, the guy I deal with at the bank, he said, you still use checks to pay your bills,
don't you?
I said, yes.
Just you, you know, you can just send it from your phone to pay the bill.
And I said, well, that gives them an end to my bank account.
Not really your checks probably give them more of an end.
I said, but I've never had problems with checks.
And I hear people have problems with people getting into their accounts.
And he said, what you try it?
And he saw me squirm and he said, listen, if you've got sleepless nights over this,
just continue to pay by check and I'm going to have sleepless nights over it.
Because I've never had a problem with a check.
And I know you can.
I know people what they do is they, they wash, if they get all to your check, they can wash it.
But they can't wash mine because I use a G2 pen.
And that ink goes into the paper and you can't wash it out.
So I, you, I don't even have checks.
So like, I have, I have my head checks probably for 23 years.
Yeah.
Well, I pay by check.
And I, I know how to do it the other way.
There's just something inside of me if it doesn't trust it.
Well, if you don't like it, you don't like it.
Yeah.
That's why you have multiple ways to be able to do it.
And that's why the bank manager said, if you can have sleepless nights over this, don't do it.
Okay.
Let's do a, just a review here.
This is a digital literacy fair and it's coming up March 21th, right?
March 21st.
Okay.
And this is the receiving public library.
It's upstairs, second floor.
Yep.
Up by the east windows.
Yeah.
Something I didn't know by the library.
You have another entrance beside the main entrance.
Yeah, we have the lake Avenue entrance that was put in during our renovation that we were doing.
Keeping that a secret, aren't you?
I just was upstairs snooping around looking for my wife and I said, where am I here?
There's a door to the building.
Where am I?
I think that's when I ran into you.
I was like, where does door come from?
So there isn't another door to get into the library, a secret passage.
Also, I'm going to find out one day when you go into the elevator, you have the first, the second,
the third button that doesn't have anything written on it.
It doesn't do anything.
Yeah, right.
I'm going to find out.
I don't think I've never pushed it personally, but I don't, it doesn't go.
We don't have anything on the, there was a twilight zone episode where they had a ninth floor of this
department store, but you couldn't get to it.
And one day the woman gets to it.
She goes upstairs and all the mannequins are stored up there.
And one mannequin a month is allowed to come back to life.
And then they got to be back after 24 hours.
And they did, and that was on the ninth floor of this department store.
And that's what I'm thinking is at the library.
Where all the books come back to life, the characters, all the books are walking around Charles Dickens
characters are walking around and David Copperfield's walking around.
They're all walking around up there.
So well, in this fair wouldn't be possible with all of our partner organizations.
So we have like Knocht, a public library, Racine Friendship Clubhouse, Racine Financial
Parliament and Center, Empowerment Center, and a housing resources in WRTP Big Step, United
Way, Racine County, Educational Opportunity Center, Digital Coalition of Southeast Wisconsin,
Gateway Technical College, Microsoft, Racine Literacy Council, Spectrum, City of Racine,
Marine Credit, Union and Safe and Sound.
So we have a nice group of people who are hosting tables and presentations this year.
And this is all free.
Absolutely.
Now do you need reservations to show up?
Just show up now.
And the class is now where can people get this information with the class times?
We'll have it posted that day where we are at.
There'll be a program that they get when they come online though with anywhere.
I don't think it's online.
I don't know.
But they'll get a program when they come in to the welcome table of everything that's going on that day.
So it starts at 11 a.m.
Probably all done by two o'clock.
Right.
Yeah, we'll do the raffle at one thirty.
Okay.
We'll pull the raffle prizes.
And then, um, yeah, it's a lot of day of learning.
Is this the first one?
No, this is our third year that we are doing this.
Well, that's pretty good.
Who came up with the idea, you?
Yes.
Well, look at that.
You didn't want to shake your head.
Yes.
There for a second.
But yeah, thank great.
A point if you came up, this is a brilliant idea.
This, you know, that's why the Racine Public Library and all libraries for that matter.
Do more than just give out books.
Absolutely.
And, you know, there's so much more to it.
And if you don't know what's going on at your public library, get the, um, the email.
I get the email and the emails got everything in there.
What's going on at the library?
And I know you, I have you guys on once a month, but there's so much more to it than that.
And I know the who puts together that email, but it's really good.
It's, it's made super friendly for people like me.
The marketing department is great.
They do a great job.
Lots of pictures and there's so many people involved at that library.
And I thank you guys for not only coming in, but for doing all this for the community.
It's great.
And, um, I go there all the time.
I have to reserve two DVDs.
I'm not going to tell people what they are because they'll try to beat me to it.
Two new DVDs came out and that's, I get them from the library.
And here's the fun.
You guys have to schlep all across the Southeast Wisconsin to go get them.
There's somebody who actually goes to all the other libraries.
If they don't have it at your library, it has to go get it for me.
And then has to bring it back.
Yeah.
So whoever those people are, thank you very much for doing that for me.
I do appreciate it because, you know, when we got a snowstorm today, I don't care.
Get my DVD.
Get out there and get what they do it.
And I thank everybody.
And this is so much, this is money well spent.
I didn't have this on the stuff you gave me.
You left this out of my packet.
So therefore I didn't know we had it, but you actually have some more programs coming up.
Let's talk about those.
Yeah.
So we have the sheet.
Nope.
I have it on my phone.
So I'm good.
We're doing a teen lock in.
We're bringing back our teen lock ends.
This is the first one we've had it in a while.
Let me guess.
I didn't look at the sheet.
Is it an overnight thing?
No.
Oh, I think you'll lock the doors.
No, we do lock the doors.
It is after hours on a Friday during spring break.
It'll be April 10th.
The doors will on like Avenue, the new doors on like Avenue will open at 545 for
drop off and parents will have to come in and drop their kids off and sign
them in and then at 930, they'll have to come and pick them up and sign them out.
So for how many hours?
At four hours?
About four hours.
Yeah.
So there'll be a running and running around the library, which you don't get to do normally.
We'll have various games, scape room, craft.
Can you talk loudly?
Yes.
You can talk loudly.
Nobody is going to say anything.
You're in the library.
The only difference is between for this program is that there is in person registration only
because the parents have to sign a waiver for their kids to attend because they are running
around and if we want to make sure everybody's covered, do they get to go up to that secret
floor that's out of the library?
No.
I've never been up to this thing before.
See, the secrets now you're admitting it's a secret floor.
But it's like, it's like a cross space.
So it's like they didn't, they added that in the elevator.
They added that.
So like for future planning, but what if I hit the button?
What happens?
I don't think anything happens.
I'm going to do when I get back.
I'll let you know next time you got a secret entrance, you got a secret floor.
And registration has to be done before the event starts.
So at four o'clock on the 10th by four o'clock on the 10th is the last time to register.
We close at four on Fridays.
It sounds like fun.
It is a lot of fun.
I enjoy them.
I enjoy being a little crazy in the library.
Well, my library is the same.
I was like, it was stopped to be quiet.
You're talking too loud.
I was just told to shush a lot.
That's about it.
They don't tell you to shush anymore, do they?
Not really.
I mean, as long as you're not super low in having big log conversations on speakerphone,
you're, yeah, that's what I was told.
What else do we have?
We have our on our next program that we want to talk about is our
kind of our sip and swipe program with the ADRC.
They title it because you're never too wise to get tech savvy.
So people are going to come in and learn about how to send texts and photos,
use email, make a video call, download apps, how to stay safe online and more.
Our April class for that is all filled up, but we do have
May classes.
So it'll run Saturdays May 2nd through May 23rd from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m.
in the innovation lab on the second floor of the library.
You know, it's funny as dope as I am when it comes to technology.
Everything I do here is based on the latest technology.
You can see what's in front of me.
I mean, all these screens, what's in back, it's all the latest technology.
And as dopey as I am, I know how to run it, but I don't understand how it works.
I mean, I'm like, they just like a chimpanzee.
They trained me to run this stuff and that's all I know.
But I can't if something goes wrong, they told me a few things and how to get it going
again, but I have to write it down and follow the instructions.
I can't there's logically figure it out.
There's nothing wrong with that.
I was righted down.
That's I write everything down because I will.
The one thing I didn't write down was when the system went down, I was in a panic.
And he told me over the phone.
Here's what you do.
It was like 530 of the board.
I got good.
And I I didn't write it down.
So hopefully it won't happen again.
I tried to go all digital with my stuff, but I find I don't remember it as well.
When I type it in versus if I handwrite it.
So I do take a lot of it within the handwriting.
But yeah.
And anybody who comes to this and then this ADRC class is for 60 and older ages, 60 and older.
That's me.
Yeah.
And it's the really great classes are very simple.
No, you know, very simple.
And you know, and I always say like people are like, well, this is such a dumb question.
I'm like, to me, there's no dumb questions.
To me, the dumb questions are the ones that are never asked.
So come with your questions.
My mother was 92 years old and she lived on her iPhone.
She was on that Instagram.
She was on Facebook.
She was on a whole bunch of these sites and she would go on these sites.
Then she was on sites to deal with her old neighborhood where she lived as a kid.
She was in contact with people.
And this is what she did all day.
And then I'd get a call.
Can you come over?
I hit a button wrong.
She changed the language on it.
And it took me a while because I had to look up on my phone.
The language on there to see first of all what it was.
And second of all, I had to read the switch buttons on it.
That's the worst thing.
But even to the hours, hours before she passed away, she was still on her phone,
looking up things on Facebook and getting a hold of everybody and texting and
everybody makes the world smaller.
Yeah, it does.
You know, that's what I think that is one of the cool things of technology.
You know, do you want it smaller?
Yeah.
I like that distant places.
I like to know there's something far away that I can't get to.
And there's always something different about being in person.
I think what it did.
I had a friend who lived in Israel.
She was working there.
And my phone bill was over $1,000, just talking to her.
And now it would cost me nothing.
It's free.
You know, free with, you know, a phone.
But it's just amazing how all those costs went away.
Remember the long distance operator?
Those don't exist anymore.
I don't remember them very much.
The long distance.
We had long distance maybe for a few years after we got married.
Well, I'm talking about talking to somebody in another country or across the country.
You had to call the long distance operator to make the call.
I didn't do that when I was a kid.
Well, anyway, well, I did it only because I hadn't do it.
I didn't say, oh, my mother's out shopping.
Let me start making some long distance costs because they'd find you right away.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, when the phone bill came in, my father would say, this is interesting.
Who called California?
It was a leave it to be for episode with a called Don Drystale out on the West Coast.
They got a hold of, and they would make these phone calls in with his friend.
And the bill came in a phone call from California.
Dr. Don Drystale on the phone from the Dodgers or wherever he was playing at the time.
Anyway, did we get everything in?
Okay, we got the thumbs up.
That was good.
Well, thank you for coming in.
Yeah, thank you for having us.
It's always a pleasure to be here.
And I don't know who my next person is.
It's on my phone, my schedule.
So I got to look to see who next is coming in.
But there's always a pleasure.
I think we have Nick Demsky coming in.
He's the guy who's the main leader, huh?
Yes, he is.
The head guy on the executive director.
Let me just see here just for that.
Give it a go.
I got it right.
I have it handly on my phone, not on paper, but I got it on my phone.
And I put it on the library.
Let's see Thursday, March 26th will be Nick Demsky.
All right.
And we got to other people coming in.
So yeah, we're moving and grooving with the proceed public library.
I love it there.
I'm there all the time.
It's right down the block for me.
So it's easy to get to and things have changed.
I don't know.
I still have people coming in who haven't been in a few years.
And we did remodel the second floor.
I know you haven't seen it.
Yeah, you guys should come down and see it because it's cool.
It really is good.
It's never very nice.
Thank you very much.
You're very welcome.
And thanks for Shay King for setting this all up.
She does all that workforce.
I do appreciate it.