Building Business w/ the Mount Pleasant Chamber of Commerce
The Building Business podcast provides compelling stories of the Mount Pleasant Chamber of Commerce's journey, its steadfast commitment to the local community, and its forward-thinking approach to addressing the needs of businesses in an ever-changing landscape. It stands as an invitation to listeners to become part of a movement that values growth, connection, and the collective progress of the Mount Pleasant, South Carolina community.
Be prepared to be inspired, informed, and motivated, as we provide a rich tapestry of stories that celebrate the dynamic interplay of business and personal growth right here, in our own backyard.
Building Business w/ the Mount Pleasant Chamber of Commerce
Angela Craig and Empowering Entrepreneurs: Libraries at the Heart of Community Development
What if libraries could revolutionize your business strategy and community involvement? Join us for an inspiring conversation with Angela Craig, Executive Director of Charleston County Public Libraries, Kathleen Herrmann, Marketing Director for the Mount Pleasant Towne Centre, and Tammy Becker, co-owner of Elements Massage in West Ashley and Summerville. Angela shares her incredible journey and vision for libraries as essential community assets, from her beginnings at Charlotte Mecklenburg Library to her transformative work in Charleston. Uncover the diverse resources libraries offer, not just to residents, but also to businesses, from grant application assistance to networking opportunities, and even media presence enhancement.
Libraries have long been sanctuaries of knowledge, but their role is rapidly expanding beyond books. Discover how Charleston County's libraries are leading the charge in literacy, workforce development, and community engagement. Angela and Tammy delve into the logistical challenges libraries face, including book acquisitions and digital licensing, while highlighting the innovative solutions being implemented. We also explore how libraries are responding to technological advancements, particularly AI, by offering workshops to help both individuals and businesses harness its potential effectively and ethically.
In a world of evolving reading habits and technological shifts, libraries stand as pivotal institutions bridging gaps in accessibility and community support. Angela, Kathi and Tammy discuss the critical importance of addressing equity, ADA compliance, and the modernization of library spaces to better serve all patrons. As learning hubs for homeschoolers and virtual learners, libraries offer a safe environment and a valuable "third space" for business collaboration. Tune in to learn how local businesses can collaborate with library branches to enrich community resources and support workforce development, ensuring that libraries remain at the heart of community growth and innovation.
Presenting Sponsor: Mount Pleasant Chamber of Commerce
Studio Sponsor: Charleston Radio Group
Production Sponsor: rūmbo advertising
Committee:
Kathleen Herrmann | Host | MPCC President
Michael Cochran | Co-host | Foundation Chair
John Carroll | Co-host | Member at Large
Mike Compton | Co-host | Marketing Chair
Rebecca Imholz | Co-host | MPCC Director
Amanda Bunting Comen | Co-host | Social ABCs
Scott Labarowski | Co-host | Membership Chair
Jennifer Maxwell | Co-host | Immediate Past President
Darius Kelly | Creative Director | DK Design
Hello and welcome to the Building Business Podcast powered by the Mount Pleasant Chamber of Commerce. We are in the recording studios with our friends Charleston Radio Group, brian Cleary. Thank you guys so much for being such a huge supporter of the Mount Pleasant Chamber. Kathy Herman, here I am your current president and I am also the marketing director at Mount Pleasant Town Center. I'd like to thank you all for joining in to listen to us today, and I am joined by my guest co-host today, tammy Becker. Tammy is the COO of Pigtails and Crew Cuts in Mount Pleasant and also the co-owner of Elements Massage in West Ashley and Somerville and the current president-elect of the Mount Pleasant Chamber. So, tammy, welcome. Thank you, and please tell everyone a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 2:I've been in Mount Pleasant for about six years. As Kathy said, I stay very busy. I'm looking forward to this podcast today. I have a couple businesses here in the Lowcountry and that's about it. No, there's so much more, but we don't have time for that today.
Speaker 1:Well, the best part about Tammy being here today is we're both book nerds. That's going to give you an idea of who we're talking to today. So hold on. I am so excited about our special guest today. In her current role, she is committed to providing literacy, workforce development, educational success, community engagement and equity opportunities through library services to the Charleston County residents.
Speaker 1:She's a mother of two. She's a huge fan of reading to her children, which I love, and is an avid reader of all genres and we're going to talk about that later and loves to talk to people about their favorite book, which I do hope we'll be able to get in by the end of this podcast. Favorite book, which I do hope we'll be able to get in by the end of this podcast. And I also saw this and I love this tagline we engage, empower and inspire our patrons one library card at a time. It's the first thing I got when I moved here, by the way. I am so excited. Please welcome Angela Craig, executive director of Charleston County Public Libraries. Thank you so much for coming today, thank you. Thank you for having me. Are you kidding? I mean.
Speaker 3:Tammy and I.
Speaker 2:I'm excited. We love books.
Speaker 1:All we talk about is books, and then when we heard that you were going to be our special guest, we were so excited, because not only do we love books, but the services that the Charleston County Library System offers, not even just to residents but to businesses, which of course the Chamber is interested in. I mean, I don't know if everyone knows about them, Angela, but we're going to go into that, but tell us a little bit about yourself first.
Speaker 3:Oh, thank you. Well, hello everyone. My name is Angela Craig. I'm the Executive Director of Charleston County Public Library and it has been my pleasure to be your Executive Director for five years now. I celebrated my five-year work anniversary here just a few days ago. Previously, I worked with the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library. I was with them for about 14 years in progressive roles, and when the Charleston job opened I just knew that I had to give it a shot. My husband and kids and I, we always came to Folly Beach and we would always, you know we were the annoying tourist. I'm sorry, not anymore.
Speaker 1:Not anymore, no.
Speaker 3:But what I loved is there was, you know, there's the Folly Beach Library on Folly Beach and reading is a very important part of my family. We read all the time. I read to my kids when I was pregnant and we keep reading now, and we would actually go to the Folly Beach Library and buy books from the Friends of the Library and we would read books on the beach and then, when the job was open, I knew I just had to give it a shot. And here we are and it's just been. It's been a dream job. I live in Mount Pleasant, my kids go to the local schools there and we just really really love being part of the community as well.
Speaker 1:That's absolutely amazing. I mean we were talking before we went live about all the new branches and all the redevelopments and all of the I see almost everyone's getting an uplift.
Speaker 3:Is that correct?
Speaker 1:Yes, that is correct and I know that I mean Wando's brand new, the Mount Pleasant one just had.
Speaker 3:Yes, it was just renovated and reopened.
Speaker 1:And then the old village. That's amazing.
Speaker 3:It's amazing. That's something that really is a gift. That is because of the referendum that happened in 2014 that was passed by, I think, 79% of the community voted for public libraries, so we got five new libraries out of that, and we're renovating the other 13. And so we have a total of 18 library locations throughout Charleston County, three of which are in Mount Pleasant. Wow, go ahead, tommy.
Speaker 2:No, that's amazing.
Speaker 1:I didn't even realize that I was going to you know I'm not saying this in a derogatory way, because you'll know what I mean when I say this. I am so happy to see that we're spending all this money and land on libraries because people always say nobody reads a book anymore, they can get everything online. But you know what I'm trying to say. Right, and especially coming from a book nerd like myself, the library is the first choice I always go to. I'm so impressed by, I'm assuming, you and what you guys do to keep reading alive and to build these things that our families and our businesses need.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, and I think that if you're a library user then you know. But what we're always reaching for are for those folks that don't know that the library is absolutely space for them. The business community is a prime example where we have so many resources and things for small business owners, large business owners, people with a side hustle, you know that can come in and test out things or, you know, just see what expertise we have to offer and it's a safe space for that, to explore that, and then we can also connect people to resources that are free and they can try them out at home. That's awesome.
Speaker 2:Can you tell me a little more about that, especially a business owner?
Speaker 3:no-transcript. So our traditional services are a wonderful resource for business owners because, you know, we do have books. We have lots and lots of books that deal with any sort of business thing that you need to have, from putting together a business plan or resumes or things like that. But then we also have all these wonderful databases and research databases that I think a lot of people don't realize. Come with your library card. Your library card is a very powerful tool.
Speaker 3:If you go to our website at ccplorg, there is the tab that says research and underneath that there are all these databases, and some of the databases are things like for hobbies or foreign languages or things like that, but there is a lot of great things for workforce development. That's one of our five focus areas. Linkedin Learning helps people keep up to date with current technology. They can look at career boosting trends and things like that. It is tied into LinkedIn as well, and so it helps you boost your social media presence.
Speaker 3:And again, it is free with the power of your library card, which is so the research databases that we have, which are on our webpage, and, if you know, one of the wonderful things is you can go into the library and say I am a small business owner or I'm looking to start a small business, could you help me look at some of the best practices? What are some resources and any library staff can help you with that. And if they don't know the answer then they will hand off to someone else who does and you. You know we're very collaborative at CCPL. We definitely want to help you find the answer to your question.
Speaker 1:So every single small business in Mount Pleasant needs to make sure they can get a library card.
Speaker 3:Absolutely yes. Yes, if you are a resident, then you already can apply for a library card. You can come to any one of the locations in Mount Pleasant. That's the Village, that's Mount Pleasant Regional, that's also Wando. We will happily get you a business card I'm sorry, library card for you and you can use it to explore options for your business and also fun reading opportunities.
Speaker 1:That's amazing, and you could do that online or inside the library, correct?
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, you can apply online, and then you just have to show up at the library and they will give you a physical card and get you active.
Speaker 1:Like I said, I've had mine since like two days after I moved here. Fantastic, the first thing I had to do was find a library. Yes, but it was the Mount Pleasant library that I went to at that time, because Wando was not built yet, right?
Speaker 3:And Mount Pleasant is a super reader branch. We have some very high circulation stats there and if you ever want to know what is trending, if you go to where the hold pickup is, you can see what people are reading. It's interesting to see what's trending, what people are checking out. It's like the Mount Pleasant group is a super reader. I really love seeing what they're checking out.
Speaker 1:One thing I do love too, on a personal level, is the fact that I can put it on hold. Not because I. The problem is, angela. If I had to go find a book in the library, I'd be there for six hours because I want to be Right, right All and I can't. So the option of going online and putting a book on hold and they text me as soon as it's ready. I walk in, it's reserved, I take it, I scan it out, I'm done. Oh yeah, it is superb.
Speaker 3:And self-checkout. You can say hi if you want, but if you're busy.
Speaker 1:I like to say hello to whoever's there. We like when people say hi.
Speaker 3:Self-checkout, but it is nice to, you know, chat with folks Now, with everything going online these days.
Speaker 3:What are some of the challenges that the library system is facing?
Speaker 3:There is a lot of infrastructure inequities around Charleston County, where you know we we work really hard to make sure that our resources are accessible anywhere in the county, but there are some things from an infrastructure standpoint that we just don't have control over.
Speaker 3:We do have a lot of wonderful resources we have Wi-Fi devices and laptops and other things that people can check out and take home, which we encourage them to but in certain areas of Charleston County the Wi-Fi devices don't work, and so we are actually part of the. We were a founding member of the Low Country Digital Equity Coalition, which is regional for the three counties here Berkeley and Dorchester also and so we are helping establish best practices and also advocacy to make sure that those areas get covered. There's a lot of work being done by a lot of entities, and the public library definitely has a voice in helping to make sure that digital equity is there for everyone. You'd be surprised that even in Mount Pleasant, there are a lot of spots where the accessibility isn't as consistent, and so that's good to know, and so we can actually take that back to the Digital Equity Coalition and then help put that on the radar for advocacy.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's interesting.
Speaker 1:So many different things that we didn't even know that the library was involved with.
Speaker 3:And it's interesting. We are definitely about books. We have five focus areas. You talked about them earlier. We on literacy, workforce development, educational success, community engagement and equity, and what we mean by those is those are our pillars. That's what the community has asked us to do, basically, and people are asking for information, and the information could come from books, it can come from databases, it can come from the programs that we have, but libraries have always been about information, and the way we get it to our patrons depends on what platform that they want to access it by Usually books or computers or whatever else we can offer.
Speaker 2:Wow that's amazing.
Speaker 1:It really is.
Speaker 2:So I have I don't know a couple of odd questions.
Speaker 3:I love odd questions. Where do?
Speaker 2:these books come from. And the question about the hold list for me because I don't use that system currently is that I find it amazing that she's like there's 67 people in front of her for the same book. Like how could everybody be reading the same book? Is that because there is a trend and people are wanting to read that book, or how do you get the book? So I know that's two kinds of questions.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, but that's amazing. Well, first, tammy, we've got to get you on the collection train, because that's the way to go 67 books in front of me now.
Speaker 2:I'd have to. I couldn't.
Speaker 1:If you know. I'm going to go hold and wait.
Speaker 3:Exactly, I'm going to no, you can put your name on there while it's in pre-ordering and then you're actually first in the queue. So I've done that before, which is good. We can't reorder the queue, but if you are watching you can put your name on there, which is good. We have a wonderful collection development department and we order for the big five publishers. The publishing industry keeps shrinking. Other publishers keep absorbing each other, so that kind of changes, you know. We also order from independent publishers too.
Speaker 3:We love local authors. We will definitely purchase from local authors. We love to have ebooks as well, because we know that there is an entire patron demographic where they may or may not actually come into our libraries physically, but they're always downloading books, which is great. I personally love having a ebook, a physical book and book and an audio book that I'm listening to. I'm always listening and reading different things For your holds. That is how we measure what is popular and oftentimes we can tell through bestseller lists and things like that award winners and things. But the public will also tell us when there is a hold list of like 300 books, we will scramble to purchase more books and sometimes we're at the mercy of um our publishers. They maybe not have published as many books, and so we can only get what we can get. And so you know, that's why you might see a large wait list for some titles that you know. Perhaps the publisher didn't realize how, you know, uh, popular topic was going to be, and then they just don't have enough books.
Speaker 1:So we, we have to wait so it seems organized too, because if you actually open it up and you'll see it'll be, like transferring from one to another it's a whole list of where all those books are.
Speaker 3:I just find it fascinating and our delivery department are the unsung heroes. They are the ones that you know. They get there early at support services and they get these bins and they're driving all over the county and they're delivering your holds to you and if they weren't delivering those books, then your books would not arrive at your library. So it is amazing, and they're very, very efficient at it. It is a science that's amazing and do you?
Speaker 2:I know I've dropped boxes of books off there when I've moved here so people can still continue. Is there anything that you don't take?
Speaker 3:we well, the friends of the library is our 501c3 and they are the ones that take donations. They love books, books of all types. I think that they are not taking audiovisual anymore. Might want to check on that but, as I understand, their predominant donation is, and always has been, books, and they also take rare things too and they'll have specialty book sales. But, yeah, the Friends of the Library you can drop at the Main Library and at the Wando Library is our two big donation spots, because we actually have locations there where we can store the books and then they sort them and they have book sales throughout the year, which is great, yeah.
Speaker 1:And how come there's a wait for online?
Speaker 2:Why can't they just be oh, yes, Now there's that too.
Speaker 1:Yes, oh yeah, so it's so funny. So you're like okay, well, it's online, or a digital book, I should say, and you can download it free from the library.
Speaker 3:On the library app.
Speaker 1:It's Libby.
Speaker 3:Libby yes.
Speaker 1:Libby. Which I have of course, but then I could start reading it and I lose it in two weeks, just like I would when I take it.
Speaker 3:So if it's a digital copy.
Speaker 1:How come I can't just read it?
Speaker 3:So it's amazing that public libraries are able to get ebooks at all. That's a licensing thing with the publishers and I will say well and the publishers don't really like it. If there's publishers listening, they're probably not gonna like me saying this, but it's true. They publishers would probably prefer that we not have that. So they actually charge us more for the digital license and sometimes they put restrictions on how many digital license that we can purchase.
Speaker 1:And also a time limit too.
Speaker 3:So for a very popular title, a publisher and it varies by publisher Some publishers are very generous, other publishers are more restrictive, and so they might say, for a very popular title, public libraries can only have X number of titles for this time period, and then we have to renew, and we don't have the option to renew until that time period has passed, because they're trying to sell the actual ebooks to patrons.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so for all my book club friends that are listening, because I have many of you that are in the chamber that is the reason. That is the reason we were talking about it just recently with uh, with a download, and a friend was reading it and she said all of a sudden it was gone.
Speaker 3:Yep, oh yeah, Just like. You have to return the book and you can't renew it.
Speaker 1:You have to get back in the queue. You have to get back in the queue.
Speaker 2:Is there still late fees on books? I remember no. Isn't that nice of them. See, that's how long it is. I still feel guilty if I don't. I know right.
Speaker 1:Do you? I just had one out that I waited about a month to get and I was to make sure that. I was buying back by that date because I knew I wasn't going to have to pay the five cents a day like I used to. But somebody else was waiting for the book.
Speaker 2:So what do you do in that case?
Speaker 3:I read fast, you can keep it longer, and then we actually.
Speaker 2:No, no, no. $50 to your credit card.
Speaker 3:Well, we don't actually charge like 25 cents. We will give you a longer opportunity to hang on to your book and if you lose it which has happened I have lost a book and I've had to pay for the book.
Speaker 1:So even the library director has to pay for that.
Speaker 3:But we actually don't charge late fees. We will actually after a certain amount of time I think it's like nine weeks. If we don't receive the book, then we'll charge you for the price of the book. But then if you bring the book back, then we remove the charge.
Speaker 2:So yeah, Nine weeks is a long time.
Speaker 1:If they held on for nine weeks, then they should just pay for the book. It's something like that.
Speaker 3:And that's something we noticed, a trend. I mean, people are busy, a lot of us are working and we're caregivers, or you might have multiple jobs, or you're just tired, and so you check out books with the best intention to bring them back, or you lose them because your kid says that they return them, but they're actually under your seat in the car the whole time and so, yeah, then you end up bringing it back and it's okay. So we don't judge at the public library, don't worry well, that's good to know everybody return your books, though, because that's not fair the next
Speaker 1:person yes, yes, and they can return it and then wait and you can return a book anytime you want to, it's okay okay, right, I just don't want to get in trouble you won't get in trouble. Okay, good, uh, let's go back to mount pleasant businesses for a minute um, do you have any specific stories or any kind of examples or things of some of our local businesses that might have benefited from the resources from the library?
Speaker 3:yes, um, I actually reached out to some of the library teams. Um, you know, at wando, at mount pleasant, and the village and um, the wando mount pleasant library has some wonderful resources. So for the business community, if I might plug those, we have, um a media room where you can record a podcast, you can record screen, you can do all kinds of stuff. We've had a variety of different types of users. We have a staff member who's dedicated who can help you with the technology, which is great. We've had seniors record their senior project for that. We've had small businesses record media clips and things like that. We've had local churches come in and they've recorded historical stories. I mean, it's just fantastic I had no idea yes yes, and it's all free to the public.
Speaker 3:You have to make an appointment, but, yes, we absolutely can help you out. We also have the Makerspace, and the Makerspace has anything from 3D printers where you can print out, you know, cups and all kinds of stuff, or has sewing machines or knitting and things like that. So we have plugged and unplugged technology there and again, we have library staff that can help you with that, which is great. One of our recent success stories with local business is that a Wando branch was able to provide media and workforce development support for a patron. This patron was using Wando's TV studio that I just talked about and she was able to design a media proposal that won her a business grant for $30,000. Wow, and this business is a retrofitted school bus that will provide fresh produce to underserved communities in and around Charleston, which is great.
Speaker 3:So this patron was able to come to the Wando Public Library with a business idea and so the staff were able to help her with her business proposal, with her grant proposal, to articulate and tease out, you know, as a result of this, we were able to do this for the community and then also, using the TV studio, was able to record a media proposal to submit to enhance that, which is great.
Speaker 1:Do you see what you can get with your library card, all for free?
Speaker 2:I mean seriously all for free card.
Speaker 3:All for free. I mean seriously all for free.
Speaker 1:Just go get your library card.
Speaker 2:Well, and we love working. I have one. Oh, I know you do.
Speaker 3:I do have one we love working with local business communities. We love answering their questions, but then we love having local business communities as a resource. It's wonderful to hear what is trending in the workforce. How can we help when a patron comes in and says how can I make my resume more attractive? It's nice to hear from the business community what skills are they looking for, what are some emerging technologies that we should be helping them focus on, and things like that. And so it's twofold. We love answering questions, but we learn every time we are interfacing with the business community, because it's shifting. It's changing so much. As you all know, the business world is changing, not even annually, like every couple of months. Something new is coming, some new skill is needed, and so it's nice for the public library to know, so that we can help our patrons prepare for that when they're looking to go into the workforce. That's amazing.
Speaker 2:Oh, I was actually going to ask that, sorry. No yeah, oh, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry.
Speaker 3:I'm going to move this a little closer.
Speaker 1:Sit on my hands If you were tapping before Sorry.
Speaker 2:My hands are on my lap. I'm like sitting on my lap. I was going to ask that if I can do that, you've been perfect.
Speaker 3:Thank you, she is perfect. Tammy can do more. I know I'm sitting on my hands Are you supposed to?
Speaker 2:keep my hands folded. Yeah, my hands are like.
Speaker 3:What was that the meeting space? I was going to ask about that too. That was one of my guests, actually.
Speaker 2:I have a need of a meeting space. All right, that's why I was going to ask All right, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, brian.
Speaker 1:So where do we start again? You make sure, Get it out get it out.
Speaker 2:There we go. Now you've ruined your perfect time.
Speaker 1:Nope, nope. You see, I'm like this, I'm like squeezing my hands, and I usually talk with my hands.
Speaker 2:Where were we? Yes, how did we do that?
Speaker 3:I was on a roll. Meeting space yeah, I really like the neat little intake system you guys have. Oh, yes, the automated handling yes, yeah, yeah, automated handling, yes, yeah, yeah, that's really great. We have it at Wanto Meeting space. Yeah. So, tammy, you were saying that you have a need for meeting space.
Speaker 2:I do I do so? I do a lot of networking here in the area and I'm actually starting a female women's group called she Leads and I'm going to be the president of the one in West Ashley and I'm looking for space and somebody told me to reach out to the library and I went on your website actually and it said not. If not, if you know you have to be a non-profit or some kind of government. Is that correct?
Speaker 3:or can anybody run a space or anyone can you have to have a library card. We like to make sure that we're serving the community. It is first come, first serve and we have a variety of meeting rooms. Mount Pleasant is wonderful because we have the Wando Mount Pleasant Library. That has a very large auditorium that can seat like hundreds of people. Then it has smaller spaces. Right right, and we can also subdivide it, and it has a kitchen on both sides.
Speaker 1:So maybe I do have to do more than run in and get the book.
Speaker 3:Right right, just walk around, walk around. You need to spend those six hours? I do, I sure do. And then Wando also has smaller sort of midsize meeting rooms that have dry erase boards and we have Wi-Fi so you can project. And we also have at the Mount Pleasant Regional. We have an auditorium that seats probably 50 people and we also have technology available there. The Village Library does not have a meeting space. It's little, it's a little house, but you can still sit at a table there and meet if you wanted to. But yes, for your group that you were just talking about, that actually is perfect for us. So you would just go online at ccplorg and there is a tab where you can reserve a room, or you can always just call your library and then they can help you with that reservation, that's amazing To anybody else.
Speaker 2:a hundred people, if you need to do a seminar or whatnot?
Speaker 1:it'd be perfect, and I know now. I have not been to the Mount Pleasant location in a while because I started going to the Wando location but that just reopened with renovation. So, those that have not been there in a while. What changed at that location? What's been added to help the community and help our business?
Speaker 3:We enclosed a teen area for teen patrons, so now there's a dedicated teen space, which is great, so we can lock them in that room.
Speaker 1:Yes, we can close that door. There's probably no locks on the other locks.
Speaker 3:That's not actually up to code, so we can't do that. But we have an enclosed teen space, which is great and that. But, um you, we have an enclosed teen space, which is great, and in the teen space we have a dedicated teen collection and computers and a gaming system and there's also a staff desk there. Um, adults can go into the teen space.
Speaker 2:They just can't hang out in the teen space.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because that that's for the teens and it's glass and clothes so people can see, and so it's fine. We also have a enclosed children's area so we can close the door. There. It gets a little noisy sometimes. And then we also increased the number of books at the Mount Pleasant Regional because that, as I said, is a super reader branch. So we decreased the number of computers there, because it seems like people either bring their device or the numbers of computers that we had worked and we have more books at Mount Pleasant, which is great. And then we also have our auditorium. We refreshed the auditorium and we have more books at Mount Pleasant, which is great, and then we also have our auditorium. We refreshed the auditorium and we also refreshed our collection there as well. So we got a new collection at the Mount Pleasant Library and you can probably tell because there are a lot of new books there, which is great. We just reopened that branch last year. I think.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's been fairly recent.
Speaker 3:That's fantastic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I think it's great and, like I said, I have not I've, I've just started. It's easier for me now. I just go on my way home, because I live um in that area of Mount Pleasant and um are you. Did you just say, though, that there's more books at the at the at an app location than the um.
Speaker 3:Oh, no, no, no, there's. There's definitely more books at Wando, but, yeah, we ended up putting more shelves. Yeah, we put more shelving at Mount Pleasant because, when we were talking to the community and we were looking at the stats, that is a branch that has a lot of checkouts and, just you know, more more readers than technology users, it seems, and so we still. We do have computers there, we have desktops, we also have laptops that can be checked out, but it seems that a lot of folks bring their own technology, which is great. We have just regular desk. They can, just, you know, plug in there and, um, you know, we just wanted to make sure we were meeting the community needs when we calibrated that branch I understand, I understand um, so we talked.
Speaker 2:So if you had a mascot for the library system, what would it be?
Speaker 3:we do, we do, yeah his name is albert and he is an owl. And we actually got a new costume for him.
Speaker 3:I was going to say I hope you have a costume, oh yes, and there's a wonderful staff member and the staff member is usually Albert and they will wear the costume whenever we need them to and the costume is hot and big and you can actually request to have Albert come out to community events. We love to come out to community events. There is, you know, request form for it, but we love to have Albert there. So Albert will come to library for library events, but as a community partner, you can request for Albert to come out and if we have the availability, albert will come out and visit. So we're all just great You've been at our expo.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, nice, yes, oh, that's right.
Speaker 3:Kids love him we need to make sure he's at our expo that's right.
Speaker 1:Excellent, that's so awesome. Well, you know, we do kids events at Town Center too, all the time. Yes, yeah.
Speaker 3:I'm sure Albert has been there. I'm sure seen Albert. Then we'll have to get Albert there.
Speaker 2:You and I need to work on that. We'll get Albert there.
Speaker 3:That is fantastic, though, and an owl so cute.
Speaker 1:I mean, what a?
Speaker 3:great the wise owl.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's so awesome, earlier, we were talking about how much we read Uh-huh. Okay, do you mind sharing with everyone your goal for the year?
Speaker 3:Yes, my goal is 110 books this year no-transcript. Oh, my daughter says, it does it. You know, she's like you're listening to your weird storybooks and I'm like listen, you're reading graphic novels, so whatever you're reading counts. However, you're reading counts, but you know they're not reading You're listening Well, but what does a blind person do? I know?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I joke because I actually am not an audible. I can't pay attention I need to. I I'm very much like Tammy, and up until this past Christmas, when my husband finally got me a Kindle, I had never read a book digitally ever, so it's only been a few months.
Speaker 2:But do you?
Speaker 1:love it Not as much as the book, that's okay.
Speaker 2:That's okay.
Speaker 1:Not as much as the book. The one thing I do love and I want to go back to my question but what I do love is at nighttime. It's very, uh, soothing. Yes, because I love to read before I go to sleep and so it's very soothing with that screen and the way it's designed to help me read easier. When I'm reading a regular book, I have to have the big light on because I'm blind. Big light or a flashlight or glasses on um so, but um back, so wait.
Speaker 1:So back to your goal, is it all? Different genres is it.
Speaker 3:It's anything and everything. All fair game. I have a pretty. I believe in reading for fun. I don't believe in forcing it. I have like a 50-page rule. If a book isn't doing it for me, then I'll just pass after 50 pages.
Speaker 1:I can't do that either I have to finish it, no, I can let it go. I can let it go. Listen the boss of the Charleston Public. Library system is now telling me that I do not have to finish the book just because I started it.
Speaker 3:Well, life is too short for books that don't bring you enjoyment. Damn it. You know what?
Speaker 1:maybe you and I need to work on that together and after 50 pages, if I go, I hate it, you'll say it.
Speaker 3:Or whatever, like I've ditched books after the first chapter. I'm like this is not for me and yeah it's okay, it's okay.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic.
Speaker 2:Sorry, I still have a question about the 113 books. Now I thought I read a lot and I just started getting back into it because I've been super busy. But, like I said, I read probably about five or six a month. But I know I'm busy and you're super busy with the work that you do and your children. I know you're listening to some, so is that cheating?
Speaker 3:No, no. According to my daughter, yes. How do you find?
Speaker 2:all that, where do you find that extra time? You're reading at bedtime, but what other time do you save for yourself to do that reading?
Speaker 3:I'm listening in my commute because I drive around Charleston County. So we have 18 library locations, and so I'm driving around a lot, and so I'm usually listening to an audio book when I'm doing that. I love to jog or walk in the morning, and so I'll usually listen to an audio book.
Speaker 3:Sometimes I jog faster, depending on how fast the narrator is talking, which is great, and then I really feel that reading is something for me that helps me unplug from things. And you know I don't do nonfiction for a reason because I read a lot, read a lot of information. I read a lot of articles and professional things and newspaper articles to keep current, and so for me that's a lot of nonfiction reading and I like to read anything that's fiction or listen to fiction. I will do some nonfiction biographies and things like that.
Speaker 1:But that person has to be of interest to you.
Speaker 3:Right, right, right, or the subject, but I really find that reading is something that helps me. Like you were saying, unwind, I read a lot before bed. I want to make sure that I read a chapter of something a day just to make sure that I'm doing something just for me, which I think is important. I think it's important to do something for yourself, and reading is just that thing for me.
Speaker 2:That's awesome Do you read or listen to several books at a time.
Speaker 3:Yes, I usually have about five at a time Not necessarily, but I'll have a little bit of everything and if I get bored I think I have a shorter attention span and I'll just rotate and finish. I could do one Good for you.
Speaker 1:I had one time where I actually had to put a book down because I had to pick up another one, because it was either due or the book club was coming up, and I literally was like this it was like going through withdrawal, like I couldn't put the book down without finishing it and I had to pick up this new one.
Speaker 3:Maybe you can teach me how to do that well, I was on a book award committee years ago and that was really, really fun, um, and I ended up. We we tracked our reading and I ended up reading 300 books over 300 books a year for this book award committee, because the publishers send you books and you have to read the books and the entire committee there was nine of us on there and we had to vote for the books. We all read these books and we all were nominating and so you had to read the books that people nominated along with whatever books you were assigned. And I was assigned about 300 books and I think I'm a speed reader not officially, but I can read very, very fast. Wow, and that helps a lot. Sure, yeah, wow.
Speaker 2:I can read fast. I just wouldn't remember half of what I was reading. Yeah, retention is a problem.
Speaker 3:I will say retention is a problem and no, I can't remember author names. I know I'm a library, I know I'm the library director. I should remember author names, but I can't. I remember like the book cover and I'll say oh, it was that blue book with that thing on it, and then that makes total sense to me. That's what you remember, that's what I remember. Yeah.
Speaker 1:But just not not the author. I realized like like three months is my retention because I did um again. I one of my book clubs. I had read the the book in December for a book club in May and do you remember I was okay. Another time it was almost like eight months and I didn't even remember the lead character's name.
Speaker 3:I went down to that. That's okay, that's okay. We only have so much memory. It's okay, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:I do know a lot of our members have kids in Mount Pleasant and so I know they're always looking for things to do with their children, which is awesome, and I know you offer again with a library card, amazing things. So would you talk about some of your children's programs that our listeners would be able to put on their event calendar?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. Well, annually we always have our summer reading program, and to attend any one of our library programs you actually don't have to have a library card, you can just show up.
Speaker 1:Oh, no, tell them no, no, oh, you have to have a library card. Sorry, you have to have a library card. It's free, it's free, it is free.
Speaker 3:But yes, we love library cards. But yeah, our summer for children, teens and adults and the adults have become an emerging market for summer reading, which is really fun. Some of the adults have kids, some of them don't, but they have been a growing demographic. We also have the Thousand Books Before Kindergarten program, which is wonderful for kids. We've had a lot of completers at the Wando Library and in Mount Pleasant too, and it's really really fun. So you just go to one of your library branches and to the children's department and say I'd love to do the 1,000 books for kindergarten. Obviously your child has to be not only kindergarten yet and you can read to your child, so that also counts. And then they start reading, and so the goal is to read 1,000 books with your child, or your child start reading, and so they would have read a thousand books.
Speaker 3:Do you provide a list of books we can, but it's really anything and we help with the tracking and then we have I'm sorry, what an amazing program it is. It is, and I actually did not do that my kids we were in a different library system when my kids were in kindergarten so we didn't do that. But it was a really, really great program and it doesn't really matter if you finish it. It really doesn't.
Speaker 1:It's fun. To me, it's just even signing up for it and thinking about it that counts.
Speaker 3:I think it helps parents, because all parents are so busy and reading can feel like a chore. But you know we want kids to realize that books are fun, that books are toys, that books are something that you know, help with your imagination and you know books can take you anywhere. And so it's not a chore, it's not an assignment, it is just, you know, for the fun of it. And you know, if you hit 1,000 books, that's fantastic, but if it's just like 10 books, that's still fantastic.
Speaker 1:It's 10 books that they might not have read the day before. Right, Exactly.
Speaker 3:We have a comparable program. This is new for high school students. I think it's 100 books before senior year. I might be getting the number wrong, but it's the same thing, where you start as a freshman and your goal is to read 100 books, I think throughout high school. It might be a little more, but it's the same thing. You know, you go to the teen department this time and you sign up and you track your books and there's prizes, usually like a big stack of books at the end.
Speaker 2:So more books for you, which is really great. It's exciting to have volunteer opportunities for people to come read. Do you have?
Speaker 3:reading programs. We partner with different not-for-profits. There's a lot of really great not-for-profits like Reading Buddies and things like that. Our 501c3 Friends of the Library is our primary volunteer opportunity. They are wonderful. They do book sorting, they do the intake, they're the ones that are setting up for the book sales. That's all volunteer. They have one employee, the executive director, and then the rest of it is volunteer. Their board is volunteer. All the volunteers come in and it's fantastic what they do.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of need there for always, for more volunteers. I know a lot of the girls in my neighborhood bring their kids to the library for certain things. So what are some of the programs? Like you have arts and crafts. Oh yeah, yeah, we have any. And everything.
Speaker 3:We have unofficial after-school activities, like you know, and like we have homeschool kids and we have all different types of things. So we do have activities for kids all throughout the day. We have science-based, stem-based activities. We have art programs, you know. We have technology-based programs. We have special guests that will come in. We might have the Charleston Raptor Center come in or the Aquarium and show yeah, they'll bring in animals and all kinds of stuff. We've partnered with local theater groups. You know, spoleto Piccolo Spoleto has come in and they've done like little mini performances and things like that. Local authors and then we've had author visits come and those are fantastic and even if it's an adult author, I think it's really great for kids just to meet an author and to hear about their writing process, which is, you know, really individual depending on the author. And if a kid is trying to write a book, it's always inspiring to hear how authors do it.
Speaker 1:And I'm not saying you're not doing a good job of letting people know about these programs, but this is just a new way for our listeners to know all of these free things, and not just for kids, I have noticed, and maybe it's just because of the explosion in digital and all that, but there are some amazing local authors.
Speaker 1:Oh, yes, I mean they just seem to be getting better and better and better and better and better, and I just love the relationship that the library has with these local authors and it's a business too. It's just amazing we do. Um, I, I was joking that one of my favorite authors now is from the charleston area and I was hoping she'd come to my book club, but uh, you never know, that's all another story. I'm gonna work with angela on that on the side we will try um, but really I mean some amazing authors and great events and things.
Speaker 1:Um, you know, and I love that they're writing about the Lowcountry- too, they're not even just from the Lowcountry. They're writing about the Lowcountry. I just read Kristen Ness at Loggerheads. Highly highly, highly recommend that book.
Speaker 3:It's on my list. It's really great.
Speaker 1:And she doesn't say it's Mount Pleasant and Isle of Palms, but you know it's Mount Pleasant and Isle of Palms, but what a great read. And, like I said so, do you ever do book signings with them or are they just?
Speaker 3:doing little reads. Local authors are so generous with their time and we definitely want to make sure that we're supporting them as an author, as an artist, and they love doing book signings. I have yet to encounter an author that doesn't want to do some form of book signing and I think it's really fun for them to interact with their readers and a lot of them will become lifelong readers because they met the author and, like I'm a lifelong reader for several authors because I met them at book signings, at libraries or bookstores or, you know, conferences, and it's just really fun to meet them as a person. And then you know, you're like, oh, what's their next book?
Speaker 1:And then you end up reading all their books. So yeah, absolutely, that's amazing. And then I want to talk about inclusion for a minute. Inclusion and diversity. It's just such an important initiative for everybody in business. How is the library adjusting? I'm sure you took into account some things when you did the remodels and the building of the new.
Speaker 3:Wanda.
Speaker 1:Library. Of course it's open for five years. Special programs do you have those. Would you like to tell our audience a little bit about that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, our five focus areas again, and one of them is equity, and that is the way we define. Equity is making sure that every patron of Charleston County can access our services, no matter where they are or what their ability is or how they identify, and so we want to make sure that you know we're ADA compliant. We want to make sure that we have large print books. We want to make sure that we have audio books.
Speaker 1:I need large print soon.
Speaker 3:You know, I have to have reading glasses, so I understand A lot of the buildings that were built.
Speaker 3:The building codes obviously had changed and so it was nice to update the bathrooms. For example, the Mount Pleasant library we were able to update the bathroom there, and then, you know, the village library is small but we were able to, you know, update that space as well to have more floor space for people with mobility challenges, and that that could be anything. That could be a person in a wheelchair, or it could be, you know, a woman who is pregnant with a stroller, and you know, just the mobility can be any sort of challenge. So we want to make sure that our libraries are accessible. We also were very mindful about making the spaces flexible, so a lot of our shelving has wheels on it, so we can move the shelving around and we can open up the floor space if we needed to, for not just an event, but if there was a patron that needed an accommodation. We haven't had that happen, but if we needed to, we could do it if we needed to.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. I love my library. Thank you.
Speaker 3:And we love our patrons.
Speaker 1:We love them I feel like I'm talking to a rock star.
Speaker 2:Oh wow, just so you know.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
Speaker 2:That's how I'll be, but it's changed. It's like I'm sitting here thinking about like when I used to go to the library as a child and then my kids growing up and do the schools even have libraries in high school. I mean, my kids are grown so I wouldn't know that.
Speaker 3:But yeah, there are media centers um, not all, because my kids are with ccsd. Not all public schools have a media specialist um or if they do, they might be part-time. I mean it's a struggle to find funding for that. That's a national struggle, and so we work really closely with CCSD. We want to make sure we're supporting the students and so sometimes we are their public library and then you know there's a growing homeschool community. We are their library, we are their classroom oftentimes, and we're perfectly fine with that role. We are their library, we are their classroom oftentimes and we're perfectly fine with that role. We want those students there. There's also this students have changed a lot because of virtual learning. So we will have students come into the library and use our computers as their classroom, because maybe they don't want to do it at home or maybe their school's given them permission.
Speaker 3:So we have seen a different and their public school students. It's just. It's a different way to learn now, so we've had to adapt and just make sure that we are meeting the need of the student however they come to us.
Speaker 1:I could see how it would be somewhat positive to get out of the house, oh sure. Absolutely. If you have to be home, do your online learning to be in a safe environment with everything that you would need.
Speaker 3:Well, and the business community? I'm going to once again plug us as a third space for you.
Speaker 1:Well, that's what you're here for. Yes, yes, plug yourself into the business community.
Speaker 3:So I've heard anecdotally from business owners that you know they have a wonderful office, but they just need to get out of the office, and so they will come to the library, they will bring their laptop and they will come to the library, they will bring their laptop and they will just, you know, find a nice corner and they will sit there and it is so nice to get away and they're, you know, checking email or you know whatever it is, or just working on a proposal, and they might ask for help.
Speaker 3:They might not, but they said that we are just such a nice third space for them. That's awesome and we welcome that, and that's also part of our literacy ecosystem, like I was saying, where we learn from the questions that y'all are asking. When it comes to the business community for workforce development, what are the projects, what are the things that Mount Pleasant is working on? What is the workforce needs that are needed? And we want to make sure that we can help develop the workforce of Mount Pleasant with the resources. So if you are working on a project, we're learning from you too, so please come to us. We're happy to be your beta test.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. Now, is there a certain way to get in touch with the? I'm sorry when you go? I know you mentioned before you went online you could go to the resources and stuff, but sharing these ideas.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:What's the best way for our businesses to do that?
Speaker 3:If a business has an idea or would like to be part of a panel or host a program or things, just go to your local branch Mount Pleasant and Wando. You know Village because it's small. They do host some programs but you know the logical choice would be Wando or Mount Pleasant and that's where we get a lot of our best programs. They come directly from the community. We get our local authors there. We will get wonderful panels there for you. People come and talk about emerging trends or just topics of mind and usually if one person is interested we can find several people interested. And you know we're happy to facilitate, we're happy to, um, you know, help set it up and we we love having that sort of resource locally.
Speaker 2:Do you have? Do you send out, e-newsletters? Can somebody get on that mailing list, like for me? That would be interesting for me to know if something popped up in my inbox to say, okay, you're having a book signing or you're looking for a panelist, we do have an e-newsletter and you can subscribe through our website.
Speaker 3:We're really careful with that because, you know right, lots of times email gets, like you know, noisy and I I delete so much email whenever I get it from a company. So we're really strategic with how we do that. But we can do it um by preferred audience and also by preferred branch.
Speaker 3:So if you said you know my preferred branch is wando, we can send out, you know, eblast to the people that said the wando is their home library. We don't do that often often, but like if we have an author coming or if we have, you know, a high profile, something we want to make sure people are coming to that Somewhere to keep in touch if somebody wants to get that update.
Speaker 3:Yes, and whenever you sign up for a library card, you can leave, opt out at any time. We're not, we're not going to spam you if you don't want us?
Speaker 1:are you guys on social media?
Speaker 3:yes, yes, we are that. We have facebook, we have instagram and we um have a wonderful podcast with dr nick butler, um, who is a local historian, and it's called the charleston time machine, and so we also have a podcast for that, so maybe we need to have him on too, you should have dr nick butler.
Speaker 2:He is a wonderful mike, write, write that down.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Nick Butler, local historian.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of history about Pleasant too. I'm learning so much. This is awesome.
Speaker 1:I like the books too. I have a question. Question from the audience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're publishing adjacent as I get right now.
Speaker 1:I thought the other day with I really want you to talk about the future. Sure, that was my next question Go ahead, I'm catching up.
Speaker 3:Sure, now looking ahead, ai yeah, I hear a lot of authors all of a sudden. Oh, I could talk a lot about AI, you might have to bring me in.
Speaker 1:So if you could ask a, question Tammy, you ask about AI, and then I'm going to ask the last one.
Speaker 3:The Poe Library is my favorite library. Oh, I love library yeah, the what? The poe library? Yeah, my little bunker branch. I love that branch. It's great, yeah, but it's still fun to go to, so, yeah, how is ai affecting writers?
Speaker 2:I asked my daughter. You know she's out of college and you know, getting back to writing and whatnot. Um, these kids in college or high school, are they going to AI to do their papers? And how does one find that out? But how does that also for somebody that wants to write a book. Are they taking? How's that tracked? Or can they pinpoint that? Oh, this is coming from AI.
Speaker 3:So AI? From a business community standpoint, ai is an emerging technology and we just have to embrace it. It's here, it's actually been here for a long time and it's so funny. Every time there's an emerging technology, someone says well, that's the death of libraries, like that happened with Google and Amazon and Wikipedia. And you know, it's AI. It's like libraries are going to be obsolete?
Speaker 3:It's like no, because people still need people. Ai is interesting. We already have an AI committee where we asked our library team you know we have over 300 staff members who out there on our team is working with AI and what are you doing with it? And we had about 40 people say, hey, I'm working with AI in some capacity. And then we narrowed down the team to about 15 people and they are a think tank and we're asking them how does AI translate to public library services?
Speaker 3:Authors and writers and writing papers for school or business proposals or things like that. You have to be very careful where you are getting your sources, just like anything else. So we are working with folks. If you want to create a business plan, for example, yes, you can go to chat GPT and type in design a business plan for a fledgling business, blah, blah, blah. But it's up to you to go through and tweak it and to give it life. It is just a framework from an author standpoint. Amazon actually came out recently where they had to put a limit for how many people can self-publish books. You could only self-publish three a day. They put a limit on it because, people can churn out.
Speaker 3:People were churning out, I think, a ridiculous number of AI books. It was picture books, it was fiction books, it was anything.
Speaker 1:They were poorly written and Amazon tamped down pretty quickly, so they put the limit on you can self-publish and upload to our self-publishing portal, three books a day, and that's it, which is also absurd when you think about it. It weighs still too many. It is.
Speaker 3:It is the publishing industry has pushed back, and so have authors, and I think that's good. Where AI is getting their data is everything on the internet, and what people are doing and have done is they will upload entire books and poems and historical documents and things online. That's where we get our databases. There are databases out there, and so AI will aggregate whatever is out there, and so if you put a prompt for a book I want to write a children's book about Mount Pleasant at the ocean with an octopus as a main character it will generate that for you.
Speaker 3:And you can say make know, make it rhyme, make it funny, make it sad, make it have a message. You know it will literally calibrate to whatever it is that you want, and the ethics of that is that this isn't really anything new. It is taking and what I like to call Frankensteining whatever's on the internet and making it into something else. But it's not original, only the original is the original. And, yeah, I think it's a good way for fledgling authors to work with a prompt.
Speaker 3:I think if you are starting out in you know writing, or if you're in the business community, you don't have anywhere or any idea how to start writing a business plan. And we you, you know the librarians we will use AI to create things like resumes, like you know. It's a great starting point. Instead of having to find something on Microsoft Office, we can put into chat, gtp, create a resume for an entry-level position in welding or something like that. It will do that for you. But then you need to go back and you need to add what your experience is and things like that, and it will pull up. It's helpful because it pulls up trends. It pulls up you know how resumes are structured and things like that it's very, very helpful. It's very real time, which is good, but then, beyond that, like you can't just print out what it gives you because it's not going to actually reflect you, it's going to be whatever the snapshot is, that it pulled from the internet, which is not an accurate snapshot.
Speaker 1:There's so much going on.
Speaker 3:There's so much going on.
Speaker 1:I mean, I can't even. Isn't it great that a librarian is embracing AI? Oh yeah, Well, we have to. Like she said yeah, no, no, yeah. Can you say something?
Speaker 3:about that fact, and then that's great. And then what does the future look like for? Yeah, for the business community? One thing that we have talked about is the equity of AI. You can pay for services. There's chat, gpt, and then there's like the paid version of it. So here's how they're going to hook you. It's how they do it. With anything, any technology, they're always going to have a free version, and so the free version is the one the general public will use. But then they will have a subscription service where the AI can do more modifications for you and maybe they have exclusive content that's generated by whatever the company is, so there's no copyright issue and things like that.
Speaker 3:What libraries are doing and what we're doing here locally is we're seeing. You know what is the value. We will buy the subscriptions ourselves and we will beta test it to see is this subscription worth it? Will we recommend it to a patron? Because we don't want to tell a patron, hey, you should buy this and we haven't actually used it. So you know you can. I recommend using the free stuff all day long and see what they have. I would be very dubious about buying a subscription for any AI service right now, because it's just so new and they're just kind of throwing. It's like spaghetti. They're throwing whatever they can at the wall to see what sticks.
Speaker 1:I get an email every other day about buying a subscription.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, yeah. And then what about the people that can't afford that? There are no institutional memberships for AI yet, but there will be, because they're going to want our money too, and so they will have those available for us, and then at some point, we'll buy them and then we'll have them for the general public. That's what I predict From the business community. I suggest you just embrace it, get out there, play with it. Get out there, play with it. Don't be afraid of it.
Speaker 3:I think it's great for fledgling businesses, but also for established businesses, because this is where your patron base, where your people are going to come with the skill set and also your customers are going to ask about it. I think it's important to have standards for yourself. We have industry standards, and so I think businesses need to have standards that are ethical, that you know. If they use AI, they need to say you know, we have a generator, we beta tested this, but we actually created the content ourselves. Or you know, no, we don't use AI. Here's the reason why you know things like that. But I think that businesses need to take a very proactive stance on it and become knowledgeable with it. And yes, come to the library and we will absolutely workshop with you. We're workshopping now and we're very interested to see how businesses are using it and how we can help translate that to the public space. That's amazing.
Speaker 1:That's absolutely amazing. I mean seriously, it is scary. It is scary On one hand right, but then, coming from someone who has to write a lot, sometimes it. You know I don't like to use the word cheating because it's not really cheating, because I will never just copy and paste something, yeah, yeah, I always have to make it, but I mean I've used it.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, I've used it.
Speaker 1:But I don't want to read a book written from it either Right and you can tell.
Speaker 3:Here's the thing that you can tell. Now I have a feeling AI is going to get more sophisticated and it will probably get harder and harder.
Speaker 1:That's when I might get scared.
Speaker 3:But there are programs, and I, of course, cannot think of any right now, but there are authenticator programs and that's how schools handle it and, from a school standpoint, we are taking the proactive stance where we're teaching kids about research, that AI is another tool for authentic research. Yes, you can use AI to generate your research paper. However, you need to go back and do the work, like maybe it helps you rework a paragraph that you're struggling with and maybe it helps you sound more coherent and succinct, because a lot of people are very wordy, and perhaps it helps with editing. I think that that can be a very good service with AI, but it shouldn't be generating your papers, seniors, or anything else. I've had library teammates tell me that they use it for emails because they will write an email and they think you know, like how can I make this shorter? How can I sound?
Speaker 1:more professional, Right, and I agree with that. Yes, I totally. Sometimes I'm like I said, you know this, this email is definitely way too long, oh yeah, yeah, and with AI, AI will do whatever you tell it to do.
Speaker 3:So if you tell it to make yourself sound funny or warm, or you know, say, have a warm tone or professional tone or stern tone or things like that, AI will do that for you. So I think it's, you know, part of the business world. Now I think you shouldn't make it forbidden. If you're a business owner, you shouldn't say you know well, no, my employees cannot use AI to write emails. We actually have internal standards that we're working on to give our staff parameters. Hey, you can use AI to write emails, but you have to proofread.
Speaker 3:You have to make sure it's accurate, please do not send out anything, and if you're not sure, have a manager or someone check it before you send out. So that's and I. I have my marketing department read everything before I send it out to the general public. It's the same thing.
Speaker 1:I am. I honestly, I've learned so much more about the library system. I mean seriously. I guess that you know I, I love it. I've had. The first thing I did was my library card. I love to read. I had. I knew you offered things.
Speaker 3:I mean, I'm not.
Speaker 1:I don't live in a closet but the I did not know to the extent of the things that my friends and their kids can do, my friends with their teens and the babies what these are. Local businesses. Again, you know this is a chamber podcast. We support business east of the Cooper. Listen to all these things that Angela just told you that you could do with a library card and so unbelievably helpful.
Speaker 1:Before we leave, I do want to do something kind of personal because I need some suggestions for our listeners oh boy, I'm going to start, but I'd love to hear from the two of you what's the best book you've read in the last couple years, or what your favorite book is. I could go on forever, but what I've read recently that made the biggest impact I reread the ending chapter, I think, six times, and cried still every time was, uh, remarkably bright creatures by shelby vanelt I believe her name is One of the best books I have ever read in my entire lifetime.
Speaker 1:Don't, if you pick it up and read the back of it, do not say I'm not reading a book about an octopus. I am telling you it's one of the best books I've ever read. Tammy, I want to hear yours next.
Speaker 2:Oh God, and I read so many, so I'm like you that I may not remember the author. There's one that stood out to you Flick in the Dark.
Speaker 3:That's a good one.
Speaker 2:That would be Stacey Willingham where I need to come to my book club. I know, you know, and then you forget because you read so many right, so I wish you had me think about that before we did this today.
Speaker 1:I didn't want you to think I know why. Did you want to see what popped into your head? That one just stays with me for some reason. Um, it's okay, you only need to do one, that's it. That's good. Okay, angela, I'm I'm dying to hear yours. Well, I write this down for me well, it's, it's.
Speaker 3:It's one of my favorites in many waters by madeline lingle anything by madeline lingle. You know she wrote um A Wrinkle in Time, so everyone knows that book. But Minnie Waters is one of her later books and I've read all of her books. But yeah, that's one that I read as a kid and I read it over and over again. I read to my children. Recently my daughter is 12, my son is 10 and we read it and, um, they haven't made it into a movie yet. I'm so happy.
Speaker 3:I hope they never do but, yeah, it is one of my all-time favorites. And then I have listened to the audiobook of Remarkably Bright Creatures and they had a multicast recording and so the voice of the octopus was fantastic. So, if you want to listen to a really, really quirky book about an octopus, it's amazing, but it's very, very heartfelt. I highly recommend that book.
Speaker 1:I cried six times. I read the ending six times and I cried each time. I did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, maybe I will listen to that you should.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've got to listen to that one, we've got it, we've got angela, go ahead and give our listeners um the website again, um who to follow on instagram, facebook and any last uh bits of recommendations to our mount pleasant businesses well, our website is ccplorg.
Speaker 3:You can find us on Facebook at the Charleston County Public Library, and then our Instagram handle is chascolibrary C-H-A-S-C-O library, and we're also on Twitter, which is now X.
Speaker 1:It will always be Twitter.
Speaker 3:Yes, I think so. But yeah, please come to the public library. You know we have three beautiful libraries at Mount Pleasant, but you know we have lots of other libraries too around Charleston County and all are welcome. We're just so happy to be here.
Speaker 1:Angela, really I cannot thank you enough for being here. Tammy and I had so much fun, we're probably going to talk about this for weeks to come about all these books that we need to read.
Speaker 2:And it's free, it's all free.
Speaker 1:Your taxpayers are working, thank you so very much for leading this amazing institution. Before we leave, I'd also like to thank my friend Brian and Charleston Radio Group and, of course, everyone at the Mount Pleasant Chamber of Commerce. If you'd like to be a sponsor of our podcast or be a guest on our show, just feel free to reach out to us and we'll get back to you and make sure that you like and subscribe and download all of our podcasts. We'll be on Spotify, itunes, youtube, instagram, facebook and LinkedIn. Thank you for being with us today and until next time, mount Pleasant. Until next time, listeners listeners.
