Our guest speaker today was Bob Egan from the Kitchener Library who was introduced by President Dave.
Bob Eagn is best known for being the Hall of Fame multi-instrumentalist for the Canadian band Blue Rodeo. During his eighteen-year tenure with the group he logged 1,500 shows from Austin to the Arctic Circle and Australia to Afghanistan.
Prior to his career in music, Bob was a management consultant with a Master's degree in Industrial Organizational Psychology, specializing in employee attitude research. He left the business world at age 38 to pursue a career as a musician, touring the world, meeting his heroes, and living his childhood dream. In may of 2014 he was awarded the Governor general's Award for his work with Blue Rodeo and their impact on Canada's cultural life.
In his adopted hometown of Kitchener, Ontario, Bob is known for his guitar repair business, his design of the Modern Audio Arts program for Conestoga College and his guitar charity 100 Guitars for 100 Kids which distributed over 150 guitars in 2016 to youth who could not afford them. In 2016 Bob left Blue Rodeo to join the Kitchener Public Library as manager of Community Development where he is respponsible for working with community partners to close the digital literacy gap and create opportunities to change and enrich lives in the community.
Bob began his presentation by explaining what convinced him to join the library. He was at a meeting with the Library CEO, Mary Cheverau (also in attendance at our meeting) which was suppose to last about 20 minutes but went on for well over an hour and a half. He learned of Mary's vison for the library and he became and immediate supporter, was offered the job of Manager of Community Development and accepted. Bob explained that Mary's vision is to expand the definition of literacy and the role a library plays in supporting it in the community. Her expanded definition of literacy has two main components - digital literacy and creative literacy encompassing music, art and culture.
Like it or not the digital world is here and those who do not learn to deal with it put themselves at a significant disadvantage. The library began proving significant support in the digital world through the Tech Bar (which came about as a retirement project of former mayor, and club member Carl Zehr). In this area patrons can use, learn about and get support for their own digital devices including phones, tablets, computers, GPS devices and more.
Building on the success of the Tech Bar the library has created and is still expanding an area called - Studio Central. This area will provide support in many other digital and creative areas. Some features now or soon to be available include:
- An instrument lending service. There are current 150 musical instruments available for loan sponsored by Sun Life, and due to its huge popularity Sun Life will be donating 50 more.
- There are 4 3-D printers available, and demand is so high jobs can be submitted to run over night.
- They have a Hot Spot lending service - patrons can borrow a device for up to 3 weeks at a time which will provide portable internet connectivity. Over 1,600 borrowings have occurred so far.
- A recent song writers workshop was sold out with 110 participants.
- Two Pod Casting workshops were sold out.
- The area will soon have an Audio and Video Production Area for use by patrons.
- Patrons can not only explore many of the new digital forms of entertainment such as games but will also be able to use tools to develop their own.
- A state of the art Digital Media Lab will also be available.
Bob sees our library as a true gem in the community which had just under 3,000,000 visitors (in branch and online) last year. Patrons are diverse and represent all walks of life, ages, ethnicities and cultural interests.
Other highlights from 2016 include:
- 102,092 members which represents 43% of Kitchener's population.
- 54,217 questions answered by library staff.
- 10,587 volunteer hours contributed.
- 1,735 free programs offered with 60,323 attendees.
- 4,952 diecutting, digital conversion & music production sessions.
- 148,331 computer sessions.
- 536,252 wireless sessions, a 24% increase over the previous year.
- 1,975 people attended 243 tech programs.
- 2,055 children and volunteers participated in Reading Buddies.
- 36,000 kids were enrolled in Children's programs.
- 54 newcomers participate every week in English Conversation Circles.
Bob was thanked by Karen Redman who reminded as all that the purchase of a library card is one of the most cost effective self improvement investments one can make.
