E-Read Texas Overview - Transcript October 16, 2024 Hello, and welcome to this overview of the E-Read Texas program. My name is Karen McElfresh, and I am the resource sharing projects coordinator at the Texas State Library and Archives Commission, also known as TSLAC. With me today is Jesse Wilson from Baker and Taylor, and she is the point person for the E-Read Texas program on the Baker and Taylor side, and you'll be hearing from Jesse a little bit later. So before we get into the content of this session. I want to let you know that you can download the slides that you will see throughout the presentation. You can open the description box on the Youtube video, and you will see a link there. Or you can type in this bitly link that you see on the screen in today's session. We're going to talk about how the E-Read Texas program works. I will tell you about the E-Read Texas collection and what sort of materials you'll receive. Jesse is going to give you an overview of the Boundless app and a quick little demo. Then we'll talk about how you can get started and join the program. If you decide that you want to join and we'll talk about the help and support that are available once you're live in the program Starting out E-Read Texas is an ebook program for small to medium-sized public libraries. The goal of the program is to help you offer ebooks to your patrons. 9 So it's meant for libraries that don't have any ebooks at all. This is a way to help you get started, or even if you already have ebooks, but maybe you just not not a very big collection, or just you know, you're struggling a little bit to maintain an ebook collection. This is a way to help supplement what you're doing. 10 It is a separate program from TexShare. I just like to point that out so that you know you do have to opt into E-Read Texas, just because you're in TexShare, doesn't put you in this program and vice versa. 11 And as of the recording of this webinar in October 2024, we have 190 libraries participating across the state. 12 There are 2 parts to the program, or 2 things that you get with the program. The 1st is access to an ebook and audiobook collection of roughly 20,000 titles. And I'm going to explain more about that collection in just a minute. 13 and then the other thing is access to the Boundless mobile app. And this is where Baker and Taylor comes into the to the picture. So, TSLAC, we have a contract with Baker and Taylor to 14 use their Boundless mobile app. That's the app that patrons use to access the ebooks and audiobooks. It's also where we purchase all of our content. 15 That app is available for Apple and Android devices as well as Kindle Fire devices, and there is also a web interface for people that don't have a smart device. 16 You are eligible to join the E-Read Texas program. If you are a public library and you serve a community of no more than 100,000 people. 17 That population figure comes from the public libraries annual report. That is an annual process, that all public libraries in the state we encourage you to go through hopefully. You're at least somewhat familiar with the annual report process. 18 But when that data that you submit is processed. We also calculate a service population for your library. So that is the number that I'm looking at to determine if you're under 100,000. 19 If you are, you should be eligible. 20 If your population served is over 100,000 people, you might be eligible, depending on what your electronic collection expenditures are. If those are under $100,000 a year, you would also be eligible. 21 There's not a lot of libraries that qualify in this second category here, but 22 if and most of the ones that do, or I think there's about a dozen that have not already joined, that are still eligible under this second criteria in here. 23 In any case, no matter where you fit in, you must submit an annual report to TSLAC each year. So if you don't have a current annual report on file from the last cycle, you are not eligible to join. Also, once you join the program, you still have to submit that and the report to us each year. We do allow you to miss one year, because because we know things happen, you know. Sometimes circumstances outside of your control prevent you from submitting the report, so you can miss one year. But the second year in a row that we don't get a report from you, we will have to remove you from the program. You do not have to be accredited. The annual report process also determines if you get accredited for the E-Read Texas program. Specifically, we do not require accreditation. Many other programs at TSLAC do, so we always encourage accreditation. We hope that you can meet that standard. But for this program you do not have to be accredited. There is no cost for this program for your library. So if you meet the criteria, you're eligible, you can join all the content is purchased by TSLAC. We also provide the Boundless app for you. There is no platform fee that you have to pay. There's also no minimum spend that you need to meet, which maybe is a little different from other consortial ebook programs that you've looked at. But this one. Everything is provided for you. The funding for the program comes from our grants to states funding that Texas receives from the Institute of Museum and Library Services or the IMLS. You do have the option, and I want to stress that this is optional. You can open an account with Baker and Taylor to purchase materials, those materials would solely be for your library patrons. This is something. If you join the program and you're happy with Boundless, and maybe you just have a little extra money that you could buy some books with. You are welcome to pursue this option. It's a pretty good offer, because you don't have to pay a platform fee you're already covered, based on your E-Read Texas participation. and then you would also get a 5% discount on any content that you purchase. So just something to keep in mind. I wouldn't worry about this right now. I would just focus on getting into the program and getting started, and then, if you decide you want to pursue this, you can contact Baker and Taylor, and they will let you know the next steps to open one of these accounts. So let's talk about the E-Read Texas collection and the scope of the collection. It's meant to complement collections maintained in small and medium sized public libraries in Texas. So what you see in the collection should be pretty much in keeping with the types of materials that you collect in your library. Whether that's in print or electronically, it is meant to be a supplement, though it is not meant to replace your need to buy materials locally, or, you know, be your sole source of content. It's most. It's meant to be a supplement alongside whatever you're doing at your library. It is mostly adult fiction and popular nonfiction. We do purchase young adult materials, but by and large we do not purchase any children's materials or juvenile materials. Certainly we don't purchase picture books, or any easy readers, or anything like that. There is a collection development policy that you can look at if you're interested. It is on our website. I've put the link here on the slide. We, TSLAC is ultimately responsible for all collection decisions. We do have support and input from a working group. There are 6 public librarians on that working group that come from different parts of the state. They participate in the program. They help us out usually with special projects is when I call upon the working group. But anything that they recommend it's still up to TSLAC to make the final decision. If those titles are going to be purchased. You can view the title list for the collection on our website as well. The collections tab. The link is here on the slide. We have roughly 20,000 titles in the E-Read Texas program. The exact number is kind of hard to pin down because we do add titles regularly as you see here. It says 20,000 titles, and growing just to convey that we this is an active collection. We do add new titles almost weekly. I'm trying to get us on a weekly schedule, but certainly a couple times a month. We do add new titles, but that also means titles expire out of the collection. I'll talk a little bit more about this in a minute, but usually ebooks have some sort of limited time that that comes with them. So titles do come in and come out. So that's why the number tends to fluctuate. But we generally hover roughly around 20,000 titles. Actually, I think we're slightly under right at the moment, but but that's a general guideline is 20,000. We try to license a wide variety of material, so that includes award winning books like the Pulitzer, the national book award those bigger prizes as well as local awards, or even things like the Texas Library Association. They publish several lists ahead of the annual conference. So, like the Lariat list, which is the adult fiction one. We always purchase all the titles on that list. We also have young adult fiction. The young adult fiction, we have, I would say, is on the older side of young adult, more of the like 15 to 18 range, you know, high school age and getting into that crossover category of young adult that adults also like to read also the new adult genre. We've also purchased those materials as well. We have all types of genre fiction. So mysteries, romance, western sci-fi, all of that sort of thing are popular nonfiction. This is going to match what you have in your nonfiction section. So gardening as you see here on the slide, cookbooks, travel, politics, history, the biographies are. Those are always really popular. So so all that. Lots of good stuff there and then. The last one is popular fiction. popular fiction, I mean those New York Times bestsellers, Amazon charts, those BookTok kind of picks, or just those authors that are always really popular. Stephen King, James Patterson, Danielle Steel. Those kinds of authors. Also the choices, for, like the celebrity book clubs, we do purchase those some limitations there, though, are just how fast we're able to get something into the collection. I do as I said, try to purchase weekly, but it might take more than a week. 58 00:10:41.690 --> 00:10:52.970 you know, if a book is published today. It's not going to show up today in the collection. It's probably going to take a few days, maybe even a week or so. But you know, we try to get them as quickly as we can. The other limitation is just copies, and I'll talk about copies more in a minute. But you know, just like any other library. We're somewhat limited in how many copies we can buy. So there could be wait times for those really popular materials we have content from over a hundred publishers, including all of the Big 5 publishers, which are the ones kind of across the tops, like Penguin, Simon and Schuster HarperCollins. And then we also purchase from smaller publishers. So, and it's certainly any local Texas specific publishers we always are happy to purchase from. So you see, some of those on the bottom right corner, including some university presses that we like to purchase from. These next few slides just have some cover images of different books in the collection, just to give you a sense of what sort of material you're going to see hopefully, some things kind of jump out at you, of books that you're familiar with, or ones you know your patrons have liked reading. As I said, we do purchase a lot of the big authors like we have James Patterson here, David Baldacci, Colleen Hoover is really popular. Some of these have also been turned into TV series. Recently, we have a couple of the like. Read with Jenna the Good Morning America Book Club picks on here. We also have over here at the top, right, like some cozy mysteries, clean romance we've got here, Charles Dickens. So we have a lot of the classics in the collection. And then also here, Lonesome Dove. That is a Texas author. So certainly we like to buy any Texas authors that we can find, or really just books that are about Texas or set in Texas. I always try to get those Moving to nonfiction. It's history, biographies, personal finance, this one Texas obscurities. This is one of many books that we have from Arcadia Press, and they publish these. They're generally fairly small volumes on like local histories. Or, you know, specific places in Texas, a historical building, a person. So we have a lot of those you may have seen these books. I usually see them in the in the grocery store, like in the checkout aisle, or like in a Walgreens. You know, they have these on a display. So we have quite a few of those we have some travel books. Cookbooks are always pretty popular. We have here this quilting book that is, from the publisher Annie's, and we have a lot of their materials. We have a large collection, so there's crafting books on knitting, crochet, quilting lots of different things. And then we have, like self-help, you know, personal habits, kind of books, true crime. You know all sorts of things Moving on. We have audiobooks. So for the audiobooks, they we generally buy both formats. So if we're going to buy the ebook, we buy the audiobook. It's not a perfect one to one. Sometimes there's reasons why we might buy just the ebook or just the audiobook. but typically we buy both. so you can find, you know, both options available. They follow the same, we follow the same parameters for audiobook purchases. It is popular fiction or adult fiction and popular nonfiction. Some young adult, the same criteria applies when we're selecting audiobooks. a couple of things I'll point out here we have this Agatha Christie, one that represents many, many titles we have from Agatha Christie in audio format, and they're always really popular, especially around this time of year. There's some Halloween themed ones that people really like to read. But we also have many of the other classic books like classic literature, Jane Austen, Thomas Hardy, Charles Dickens. Those types of authors in audio format, and people seem to really like listening to those audio books. and then the last one here on the bottom, the Spanish survival phrases. That is one of many books that we have from a language learning collection. So there are many languages, not just Spanish. We have Hungarian, we have Italian, we have Mandarin, Japanese, lots of things. There's also a set for learning English. So if you have any English language learners, those audio books might be beneficial to them. I will mention so, since we're talking about audiobooks, the audiobooks are pretty popular, and I think a lot of libraries, This has been more of their incentive to join is to get the audiobook collection more so than the ebooks, and also, I think, patrons. Some patrons that maybe are hesitant to start reading ebooks don't really have that hesitation with audiobooks, so this can be a good way in with them. To help them start using the Boundless app is to promote the audio books, but they do tend to be more popular. The wait times are usually a little longer for audio just to warn you about that. We also have some Spanish language content in the collection. This is a fairly small collection. It is a work in progress. It is something I'm going to focus on in the future, trying to do another big like Spanish Language collection project working with our working group members. But we have roughly, I think it's maybe 600 titles in Spanish. I would love to keep building that, and if you have any, you know particular interest in Spanish language, content for your patrons. I would love to hear from you and know kind of what specifically you're looking for. If you want to help with developing the collection. I'm always happy to get help on the Spanish language content. But we do have a lot of classic literature. So these titles are a little grainy. But this is Jane Austen here, and then the bottom one is Don Quixote, so English language, or just non-Spanish language classics translated into Spanish also things originally written in Spanish. the same thing with more modern authors. We try to collect both popular materials translated into English, like you see here the Frida McFadden and Emily Henry books, as well as books by Spanish and Latin American authors originally written in Spanish. So I want to mention license models. If you already buy ebooks and audiobooks. You're gonna know you'd be familiar with what I'm about to talk about. But if you don't buy them, just so, you know that ebooks and audiobooks are sold with a license that controls how you can use that book. 93 00:17:43.530 --> 00:18:00.709 There are a couple access models that you'll see. The most common are the one and 2 year licenses. So the way that works is you buy the book. You have it for that amount of time. Once the time is up, the book expires, and if you want to still have that in your collection, you have to buy another one. There's also metered access is a fairly popular model. In that one you have a certain number of checkouts that you can use. It's usually 26. Once you use all 26 same thing. The book expires, and you have to buy another one. There's also perpetual content. That is our preferred model. A lot of audiobooks tend to be sold perpetually ebooks, maybe not so much. Occasionally you get them, but those you have them. As long as you want, just like a print book, you have it until you decide to weed it from your collection. and then occasionally we come across open access. That is, it's just freely available. But usually I only see that when it's something that's out of copyright, and a lot of like classic literature is out of copyright. So that's usually when when we purchase open act, or when we get open access material in all the cases except open access. There are going to be one user at a time. We do have out of those 20,000 titles in the collection. There's about 3,000 that are unlimited, simultaneous users, but everything else is going to be one user at a time. And that is just that is the way the publisher sells them. Unfortunately, you know, we would love to get multi user. But that is not the way they are sold. and I will talk about copies on the next slide. The titles are only available in Boundless. So you do have to use the Boundless app to access any of the content in the E-Read Texas program. We can't put it in your Libby or your Cloud Library, or something else that you already use at your library. It would be a separate app that you need to offer to your patrons. and then we have catalog records for the content depending on the ILS or the catalog system that you use. If you use Apollo, we can definitely do it. We can get those records in. It's a pretty simple process. possibly. Koha, I think we're getting close on Koha. I'm still working with the library to test that one. But if you use any other system, we would need to work with your ILS vendor to see if we can get it to work. I'm happy to do that, but it's just we'd have to. We'll have to work on it. Okay? So in terms of copies and holds, I've alluded to this many times, we're finally here. So our preferred model would be to do perpetual access, unlimited, simultaneous users. But, as I've said, that's not up to us. That's something the publisher determines how they want to sell their book. So we have to buy what is offered to us. So that means most things are going to be one user at a time. So we do purchase additional copies when we need to. So our initial copies. This is always a little bit in flux. But up to this point we generally just buy one book. We've actually kind of tried all different ways of doing this. But I've settled on just starting with one copy, and then we see what the use is. So unless I know it's a really popular author from you know, past books that they've published. In that case I would start with more copies, 2, 3 copies, and then again monitor for holds so. and you know. But if it's a debut author or something brand new for our collection. We just would buy one. And then I look at the holds usually every day, certainly a couple times a week. I look at holds. and once we get to roughly 6 holds per copy, that is, when I would consider purchasing another one for the collection. Generally we just buy another one. There are some factors that I consider with that just the cost of the book. How recently it was published, you know. So there is a little bit of a determination, but usually we can buy another copy. So all of this to say, there are going to be wait times on books in this collection, but the wait time should be pretty reasonable, because we like to keep it to 6 holds per copy at a maximum, so that you know, you shouldn't be waiting months and months and months for anything in our collection. But it's not. Unfortunately, it's not just going to be. Everything's available all the time there are going to be things with with wait times. We are in a pretty good spot, though budget-wise to to respond to demand and order extra copies of things when we need to. So I don't want you to be overly concerned about wait times. But I just want to be realistic to let you know that those really popular books that are just. Everybody wants to read them right now. You know, we have a wait list, just like any other library. The last thing that I will mention about the collection is that you do have some control over the content and the way that it appears to your users. So Jesse is about to talk to you about Boundless. So this is just a preview here on the right side of the screen. This is a screenshot of Boundless on an iPad. So you see here that you have these like collections, lists, fiction, nonfiction, and if you were to scroll down, you would see more more things. So you can curate these. You can add other lists if you want to. So if you wanted to do a featured list of like staff picks or award winners, or you know, it's the holidays coming up. You wanted to do like Christmas themed books. You could make that list and add that in and show that to your users you can also do a list of titles available now. So if you wanted to make it really easy for people to open it and find something they can check out and read right away. You could do that. So that's one way you have to control the collection. The others are more related to content, and how it, who sees wha. So Jesse will explain about the profiles. But you could scope the titles, so that if you see something that it, the publisher has classified it as a young adult title. But maybe you feel more like, actually, I think that's more of an adult title. We'd rather rather that not show on the teen profile. You could make that type of change through the scoping process. So that entire series, the author, just one specific book. You can change it. You can also hide titles for your library if you want to do that. If there's something you you don't want to have in your your collection, you don't want your users to see it. You're able to hide that as well. And in all these cases any changes that you make here, they are only for your library. So it doesn't impact anybody. Any other library in the program and what they see. It's just something for your library. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Jesse, and she's going to give you a demo of Boundless. Good afternoon. Everyone. This is Jesse Wilson. I'm the digital CSM customer success manager with Baker and Taylor. And I'm just gonna give you a quick demo of our Boundless app. So a little bit about Boundless. this application actually can be found in your app store or in your Google play store. So anywhere that you can actually download an application, any type of device that you can download an application on, you can get this app. So, for example, any apple device, ipads, tablets. Also the kindle fires that allow apps on there. Unfortunately, you cannot use this app on a kindle paperwhite because they don't use apps. There is a reader out there that is an E-reader, called Books that does allow applications, and you could put it on there so definitely. Look around and see what other devices are out there. And you can get this from one of the stores that you see listed here. You can also use this on your laptop computer, desktop computer. What have you? There is a website that you can go to that. Your library will have to get to all of its content as well. So your patrons can actually read online that way when you download your application. you're gonna want to go in and search for your library. So, for example, if you are in Smith County. that is what you're looking for, instead of looking for individual branches. It's your entire group of libraries there, and all you're going to need is a library card to log in. If you have it set up for most of your reading apps. Right now that you use a password, we do have that option to password protect as well. Once your patron goes in and downloads their application, they can set up different profiles, and the profiles are in 3 different tiers. So the 1st one is your general profile, which is the full collection. your teen profile, which has ages 18 and under scoped. 19 and then your kid profile, which is showing content for ages 11, and under 20 each library card can have up to 5 profiles like you see on the screen here with my wonderful family, the general profile that has the star on there, that is the main profile. So if you only want to use one profile, you just use that profile. If you want to put your kids on there feel free to do that as well. Each profile has a set of allowances so that they can customize their experience. So, for example, here on my profile. I have my own picture, a display name, my email address, which is used for holds, notifications. Anything that I might get from a regular reading application, so I can know what's going on. It shows my library information, including checkout and hold limits my library card. It also shows which account I'm in. So in this case I was in TSLAC staff. and then down at the bottom. It gives me an option to customize the app to what I want for my experience. So I can have email notifications, my checkout history, insights and badges which I'm gonna show you in just a minute what that is, I can also set my shelf as my homepage. In this case. I don't have that set that way because I like going to the library webpage 1st instead of to my shelf homepage. I can also add a little bit of privacy to my profile by having pins on there, so I can actually set this up and put a PIN on there and then. I know that nobody else in my family can get into my profile, so if I don't want little Naya to read anything in the adult section. I can pass off my device and put Naya in her profile, and that way she'll only see ages 11, and under under, and she won't be able to see the general profile information. I know, I said. I like to start with the library page with my personal experience. But in this case we're going to actually start from the left and move over to the right with the application. And what you're seeing here will also mimic what you will see on a website. The big difference is that on the app everything is right in front of you, whereas for the website, everything would be on the page, and then in a hamburger drop down menu on the page as well. So on this Boundless my shelf you have your search bar to search for your titles authors, subjects. What have you? A checkout area that shows you how many checkouts holds? Wish list downloads that you have on your app currently. your goals and insights and badges. This area just sort of is a way to gamify your experience with the application. So you can keep up with your reading goals for the month for the year that away. You know how you're doing, especially if you have reading goals for kids. That's a good one to use. The little badges are there to just give you a great pat on the back for doing so. Well. So, for example, you had your 1st program or your 1st checkout, and you got a little badge for that underneath. That is, you're currently checked out. It will show you everything that you have ready to read or listen to there, that you could just click on for easy access to start to enjoy your experience Then down at the bottom, you have your programs that we're going to come back to in just a moment. and finally your main navigation bar. So the my shelf is what we're seeing here. The second one over is your library page, and on your library page again. This is where you can go and do a lot of your searching, your browsing especially if you're a user or patron that likes to do a lot of browsing. This is where you can go and do that. Your main library page, whether it's on the website or on the app, is where you can go in and set up featured lists that Karen mentioned earlier. These are lists that highlight experiences in your libraries or collections that you might want to highlight for the month for the year. What have you? So, for example, if you are doing a book club, or a special holiday edition of something or a special program in your library. You can use this to put that information into a featured list for people to come and click on the books related to that, and enjoy a reading experience comparable to what you were doing in the library. You can also use this to do basic browsing. as you see here, here's a nonfiction area. They could just sort of flip through that. They can see all and flip through those as well. Next to the library, though, is your browsing area, where you go in and browse for a title. So here you can see the entire collection. In this case there's over 15,000 items in the TSLAC collection. and on this page, on the browse, with the little eyeball there you can also refine your searches so you can look for availability like available. Now your format ebook e-audio age, level language when it was released, and even look through various subjects. So, for example, I could go in and look for a business book on management, and find that in the subject list there. When you check your items out from your my shelf page, you click on that item to actually start reading or listening. You have a couple of different options with your reader and your player. So when you're reading. you have the option to change your font size 61 the way that the page is laid out. So some people like to have 2 pages instead of one, depending on the device that they're on. The pictures you see here are actually from my iphone. So it's gonna be a little skinny looking because of that. If this was on my iPad, I might want to have a double layout. So you have that option to flip that around. 62 You can also add different themes. So. for example, I personally like dark mode. I know that's not being shown here. It's actually the gray background. That's there for just easier to view slides. But I personally use dark mode for everything. So you can do that option here. And also, finally. 64 I like to make my font super big if I needed to. I can also turn on dyslexic font as well. 66 0 The other options in the reader 67 is an AI generated option to play that works with all chapter books 68 you can change. Who's reading to you? 69 You can bookmark a title, take notes, search for terms in a book. 70 and also get some help from our wonderful walkthroughs. 71 Finally, our player is a lot like what you would expect an audio book player to be. You have your stopping and starting, button, your forward button your back button that takes you between chapters. 72 You could go forward or backward 30 seconds at a time, so that you can go back and listen again. If you miss something. 73 change your audio. 74 also change your audio for the person reading, so if you like to listen to it a little faster than one time speed. Maybe you like 1.2 5 speed for this book. You can change that. A sleep timer and also a menu to go through and choose different chapters 75 with the reader and the player. 76 This app holds on to your location, no matter where you are. So you can actually go between a web experience and a 77 portable experience, like on a phone or ipad, or something of that nature, and still keep up with where you are. 78 Next on the menu is the Boundless programs. These programs are a great way to get more patron engagement in your library. So we offer 3 basic programs that you would set up as a library. One is a milestone program. So like 1,000 books for kindergarten. 79 an X out of Y style program, where you would read like 10 out of 20 books, something you could do for summer reading, for example. 80 and also a series in order book so like, for example, if you have a book club series that you read during the year. You could add them to the app, and everyone would have to read one after the other in order to meet the requirements of the program 81 on the application. This is where you would see those programs where you can add a new one, or you can see no other open programs. So here you see that there's no extra programs. I've already joined everything I could for right now you can set the programs up and the featured list up to open and close at specific times of a year. 82 so that you can automate this system for your patrons as well. It's a really cool system to use to gain extra engagement. 83 Finally, you have the menu 84 tab and this tab, this little hamburger menu icon. This is where you can go in and change your profile settings, set up some preferences. But the big thing about this area that I like are the help and the send feedback areas. 85 So the great thing about Boundless is that we have put together an entire walkthrough of the application that is user friendly. So when you tap on that help area, you can find answers to some of the questions that you've been asking. 86 If you have someone who didn't find the answer that they needed. They could always send a feedback note to us. 87 and with this send feedback you can go in and report a bug. So let's say, for example. Oh, no. 88 I was in the middle of reading a book, and something messed up with 89 the book. You can send that into support. You can give a suggestion or give us comments and feedback in general. 90 The great thing about this is that once you give us your email address and you leave these comments for us, it goes straight to Baker and Taylor 91 for support. 92 so we will then turn around and contact your patrons personally. So you don't have to in a lot of ways and get that extra level of one on one experiencing good support feedback, so that we can get your patrons fixed as quickly as possible. 93 Thank you, Jesse. So now I'm gonna talk about how you can join the program. Hopefully, you liked what you've heard so far, and you are interested in joining so to do that, or before we get into the the specifics. I want to kind of explain how everything fits together. Now that you've heard from me, and that you've heard from Jesse. 94 So what TSLAC does with this program is we develop and maintain the collection of titles as I showed you. 95 we purchase all the content. We select all the content. We also provide the financial support for the program. So all of the funding comes from TSLAC and our grant from the IMLS. 96 And then we also set the program policies and the structure of the program. So what libraries can join, how just kind of how everything works, how you, how you join, how you become eligible as well as what vendor we work with. So right now that vendor is Baker and Taylor. 97 and what they do is they provide the Boundless app that is their app that they developed. They maintain it. They will be the ones to fix any problems with Boundless, or add any new features, that all is the responsibility of Baker and Taylor. 98 They also do the implementation and the training for any new library that joins the program. 99 And then they're also your tech support. As Jesse showed you the different ways that you can get help. They are there for you, if you run into any problems. 100 and then what your library does. So 1st and foremost, you promote the program to your patrons. This is probably your number one job, if you participate in this program, is to make sure people use it. So if you're going to join, that's sort of the expectation is that this is something you're going to let your patrons know about, because if it just, it's just kind of there, and you never tell anybody about it. It's not going to get used. And we need to show usage of this program. 101 You will also be the basic tech support for your patrons so kind of getting people started just helping them with any 102 kind of easy to solve problems or just confirming that. Yes, there is something actually wrong here, and we need to report it. But people will come to you first, because that's who they're used to going to. 103 and then, if you would like to do any local customization of Boundless. I briefly touched on this of like creating lists, or doing any scoping or anything like that. Then that would be your library's responsibility to do that. But this is completely optional to do that customization. 104 Also, I want to just explain how Boundless works. And hopefully, this is some good context for you when you start looking at the forms they'll understand a little bit more of what we're trying to do as we're setting you up. 105 Boundless is going to connect to your library catalog system your ILS. 106 So here I'm talking about. You know Apollo, Polaris, Atriuum, Koha, whichever one that you use. That's the system that I'm talking about. 107 So it will be set up so that patrons can sign into Boundless with their existing library accounts from your catalog system. 108 So usually this means it's their library card number. And then whatever kind of password or PIN, or whatever you've set up. 109 So this is that same account that they would use to, you know, renew their book checkouts or placeholds. That's that's the account that I'm talking about. And then this way. We don't have to, you don't have to add any new passwords. Your patron doesn't have to make a new password. It's all already there. 110 and then it also syncs up to any changes. So if a patron has an excessive amount of fines, and that is going to block them from using any services from your library. They would also get blocked and Boundless, so that they can, you know, take care of that problem. 111 All Major ILSes are compatible, and in most cases we're doing. SIP2 authentication. 112 If you don't know what SIP2 authentication is, don't worry about it. I'm just mentioning it in case that does mean something to you. 113 If your system does not allow SIP2, that's okay. We will figure out a way to set you up. There are many options available to us with Baker and Taylor. So no matter what system you use, there's going to be a way to get you in and get this set up for you. 114 So if you're ready to sign up, there are 2 forms that you're going to need to complete, you can download them from the E-Read Texas website on the join tab of the website. 115 there's going to be a box that says, Sign up forms. 116 and then just make sure you read through the forms carefully. There's a lot of instruction within the forms to help you, so just read through them, and if you need help with either form, you can contact me at ebooks@tsl.texas.gov. 117 And I will be happy to help or provide more explanation, or whatever you need. 118 The 1st form is our participation agreement. 119 And you'll see this is the 1st page here, over to the right. 120 This one is a simple kind of just outlines. What it means to participate in the program and some of your responsibilities kind of the terms and conditions of being in this program. 121 So our intention at the State Library. We do not consider this a contract. It is a program or participation agreement. And so our intention is that this can be signed by your library director. 122 most of the libraries in the program. That's who signed it. But if that is not your local policy. 123 if you're you know you're not allowed to sign as the library director. Then just follow whatever your policy is for that sort of thing. And I can, 124 there's gonna be 2 options to sign this, if when you go to the website, so the easiest one is to sign it with Adobe sign, and you'll sign it digitally. It will send you a copy. It will send me a copy, and we're done. 125 But if you're not able to do that if you want to do it the old fashioned way. There's a version where you can download the form, sign it, scan it and email it back to me. 126 So that is form one pretty straightforward 127 Form 2 is the more complicated one. 128 So it is a little bit long. But so it might be a little bit intimidating. But you can do it. Just make sure I would set aside some time to really focus on this one. It really shouldn't take too long to get everything. But you may need to reach out to other people to get through it. I'll find all the information so just know that this one might take you a little bit of time. 129 So it asks for details about your catalog or your ILS, so that we can set up that authentication that I talked to about just a minute ago, so that we can make it so. People can sign in with their library accounts. 130 So a lot of this here on this 1st page is easy. You know the name of your library who you want the contacts to be simple, but as you get into the next page it will ask for, like your server URL, your port things like that. 131 So if you don't know what that is, or you, you know. Maybe 132 you know you know what it is, but you don't know where to find it. Most likely it's going to be your ILS vendor that can help you find that information, and you can contact them and tell them that you're trying to set up 133 an ebook app, and that you need this information for the vendor. 134 they should be able to help you from there. 135 When you go through this form, you'll notice there's these light blue colored boxes. So read through those because I've put a lot of instructions in there and kind of hints, tips whatever to help you understand what you need to do so. So read through that 136 if you use Apollo, there is also an additional document available to you that shows you exactly where to go in Apollo to find all of the required information. So I highly suggest you use that I would use that first. And then, if you need to put in a ticket with Biblionix 137 do that. But the guide should help you with everything you need. 138 and apologies if you'd use something else. Unfortunately, I don't have access to any other system. So I'm not able to offer that same level of instruction for anything other than Apollo. 139 Also part of the form you're going to need to provide some test barcodes and passwords. 140 So I've provided some explanation of that. But if you don't understand what that is, please get in touch with me, and we can talk through it. 141 You will also have the option to add a logo to your Boundless site if you want to, or if you don't have a library logo. Don't worry about it. We will just use the E-Read Texas logo as the default. 142 or maybe you have a logo, but it's you don't have it on hand, or it's not the right size, or the right format, or whatever if that's not something you're able to resolve relatively quickly, and you don't want you don't need to get held up by that. We can always add the logo later on. We can add it to your site at any time, so so don't let that hold you up from getting your your application in. If you're ready to to get going. 143 The other thing about this is, it needs to be typed. This is going to be a word document. So please just type in the word document, and that'll kind of speed up the processing. 144 This form will also get sent back to that same address. ebooks@tsl.texas.gov. 145 Once you have sent in your forms. You can expect it to take 146 2 weeks. Kind of best case scenario to get your site set up. That's assuming that everything on the form is correct, everything is complete. If there's any problems we will contact you, and pretty much the faster you respond to us, the faster we can resolve any issues with your forms, the faster the rest of the process will go. 147 So just make sure to respond promptly. It will either be me or Baker and Taylor, that contacts you of any issues. 148 Once your site is ready, you get an onboarding email, and that's going to have your site details, including your website, your Boundless website, URL, and your administrative site. And we didn't talk too much about admin. But that is where you do look, for. You can pull reports. You can do any customizations and there will be training on that site once you're live, it will also be in the onboarding email. It'll explain how you can set up training, you're likely going to be working with Jesse 149 and having training on the patron app as well as the Boundless administrative interface 150 for technical support. As I said briefly, you're gonna be the 1st line of support for your patrons, because you they know you. They come into your library. They see you. You know they're going to come to you first, 151 and so you should be able to kind of help people get started with this. Help them sign in if they have a problem with their username and password resetting that or whatever needs to be done there. 152 00:25:22.520 --> 00:25:26.019 and just kind of basic training on how they use it. 153 If someone has a problem, you know, we would 154 suggest that you'd kind of walk through it with them and and see what's going on, and if you're able to fix it great if you can't, and you really don't know what to do about that, then you have Baker and Taylor to help you out. There is a 155 form on our website that you can submit tickets to Baker and Taylor, and then there's also the options that Jesse showed to submit feedback in the app. So there's lots of ways to get help from Baker and Taylor. 156 There are also promotional available materials available from TSLAC. As I mentioned your your big job. Your main job in this program is to promote this to your patrons. So we do have tools available to help you do that. There is a media kit. That is what I'd recommend. Any new libraries start with. It's on the promotion page of our website. It has a draft press release. It has template letters to elected officials. 157 social media posts, and then links out to other types of all the other materials that we make available for this program. 158 You can also request printed bookmarks and flyers the image you see here on the slide that is the front of the bookmark. We have these available in English and in Spanish, and we can mail those to you if you want some. 159 And then there's also a full page flyer that is available for printing. We don't ship the full page ones, but you should be able to just print them to regular size paper. 160 Baker and Taylor also has materials available on their website, and I would strongly recommend you look at those. Some of them are customizable, like the bookmark you see here has this little blank spot here in the blue circle. You could put your library logo 161 so you're free to use anything that they make available. All the Boundless Logos are on this site. 162 You can mix and match, you know, if you want to use this, but combine it with something else that you have. You know you're able to do that, whatever kind of works for you and whatever is helpful 163 you're free to do. 164 on an ongoing basis. Once you're in the program. We always need to have a contact on file for your library, a primary contact. We require at least one person. You can have multiple people if you want. If that person changes, let us know as soon as you're able, the primary contact will be subscribed to the E-Read Texas listserv. And then that's also who receives the monthly usage reports 165 With your statistics. 166 TSLAC We continue to develop the collection that you saw about once a week, 2 to 3 times a month we add new titles. I also typically post the title list to our website, so you can easily grab a list of all the new titles that were added. If you're interested in that. 167 and then we offer updates and training webinars about once a quarter, we're just kind of getting this going again, so I don't think we will have anything until early in 2025. But we usually will offer something 168 just kind of. If there's anything new in with Boundless or new in the collection, we'll talk about that, and then maybe cover some some training topics. 169 You are welcome to try out Boundless yourself, if you'd like. I've put the link here. This is the TSLAC staff library, so you won't be able to log into this to check anything out, but you should be able to browse. You should be able to, you know,click around and get a pretty good feel for the Boundless interface, for the web. And the app is basically the same thing, just kind of shrunk down. So if you would like, you can peruse that. 170 Once you're ready to get started again, you're going to go to the website and look at the join page. Look for the sign up form box. 171 You will 172 sign that participation agreement either with adobe sign or print it, sign scan and send it back to me via email. 173 and then also download the attachment or the implementation form, and fill that out in word and return that as an attachment as well. And if you have a logo that you want us to add to your site. You can send that in with your forms as well. 174 So hopefully, we have given you all the information that you need to know. But if you have any questions, or you need something else before you're able to join, if you start working on those forms, and you have any questions, please email me at ebooks@tsl.texas.gov. 175 and we will be happy to help you out. 176 And with that that is the end of our session today, and 177 we hope to hear from you soon.