But Who's Counting?

Turning the Page Beyond Traditional Service Offerings with Kristen Sorth of St. Louis County Library

• Anders CPAs + Advisors • Season 3 • Episode 8

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To find success in business, you have to first figure out what your target market wants and respond to it. As society and the technology we depend on changes at breakneck speed, it can be challenging for traditional businesses to keep pace. Breathing new life into a service as timeless and constant as the library takes innovation, grit and the support of the surrounding community to pull off. 

Advancing technology had the potential to make libraries obsolete, but instead brilliant leadership took advantage of new tech to reinvigorate a beloved neighborhood staple. The St. Louis County Library (SLCL) began a revitalization project to strengthen its ties to the community and keep it relevant in their eyes.

Kristen Sorth, director and CEO of SLCL, joined But Who’s Counting? hosts Dave Hartley and Missy Kelley to discuss the innovative approaches SLCL took to keep libraries on the cutting edge rather than a relic from a different time. Kristen, the recipient of the Visionary Award by St. Louis Magazine, explained how the library earned a seat at the community’s table and why she adapted libraries to meet social needs. The discussion also touched on:

  • The innovative programs and partnerships that are having an enormous impact on the community
  • What role technology has played in revitalizing the library
  • The library’s role in advancing digital equity initiatives
  • How they “stood standing” during a crisis and what that meant for the public
  • A unique role the library hired and the difference it’s made for staff

“Make sure that innovation means something to someone other than you. If you spend all your time innovating something that is going to have zero impact on people, then you have wasted a ton of time and money.” – Kristen Sorth

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Narrator:

You're focused on making important decisions to take your company to the next level. But who's counting? We are Counting on trends and insight to move your business forward operationally and strategically, focused on helping executives achieve their highest potential. But who's Counting is a podcast shedding light on and breaking down critical issues and opportunities for businesses Brought to you by Anders, cpas and Advisors.

Missy Kelley:

Hi, I'm Missy Kelly.

Dave Hartley:

And I'm Dave Hartley. On this episode of the but who's Counting podcast. Our guest is Kristen Sorth, the director and CEO of the St Louis County Library Missy. We just wrapped the episode and it was actually a fascinating conversation.

Missy Kelley:

It was, and you know we brought her on the podcast because I started seeing her showing up throughout the community at events but also in news stories and not just Kristen, but the St Louis County Library and I was curious about the role that the library is playing. So once I started digging into it, I was amazed and I really feel like it is an excellent example of innovation. When you think about traditional library and what maybe most people think about when they consider the library and now what they're doing today, it's very innovative.

Dave Hartley:

Yeah, and as I prepped for the episode, I went through the St Louis County Library website and it was amazing some of the things that the library's involved in that I had no idea. And there are tons of business lessons in this one too, because the library is actually a midsize organization 600 employees, 50 plus million dollar budget. So tons of great stuff here. Enjoy the episode.

Missy Kelley:

Kristen Sorth is the director and CEO of the St Louis County Library, a position she has held since November 2013. She is the first woman to lead the library in this capacity. Kristen has been with the SLCL since 1998, starting as the Director of Human Resources and rising through the ranks. Kristen holds a master's degree in public administration from the University of Missouri-Columbia and a master's degree in library and information sciences from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Under her leadership, SLCL has received numerous accolades, including the 2022 National Medal for Museum and Library Service and the 2022 Missouri Library of the Year Award.

Missy Kelley:

Kristen is known for her innovative approach to library services, transforming the St Louis County Library into a hub for community engagement and social services. She manages over 600 employees and oversees an annual budget of more than $50 million. Her efforts have been recognized with several awards, including this year's 2024 Community Changemaker Award from Focus St Louis at their what's Right with the Region event. Welcome, Kristen.

Missy Kelley:

Thank you for having me.

Missy Kelley:

So good to see you. Can you share a little bit about your journey and what inspired you to pursue a career in library sciences. You had the public administration master's in library sciences. So how did that all happen??

Kristen Sorth:

I have a pretty non-traditional path to being a library director. So I was a political science major. I thought I was going to go to law school. I got a job in state government I'm from Jeff City, working for the Department of Economic Development and then I started working in human resources and I loved it and I got a master's of public administration when I was working in state government and then my husband got a job in St Louis. So we moved and I applied for a job at the library as the manager of human resources and I was woefully underqualified and they hired me anyway.

Kristen Sorth:

So I was over HR for many years and then over administration and at some point, I think, I still thought I was going to go back to law school and then I didn't. So our director left and when he left, our board asked if I would step into the role on an interim basis and I said yes because I was already working on a lot of the construction projects. And then they hired me to be the director and then they asked me to go back to library school, because it is not very common to have a director of a public library, especially one as big as the St Louis County Library who is not a librarian? That is very unusual. So I did go back to school in the first couple of years that I was the director. I got my master's degree in library science and I was kind of annoyed that I had to go back to school again but I was really glad I did. I thought kind of through osmosis, I knew everything there was to know about the library but I learned a lot more going to school.

Missy Kelley:

So you didn't grow up thinking someday I want to be like the head librarian.

Kristen Sorth:

No, I don't even think I didn't even know I wanted to be in human resources. You know I was super interested in politics and I thought I was going to do international law and I don't, I don't even. Well, none of it, none of it did I think about. But I do think being in human resources is an important part of my background, because I think people think a lot that libraries are about books and they're really more about people than about books, and so we have people that interview for jobs all the time that when we ask them why they want to work here, they always say because they like to read. And we're like oh no, everyone likes to read.

Kristen Sorth:

We need people that like people, reading is great, but nobody at the library sits around and reads all day. We're busy helping people.

Dave Hartley:

Got it Well, kristen, in preparing for the episode I did some research yesterday and it's obviously that you're doing some really good things. So I just made a list. Missy doesn't know I'm going to do this, but I made a list of the cool things that I found on the library website. So St Louis County Library, slclorg, I think, is the website but tons of innovative programs that you're doing. Here's just a few: Social workers at six branches, fresh produce on Thursdays in August at three branches. Eye exams at two branches. Music Mondays at Florissant Valley, free summer lunches at nine branches through Operation Food Search.

Dave Hartley:

You can book an internet hotspot. Fort building kits. You can check out fort building kits. You can book an internet hotspot fort building kits. You can check out fort building kits. You can also check out binoculars. Those were a couple of my favorites. You're also bringing a ton of bestselling authors to town to do I get those emails, so I know all of those the Community Wellness Hub presented by BJC Healthcare, the Tap-In Center for Legal Assistance.

Dave Hartley:

I mean it's just amazing the list of all these programs and I thought I was relatively informed about all the things that you know St Louis County Library did. But then I went to the website I was like holy smokes, it's probably been. My kids are older now and that was a lot of my exposure to the library was with when my kids were young, and that was a lot of my exposure to the library was with when my kids were young. But you know. So when you think about that, you know, can you tell us about these initiatives Kind of how did? How do you figure out what to do? How do you determine where to apply your focus? Because you know the, as with the rest of the world, the library world is changing too.

Kristen Sorth:

I think that's kind of the key to how we decide what to do. Because we work with the public and serve the public, we have to be really in tune to what they want, and so we have a pretty robust strategic planning process and that involves a lot of community engagement, where we do surveys and focus groups and ask the community what they want, and so that does drive some of what we do. But also we know that the library sometimes tries to be everything to everybody and we can't do that, and so we have these really intense and fantastic community partnerships and often our partners come to us and say what do you think about doing this? And then the other thing I think we always try and start with yes and work backwards from there, so that permeates throughout the entire organization. So from a patron coming in saying you know, I've lost my books completely, that we say yes, we'll work with you, to having a partner come in and say what do you think about offering this? And we say yeah. So we just figure it out.

Kristen Sorth:

I think that happened a lot during the pandemic because people couldn't reach people. It was hard to reach people and they could do that through our buildings and through our parking lots through drive-through service. So that's kind of our approach. .. d?

Missy Kelley:

So, kristen, you know we were always- a lot about innovation this year with this podcast and when I think about these community programs and the social outreach, that feels like innovation to me, from at least from what I think the average bear thinks about when they think about . the library Right Like. I don't know, was this always something that the library right Like and I don't know, did that? Was this always something that the library did? Like, was the librar y

Missy Kelley:

when we were growing up? Was the? library doing things like this? Or at what point did that innovation start and how? How do you decide

Missy Kelley:

what things to choose? You know, to keep it going.

Kristen Sorth:

Yeah, I mean, the library has always libraries have always been really responsive and able to adapt to change. But this is definitely not the library like when we were kids. You know that was still in our. You know our buildings before renovation really reflected that old library style Brick, small bunker windows, uncomfortable furniture, shushy, you know all those things. This is, this is definitely not that library anymore. Wait, you can talk in the library now. It's loud.

Dave Hartley:

Yeah, you can have concerts in the library. Now I need to get back to the at- library. a

Kristen Sorth:

We had a band playing when we opened the Clark family branch a couple of weeks ago and I had a patron asked if we would always have music playing in the library and I was like no, but that's so awesome that someone thinks it's a possibility.

Missy Kelley:

You know it's interesting I think about. I've been to the library for events only. Honestly, in the last probably five years it's only been for events, so I guess I haven't been in the normal. Like it's a Tuesday afternoon at two and you know it's still okay to talk to people.

Kristen Sorth:

Yeah, I mean, I think that for us really too, with the innovation we looked at when the For the Sake of All report came out about 10 years ago, we really looked to that report as a place to steer our priorities and there were very clear things in that report that talked about the issues that St Louis was facing, and so I think we used that as our guide.

Kristen Sorth:

And at the same time we were doing all this construction so we were able to transform our programs and services at the same time we were changing who we looked like from a building perspective, and so I think we were able to leverage that change at the same time. And for us that meant more than being a repository of books. It meant being a center of community. We have 20 branches all over St Louis County and it used to be. We had kind of a cookie cutter approach to our collection, our programs, and we decided that we were going to do what the community where the branch was located, what we were going to do there, what that community needed.

Dave Hartley:

So I wanted to circle back on the social services piece. Because of that list of programs that I went through, probably two that were the most interesting to me were the social workers at six of your branches and then the tap-in center, which I wasn't familiar with. But going through that list, there's a ton of legal assistance that's provided as part of that. So when you think but when I think about that it's like you're starting to get into gray areas or more risky areas, I guess. So when you think about that evolution kind of, how do you decide from a risk management perspective? Kind of you know you want to respond to the community, but you know when does it go too far and how do you handle sort of the needs of social service? I don't even know if the social workers are on your staff or if they're through a partnership, but it seems like that would add some complexity. So talk to us about that.

Kristen Sorth:

Yeah, I mean on the social worker front... So people come to the library to look for answers and we try to provide them, but our employees are not trained social workers. They are kind and generous and as helpful as they can be, but sometimes people's needs go far beyond what we can assist with. So we just felt like it was. These it was very time to start offering social workers and we partner with Upworth, so the social workers are Upworth employees, but they work 40 hours a week in our building. We just added a sixth social worker because five is not enough, because they're really serving people all over St Louis County. We have we are serving people in 73 zip codes, so St Louis County, st Louis City, illinois, and then some in Missouri zip codes as well, because you can call in and you can talk on the phone to someone. A lot of the assistance is affordable housing or food, insecurity or childcare all the things that some people don't know where to start. They can start at the library and they're already there. You know they're already there On the Tap In Center, a library where it's a neutral, a pretty neutral place and people could come and take care of their warrants and not have a fear of getting arrested or you know anything like that.

Kristen Sorth:

It was in a place where we were already there to help them and we said yes, and it's expanded beyond the pandemic. It's a partnership between the prosecuting attorney's office and the courts and the public defenders. We have the bail project, lots of wraparound services to 'I and it's just been wildly successful.' Over a thousand warrants have been quashed and 85% of the people that come to the Tap In Center to look for assistance with their involvement, their justice involvement, have not returned to jail, which is those kinds of stats are amazing.

Missy Kelley:

That is amazing. Now how many people come through the St Louis County Libraries in a year.

Kristen Sorth:

So we have about 4 million visitors a .,.

Kristen Sorth:

and pre-COVID that number was over 5 million. So we have a lot of people that come in because we have, you know, we have books and all the things, but we also have a history and genealogy center and a small business center and we have children's programs, adult programs and author events these, you know, amazing author events that we host every year. Last year 15,000 people came for our author events and you know we just opened the Clark family branch and we already have almost 10,000 people that have come to our author events just since

Kristen Sorth:

June 1st. That's incredible, it's incredible.

Missy Kelley:

So it's more what I would think of as like non-traditional, but maybe it's traditional now you know like I was going to ask. So you know of that number, how many would you say are here for the social services and how many are here for events versus? I need to check out a book.

Kristen Sorth:

You know, I think it kind of depends on the branch. I think we have branches that have very traditional, very traditional library services, have very traditional, very traditional library services, and then we have other branches where people are there for social workers and after school meals or summer meals, and we don't. We don't offer meals at every branch. We try and pick those locations where the school districts qualify for free or reduced lunch. We try and look at what the community needs, but the library is still very traditional. You know, the Clark Family Ranch has this amazing kids space and so do lots of our buildings and it has a built-in town with a restaurant, a play, fire station and a fire truck. And you know, I was just over there last week and there were kids everywhere.

Missy Kelley:

So you know, I think it's a blend, so as books on started as books on tape and then now digital you know Audible and other digital type platforms. So I think a lot of people thought, like it seems like we always do when some technological advancement happens, we think you know everything's going to change, but you would have thought that that would have majorly negatively impacted the number of people that use the library. And I'm wondering if these social, these I shouldn't even say social, it's more like this community engagement Was that partially a response to the change in how people use libraries?

Kristen Sorth:

I think a little bit. I mean, we had eBooks, you know, long before the pandemic. And then, I think during the pandemic, people were like I have to embrace this technology because I can't go get a physical book from the library. And then it just kept on and that is a wildly popular service, Like the circulation for e-books just goes up and up and up. But that still means people still like to come in and get print resources too.

Kristen Sorth:

So I think we really wanted to be a place where people could go and hang out and engage with other people. You know, there's all these studies about social isolation and what it does for people, and the library now is a place where it feels good to be, like you can go and run your small business or do your homework or hang out. You know, or you know like all of the place, there aren't a lot of places like that anymore in the world, where you can go and kind of hang out. You know, or you know, like all of the place, there aren't a lot of places like that anymore in the world, where you can go and kind of hang out.

Dave Hartley:

So we're visiting today with Kristen Sorth, director and CEO of the St Louis County Library. So, chris, I want to circle. I wanted to circle back on the technology aspect, okay. So so part of what and it kind of kind of plays off Missy's question in terms of when you think about you know it used to be, you know, go back 20, 30, 40 years you had to physically go to the library to pick up a book.

Dave Hartley:

Now, when you think about all these other things and as I was going through the website, I noticed not only is it e-books, but then you also have, you know, basically, virtual magazines. You have some access to some streaming services video, audio. So when you think about that as part of the strategy, sort of the shift between, sort of it's almost like the rest of the world is having to deal with in-person versus remote, versus hybrid. So when you think about, I'm sure you probably have a lot of people now that are in that hybrid mode where they may look for things online, reserve a book online, physically come in to pick up their book. So it's just a different scenario. So I guess, when you think about that in the future, I guess how do you think technology going forward Kind of what's, what's the strategy, what's the thinking of the St Louis County Library around how to embrace the continued shift in movement and advancements in technology?

Kristen Sorth:

You know, I think, well, the library has always offered technology stlouiscountylibraryslcl. org people. You know we had public computers and free Wi-Fi in our buildings, you know, for decades, frankly. But we also you can check out a hotspot or check out a Chromebook. I would like I'm involved in quite a few digital equity initiatives and I would like to tell you that digital equity had been, was not an issue, but it is an issue, and so I think the library is going to play an important role in helping level the playing field, because you just cannot do anything without the internet anymore. You can't, um, you can't apply for a job, you can't watch Netflix, you can't do whatever, you can't order from Amazon. So the library plays an important role, but we continue to look at our spaces, our physical spaces, to address that. So in our buildings we have free Wi-Fi and we also have public computers and also digital navigators that help people manage through all the things that are coming with new technology.

Kristen Sorth:

But we also, in our new building, we added a Zoom room because people want to come in. They don't have reliable internet access, so they need a place to Zoom. We have a podcast room, we have a room where you can, a memory lab where you can come in and record your oral history digitally with your family, and a digitization room where you can take old pictures and old VHS tapes and convert them. So we try and think as far ahead as we can and then we adapt and change as we go, like our teen space in the new building has a creative lab, so it has 3D printers and large format printers and laser cutters and a recording studio and a green screen and all the things. So we just try and think as far ahead as we can. But the library is definitely a place where people can come and get access to technology.

Missy Kelley:

So when I think about this from the business perspective, you know a lot of businesses have KPIs key performance indicators, metrics that they're using. When you start the year, you're preparing for the next year, what is it that your goals are centered around?

Kristen Sorth:

Well, we have, you know, we have a strategic plan. We have a three-year plan, but then each year we have its own year's plan. So we try not well, we don't let that plan sit on a shelf. It's a very active plan that we use and our measures are. It's a little different, you know, we can't, it's hard to, we're not making things Um, so it's a little little bit different, not selling things, but we are in the business of people and um community and so our measures libraries measure everything. So we keep statistics on program attendance, on how many people check out books, on what kind of books people check out, on our databases. You know we are measuring all the time and looking to that. We measure gate counts and you know all the things. So we are tracking a lot of data and we're also making sure that if we have a program or service that maybe doesn't seem as popular as it used to be, then we really evaluate that and make a decision about whether we want to continue with that.

Kristen Sorth:

So I think people think sometimes that libraries aren't like. They think it's a sweet, cute place to work and it is, but it's a business. We're just in a different kind of business. We have. You know, we're a large employer in the region. We have a huge budget. We had, in addition to that budget, we had $120 million construction budget. So it's a lot of business-related decisions in an environment where money is not as much the goal.

Dave Hartley:

So one of the things I learned on the website yesterday, so stlouiscountylibraryslclorg and it makes more sense now knowing your background in human resources but the fact that the St Louis County Library was named a 2024 top workplace by the St Louis Post-Dispatch and I was surprised when you said the number of employees is north of 600. So when you think about that, like for the people working at the library, you know what is their motivation. How do you promote employee engagement? Because I know we have there's a lot of businesses that are struggling to get their employees back, to get them engaged, sort of. What are the things that you're thinking about when you try to keep a workforce of 600 plus people really engaged and dedicated to the cause?

Kristen Sorth:

Well, this is a huge area of focus for us because I think somewhere in the middle of the pandemic we realized that we had focused so much on our buildings and our services that we had forgotten a little bit about the people that deliver those. And so we hired a new position. It's an employee engagement specialist and so we do lots of things to focus on employee engagement. We have things we always say like that they bring the fun, and I will say for our employees, we have. I think we have a little bit of a leg up because the employees get to see the impact they have. So when you are in a job where you can see day-to-day the impact that you're having, I think it improves the way that you feel about your job. However, they're also working with public all day long and that is hard. So we do things like walking challenges and we have an employee engagement day where we close the library and everybody comes together to do all kinds of programming. We have a yoga challenge for our employees and then we do things like a holiday party and just a variety of things.

Kristen Sorth:

We added an intranet, a really dynamic intranet, last year where employees can interact with each other in a more live basis. We have kind of a marketplace where they can sell and buy things and it's more like it functions like an Facebook almost. It's a good way to connect with employees that's not via email and it's also a way for our employees to connect with each other and there's ways to comment, and so we really focus on that. And especially, too, with our benefits, we really changed a lot of the way our benefits work to be more employee friendly In the last couple of years. We added paid family leave and just a broad variety of benefits that we heard from our employees that they wanted.

Missy Kelley:

So, kristen, you mentioned the business center or a place that, like a small business, you could run your small business out of the library. So talk to me about that. Like what is that? Is that part of the overall vision? I know you know libraries have been a big part of education, you know, for a very long time. So tell us about the shift to business and that, that role.

Kristen Sorth:

. The reference department at a library used to be where everyone came to ask all their questions and you know you can find answers to questions in lots of places. You don't have to call and ask someone at the library anymore. And so the small business resources, entrepreneur business came out a little bit before the pandemic Came out, a little bit before the pandemic.

Kristen Sorth:

We have tons of databases and tons of resources on starting, like creating a business plan or where to market or where your customers might be located.

Dave Hartley:

We have all these access, all this database access, and we can help people save a ton of money.

Kristen Sorth:

We actually did a small business calculator a couple of years ago. That is now being used by tons of public libraries and we can save a small business like $13,000 a year by just coming to the library. And we have a book, a librarian time where you can come in and say, hey, I want to start selling X, you name it, and they can sit down with you and help you get a list of your potential customers, tell you where your competition is, you know all those kinds of things. Plus, we have these great private work areas in the new building where you can reserve a room, come in and have a business meeting and just you know just a variety of things. We actually have a person who's she's the small business resource manager. That is her job, and we also host a huge small business expo every year where hundreds of people come. They get, you know, legal assistance. We have all kinds of partners in the community that come in to assist them.

Missy Kelley:

Do you charge for any of the services? So everything that you're mentioning is free, including the events that you have?

Kristen Sorth:

Yeah, everything is free. I mean people pay taxes. Yeah, everything is free, I mean people pay taxes, so we're tax supported. But there's no extra charge on the events. Those are all free unless we have an author event that is coming where we have to limit the amount of people that are there because we have a limit on how many people we can have or the publisher asks for it. So sometimes we charge for author events, but it's typically just the cost of the book.

Dave Hartley:

So, but one thing related to that you mentioned earlier that there's no fees at the St Louis County Library. I didn't know that was a thing. I think, I still have nightmares about. I've got a book that is overdue and somebody's going to knock on my door someday, so that brings me great relief.

Kristen Sorth:

hing, we decided about 10 years ago to stop charging fines and we felt like it was such a barrier to access, especially for kids. You know we stopped charging on fines for kids before we did for everybody else. But it doesn't seem right to generate profit off of people who are struggling. Like in general, people want to bring back the material and we still charge if they lose the book permanently, but we don't charge fines, and that is really a trend that is happening in every public library. Most public libraries have stopped charging fines.

Missy Kelley:

Have you noticed a difference in behavior as a result, like are there more late books, or is it just the same as it was before?

Kristen Sorth:

It's actually, I mean, statistically, it's, it's actually the same, or even better. I and I. I think what it really means is that people aren't- People, you know people. If you had fines and you were blocked from using the library, you stopped being a library user. And you know that is not what we want and I think that goes with the trend that libraries were like these rule following,

Kristen Sorth:

like you broke the rules, you're in trouble. Like that is not the image that we want to give. We want to be welcoming and not charging fines is a good way to be more welcoming. .?

Dave Hartley:

So, kristen, you've been involved with the St Louis County Library now for more than two decades in You've been in the leadership role for over a decade. So when you think about what's the most rewarding thing for you I mean you've obviously had a significant impact what's the most rewarding thing for you? And when you look to the future, what's the most exciting thing that's coming that you're, you know you're really jazzed about.

Kristen Sorth:

I would say the transformation into being a center of community and the impact that we've made. In St Louis, I think, during the pandemic we knew that we had to stand up really during the pandemic and we this sounds kind of dorky, but we stood standing. You know, it was easy, I think, to kind of hunker down during the pandemic, and that is the opposite of what we did. And so now we find ourselves in, you know, just about every community table. You know, if we're not there, someone's asking where we are, and that is awesome and I feel very proud of that, because I would say 10 years ago we were way under the radar and no one really thought to say, hey, where's the library in this. So I'm super proud of that.

Kristen Sorth:

Future-wise, I mean, we're done with construction. So that's crazy. We've done 21 buildings in 10 years, but we're going to start looking at the first couple of buildings and starting over a little bit, which is kind of interesting. But the other thing I'm excited about is we have a bootmobile fleet. We have school bootmobiles, bootmobiles that visit senior living facilities and preschools, and our fleet is aging. So we're getting four new school bootmobiles this fall and we know that not everybody can come into our physical location. So we have to meet people where they are and that is through our bookmobile service. So I'm pretty excited about getting four new bookmobiles.

Missy Kelley:

Do you have any idea on, like, if you looked a decade ahead from now, if you think about like 10 years ago? Where you are now, do you have any sense of what's going to blow us away 10 years from now when we're having this conversation?

Kristen Sorth:

I do think. I mean AI is kind of what everyone's talking about and I do think that is going to have an impact on public libraries. I think with innovation, you have to make sure that you're not innovating just to innovate, like there's an impact there, and I'm still waiting a little bit to get a better sense of the AI focus. I think that there are always going to be people in our world that need the services of a public library and I definitely think the social isolation issue that we see with kids who grew up during the pandemic or people who rely on their phones I just read an article the other day by someone who said that they don't like to talk to people on the phone and I was like what? I mean, I get it, I get it, but sometimes you cannot wait for an email, you have to pick up the phone, and that is something that drives me crazy about my son, who is in college, and younger employees as well, like I'm like don't suffer in silence, pick up the phone.

Missy Kelley:

So it's a big barrier for that generation. It's really interesting, it's interesting.

Kristen Sorth:

So crazy. I'm like if you would developed over have picked up the phone, you could have solved that problem in like five minutes. So I think that creating a space where people can come in and interact with people is really important, and I think we have to create spaces for teens, which we are doing in our buildings. They're just not places for teens to go and feel safe and be teens, and so I think that that's an important part too. Technology is so hard to predict. I can remember when I first came to the library, they had just started using email and they had like policy folders of all the and you know, then there were lots of, lots of rules, so they would have binders filled with rules and then, like we had just started using email and think of where we are now. It's crazy. So it's hard to look forward sometimes, but libraries are pros at adapting and changing as the world does, and so I think we'll still be hanging.

Missy Kelley:

I have no doubt based on how it's evolved over time. It really blows me away. Okay, so in every one of our interviews, we have a segment we call Make it Count, and so if you had one thing that you could offer a business owner as they broach their next innovation, what would it be?

Kristen Sorth:

I think that you should make sure that innovation means something to someone other than you. I think there are lots of times that it's like shiny, you know, there are shiny trends and a lot of times the people that use a public library or use a business or come in, they don't, that's not what they care about, and so if you spend all your time innovating something that is going to have zero impact on people, then you have wasted a ton of time and money. So I always say ask people what they want before you tell them what you think they want.

Missy Kelley:

You'll excellent. That is excellent and very relevant, so thank you. Well, this has been amazing to talk to you and to hear your insights and experiences. Thank you so much. Yeah, well, I can't wait to go to the library.

Kristen Sorth:

I'm going to have to come to the New Clark family branch with 35,000 other people that have already walked through the doors since July 1st. y k p l f c

Kristen Sorth:

. I mean, who knew that, in addition to your library science and your public administration, you would be a?

Kristen Sorth:

you know project leader for construction. Yes, I will have to say that that is another thing that I might have been woefully underqualified for, but I learned. You know that's the other thing. Ask a hundred questions, that's the other thing I tell my son ask questions.

Missy Kelley:

That's a good one too. All right, thank you, kristen. Thank you.

Dave Hartley:

Thank you for joining the but who's Counting podcast. Make sure to never miss an episode by subscribing on Spotify or Apple Podcasts and let us know what you think by rating and reviewing. Keep up with more Andrew CPAs and advisors insights by following us on social media through the handles in the show notes. We'll see you next time. This podcast represents the opinions of our hosts and the opinions of our guests. This is not professional advice and we're not establishing a professional relationship with any listener. The content of this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and because each listener is unique, please consult a professional for any legal, tax or investment advice, accounting services or professional consulting needs that you may have.

People on this episode

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David Hartley

Co-host
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Missy Kelley

Co-host