What’s Your Plan for Emergencies? Plus, How To Be a Good Library Card Holder

This is CityCast Seattle. I'm Jane Coo, and here's what Seattle's talking about. Do you have an emergency bag packed? What did you put in it? And in the event of an emergency, where can you meet to exchange information and resources with your community? Today on the podcast, we're revisiting some recent conversations we've had, like how to be prepared and where to go in case of an emergency. But first, with the primary election this week asking us to vote on an increased library levy, why do digital holds on library books matter? Joining executive producer Ashley Smith and producer Sam J. Leeds is chief librarian at the Seattle Public Library, Tom Fay. I'll let Ashley and Sam take it from here. Let's talk about e-books with Tom Fay, chief librarian at Seattle Public Library. Welcome, Tom. Thank you very much. And we're also joined by creative producer Sam J. Leeds. Hi, Sam. Hi. I'm excited to be here. The library is one of my favorite places. So this is a big moment for me. So Seattle Public Library routinely lands in a list of the top 10 e-book circulating libraries in the world. The world. Seattle readers love them. And since COVID, more and more people check them out via the Libby app rather than coming into the library in person. I know a lot of my friends do that. And e- Audio is also a part of this trend. So how does checking out an e-book work for the library? I've heard it's more expensive than... when folks check out regular books. Is that true? It is. E-books themselves are going to be sometimes between two and three times more than a physical book. We also have e-odio books that can be anywhere between three, five, six times more. than a book. And so I'll give you a good example of one that's on the most popular demand right now, and that's Theo of Golden. And to give you an idea of the print book, we have 116 copies, and that has 645 holds, and that's cost us $1,338. Seems reasonable. You get to e-books, we have 1,700 holds. We have 230 copies, and those cost us $13,797. Oh, my God. Then you go to e-odio. We have a little over 2,000 holds. We have 272 copies, and those cost us $24,477. Wow. So it's a pretty major difference between the material types. It's a while to hear those numbers as... someone who just like has a library card and gets to check these things out for free. There's so much money that goes into that. Why are ebooks so expensive for the library to keep in stock, I guess? Well, it has a kind of a long history. I was around for most of it. Obviously, when you check out a physical book and the way libraries have done business all these years, it is based off what's called the Fair Use Act, which allows libraries to buy a copy and circulate it until the book's no longer.

usable. When e-books started coming into play, it was after the whole music industry had all the digital challenges. And so when they put together the e-book platforms, they no longer used fair use as the model. It was software. And as software, it doesn't fall under fair use. And so the publishers at that time, you know, made the decisions that we saw what happened in the music industry. We want to make sure that we're protecting our authors, obviously our copyright, etc. Sometimes I think, you know, publishers have seen us as competitors when in fact we're not. We're a gateway to all of their products. a lot of their authors, but also a lot of their mid-level authors and some of their very unknown authors. And why are e-a-a-a-aubbooks so much more expensive than like the sort of print equivalent of the e-book? I think we've seen that price go up probably over the last five to seven years more than anything else because the demand is so much higher. Now you have everything you can listen to and see, obviously, as people are doomed scrolling along the way. Where does that money go? Like, is any of that going back into the pockets of the authors or is it mostly to the distributors? So you have the publishers. Then you have what we call the middleman, the people that provide Libby. And then, of course, the authors are in that as the creators. So the money does get back through that entire chain. We pay the middleman, publisher pays the author. And that's generally how that works. Okay. Maybe I'm getting too technical here. But like, is the price increase coming from that middleman? Like, are they the one driving what the cost is? That's sometimes the challenge we don't get to know. Because as you might imagine, people are keeping their prices and what their wholesaling prices are, et cetera, quiet. So it is sometimes challenging for us to know, you know, who is making the money. You know, we want everyone to make a piece of that. We want our publishers to be successful. We most certainly want authors to be successful so they continue to write. And, of course, the folks at Overdrive who... who provide Libby, we want them to be successful so the platform grows and that we have more and more content on it. I think what our challenge has been is that because the digital realm is all subscription based, we don't own anything at the end of the day and it requires renewals. So, for example, in this book I just told you about the Theo of Gold, that book could be very likely all the way into next year before we've satisfied all. the patron request for it, which means that maybe I bought that subscription on a one year and now I got to renew it. And now I've got to renew it for a year, even though the tail of all the requests may end halfway through that. And now I'm carrying something that maybe isn't going to have as much need from patrons. That's what we want to talk to publishers about is can we find other models that provide flexibility? Some models are you get 26 checkouts and then you have to...

go buy 26 more. So those are also very, you know, very limiting or can be too much. Again, if I get towards the tail of all the patron requests, then if I buy 26 more, I might have 24 of them sitting for a period of time, right? So that's what we're looking at. And then how can we create in the future libraries that actually have some perpetual copies, meaning that if we subscribe to it, Why can't we have a certain percentage of those back so that we can have a real virtual library versus this subscription-based model only? If leasing those e-books costs so much money, I'm thinking, like, when I go to the airport, I try to get an A-plus and TSA by being very efficient and, like, proving that I know all the rules. And I'm trying to think of, like, how can I be the best public library card holder? Like, if I want to check out e-books, does it... help if I listen to them really fast and return them quicker, or does that not matter? Let's say you want to request the book and maybe you're requesting it from us. Maybe you're requesting it from the King of Hounny Library system because you're just trying to get it the fastest, right? If you get it fulfilled in one way or another, or if you end up purchasing it, or whatever the case is, please take the hold off. Don't suspend it. Cancel the hold. Because what we do is we look at all of our holds as fulfillment needs. And so we buy against that fulfillment need. And that can drive things up if patrons go, oh, I just forgot about it. You know, I finally got it. And then I didn't cancel that hold. And we're buying against that hold. The other thing is the print books are going to be there available as well. But we do want people to consume it in the way that's most convenient and accessible to them. So we try to fulfill on all those categories. It just becomes more and more difficult as we go through time and the prices increase on some of these. And there is a digital hold limit. What is that? We've actually reduced the hold limit down to 10. That's how we manage a lot of this so that we don't get people that are maybe the rare exception that are putting in 25, 30 holds. And then we're buying against that one. In fact, they've maybe fulfilled it in a different way. So that's helped us manage, especially the high demand material, those top 10 bestselling books that everybody wants to read right now. That really has helped us considerably. And that's allowed us to meet our high demand better. than we had in the past because it was getting to the point it was not sustainable at all to maintain high demand items. So I kind of feel like based on what you've said, I know what your answer to this question is going to be. But when we were talking about this conversation in our morning meeting, we were like, oh, we have to ask Tom this, which is there's an ongoing debate on our team and we want you to settle the score on it. Does listening to audiobooks count as reading?

Yes. Listening to audiobooks does count as reading. I think, you know, there is a traditional sense that it doesn't and it couldn't be any farther from the truth. Because it actually engages your brain in different ways. Especially as you think about generations and changing, you know, I grew up without cell phones or all of this stuff, right? So I'm very comfortable reading with that. You know, I have a daughter who she couldn't imagine anything more boring. She consumes audiobooks because it really, it activates her brain and her curiosity differently than mine reading in a traditional sense. So it is reading and then it counts. Exactly. The debate is done, squashed. For all intents and purposes, we want you reading anyway. anyhow. And we're happy to provide that service at the Seattle Public Library. Tom, thank you so much for joining us. When we come back, we'll talk about what you should do to prepare for an emergency.

Jane here, what's your plan for the big one? Or even just the next big windstorm or flood that blows through town. A good place to start might be organizing your neighbors. And for the last 17 years, Seattle's emergency hubs have been doing just that. Here to discuss is Cindy Barker, one of the original founders of Seattle Emergency Hub Network. Welcome to the show, Cindy. Thank you. Thank you for having us. So, Cindy, how did the Emergency Hub Network get started? Nisquale was the starting point. We had the Nisqually earthquake back in 2001. And everybody got excited about being prepared for disasters, but not much happened. And so... People were making plans, but nothing coalesced. Then we had a windstorm out here in West Seattle. And we did not have power for two weeks in some areas. And so what we observed is that people were gathering in natural areas like in front of the markets, in street corners that had high traffic possibilities. And they were talking about, where can I go, what coffee shop is open? I haven't had a hot shower in three days. What should I do? So neighbors were exchanging that sort of information about getting through this disaster. So in West Seattle, we started going, then that's what we should do. We had a lot of community groups and we should just ask the community groups to find a place in their neighborhood where they could set up and help people connect and share information. And so it was a citizen-led group. The Office of Emergency Management also knew that there was different things going on in different neighborhoods. So they connected us with Wallingford and Queen Anne Magnolia who were doing different things. One was looking at vulnerable seniors. And the other was writing a plan. And in West Seattle, we kind of went, oh, we should write a plan. That's really a great idea. So that's how we got together and formed the network. And then that's all we do is we say we have a model for how to put together a way for you to stand up with your neighbors and help your community. Please join and set up a location. So how many hubs are there currently? There's actually 142 hubs. 71 of them have active teams. And 61 of them are kind of designated places. The city came in later and said, The P-Patch locations would make really good gathering spots because they're community-based. We've looked at some of those and they're under power lines and so we've taken some off the map. But right now there's about 172 across the city. Yeah, I was going to say, and I think they're generally speaking, fairly flat, open spots that people could gather. Generally, parking lots, church parking lots. And we do look for, let's not have a hub in a liquefaction zone, you know. Yeah. Do some safety thinking. Yeah, no need to gather there. So you mentioned that this gives kind of a blueprint for how people can get together and how it'll organize. So maybe giving your particular hub, your home hub, as an example, what is your plan with your neighbors if a disaster strikes?

There's two levels. My home hub is actually Morgan Junction. We have a park. It's flat. There's no overhead lines. We have a small cache of equipment that is communications oriented. Whiteboards, tent canopies, ways to put up posters that say... You know, there's no toilet system working. Here's how to build a twin Beckett system. So we set that up and then let people know if you're okay and your family is okay, check on your neighbors, see what you can do in your own local area first, then come to the hub and hopefully you can come help other people. And what we do is we actually match people up with those things and that the connection happens outside the hub. So we don't have people bring food supplies or anything to the hub. Okay. So it's just a information gathering point. So I actually watched a video that the hub put out. And I thought one good example is like, you know, say someone has a broken window and they need a tarp to. cover that broken window, someone else comes to the hub and is like, oh, I have a tarp, and then they can get in touch with that person and they can exchange whatever it is that they need. So how many times have the hubs been activated? There hasn't. And part of the problem is, not problem, but good thing is the city has done a lot more to prepare. So where our windstorm here in West Seattle was because of a lot of trees that came down, and especially during ice storms, you have a lot of that damage. The city has done a whole lot of mitigation to prevent that from happening. So the recent example we had of the windstorm that took out all the power on the east side. In Seattle, we lost power for maybe two days at the most. It's the difference between an emergency. Emergency means the city has got extra crews and they're working to bring it up and you're pretty confident it's going to get restored soon. A disaster is when everybody is overwhelmed. And so the disaster was on the east side. So I talked to some of our people that we know on the east side who do similar stuff and they were like, yep, we were out of power for two weeks. We would have definitely been running, getting out chainsaws, helping people get out of their driveways. The two times that we've actually, locally, you can consider activating, was when the Greenwood gas explosion happened. The hub captain was like, should I go out? And we were talking by phone. And she went down to go check with what was going on at the scene. The Chamber of Commerce had actually already set up with what was basically a hub. So they just plugged right in. And the other time, hubs... almost get involved or can be of assistance is sometimes we have school incidents. And you have parents flooding to a school. We had one up at Pathfinder where the hub captain was ready to stand out there and say, hey, you can't go in. We know it's a reunification process that's going to start. And they can hand out water to the parents that are sitting there waiting. So each hub has autonomy to do what's right for their neighborhood. We don't have this one thing all must do.

But the general sense, hubs are not going to set up unless all the power is down, major disaster, and it's going to be more than a couple of hours, you know. Right. Yeah. And I know, like, part of the idea behind these hubs is that if there is a major disaster and emergency services is otherwise going to be occupied, trying to respond to more immediate danger, that this is a way for people to gather and share resources. So I am curious also. You mentioned that, you know, there are over a hundred of these hubs, but about 70 of them are, there's actually like a team that's assembled around them. I was looking at the map at my neighborhood and noticed that there is nobody organizing. And I'm realizing that maybe I need to be the person who does that. So what advice you have for people who see that need and want to fill it? Contact us, for sure. We currently have about eight new hubs in the startup phase. And it takes about a year to get a full up hub because when you think about it, my community is like 7,000 people. Right. And so we want to make sure people can engage in that process. So we do a lot of outreach. We do a lot of training. But we kind of go through these steps of get your gear. How will you be ready to help people? We started actually with backpacks in people's homes. We kind of went, well, that doesn't make sense. If Cindy's on vacation, you know, how do we get the gear down to the hub? Right. So, you know, that's why the small cache of supplies. And so we walk people through how to get that, how to do outreach, how to engage your community because hubs and preparedness are at its basic neighborhood engagement and community building. Knowing your neighbors. Knowing your neighbors ahead of the disaster. Know the neighbors around you. Who is the senior who can't get out of? Remember what COVID was like? We all wanted to help people who were afraid to go to the grocery store, who couldn't, who were dealing with children. So that community building is really, really important thing. And so we just do it at kind of a larger scale. It seems like all a good dress rehearsal for just making sure that those community bonds are in place before anything big happens. But on an individual level, like what should people do to get prepared? And what tips do you maybe have for families to share with, say, kids about how to handle an emergency? The first thing I'll say is, we live in what's called no-notice country. If you live in Florida, you know a hurricane's coming. Here, it could happen 10 minutes from now. earthquake in particular. We know that people mostly will be wherever they are when the disaster happens. So it's kind of a shelter in place. You're not going to evacuate 800,000 people after the earthquake. It's not physically possible. So that means living with what you have. The stores won't be open. The supply chains will be broken. So put away water because you can't live more than three days without water.

food, that's about a three-week limit. You know, people get very cranky after a couple days, but you can make it. We know people have medications. We have a lot of really critical medications for people now. Make sure you have a stash of those, and there's a whole series of, you know, how do you do that? Think about your pets. Have a plan for your children, for your senior on the other end, the vulnerable senior. And if you're on any kind of life essential medical equipment, Make sure you have power backup. That's smart. I was thinking my partner and I were like, where should we meet if we're not both in the house when something happens? And I mean, maybe one of the emergency hub locations would be a good meeting spot for people together. It's a good spot. And I'll use an example. If one of you is on the other side of the ship canal bridge and it's down, then you're going to be where you're at. So you might as well plug into the hub because you can do nothing but help. Why don't you help people instead of worry about it? Well, Cindy Barker, thank you so much for joining us today. If people want to learn more about emergency hubs, where should they go? Seattle Emergency Hubs.org. On our website, we have the video that you talked about. We have the map where you can go and look for the nearest hub near you or the gap near you. And you can click on any of our active hubs to find out who the hub captain is and how to contact them. Thanks so much for joining us, Cindy. Thank you. We'll be right back to talk about emergency go bags. Okay, Hannah Krieg, founder of the burner and Liam Billingham, creative producer. Welcome. Do you all have an emergency kit? Because I've been thinking about this a lot this week. I feel like I keep getting alerts from county and state officials being like, be prepared. Have your emergency kit prepared. And I'm like, oh, no, this is another way that I've already failed in my life. But do you all have an emergency kit? Good. Thank you, Hannah, for justifying my lack of preparedness. In California, when we lived there, we had like the makings of one. It was like bags of food. But like a lot of it was canned stuff because you want the stuff that lasts. And I don't know if we had a can opener in there. And I get a lot of anxiety. I mean, I think we all get a lot of anxiety thinking about this stuff. But also like the thought of like, I have to make a kit to survive for two weeks. If there's an earthquake or whatever, it feels like you can never really complete that. On some weird level. So yeah, we had one and I don't know what happened to it when we moved. So I'm going to answer no. Okay. So all three of us are not prepared. I mean, one of the things you just brought up actually, Liam, is my one of my hurdles to this. So like I have a can opener, right? But it's like in my kitchen, which. is getting used to open cans when I need to open cans. Am I supposed to just, like, buy duplicates of everything and just have them sitting in some bag? Like, I think, yes. It does feel like consumerism final boss in a way to, like, I mean, I guess, like, maybe in my ideal world, I would, like, go to Goodwill and, like, find a used can opener and then feel slightly better about having a duplicate can opener. But that kind of thing stresses me out.

I'm curious what barriers to having a go bag you all have faced? Like, why don't you have one? If there's an earthquake, I live in a basement. I'm not concerned about surviving the initial. You'll just be dead. I think, so I'm like, where am I going to go? I don't know. I guess I just haven't thought about that much. Maybe I need to be more proactive. It's hard to think about, though, because it's like, what do we do if the world ends? Like, oh, I've got my beans. Like, I'm all set. I don't know. Yeah, I will say that there was a time where I was like, maybe I'll get really into prepping. But I think in the last few years, I've become more of a, like, I'll just go with God kind of thing. Like, Hannah, like, maybe I'll just die in my basement. But I do think one difficulty in preparing for some kind of go bag situation is like, what is the situation, right? It's like, it could be an earthquake. But then you've also got like so many other things that could happen, like a wildfire. It's just hard to know what you're preparing for. And it seems like you would really want to have different things depending on what the emergency is. I mean, Liam, I'm guessing that when you had your go bag in California, was that mostly like for earthquake related stuff or what? There's a couple of important things that I think don't get mentioned enough. Get your like passport and your important documents that you can like move out very, very quickly. Our co-creative producer, Sam, they just messaged me and said, if you have to leave the house in five minutes, what are the things you should take and where are they? And maybe distribute copies of that list in the rooms where they are, where they need to be. So passport, birth certificate, you know, any documents that are valid. I've heard you should have... clear copies of your insurance policies if you're a homeowner or something. And there's a possibility that, you know, because having to deal with that kind of stuff is insane. And so it's a good idea to have those kind of materials. Anything that you need sort of like long term if you do like, you know, lose your stuff or lose a home or whatever it happens to be. I think if you're like a last minute packer for any trip, then you already have training for this. Honestly, that is not the lesson that I wanted you to take from this. I think having a list would be a really good idea, but like executing it, it's like, I don't know, if you're like me and you try and pack in the last like 10 minutes before you need to go, you're like, what is it that I need? And you get really good at remembering all of the things you need to leave your house for several days. And I think you can go on that same list for your five-minute packing list. And one of the big challenges to all this is medication. It's really hard to get duplicates for that kind of stuff, and it's really hard to get access. I mean, okay, here's my question for both of you, since it seems like at some point you both had access to such a bag, where is the bag kept? My family's just like where the shoes were in the laundry room. Oh, that's smart. Yeah, because I always struggle to think of a place that it would go that would be easy to grab and not just immediately buried if... I needed to grab it quickly. Because I don't, I don't know. I don't like clutter. But at the same time, it's like, in that moment, you're really going to want to have that thing accessible. Put it in the trunk of your car. Oh. But what if you don't have a car?

Put it on your back and just carry it around everywhere you go. What if you don't want to put things in your car because your car got broken into and you're, you don't want to have anything in there? Jane, we're going to start charging hourly for this. I want to be clear that I am very pro having a go bag and I hope. If you're listening, you consider doing it. I guess I'm just trying to talk through some of my own difficulties with it in hopes that... Understandable. Yeah, well, in hopes that I can figure out a solution because I feel like part of what feels overwhelming about it is the many decisions you must make about it. I will say that the city of Seattle has a good list available. So does King County. So at least some of the thinking is taken out of like what needs to go in this thing. I feel like some of the logistics, like you mentioned, Liam, like medications gets a little tricky. But. Maybe I shouldn't let perfect be the enemy of good, you know? Totally. I'll just kind of put together kind of a 70% good bag knowing that it's not totally complete. I think you just need to have stuff you can eat that doesn't require cooking. And also, my advice would be think about cookie. Your dog and make sure you have food for cookie and whatever cookie needs. Because that's something people, I think, forget about as their pets. That is the most important thing. I mean, honestly, I think, like, we would just give cookie our food if we forgot that. Cookie eats you guys. Dark. Dark. Last question. Have you all ever thought about who would be on your... Apocalypse team. I don't think it has to be an apocalypse necessarily, but on your emergency team, like, you have a plan for, like, who you'd want to be with for that. Well, first of all, my wife, she's incredibly prepared-minded, very, like, smart. Anxious person and always is thinking ahead a million stops. So her, I wouldn't want my children because they're not that helpful, but I suppose I should take them. And then my other choice, my other choice, and it's unfortunate because he lives across the country is my brother-in-law because he's like a guy that really very chill, can solve problems, doesn't freak out about everything like everyone else in my family. So I would, that would be my pick. My wife, my children, and my brother-in-law. Okay, it could be like a last of a situation where you. drive across the country to eventually intersect with him and find that he started his own city or whatever. Hannah, what about you? Oh, my God. I thought I would think of something in that time, but I really, I have no idea. Maybe my, my dear friend, Ashley Nurbavig, because we've survived so many crises together. She'd always have, like, a portable charger. My mind always goes to my friends who have specific skills, like friends who are particularly good at gardening.

friends who are particularly good at mending or sewing new clothes or people who are really good at fixing like electronics, like skills I don't have, which is most of them besides, you know, writing, which is, I guess, maybe something we eventually would need to preserve as a culture. Absolutely. I do hope that people take some precautions and use this as an opportunity to think about how they might be better prepared. I know I certainly will get started on putting a little bag together. That's all for today here at CityCast, Seattle. I'm your host, Jane Sehu. Hannah Creek, thank you so much for joining us today. Yeah, thanks for having me. And Liam, thanks for being here. You're welcome. That's all for today here at CityCast Seattle. I'm your host, Jane Ceehoo. And listeners, we want to hear from you. Drop us a line telling us what's in your emergency bag by emailing Seattle at citycast.fm. You can also text us or leave a voicemail at 206-8803931. Until next time, see you, Seattle.