Building Community and Capacity with Chris Manna

Liam Dempsey: Welcome to Start Local, where we talk with business owners, leaders of nonprofits, and other members of our community focused on doing business in and around Chester County, Pennsylvania. Each episode will provide insight into the local business scene and tell you about opportunities to connect with and support businesses and nonprofits in your local area.

Joe Casabona: The Southern Chester County Chamber of Commerce promotes trade, commerce, industry, and sustainable economic development while supporting a diverse and growing marketplace. The chamber is proud to partner with the Start Local podcast to raise the profile of businesses and nonprofits throughout Chester County. Learn more about the chamber at [scccc.com]. That’s [scccc.com].

Liam Dempsey: Hey. Hey. We are back in the podcast studio today. I’m Liam Dempsey. I’m here with my colleague, Erik Gudmundson, and we are delighted to be recording, another episode for you today. Erik, Hey. Hey. How are you?

Erik Gudmundson: I am doing very well. Hey. Hey. And I just had a hay delivery, so there’s all sorts of hay going on in my life right now.

Liam Dempsey: That’s a beautiful thing. Pun intended. 

Alrighty. Folks, today, we are, just delighted to welcome Chris Manna. Chris is the Executive Director of the Kennett Library. Chris, welcome. 

Chris Manna: Good afternoon.

Erik Gudmundson: Chris, it’s it’s very nice to have you here today. I know we’ve known each other a long time through the Southern Chester County Chamber of Commerce and the Chester County Workforce Development Board, but, thanks for stopping by the studio.

Chris Manna: I’m thrilled to be here today, thrilled to be invited, and happy to talk about the Kennett Library.

Liam Dempsey: Oh, we’re so glad to have you. I have to be honest. Eric’s been after getting you on to talk about the Kennett Library probably since we relaunched the show. And in my ignorance, I was very much of, it’s a library. What are you talking about? But then finally, I did my homework. I did my research, and I said, oh, it’s a library. We should have them on. So welcome.

Liam Dempsey: Welcome. Thanks for your patience with us. And, Eric, I’m gonna go ahead and apologize to you as well for kicking that can down the road way too long.

Erik Gudmundson: No apologies necessary, butyou’re on to something there. And then I’ve heard that same surprised reaction from a lot of people. You’re not alone on that. And so I’m excited to have Chris on the show today so we can, you know, remove that surprise or explain why that’s a surprise maybe to so many folks that are listening.

Liam Dempsey: Well, let’s start right there. Chris, libraries, as I’ve come to learn, provide a lot more than maybe they did when we were all growing up. Much greater range of services than many folks, myself included, before I did my homework here might appreciate. Talk us through what the breadth of services and offerings that folks can expect from the Kennett Library.

Chris Manna: Sure. So to your point, I’d like to tell people that the traditional library in this country is effectively dead. It has been dead since the dawn of the Internet, and so libraries like ours in the public sphere have gone to and learned to pivot a different direction. 

So at our core, we’re still based around this principle of literacy and access to information, but the information and how we provide that is now a different platform, different materials. So in our sense, we define literacy through really 6 different ways. We talk about defining it through financial literacy, health literacy, civic and social, basic learning of literacy, including adult literacy, information literacy, which is effectively tech literacy, and environmental literacy. So we’ve spun these books on a shelf that now be defined through these other spheres and expand it for the public.

Erik Gudmundson: With the history of the Kennett Library dating back to 1894 and your new physical building in 2023, there’s a lot happening there. A lot has changed in the world of technology, in the world of information, in the world of politics and people and everything. A lot of thought about expanding roles that the libraries play in our communities, went into the construction of your new facility, walk us through the goals for the new building specifically and tell us how you are doing, on your way towards achieving those goals.

Chris Manna: Sure. So back to that central point that, you know, again, libraries have changed in our scope. We used to be the place you’d come in. You’d get shushed by the librarian, take your book, and go home.

Well, the fact that our society as a whole has become a little bit more insular into your home, staying in your home, we have now become one of the sole places in the community where you can be as a community gathering place. So the goal of public libraries across the United States now is to be the community convening place. Our goal is to build community and capacity at both individual, and let’s say, community level. So we bring people in, we put them together, and hope that together then, we can find those pathways forward.

In communities, you know, it’s always to share, grow, propel each other forward in whatever areas they find interesting. And, ultimately, our goal as the library is to be that convener, meet people where they are, and help provide guidance, and, again, that central access to information.

Liam Dempsey: Chris, we know the library receives funding from a variety of sources from the county, Chester County, from the local municipalities and townships, through some grants and donations, and, of course, fines, library fines. Can you give us a breakdown of the funding? And, you know, how does it all come together for you? How do you how do you manage the books and deliver the services?

Chris Manna: Sure. So every library across Chester County is a little differently. But what I will state for us here at the Kennett Library, 7% of our funding comes from the state, 6% from the county, 26% for us comes from our direct 8 municipalities that we serve, 25% from donations, 35% from private grants. And here’s the number getting to your county. Less than 1% of our total revenue comes from fines. So people think that this is an important part of the mission. I’ve always said when you’re giving people fines, you’re blocking access to those who need it most. When you have a child who needs to read and can’t get to the library and they rack up fines, is that really that child’s fault? The answer is no. We should be providing materials to these folks that really need it. I’d even go so far as to say sometimes, if someone takes a book and steals it, you know, is that really the end of the world? Maybe they need that book more than we do. 

Again, our goal is to remove barriers, increase education, increase that connectivity, and make sure people know that we are a resource, not another barrier for them.

Erik Gudmundson: Oh, let’s talk about the fabrication capabilities of the Kennett Library, which talk about a nontraditional role. That’s about as nontraditional as it gets, I think. You previously shared, when we were talking earlier about how your colleagues collaborated with Longwood Gardens to enable the garden teams to track where their flock of wild turkeys roamed about the grounds. Tell us about that project and what other cool things can the library help folks make?

Chris Manna: So that was a really cool project. We have a number of folks from Longwood who are at the library on a regular basis. A couple of their folks came and said, you know, we have these wild turkeys roaming the grounds, but we have no idea where they’re migrating to, no idea where they’re typically at. Is there any way you could find a way to help us track them? So our MakerSpace team, which is made up of engineers and scientists and whatnot, came up with these GPS tracking devices collars that could be placed on these turkeys. So now everywhere you walk around Longwood Gardens, there is these turkeys with County Library branded, GPS trackers around their necks that walk around. So now Longwood can track the migratory patterns of these wild turkeys.

Liam Dempsey: That’s just an amazing story. I mean, it’s amazing to think that a library did that. You know, librarians did that. And that’s just such a neat a neat, neat things. What other things can can the library help people make?

Chris Manna: So some of our other cool projects we’ve done, we’ve done antique car parts, lawnmower replacement parts, old model train replacement parts that are no longer in print. Most of the local robotics teams actually 3D print their component parts here at the library. We helped them assemble those robots. 

One of the other cool projects, we 3D printed a topographical map of the Chesapeake Bay for a blind student in a master’s degree program at the University of Delaware. This enabled them to do their master’s project because then they could feel the actual topographical map to be able to do their work. Dishwasher repair parts, something we can 3D print. 

The thing that I’ve now been seeing, and this is the piece that I wanna share with the public. You know? Yes. We’re 3D printing all these parts, but when we talk about environmental impact, we are 3D printing parts for dishwashers, scales at grocery stores, robotics team parts, car parts. You don’t have to throw these things away anymore. Instead of thinking about the waste that’s getting thrown away in society, we’re now helping you reuse these items.

So on the one hand, yes, you’re saving money by the 5¢ it cost us to print this as opposed to $200 part, but we’re saving the environment because we’re enabling you to stay with those items for longer, keep the duration longer. And, again, that’s how I as I’ve really seen, this is a huge impact for us.

Liam Dempsey: So all the libraries in Chester County belong to the Chester County Library System. As I understand it, there are 18 libraries in that system, only 2 of which are owned by the county itself. Remaining libraries, yourselves included, operate as independent 501c3 organizations. Chris,how do these different libraries, these different independent libraries work together to serve the communities across Chester County?

Chris Manna: Yes. So it’s a really cool consortium. So on the one hand, we share a lot of shared services. So that’s access to databases and books, but what makes us unique is that’s where those similarities end. And so each library in each community has its own role. Some serve more in educational capacity. Some are part of a school district. Some serve more environmental projects. Some are more towards STEM and STEAM. It’s really, differentiated by what your community’s needs are. 

Here, where we are at the Kennett Library, again, we define it by those 6 literacies that I’ve mentioned, because that’s what the community has really said they really wanna focus on. And as long as that’s being driven at the local level, that’s what made has made the Chester County Library System a success.

Erik Gudmundson: One need in the Southern Chester County community is citizenship, and Kennett Library offers classes in citizenship. What do those classes look like, and what sort of uptake do you have?

Chris Manna: Sure. So the total project and then scope for that set of classes is with 16 classes a week, a total of about 500 students, adult students, in the course of a year. It’s maybe a little-known fact. So we offer English as a second language, GED, and US citizenship classes. Really, what it is is we offer these large classes, so it could be 20 to 30 people in a class, to meet the broader needs of the citizenship or ESL. But when they get closer towards the end of the process, we tailor those last steps. We’ll have tiny local 1 on 1 sessions with folks as they get to that final test prep. We have teachers on staff here. They’re paid teachers that just like any other place would have. They deliver these individual classes. They offer as tutors. And now, you know, again, we average up to 1 US citizen per month here at the Kennett Library. And, again, this is totally free to the community. We self-fund this entire project, and this is really important for us because in the Kennett borough here, we’re about 49% non-native English speaking.

Erik Gudmundson: And I would just add to that that those citizenship tests are no joke. They’re difficult. I would suggest that most US citizens would not be able to pass them. I had a a friend of mine, got her US citizenship. She was a citizen of the Czech Republic, and it took, put it this way. It was a it was a fun party game where she had all the questions sort of laid out that she was using as her study guide or flashcards. And not a lot of people had all the answers, that’s for sure. So your classes do offer a benefit there that most of us don’t don’t always appreciate.

Chris Manna: Absolutely.

Liam Dempsey: So I’m curious. Are those citizenship classes available to folks who are already citizen? Because now Erik has me wondering, maybe I need to brush up on my understanding of American civics.

Chris Manna: Anyone and everyone is welcome to those classes. It is really interesting, though, because you have people that come from all around the world. We’ve served over 77 countries in the 40 years that we’ve been in existence for that program, and they all are sharing cultural exchange about, you know, this is how the government operates in this country. This is how it operates here. It’s a real great cultural exchange for a lot of these students.

Liam Dempsey: So, Chris, you’ve talked about these citizenship classes, ESL, fabrication things. Clearly, you’re checking books in and letting people take, other resources out and the like. Who uses the Kennett Library on a daily or weekly or even monthly basis? Or, you know, maybe to ask that another way, how does the local community take advantage of the offerings that your library offers?

Chris Manna: So if you would have asked me this 2 years ago in the old 10,000 square foot building, my answer would have been, it’s simply, retirees coming in to check out a book and parents of little kids attending a storytime. What has been the highlight of this new building is we have retirees hosting their own 3D printing clubs on Monday nights. We have teenagers gathering on an average night in our study rooms. You see calculus problems scribbled up on the whiteboards. I mean, when you think about what teens are doing, they’re coming to the library to study Math and Science. That’s awesome as a group. 

We have community cooking classes. We have a chef who comes in once a month, and provides cooking classes in the auditorium. We have a camera over top filming him, so you can see on the big screen what he’s doing. 

We have artists showing off their artwork on on a monthly, art unveiling in our gallery wall. We offer champagne and appetizers. That’s the 1st Thursday of the month. We see local entrepreneurs coming in to get their business started, you know, using our space to work as their office. We have large corporations hosting corporate events, and corporate retreats. We see people who have a problem, and they don’t know where to turn. And, you know, whether that’s a home issue, whether that is a business or work issue, citizenship issue, they come here. We find ways to connect them. Though we may not have all the answers, we are hopefully a pathway to that next step.

Erik Gudmundson: Going back to your literacy county, one of them was environmental literacy. That’s an interesting offer, and so I’m curious what that class teaches.

Chris Manna: Yes. So it is a broad mix. So it’s everything from your local gardening classes to sustainable lawn care, and sustainable home growing of various kinds of things. We offer a seed library. So you come in, you can check out seeds to take home. Obviously, you don’t return them, but you plant them in your garden. 

We have a hydroponics program that we are launching soon in conjunction with Westchester University. And then, of course, we have really kind of broader discussions on a national and global scale. We’re bringing experts from all around the world to talk about, you know, the impact of, recycling, the impact of global warming, whatever those big topics might be. You know? And, again, we bring in folks from both sides, let them discuss in front of an audience, and then that’s the way they’re really truly the public can be informed.

Erik Gudmundson: And one of the programs you offer, not related to environmental literacy, but you touched on having both sides of the issue. I’ve seen you have events there where it’s Republicans and Democrats are coming together and basically everybody watches is a movie, and then there’s some discussion of it after. I’ve never attended one of those events but seemed like an interesting idea to sort of get the discussion going, which is, you know, communication is a wonderful thing.

Chris Manna: That is what is called our politics and popcorn. That was actually pitched to me by 1 of the parties, and and I said, well, if we’re gonna have one party, I’d like to have both parties. And that way, then it’s equal time for each side to your point. They come in, they watch a movie. There is a topic that is driven for that night. So let’s say it’s how to register to vote, how to run for local office, whatever that might be. So the movie is geared around that. Then there’s a discussion afterward where both sides kinda talk about where they stand on various topics. It’s not meant to be an argument. It’s meant to be business your your viewpoints, and allow the crowd to draw their own opinions. 

And this is because we stand, you know, against censorship, and we are big believers in freedom of speech. We want the the crowd to really understand that the library is a place where debate can happen, but it could be civic, and it could be proper and polite to each other. 

Disinformation is another huge problem across the world today. So how are we making sure that everyone has access to the same kind of information and that there is truth on all sides provided?

Liam Dempsey: Since we’re we’re stepping into politics, Chris, I’m gonna stay there for just a moment, not to pick a side or even debate sides, but, clearly, politics play a, kinda, maybe not a bigger role, but have been directing a greater focus on libraries certainly in recent years. How has that increased focus on libraries affected you and your work colleagues there at, Kennett Library?

Chris Manna: I think the biggest way it’s affected us is people being more sensitive to the materials that are in our collection, the programs that we offer, all that kind of stuff. And what I always tell people is that this most recent hot topic related to libraries really should be looked back to 1953. 

In 1953, libraries at the federal level adopted the freedom to read statements. Libraries basically took this public stance that we are to provide access to information. That’s that same standard. It is this it relies on the information being accurate and informed. To that end, every accredited library across this country follows what is called a collection development policy. This derives from the American Library Association. 

For us and every other library, it guides and informs which items are bought, which remain on the shelves, and ultimately, which are discarded. To allow for community input, obviously, each library locally has the ability to, add extra items. We gather input from the community via our collection development request form, as well as a collection dispute form. So when someone wants to question something in the policy, or in our collection, they submit that request to me. I run it against the policy. Again, these are federal standards. If it if it does not meet the standards, then, yes, absolutely, we discard it. But if it meets the standards, it’s my job to make sure that we maintain federal accreditation, and make sure that we are meeting those federal standards. It’s not really something we can just, on willy nilly basis, decide what should or shouldn’t be in the in this library.

Erik Gudmundson: It’s interesting to hear about that process. I didn’t realize the process was so well established. So that’s that’s a fascinating answer you just gave.

One of the the answers you gave us in our pre pre recording conversation, was about your philosophy of of purpose and value of a public library. And I think you foreshadowed your answer here a little bit earlier at the top of our conversation today. But I’m curious if you could share it with us again, share it with us again. And something I’ve observed is that a lot of people assume that Kennett Library is just simply a building. And hey, it’s really nice. You have a nice new building now in the chester of the borough. And that’s all true, but it’s a lot more than that. The Kennett Library is truly an organization, not just a snazzy new building. But tell me about your your philosophy and and purpose of of the public library.

Chris Manna: Yes. So my broad philosophy is to call us a community incubator. And really what I how I like to frame that is, obviously, we gather people together. We provide equity of and access to information, but we are that incubator for community success. Wherever someone is on that journey, we help them move to those next steps. We always say education is a lifelong process, and as we bring that community together, we believe that through that education and building those bonds of understanding amongst our citizens, hopefully, that understanding then builds compassion. So maybe you may not agree, entirely what the other side is saying, but if we can at least understand where the other side is coming from, we build that humanity between each of us. It’s those conversations of understanding and then finding some level of common ground.

Liam Dempsey: Chris, professionally, you’re a librarian or you run the library, but your professional background is wider than that. You have considerable education and professional experience in music and the performing arts that maybe not everybody knows about that. Can you tell us a little bit about it, please?

Chris Manna: So in my former life, yes, I have a bachelor’s degree in jazz trumpet, another one in vocal performance, another bachelor’s in cell bio, and then a master’s degree in music, and then a master’s degree in library science. S

o early on, I was working in libraries as well as traveling as an opera singer. It was a lot of fun. I was traveling over to Europe on a regular basis. I actually won an international opera competition in Italy back in 2008, or 2009, one of those 2. But it’s it there are clips of that on YouTube if people dig deep enough with ABC in my name. I was on the ABC News. But it it was a fun time in my life. You know, my son got to a certain point. It was, do I wanna be on the road 40, 50 weeks a year? Or do I wanna try and be a parent with my wife? And it, you know, that was one of those choices I made.

Erik Gudmundson: Wow. That’s quite a background you bring to the library there. I had no idea. That’s t very interesting. I’ve read that on the Kennett Library website, you also enjoy a tipple of good bourbon, especially on cold nights. So with cold weather just upon us now, we wanna ask, what are you sipping on lately? And, are there any plans for a bourbon and books night at the library?

Chris Manna: So right now, it’s the Old Forester 1920 Prohibition era, bourbon, which is a nice it’s like a 120, a 130-proof bourbon. I like it a little little stronger. I could sip on it all night long. 

Chris Manna: Yeah. You do. Yeah. You do. 

Chris Manna: So in terms of the bourbon, I actually did that at my old library. We did a bourbon and books night, beers and brew brews and books kinds of things. At this library, we do champagne apps champagne and appetizers nights, with some of our events and for the art gallery openings. We have plans for wine tastings next year. So that’s gonna kinda be something fun, but I do agree that somehow we need to get a bourbon tasting. I gotta get somebody local here that’s willing to host that for us here at the library.

Liam Dempsey: And I was seeing that the library does have a fireplace?

Chris Manna: Yes. We have a fireplace

Liam Dempsey: Bourbon books in a fireplace? 

Chris Manna: Yeah. 

Liam Dempsey: Is that bringing your own evening blanket as well? Just kinda tuck it over.

Chris Manna: We do yoga classes as well. So yeah. So if you need to relax.

Liam Dempsey: Chris, with respect to your library career, you shared that, before today, before we recorded, that you were, initially kinda in a professional sense focused on academic libraries. Yet at some point, you had the opportunity to work for a public librarian. Did that experience changed your perspective on what a public library is or does. Can you share that experience with us and talk about how it affected you?

Chris Manna: Sure. So I was in, academic libraries for 14 years. I started to grow a little stale. I will share that my mother was a children’s librarian in public libraries, and I never really saw the depth of a lot of what she was doing. I mean, I’ll just be honest about that.

So, after I left academic libraries, I’d went in to be a consultant, a library technology consultant for about 3 years. I traveled about 50 weeks a year, visiting 8 to 10 libraries a week, always trying to offer services of how they could retool what they’re doing. 

But through that process, I met the CFO at San Francisco Public Library. He invited me out, to see their site, first thing in the morning on a Monday morning at their main branch downtown. And I was, like, sure. I’ll come and see. I show up there at about 8:45 for a 9 o’clock opening. There’s probably several 100 people waiting to get in the building. And I was trying to figure out what was going on, and so he’s waiting outside. He kinda laughs, and he says, well, you do realize we’re not just books on a shelf. And I said, well, I don’t realize that. That’s what I remember from my childhood. He’s like, okay. Well, the first floor here is social services. The second floor is health services. The third floor is workforce development. The 4th floor is citizenship and GED in English second language class. I said, why is a library doing this social work or or community con that’s not what you guys do. And he said, yes. It is. And maybe you haven’t looked around recently, but we have had to take when a lot of community, organizations have fallen by the wayside, this is where we’ve stepped in and filled that void to offer those wraparound services on a lot of the communities around this country. When I saw that, I slowly started to transition then to working in public libraries, and that’s when I took my first job running a library in Oklahoma shortly thereafter in 2016.

Erik Gudmundson: Wow. That’s a that’s a big expansion of of scope. No doubt. How many folks does the Kennett Library itself employ, and what sorts of roles and departments make up the Kennett Library staff?

Chris Manna: Yeah. So in total, between a mix of, let’s say, part time staff, full time staff, we’re sitting at about 45 right now. That’s everything from having an MD who is our health literacy director. We have engineers to help run our makerspaces, audio folks with their AVIT stuff. We obviously have mentioned the educational experts in our adult literacy program. We have a marketing department. It is no longer guys like me just with library degrees sitting in there handing out books. We’ve really had to pivot how we serve the community, why we serve, and how we stay relevant to making sure that people can, you know, get something out of this experience.

Liam Dempsey: Well, libraries still do hand out books. And a lot of folks will know that you can also check out ebooks, and you can do that right from your devices, through your public library. But they might not know the ins and outs of how libraries procure and can lend those books. And I was really interested, in what you shared with about ebooks and the specifics around procuring and lending ebooks. Can you talk to us about about how that all works in a kinda technical sense?

Chris Manna: Yeah. In a technical sense, the the your local library purchases a subscription to an ebook. So ebook, for those that aren’t familiar, is something they could download to one of your mobile devices, whether it’s a Kindle, iPad, phone, however that might be, to read it instead of the actual physical material. 

One of the things that we struggle with in libraries is that maybe you would purchase that book at the local store for 12.99. For us to have a subscription, it typically runs anywhere from 75 to a $120 just for that one item. What also goes with that subscription is the fact that we only get to check that digital item out for maybe 25 or 30 times. 

So, the the cost for libraries is astronomical for ebooks versus print materials. But the reason why it’s so important for us is for those that are homebound, those that can’t make it into the library, being able to provide that access, the digital access from anywhere in the world is critical to making sure that we’re serving our mission of that access piece.

Liam Dempsey: Can I ask a follow-up question to that? Can folks from all over the world check that book out from the Kennett Library, or do they need to be a Chester County resident and have a Chester County Library System card membership card?

Chris Manna: So technically speaking, you can be a library card holder from anywhere in the world. It’s just a matter of filling out a card application. Depending on where you are, there may or may not be a small fee associated to get that card. But, you could technically log in from, France. You can log in from Australia, check out a Kennett Library book. We may not mail you a physical book all the way to Australia, but you could certainly use our ematerials and our databases online.

Erik Gudmundson: That leads to a really subtle overlooked question that we kinda missed, but I think is important to ask in 2024 as we head into 2025. How does one become a library member? How does one get a library card these days?

Chris Manna: It’s, again, almost as simple as ebooks. You either sign up online, or, obviously, you can stop in the library, to fill out a paper form. Some people do it over the phone, and some people just print them out and mail them into us. You know, again, everyone comes at us at a different ability to do that. So how do we facilitate that so that you can have access to our resources.

Erik Gudmundson: And with 18 public libraries in the county, do you define a service area? Or how does one say we should get a library card at Kennett versus Westchester versus somewhere else?

Chris Manna: So, ultimately, from the big picture, yes. We define it by service areas. We each have our municipalities that we serve. That being said, if you happen to live in a service area where you feel you come to the Kennett Library all the time, you could become a Kennett Library as your primary home base, then and select us as your home location. That’s totally up to the individual.

Erik Gudmundson: And you do so much to support the Southern Chester County area. I know you’ve worked with the Southern Chester County Chamber of Commerce. You’ve worked with the Chester County Workforce Development Board to bring help bring their services and amplify their messaging and service availability to the southern part of the county. What can folks in the local community do to support you?

Chris Manna: I think the easiest example is that how many people that I hear have didn’t even know we built a new library? So that’d be the first thing is to come in, visit with us, learn about what we offer, attend a program. We’re always looking for feedback. If you like what you see, volunteer. Find something maybe you’d like to teach. If you have a skill in a certain area, we always offer programs. I mean, we offer, I I think our average attendance for programs is 30,000 people a year over this past year attending programs. We’ll be pushing 200,000 attendees through our doors this year. And as always, obviously, if you can financially support us, we take donations to support our mission for those that cannot afford to donate.

Liam Dempsey: So the library seems an amazing place to visit and to learn, but it sounds like it’s also probably a pretty cool place to work, and clearly, you’ve just talked about volunteering. Are you hiring for either paid, full or part time work? And if folks are interested in in learning about some of the volunteering opportunities or maybe proposing a different type of volunteering opportunity, how how can they best approach that?

Chris Manna: Yeah. So we have a volunteer coordinator that’s in charge of all that. And it’s interesting because when new opportunities show up, there’s a group in the area called the Kennett Ability Network. They’re a group that deals with adults with varying levels of disabilities. They approached us and said, could we offer some kind of volunteer opportunities at the library? The answer was an easy yes. So we now added that into we have an app that people download if you wanna be a volunteer. In that, you scroll through the job opportunities. You select the shifts you wanna take based on your interest in that kind of volunteer duty.

And, again, we keep expanding that. The more that the community comes to us with opportunities, we will add that into that list. And, again, our volunteer coordinator works with you to make sure that that’s met. 

To the other side of hiring, we are always hiring. It’s never in doubt. You know, most of the time, it’s part time, at least at the moment. But as we continue to expand, and we will continue to expand over the next 3 to 5 years, there will be continuous, full time openings coming available at the library.

Erik Gudmundson: Would you name a local business or nonprofit organization that folks should know more about?

Chris Manna: So one of my favorite partners that we work with is a place called Fluxpace out of Norristown, and they are an educational tech organization that provides some of the wildest technology. So all of us, even my folks here that have a deep background in technology, they offer everything from, virtual reality, full rooms that you can walk into. They have 3D printed trees out of all different kinds of materials.

We actually source a lot of our high end tech from them directly because they’re on the cutting edge of what’s being provided from a tech standpoint. They work with many school districts around Pennsylvania, and they’ve been a great resource because when we get a product from them, they stand behind it. They come and help teach us. They provide classes for the community. And, again, so we can stay on the cutting edge. So even if we don’t know what’s cutting edge, they’ll provide that information for us.

Liam Dempsey: Chris, I’m so glad you mentioned them because when when you and I spoke earlier in the week well, last week, I guess it was, You mentioned some kind of new machine that you’re getting, and I can’t remember what it was called. But you put metal in water and then electrocute it, and it cuts it in ways that you want it to be cut. I need to hear a little bit more about that before we before we wrap up here.

Chris Manna: So I may misspeak on this, but I believe it’s called an EDM machine. And, basically, yes, you take some kind of block of metal, in, you know, in 4D, drop it into the water. There’s some kind of little filament up that electrical metal filament that when it’s electrified, goes into the water, slices through the metal, and cuts whatever kind of image or whatever kind of thing you want out of it in in real time. And I don’t know how this little filament cuts through solid blocks of metal through electrical and water, but that’s it’s one of our new devices we’re having added shortly.  

Liam Dempsey:  At your local library, folks. 

Chris Manna: Yes. As we talk about 3D printing, essentially, that could do that for a car part. So right now, we have some limitations as to if you need a metal car part, we can’t provide that. But this is now how we can provide those for the future of our customers.

Erik Gudmundson: Wow. I hope, everyone found this conversation as insightful and enlightening as I did. Because I thought I knew a lot about the Kennett Library, but even I learned a few new things today. 

So Chris Manna, Executive Director of the Kennett Library, thank you so much for coming on. Where can listeners connect with you and learn more about all the wonderful happenings at the Kennett Library?

Chris Manna: Yeah. Please visit our website at [kennettlibrary.org].

Liam Dempsey: Chris, thanks so much for taking the time to sit with us today and to educate us about the just absolutely fascinating entity that the library is. Thank you. Thank you.

Chris Manna: Thank you for having me today.

Erik Gudmundson: Thank you to my cohost, Liam Dempsey. I’m Erik Gudmundson.

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