Traci Montgomery Interview

Project:  PGCMLS Oral History Project
Chapter: Traci Montgomery Interview
Date: Jan 30, 2024
Participants: 
Interviewer: Hannah Erickson, Paul Moreno. 
Interviewee: Traci Montgomery 

• 00:07 Hannah: Today, January 30th, 2024, at the Hyattsville Branch Library of the Prince George’s County Memorial Library System. My name is Hannah Erickson, Librarian II, and I'm here with Paul Moreno, Librarian I, and Traci Montgomery Circulation supervisor III, we are recording an interview with Traci as part of a PGCMLS Oral history  Project. 
• 00:34 Hannah: Hi Traci

• 00:35 Traci: Hi 
• 00:36 Hannah: Thanks for being with us today, could you start by introducing yourself?
• 00:40 Traci: My name is Traci Montgomery, and I work here at the Hyattsville Library. I am the Circulation Supervisor III.
• 00:49 Paul: Thank you, so, hi Traci, how did you come to work at PGCMLS?

• 00:55 Traci: Okay, so I was, like, 14 and I needed to volunteer for service hours, and I went to the Greenbelt Library and I applied and they said I could be a volunteer, and then when a position came up for Circulation, or a clerical aid, so like a part-time, part-time, I applied and got that, and that was like my first job ever. And then after I was a clerical aid, I then got a full-time position as a Circ Assistant, and a few years later, I decided to become a supervisor and became a Circ Supervisor 1, and I was in charge of all of the part-time staff, and I also decided to take another position to become a Circ Supervisor III, which I am now, and be in charge of a whole department.

• 01:41 Paul: Okay, so you never wrote a curriculum or…

• 01:47 Traci: No, and this is the only job I've ever, like I've only worked for PGCMLS, yeah.

• 01:53 Hannah: About how long have you been working at the library system?

• 01:56 Traci: 26 years, if you count my part-time.

• 01:59 Hannah: That's awesome.

• 01:59 Traci: Yeah.

• 02:03 Hannah: Could you tell us about your early experiences working at the library, at the PGCMLS libraries? I think you told us the positions that you held inthe past. Could you tell us a little bit more about those experiences?

• 02:19 Traci: Okay, I do want to mention, like when I first started, we worked with the system that was like the black screen with like the green glowing like letters, and you had to like scan a barcode if you wanted to check out, and if you wanted to check in, you had to scan a different barcode to switch to check in. And our system has changed so much since then that now you don't have to, like, scan a barcode to change functions. You can just scan the library card or just click a button to do check in. So that part has really evolved. And we used to have these like scanner pins, which were super awesome. But now we have scanners, which, you know, you just slide the book under versus having to like go the pen over top of it. So that was cool. We did used to have way more like VHS tapes and CDs. And we always had to go search for the CDs and you could check out 20 of them.And people would always come at, like, the end to check out like 20 CDs. And we would have to go find them in the drawers and drawers and drawers of CDs. So things have really changed. I mean, we don't have as much CDs, but when we did, they were in the box towards the later years, not having to search them all. So that those things have changed.

• 03:26 Hannah: You mentioned a scanner pin. Can you tell me about that one? I don't remember that.

• 03:33 Traci: Yeah. So if you think about like the stylus that you have now for like tablets and things, but attached to like a cord that like attached to the USB port. And then you don't have to scan it over the barcode. You guys can't see that, but I'm literally making like a slash across the paper motion. And it was good as long as the scanners work, but we had some wonky ones that would, like, blink in and out. So like halfway through scanning the barcode, it would be like, I have no clue what you just did. So it was a little bit faster, I think than scanning now, because you could just put the whole stack and then just like swipe the pen across all the barcodes versus having to like make sure each individual book goes under the scanner. So it was one of our favorite things.

• 04:14 Paul: So that was what year? So was that a long time ago, or?

• 04:18 Traci: I guess technically by today's standards, it is, but I would say like 1997.

• 04:24 Paul: Wow. Yeah. Long time ago.

• 04:25 Traci: Well, not like the eighties, but yeah, a long time ago. And I think it took maybe like two or three years to switch from GEAC to another system that you didn't have to scan the barcodes to change functions.

• 04:36 Paul: Did you mean the other system is Polaris? So we have another.

• 04:40 Traci: I think we went, I think we went from GEAC to Polaris, which we have now. But even Polaris has evolved from what it was. So like the Polaris that we used to have, it was very basic. And like you would still have to go into different places to find like the books or the list of items that people had checked out. It wasn't set up like this. And then over time you got little icons and the icons I think were just easier.

• 05:04 Paul: Yeah, the crazy icons.

• 05:07 Traci: Yeah, sometimes the icons don't make sense.

• 05:09 Hannah: I mean, yeah, with GEAC, I remember that condition of, well, we went from, I think GEAC was DOS-based. Like you said, it was a black background, green text. It looked kinda like the Matrix. Like, major keyboard shortcut.

• 05:23 Traci: Yeah, everything was a shortcut. When you no longer had to scan the barcode, then you could do like F3 or F13. But you couldn't do anything I don't think without doing that.

• 05:31 Hannah: I don't think so. I don't think there was much in the way of clicking other than opening the program. 
• 05:36 Traci: Yeah. 
• 05:37 Hannah: And then we went to Polaris in 2008.

• 05:45 Traci: No, I think it must have been a little bit - It must have been before that though. So maybe there was, maybe there was a gap between GEAC and Polaris. Maybe there was a gap program.

• 05:55 Hannah: I don't think so. I think we just have kind of a slow, painful transition.

• 05:59 Traci: Oh, it was painful.

• 06:00 Hannah: Everybody freaked out about how do you learn a software that was Windows-based and involved clicking and had three different ways of doing everything and I remember people freaking out - because there were all these little marbles you could click and [inaudible] - across the program, people were like, WHAT ABOUT THE MARBLES?
• 07:17 Traci: Yeah. The thing about Polaris is you can use the marbles and you can use shortcuts for some things and then you can use icons. And so it all depends on who you are. So I have some staff that go by the marbles. I have staff that go by the icons and I still have staff that go like F2, F3 and they've memorized all of that.

• 06:37 Hannah: I never, yeah, I ignore the marbles. I forgot that they existed until we had this conversation.

• 06:39 Traci: Yes. Sometimes I will train the part-time staff on the marbles only because like there is a circulation one and then the icons are there if they don't know how to get to it without like seeing it. Sure. So if you're brand new, sometimes it's easier to go by the marble or to even be trained on Leap, which is what I think they're trying to transition to, which is fully web-based and you can have like

• 07:02 Hannah: Noooo
• 07:02 Traci: you can have like a hundred windows open at one time. Like this is not good for me. I don't need a hundred tabs. There's no shortcuts. Paul likes Leap though.

• 07:11 Paul Yeah. I'm a big fan of Leap.

• 07:16 Hannah: This is good for Paul but I need my keyboard shortcuts 
• 07:19 Paul: Have you noticed change in the circulation procedures during the years?

• 07:25 Traci: Yes. So we did go fine free a couple of years ago before that, like, you know, in 1996 back in the day, when people checked out VHS tapes, there was a charge. And so there was a charge to check them out for the weekend. I think it wasn't very much like it was a dollar five to check it out, but it was only like three days. And all of our other items were three weeks. You would have to, like, really tell people like, Hey, you checked out these 10 VHS tapes. They're due in three days. So this is Friday. They're due on Monday and it's a dollar five a day if they're late. The same with the CDs. There used to be a charge to check out the CDs.

• 08:00 Paul: Because DVDs right now is one week. Yes?

• 08:03 Traci: Yes. But now you can also renew them. So you couldn't renew the VHS tapes. Like you just got the three days and that was it. And so over time they made it so that the VHS tapes were renewable. And then the VHS tapes kind of like left because we were starting to get DVDs. And the DVDs, I think we charge for a little while. Cause if you see some of the older DVDs, they still have the little sticker that says one oh five per day.

• 08:26 Hannah: Yeah
• 08:26: Traci: We don't have very many of those left. Like a lot of them just didn't make it cause people use them so much. So now we don't charge to check anything out. Unless you get something from OCLC or across the country. ‘Cause then they would charge for like the shipping or what have you, but there's no charge to check out any of our items now. And now there's no fines. So those things have definitely changed.

• 08:49 Hannah: You used to, I believe, you mentioned the CDs. I want to put, we're not in the cases. They need to be kept behind the camera in sleeves.

• 08:58 Traci: Yes
• 08:58 Hannah: So I think circulation that had to pull them each time.

• 09:03 Traci: We did. Oh, and there used to be limits. Yeah. So there used to be limits on CDs. You can only check out 20, which was great cause we had to find them. So you knew you were in to find them in the drawers. They were all in order by like a little three letter code. It was, it was fine. But then they started putting the CDs in the cases, which was much easier because people could also check out 75 of them or unlimited numbers of them. And that would have taken a ton of time.

• 09:28 Paul: People probably bring back the VHS rewind it, or you have a lot of machines doing it .

• 09:35 Traci: Oh, you know what? So Will will probably be able to answer that. Yeah. I think Will at one time did say they had a rewind, like a few rewinding machines. By the time I came along, people just returned them. And then if someone checked it out, we were just like, you might have to rewind it. Like if it's not playing, you probably have to rewind it. And it was just on the customer to know that I might have to rewind this thing.

• 09:55 Paul: Well, this is another task that we had in the past.

• 09:59 Traci: Yeah. Yeah. My kids don't even know what a VHS tape is.

• 10:03 Paul: Okay. Can you tell us what it means for you to work in a public library?

• 10:10 Traci:  Um, this is a hard one for me because this is my life. I really enjoy working with the public. I enjoy seeing customers get help. I enjoy, um, people being able to come here and not have to pay a price. And it's just equal for everybody. So for me, it's very important. Sometimes I do think about making a switch to, like, a university library or, um, archives or something. And I just think that I would be, like, super lonely and super sad without all the interactions that I get from them, like the population that comes in, because here you get to learn your neighborhood and you get to know the people that, like, live and work near you. And I just think I would really miss that. So for me, it's really important to be here as part of my own community and be able to deal with the staff and the customers on a daily basis and have that interaction.

• 11:04 Hannah: In your perspective, what makes the PGCMLS libraries different from other libraries, if anything?

• 11:11 Traci: I think that we have a lot of branches, So I think we have 19 branches. I always forget one or two. Um, but it's across a very big county where a lot of the population is not the same. And our library system tries to cater to everybody within that county where I think some other systems don't have to worry about, like, the diversity of what their county needs. They have like, this is all we have to worry about because this is our population. And we just have so many things that we're encompassing because our county is so diverse. And we're trying to make sure that everybody is covered and then we have something for everyone. And I think that that makes us different because we are trying to make sure that everybody has something here for them.

• 11:59 Hannah: Yeah, We are a really large county.

• 12:02 Traci: It is very large.

• 12:04 Hannah: Sometimes I forget branches. 
• 12:05 Traci: Yeah, sometimes I forget about Oxon Hill. It seems very far, far, far from me.

• 12:13 Paul: Yeah. Have you ever had the opportunity to work in another branch besides Hyattsville?

• 12:18 Traci: Yes. Um, so I started at Greenbelt and then I went to Largo and then I went back to Greenbelt and then I worked at Laurel and then I worked at Bowie and now I'm working here.

• 12:27 Paul: Wow. So you are covered a lot of branches.

• 12:30 Traci: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 12:32 Paul: Yeah, good. If someone is interested in working in a public library, what would you say to encourage them to start a career in public libraries?

• 12:40 Traci: I would tell them that it's really rewarding and that we do help a lot of people and it's ever changing. So if you don't want a job where you're just going to sit and do the same thing every day, this is good for them. I will say that like in order to get your foot in the door, at one time I would have said to volunteer and then if you volunteer or you get a summer internship just to make sure that you work hard because you are making your first impression with the staff and then the staff can say, oh, they were a really great worker. We can recommend them for another position and although it might take a while to like get a position, you know, you do have the staff that are like, I worked with that person and that really helps. So I would definitely say, like, if you come here for an internship or to volunteer that you put your best foot forward and you make sure that you're a hard worker and you know, try your best.

• 13:31 Hannah: What is the most challenging aspect to working in circulation?

• 13:37 Traci: Circulation has to deal with more account issues than anyone else in the library. So a lot of our job used to be having to look at people's account, tell them what's overdue, tell them they had fines, explain the fines, explain the overdue. A lot of that is a little bit easier now because you still have to explain, like, what's overdue and the process. Like if you're too far overdue, we're going to charge you with the book, but we're not so much telling people you owe us this amount of money and it doesn't have to be so much of, like, okay, I'm sorry that you owe this, but you still have to pay. So that's a little bit more challenging because I would think that like with the library inside, you guys get to help with books or look for books or help them find what they need or help with help. And then we are the ones that are like, oh my gosh, you can't check out because you owe us 10 books or something, which is just harder.

• 14:33 Hannah: So when we went fine-free for you, it sounds like that was a significant change to the day to day of your job.

• 14:41 Traci:Yes, and it's much easier now and I think it's way more fair that we don't charge fines.And another thing that took a lot of stress off of us was being able to have auto renew so people were not getting overdue notices because they forgot to renew their books. Because that was awful. Like they would have a whole bunch of books out and if one went overdue, then nothing renewed and you couldn't renew, they had to come in and that was a stressor for them. And now that the books auto renew, most of the time the stressor is just if one of them doesn't renew because it's on hold or the renewals are out, which is just a different conversation. That's a conversation of like, okay, someone has this on hold, I can add you to the hold list or if you bring the book in, no one's waiting for it, I can check it back out to you versus having 75 overdue and then having discuss all 75 being overdue because it didn't renew. So auto renewals and fine free have really helped circulation staff to not have that friction with customers.

• 15:42 Paul: Have you deal with any collection?

• 15:48 Traci: That's the other thing that we used to do. We used to send people to collections if they owed too many items or if they had too much money on their account. We no longer send people to collections. So it is, again, we would be telling customers you have this fine or you owe this amount, but it's not the added stress of we turned you into collections and now it's on your permanent record. So even though we might still deal with irate customers for this, it's less than if it were the collection fee or the threat of collections on top of everything else.

• 16:22 Hannah: They're not necessarily worried about their credit conversation. They're just upset that their, their book didn't renew and they want to know why.

• 16:30 Traci: Yes. And I would say that this is, this is easier to fix.This is a matter of, okay, let's go look for the book or let's see if you can find the book versus, okay, now we have to call a third person to talk about collection fees to talk about whether or not that can be waived because of a different situation. It takes a lot of the stress out of the conversation.Yeah.

• 16:51 Paul: Now, my credit score is bad because the library.

• 16:55 Traci: So at one point in history, we were getting a lot of people who wanted to buy a house and couldn't because the library had turned them into collections and some of the collections was literally $25 and they were being told we're turning you down for this because you're in collections for this $25. So it wasn't even, yeah, it wasn't even, it wasn't always a large amount.

• 17:18 Hannah: I didn't realize that we had that effect.

• 17:21 Traci: Yeah.

• 17:21 Hannah: A $25 fine.

• 17:23 Traci: Yeah. So $25 was the threshold that kicked you into collections. So anything under 25 would not, but once you owe us $25, then that kicks you into collections. And so that escalates very quickly when you think about the fact that a hardback book is like $24.99 or $25.99. So you lose one hardback book and then all of a sudden you were in collections with, like, the threat of a permanent mark on your record.

• Hannah: Yikes. I’m glad we’re fine-free now. 
• 17:50 Traci: Me too.
• 17:50 Paul: Did you have a memory of a very expensive book or something very special in the collection?

• 17:55 Traci: Oh, I do. Oh, this gentleman had borrowed an OCLC book and it came from a university out of state and he accidentally left it on a bus and it was lost. And the other county wanted $200 for that book. And there really wasn't a way around it because I think that's what they paid for it. And even looking for it online, like the book was $400. And so, like, it just had to be taken care of like little chunks at a time.

• 18:26 Hannah: Oh, yeah. I guess even though we're fine-free now, I'm not sure what that means for Marina.

• 18:33 Traci: So Marina's an OCLC. Yeah. Yeah. So Marina's, it's just a flat charge. I think no matter what the book is, it's $25. It's not bad bad, especially because you might be getting a book that's worth more than that and they're just charging the flat or they used to just charge the flat 25. Now I think they do a search and they find out what the cost is. So sometimes you don't have to pay that and it's less. But other states books or university books is what they are charging for it. And a lot of the things that you're ordering from OCLC are not things that can be found on Amazon or in the, just the library walking in, it is a specialty item. And so they do cost way more.

• 19:14 Paul: Wow.

• 19:15 Hannah: I wonder if we have to caution folks more about that when we offer them interlibrary loan,

• 19:23 Traci: Yeah.
• 19:23 Hannah: Which I think is a wonderful service, interlibrary loan [unintelligible] 

• 19:32 Traci: Yeah. And of course it seems like an easy thing too, because no one sets out to accidentally leave their book or like if their back kind of pack gets stolen or, you know, these are definitely things that you didn't plan on.

• 19:44 Hannah: Your water bottle in your bag.

• 19:47 Traci: Yeah. Or bacon. The bacon juice gets on a book that has happened. Sure. It smelled real bad.

• 19:54 Hannah: Your coffee, your spaghetti sauce.

• 19:57 Traci: Yeah. Accidents happen.

• 20:00 Paul: Okay. Can you tell us about a special memory or anecdote of your work?

• 20:08 Traci: So a lot of my fun memories or things that I would tell are probably not appropriate. So we will not mention that. But I will mention one of my favorite children's interactions where a little child wanted a book of the body. And they really wanted to learn about it. But they were like, do you have anything that's like cross-section slides of real life? And I was like, I don't think they make that. So I think that he really wanted, like, an anatomy book for adults. But he was like, I don't like the drawn pictures. I want real pictures. And I was like, I don't think they have those. So.

• 20:45 Hannah: Probably not for a small child. I think it's more like drawings.

• 20:49 Traci: Yeah. So he was real disappointed that all he was getting was the fictional body.

• 20:56 Hannah: So they are funny.

• 20:58 Traci: They're the best though.

• 20:59 Paul: I used to work in Colombia in a small library and the community that the children know where is the adult section for anatomy. And they hide the books or things like that. And they squeeze,  the book is over there. They take notes. Yeah. That's really funny. And obviously we say that, okay, this is a book. You can learn from a book so better than any other thing. So yeah. But they hide the book.

• 21:31 Traci: That's funny.

• 231:32 Paul: Or change where it is. They're finding another place. And yeah. The secret books in the collection.

• 21:40 Hannah: Find it later and look at it when the adult isn’t seeing them.

• 21:43 Traci: Exactly. And they know where it is too, because they're the ones who did it.

• 21:48 Paul: Yeah. And it's a small library. So a neighborhood library. The kids comes every day because there's no parks around or things like that. So they come to the library every day. So they know better than us the collection.

• 22:02 Traci: That's funny.

• 22:06 Paul: Yeah. Okay, good.

• 22:08 Hannah: In your opinion, what makes public libraries important in our community?

• 22:14 Traci: Well, I think public libraries fill a gap that not a lot of other places can. So, you know, there are food drives and coat drives and things like that, but there's nothing that's really like here. You get to take home this free book. And you just bring it back to us when you're done. And I think that that works well with some of our in our county. Some of our schools are not as well equipped library wise. And most of the time the children can come here and get the books. So I think that it fills that gap. And we also fill a lot of the free gaps. So free English language conversation clubs or French conversation clubs or computer training or one-on-one appointments where you can learn a small thing. And I really think that there's not a lot of places who do these free things that aren't very like, not, um, Not, what does it pay base? So you're, you're like not paying a membership fee. So like you can get a free membership to the library, but you might not be able to get a free membership to, um, MNCPPC and learn how to, you know, code there or something like that's going to be a cost. Whereas here sometimes we have, we do have coding classes and we do have classes where people can just learn basic skills that they would have to pay the community college for. They would have to pay the parks and rec for. And I think that we fill that gap. And that's really important because I think we're the only ones who do some of that.

• 23:38 Hannah: Yeah. Yeah. [Unintelligible].

• 23:54 Traci: Yes. And not all professors actually want to do the free books or the online books. And so they still want to make people pay for the books. And sometimes we do have some of those books there. Like if you take a literacy class, most of the classics we're going to have at some point, whether online in our system or here. So sometimes the books are free here, even if you do have to pay the class. So again, it works really well with other agencies, I think too.

• 24:18 Paul: Yeah, and the people have access to technology, like you say. So for example, 3D printers, print, regular printers, scanners, things that probably not all the people have access at home.

• 24:31 Traci: Yes. And I've had people tell us too that compared to staples, our printing is like very fairly priced. So after your 10 pages free, your price is still like staples is charging like 25 cents or 20 cents and we're charging 15.

• 24:44 Hannah: That was shocking to me. I was sure we were not going to be the cost effective option. I'm sure that a business model set up by both high quality companies would have better options. So I was, I have heard the same thing.

• 25:00 Traci: Yeah, no, we are the cost effective ones.

• 25:02 Hannah: Someone told us our printer was better than Staples, but I was like, what? Our printer is not that good.

• 25:10 Traci: Yeah, it tries its best. It's the little printer they could.

• 25:14 Hannah: We do jam it all the time.

• 25:15 Traci: Yeah.

• 25:16 Hannah: It tries it. Yeah, it's the little printer that could.

• 25:19 Traci: Yes, so.

• 25:22 Paul: Yeah. And the other way is in the other side is it's difficult to say to the people in now you can print out 300 pages here because it's a lot of people waiting for the we only have one printer. 
• 25:35 Traci: Yeah. 
• 25:36 Paul: No, you can scan a whole book.

• 25:38 Traci: Yeah. No, that's right.

• 235:40 Paul: Copyright and also people need to use the scanner. So you can spend more than two hours scanning for 300 pages.

• 25:50 Traci: Some people do have the patience though and they'll, like, I'll do it 15 minutes at a time. And I'm like, okay.

• 25:56 Hannah: I don't have the patience for that.

• 25:58 Traci: Some people do and I'm like more, you know, more power to you.

• 26:04 Paul: Okay. What is a common misconception about public library work?

• 26:09 Traci: I'm not sure about public library work, but I would say a common misconception in libraries is that we get to sit around and read all day. And that's definitely not what I get to do all day. So it sounds fun.

• 26:21 Hannah: It would be nice, wouldn’t it
• 26:21  Traci: It would be nice. Maybe another misconception is that it's perfect here, like you're going to come here and it's super safe. And you can leave your kids and your stuff and just, you know, everything's going to be fine, but we are still a public place and you do kind of still have to keep an eye on your items and make sure that your kids are, you know, behaving and still with you. So I think maybe the other misconception is that, you know, you can come here and just drop your kids or make part of it your home. Maybe you can set up camp for the day and, you know, have your own table. But sometimes it's really busy and sometimes that's not an option. So, yeah, I would say that was another misconception.

• 26:04 Hannah: Those were really, really good points. Side note: some people take their shoes off. I wana tell them, I wouldn’t do that.
• 27:12 Traci: Yeah, a lot of people come in and there's a lot of tracking on this and whatever is on the bottom of your shoe is also all over the floor.

• 27:19 Hannah: Our Building & Groundskeepers do a good job 
• 27:21 Traci: They try
• 27:22 Hannah: But there's a lot that happens here. I wouldn’t walk around barefoot here. 27:25 Traci: Yeah, between cleaning too. Like it's cleaned every day and I would still be like, yeah.

• 27:34 Hannah: If someone wants to be a Circulation Supervisor, what would be your advice?

• 27:41 Traci: I would say to make sure. So if you were in a position that was not a supervisory position to make sure that you take supervisory trainings to make sure that you stay up on like the updates and the trainings and make sure that you know all of the procedures and things like that because you still do have to interview and you need that knowledge base in order to help you become a supervisor. I know a lot of my supervisory training came because I was thrown in like they were, like, oh, you've got this job. Here you go. Here's your desk. Have a great time, and that was the training I got. And so I had to do a lot of, like, training on my own to make sure that I was covering all the bases and being a good supervisor. So I think in order to better prepare yourself for that, like to make sure that you are taking trainings and at least some management training so that you at least know, like, where you're starting from and where you want to how you want to manage or how you want to supervise. Yeah. The training is sometimes lax here. So, and I think some, in some places it's just lax, like, not just libraries, but a lot of places are just like you got this job. Good job. And so, you know, making sure that you are beefing up your own knowledge base is helpful.

• 28:55 Hannah: That’s a good point. I mean, a lot of capable people in general get promoted and supervising is another skillset. 
• 29:07 Traci: Yeah.

• 29:11 Paul: And also it's a lot of responsibility.

• 29:14 Traci: It is a lot of responsibility. And I didn't realize that not everybody felt the same way about that. So I supervise a staff of seven and then someone in my seven supervises the part time staff, but I let everybody know that if you make a mistake or if something happens like I'm responsible for that. So feel free to make decisions. I don't want you to not make decisions and feel free to do what you need to do because in the end I am responsible for all of this. So if it comes back, it's coming back on me. Like there's not really going to be unless you do something egregiously wrong. There's not going to be fallout for you. And I didn't realize that all supervisors did not feel that like some supervisors are like, oh, you made that decision. Now you pay for that decision. But it's still in your department. So I don't know how, like, the supervisor isn't taking some responsibility for, like, a decision that might have been made without all the knowledge there or a snap decision under pressure. And so I didn't realize that some supervisors were like, nope, that's on you.

• 30:14 Hannah: That seems like a very good example of leadership to look out for your folks in your department, your direct reports and not have a culture of punishment, have a culture of allowing things and allowing them to try things and supporting them. That seems like a good role for a supervisor. 

• 30:36 Traci: My goal is always to make sure that if I am not here for some reason on vacation, if I'm sick, then my staff are empowered to make decisions and to make sure that the department is still running. Even if I'm not here, like just, you know, send me an email, make sure to let me know. Because I want them to know, hey, you're a grown up, you are working in this world, we gave you this job, we trust you. Not. I don't want to do, ever do anything where my staff don't feel empowered to do their job.

• 31:03 Paul: Yeah, I think that the trust that you can put in your coworkers is a best value that you can have with your teamwork. Okay, so is there anything that we didn't ask you about, about today that you want to share? Some relevant experience we didn't get though?

• 31:26 Traci: I do have one little story that I want to tell and this is it. So when I was three, I used to sit in my house and scan my books under the arm of a chair for hours, checking them out, making a little like, beep, noise. And sometimes I would misscan my own books. I'd be like, nope, the scanner didn't scan right. And then I was like, oh, this is actually my dream job. So like I'm doing a job that I wanted to do when I was three and would check out my own little books for hours. 
• 31:53 Hannah: That’s adorable
• 31:55 Paul: Yeah, adorable
• 31:58 Traci: My mom was like, yeah, I would hear your scanner mess up all the time. Like it would make a bad noise. And I was like, oh, it didn't scan the barcode.

• 32:06 Paul: I dream with superheroes, planes, cars, what you're doing with beep , beep. I didn't scan her.

• 32:16 Hannah: Was there a book [unintelligible] checkout?

• 32:19 Traci: Oh my gosh, I think we had a whole set of like those golden books so they were really thin. So I could do this for hours with like 20 golden books. The stack would be really small. There was always books in my house, though. Like the people gave us or it didn't matter if it was a book, it was going to get scanned under my little scanner. Don't worry.

• 32:37 Paul: Yeah, that's wonderful to hear. Okay, thank you for being with us in this project.

• 32:45 Traci: So thank you.

• 32:46 Paul: So, it was enjoyable time with you. Thank you.

• 32:48 Traci: Thank you so much. It was so much fun. Alrighty.