Jane Richardson, Patty Dominguez, and Dr. Claire Davies

[00:01] JANE RICHARDSON: My name is Jane. Today's date is November 7, 2022. We are in Las Vegas, Nevada, at the Rainbow Library. My name is Patty. Today's date is November 7, 2022. We are at the Las Vegas, Nevada, Rainbow Library.

[00:28] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: And I'm Claire. Today is November 7, 2022. We're in Las Vegas, Nevada, at the Rainbow Library. So I'm here to talk with Jane. Jane, you are the original branch manager of the Rainbow library, and I am the current branch manager at the Rainbow library.

[00:53] JANE RICHARDSON: That's correct.

[00:56] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: So can you tell me about how you got into librarianship?

[01:02] JANE RICHARDSON: I actually backed into librarianship. This was in the fifties and sixties in rural Us of a, opportunities for women were limited. I did not want to be a teacher. I did not want to be a nurse. I did not want to be a secretary. And that sort of left librarianship. There was a young woman from that same town who had become a librarian. My mother always held her up as a fine example of what a single woman could be. And so I finished my bachelor's degree, applied for library school. They let me into the University of Washington, and I realized as I came to the end of my degree, I did not know what I was going to do next. Getting a job had never been part of the concept. Getting the degree was the concept, and there I was. So my sister and I got in the car and drove from Seattle down through California, here, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and I made myself more than a sheaf of documents. I was a person, and I believe I got three job offers out of that.

[02:31] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: We actually found out recently that we went to the same library school. I went online, as is current practice for most people. And you went in person, but we both went to the University of Washington.

[02:43] JANE RICHARDSON: Yeah, that was exciting to learn.

[02:44] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: Yeah. So you're retired now, Jane, but did you enjoy being a librarian?

[02:49] JANE RICHARDSON: I really did. I really did. I loved it when somebody could say to me, this is what I need, and I could find it. And this was before Google. We did this with books, and people think, card catalog. This district never had a card catalog. By the time I arrived, they were already in the rudimentary stages of being automated. We had a book catalog, which is interesting to learn to use, but eventually went completely online. And, well, we never looked back.

[03:28] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: This district was one of the first, wasn't it, to go online? I believe.

[03:32] JANE RICHARDSON: I believe so. I know that the Huntington Beach Library in California, there was a lot of interplay back and forth as we both implemented the circulation system that was available at that time. But, yeah, we were out there first in line.

[03:57] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: So that leads me to a next question, which is, what other kinds of changes have you seen in libraries over the years?

[04:04] JANE RICHARDSON: Oh, I think the one I like the best as a user at this point is the self checkout and the self check in. I won't use it at the grocery store. I won't use it at the department store, but I love it here in the building, and I can see that it has reduced the workload of the frontline staff enormously.

[04:35] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: What other kinds of changes have you seen?

[04:42] JANE RICHARDSON: Well, when I first arrived, the library had the Flamingo branch, and I believe there were a few little branches scattered around the county in old bookmobiles and people's front porches. And by the time I had retired, we had 25 brick buildings. So that was pretty amazing. It was a wonderful time to be here.

[05:15] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: And which other branches did you work in?

[05:17] JANE RICHARDSON: Jane started at Flamingo. We call it Flamingo now. I spent some time, I took some time off and went to California and worked down there at the beach for a while and came back up and then just went around to the buildings in town that had been built in my absence. They called it the Brush Street Library was there at that time, the Spring Valley library had been built. Clark county is still there. Las Vegas library was in a storefront down with the Huntington Theater while they were between this building and the other building. And so watching that happened, being able to work in those locations, also in California, I did some part timing at a number of public and university libraries.

[06:21] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: What do you miss about working in libraries now you're retired?

[06:26] JANE RICHARDSON: I miss the camaraderie of the staff.

[06:33] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: Do you find that library people are different in some way to other places you might have worked or come across?

[06:41] JANE RICHARDSON: I think that we mostly all have extremely finely tuned senses of humor, and I'm sure that if I knew people in other areas, that would also be true.

[07:02] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: I think that's what drew me to a career in libraries, too. I started as an assistant and was quite happy doing that. But I thought I'd go off and do my degree and stay and make a career out of this, because once I got here, I found that I thought I'd find my tribe. People are just very funny and smart and very caring, and nobody comes into librarianship because they don't like helping people. That's exactly what we want to do. So I think they are very typical public servants, I'm sure, but I don't know the sense of humor. Definitely very sharp sense of humor. That's very true. Do you have any favorite stories from your work life?

[07:50] JANE RICHARDSON: I just think the growth that we showed, the details are not clear, but the library district was able to pass a couple of bond issues that provided the funding for these libraries, and it was a time that the bond market was booming, and so we had extra money, and that was fun. And just watching all of us go through the throes of putting a branch together. Of course, we had the architects and the adult supervision from above and lots of backup support staff, but as the branch managers, we are the ones with our names on the buildings and the building project, and it fell into the category of other duties as assigned. It was fun.

[08:51] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: So tell me more about that whole process. When the rainbow library was conceptualized to when it was finally opened.

[09:01] JANE RICHARDSON: The district began library service in shopping centers in an area they wanted to serve. And our shopping center was down at Cheyenne and Jones. At one time, we actually thought about putting a kitchen post up for the people who would come in on horseback because we were still so extremely rural in this neighborhood at that time. But just in the few months between when we had that brainstorm and actually opened the branch, the roads had been paved, and so people still came in on their horses, but it was not their primary form of transportation to get to the library at that time. Then, as it became Rainbow's turn, we would all sit together in a group and just clear blue sky. What do you need out there? What do you think they're like out there? Well, out in this neighborhood at that time, we needed a meeting room, and so that popped up. You see the meeting room in this building, and it's in constant use, and then there are any number of ideas that came and went. That's true of any building project. You think, oh, man, that would be fun. Let's put this there. Let's put this there. Let's put this there. Wait a minute, says the money guy. You don't have that much money. Oh, darn.

[10:34] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: Can you think of some examples of things that you would have liked to have done if there was endless money?

[10:43] JANE RICHARDSON: We talked about putting the radio station here.

[10:47] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: Oh, really?

[10:47] JANE RICHARDSON: We did. It was a short lived idea, but this is a ten acre site, and so there was boundless, and the infrastructure had not been built. Buffalo was a track that hadn't even been graded, let alone paved, so there was just vast quantity of open space. The city had all of these facilities that are behind us that you know of.

[11:16] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: Right.

[11:20] JANE RICHARDSON: But they gave us ten acres, and there's a lot you can do with ten acres. You have to have the money, and we had to maintain the budget, so there were things that we didn't get done.

[11:33] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: So what was next in the process? You sat down and brainstormed, and then what happened?

[11:37] JANE RICHARDSON: Well, they hire an architect. We need to have architect interviews and select the architect, wrote the building plan. Sitting there, waxing poetic on what you think the concept of the building could be, and then that's what the architect gets, and you work back and forth, and the architect that was hired for Rainbow Library came up with this.

[12:07] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: So tell us about the design of rainbow library and how it got to be this design, this shape.

[12:14] JANE RICHARDSON: By the time that we were building this library, I knew that there were certain things that needed to be done that didn't get done very often. One of them was to have a building that was shaped so that you can see from where staff is at the front of the building, can see clear down to the ends, have as few hidey holes as you can have just for public safety. And so that's where the triangle shape came from. Like any other shape that isn't a box, it's always easier to conceptualize than it is to put together. But I think they did a fine job. And I said, with the views that we have out here, we need to have windows, and they did a fine job with that.

[13:16] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: What about the shape at the front of the building and the design that took place?

[13:21] JANE RICHARDSON: I like to think that every other building that you see in the United States from that time was based on this building. It was.

[13:29] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: Could well be. This is an unusual shape. It sort of has a conical, cut off, conical section at the front, and then there are all those. What do we call those in front of the building?

[13:41] JANE RICHARDSON: They're actually terrorist barriers, but I like to call them arches.

[13:48] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: Yeah, we usually call them the arches.

[13:53] JANE RICHARDSON: They were very festive in color, in paint. When the building was opened, it was the rainbow library. Those were pastel rainbow hues. There's lavender and sky blue and hot pink, and it was very colorful at the front of the building. That was a time in society when people were driving into the doorways of buildings to smash and grab. That's when you started to see the balusters in front of places like target, all of the things that keep people from driving the car right in there and helping themselves. That was the concept. Behind here. You see it at West Charleston, a number of the other buildings.

[14:43] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: And so what about the cone shape? Was that supposed to be reminiscent of a mountain or something?

[14:48] JANE RICHARDSON: Yes. The building is organic, and as you come up Cheyenne, you don't see it because it blends in with the mountain shape so well. That cone is quite like the mountain at red rocks called turtlehead. It's just the other direction. People ask, why did you call it rainbow light?

[15:16] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: That was my next question. We always get asked that we're not on rainbow. Rainbow is like a couple streets, right?

[15:22] JANE RICHARDSON: Well, at the time we named it when we were at the storefront, and as I mentioned earlier, the countryside was very, very rural. We could stand in that building at Cheyenne and Jones and look out straight into red rocks, and Rainbow Peak was right there, and that's why we named it Rainbow. Also at that time, the street that is now Rainbow was called Lorenzi. So there was a street name change in that timeframe. Lorenzi still is on the other side of the 95, but if you notice, as you cross the 95 on Rainbow, there's a curve, and that's to align rainbow from the south with rainbow to the north.

[16:17] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: So was it always going to be called the rainbow library?

[16:20] JANE RICHARDSON: Yes. Yes, it was always going to be rainbow library.

[16:23] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: And then the neon signs that we have, those are very particular to this branch, too.

[16:28] JANE RICHARDSON: They are.

[16:29] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: Tell me about those.

[16:34] JANE RICHARDSON: I was talking to the architect one day and said, and I want that sign in flashing red neon. So that's what we got. I don't know how long it's been since quite a lot of the neon has been removed. We had neon clouds in the children's room.

[16:53] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: Oh, really?

[16:54] JANE RICHARDSON: That were just real easy to break. When the gentleman would go up to change the furnace, filters or anything high ladder work, any little jostle would send that neon into la la land. And so I can understand why that was removed. But, yeah, the red neon, that's mine.

[17:23] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: That's great. So how long did the building take to build? Do you remember?

[17:27] JANE RICHARDSON: I don't remember because it seems like.

[17:31] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: Sometimes these libraries take forever now, but I don't know, they were building a lot at the same time, weren't they?

[17:35] JANE RICHARDSON: We were. We were. And I know when we took the lease at the storefront library, we were thinking three years. It was more like nine or eleven. It was really quite a while. It was crazy to build the library and then have the city go in and do the flood control back down behind us. So we waited for those things to be finished and get the streets in. Although when we did first open, there was no traffic light at Buffalo and Cheyenne.

[18:08] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: Oh, wow.

[18:09] JANE RICHARDSON: And the sun city was built, and then there was a gap, but there was no traffic control at Buffalo and Cheyenne, and the citizens complained to their city council and got that taken care of. That was kind of fun to say. Well, you need to talk to the city council because that's beyond the library district's control. But it was pretty empty out here.

[18:47] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: So what was opening day like?

[18:51] JANE RICHARDSON: Opening day was a madhouse we had during the opening ceremonies. The night before, the public was here. They were in the building. They had books. They stashed them all over the building so that they could come back in the morning and get them. And get them first. And it's, to this day, still frustrating for our customers to come in and find anything on the shelf. As a user, I have learned to go to the website, put I want to read on hold and come and get it when it's here with my name on it.

[19:35] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: Yeah, that's the best way.

[19:37] JANE RICHARDSON: But it's one of those things we. Nobody. I don't think anybody had any concept of how this neighborhood would explode. It had always been so laid back and rural and little clippity clop on the horse around on the desert, and then it wasn't. So we were, we could have been twice this size and still been this busy, I think.

[20:06] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: So opening day was full. I mean, was it, did you have all staff, all hands on deck? Were there celebrities?

[20:14] JANE RICHARDSON: Were there programs? The brass came out from headquarters and looked around and said, you need more pages. I said, yes, we do.

[20:30] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: To shelve. Yeah.

[20:31] JANE RICHARDSON: Yes, we had. We just transferred the staff from the storefront, which was small up here, added a few folks, but not very many. And the books that were being returned were just in great mounds and heaps. And then we got more pages. And those kids work so hard to get stuff back on the shelf that we were. That's when we used to call around. A book would show on the shelf someplace, and we would call around and be sure it was there and have them send the book. And the usual refrain was, well, it says, it came back today. You won't find it on the shelf. But we did. We always did. That's where it was, because that's what those kids were doing. They were, they were getting those books on the shelf the day they came back.

[21:24] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: Wow. So and so you were the branch manager and who else? Is there anyone else still in the district that you can think of that was there that day?

[21:36] JANE RICHARDSON: Hmm. I know that Becky, the woman who does the book selection, she started at rainbow as a page at the storefront.

[21:50] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: See, we have a lot of staff that started as pages and worked their way up. I think that's wonderful.

[21:55] JANE RICHARDSON: Right. And she's the one who comes to mind. Leo Seguria was one I had my eye on, but another branch manager got him first.

[22:05] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: He's causing trouble in administration now. He's my boss's boss now.

[22:13] JANE RICHARDSON: Yeah. And most of us have retired. I think I know that we had. I would have to look at the pictures, everybody. Yeah, I think. I think most of us have retired or moved on.

[22:35] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: What year was it, Jane? Remind me what year we opened here? 89. What was it?

[22:44] JANE RICHARDSON: 90 something.

[22:44] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: 90 something.

[22:45] JANE RICHARDSON: I know that the branch had its 25th anniversary a few years ago. That makes sense, I think, before the shutdown. And I'm retired. I don't even know what day.

[22:59] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: You don't keep track of the year it is. I should know, right?

[23:02] JANE RICHARDSON: Yeah. That's your job.

[23:05] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: So, Pat let's talk about the outdoor space here, which is unique to this branch. Not many people know this, but actually, out in the back, there's an amphitheater. There is beautiful space. I often take my morning break and go for a walk around there and look at all the wildlife. There's ground squirrels running around. There's rabbits, there's hummingbirds. There's all kinds of other birds back there. Frogs or toads and all kinds of things. It's a lovely, lovely space. Was that something that you wanted for this branch?

[23:37] JANE RICHARDSON: It was. That was. During that whole building time, there were performance spaces built into the buildings that we built. We had that lovely shape in the back, and it was determined somewhere that it would be an amphitheater. There used to be wildly successful programs back there, and I'm hoping that maybe that will reopen someday. I think that it will. I believe that some of the other performing spaces have begun to reopen as time has passed.

[24:20] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: Yeah, we're hopeful to get this open. And like I say, it is a beautiful space. And with people liking outdoor programming since the pandemic, it's a beautiful space. We just. I think they're working hard to get it up to.

[24:31] JANE RICHARDSON: That would be wonderful. We had a really wonderful storytelling festival.

[24:36] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: Oh, was that here?

[24:37] JANE RICHARDSON: And that was here. We had. There was a big Halloween party called the Halloween Hullabaloo, and it mostly was outside, but then the kids got to parade through the building in their costumes, and that was such a fun thing to see, all these little kids. And there were jazz concerts. Scottish Highland Festival. Right, right. The Cayley. The Kaylee was here. And just. It's. It's. It would be pleasing to have that open again?

[25:17] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: Yes, because, like I say, it is unique to this branch, and I think people would love to come and visit and for, you know, performances or anything that goes on back there. So we're hopeful that we can get that up and running. Yes. It's a beautiful space.

[25:32] JANE RICHARDSON: It is, it is. The season catches you sometimes. Yes, there was. Well, of course, it happens every year, but we had something booked mid to late October, this wind came blazing down out of the north.

[25:50] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: That is the only thing with the outdoor space in this city. There's like, the climate is sometimes against you.

[25:56] JANE RICHARDSON: Right, right.

[25:57] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: I don't think it's been used since. I want to say, say late two thousands.

[26:04] JANE RICHARDSON: I don't know. I know I was retired. We had relocated to a different part for a while.

[26:14] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: I remember going to a program there. There was a pet program that I was part of the committee for when I very first started with the library district and came out here and worked on that pet stad killer. That was so much fun. They had pet adoptions and they had performers, and it was really fun. Really popular.

[26:32] JANE RICHARDSON: It was. It was in the summertime, of course. You just did the shows at night.

[26:37] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: Yes, yes.

[26:38] JANE RICHARDSON: Because the mountain breeze came along and made it real pleasant back there.

[26:43] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: Yeah. I think it would be a real draw, too. You'd probably be able to hear and see something from the freeway, maybe. No, maybe not. Now we've built up quite a bit.

[26:52] JANE RICHARDSON: No, you've filled up quite a bit of.

[26:54] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: So. And there was a gallery here, too, right?

[26:56] JANE RICHARDSON: Yes. An art gallery that got turned into the homework space.

[27:03] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: Homework help center. Yes.

[27:04] JANE RICHARDSON: And I can see that the circulation area was enlarged and the shape was changed. Yes, I understand all those moves. And when I came in and I saw the hard floors, I thought, yep. That 50 year carpet did not last. It was 50. And it's right here, you can see. Yes. That is still the 50 year carpet. But the traffic was so intense at the front of the building, that carpet was frayed before I retired.

[27:36] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: It was never going to stand the traffic.

[27:38] JANE RICHARDSON: That was not going to make it.

[27:39] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: Because this always was one of the busiest branches before the pandemic, especially, was really busy. But some other things have changed. You were saying earlier when we came in that the area we're sat in right now, that is currently the teen zone. You were saying there was no ceiling on here.

[27:58] JANE RICHARDSON: There wasn't. I think the top layer of windows got added because the ceiling did not come down. And I believe there were two rooms here.

[28:09] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: Okay.

[28:09] JANE RICHARDSON: So one came out the back hallway. Your office was a study room. The next one was a study room. All the little rooms along that back hallway were dedicated space for our literacy program.

[28:27] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: Oh, okay. And those are now study rooms. So everything kind of moves around. And you were saying the teens would get a little bit loud down here?

[28:35] JANE RICHARDSON: Oh, sure. They're kids. And the door closed so they didn't look up.

[28:41] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: So you had to do some good old fashioned librarian shushing.

[28:43] JANE RICHARDSON: Yeah. Came out and said, hey, guys, I didn't like to play that part much. That was.

[28:51] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: No, that's not the fun part.

[28:52] JANE RICHARDSON: That's the dragon lady part, the shushing part.

[28:55] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: We really don't take pleasure in shushing people. We really don't. So what is one thing you wish you could change about the rainbow library? If you could do it all over again, or if you could have a.

[29:07] JANE RICHARDSON: Another go at it, I'd make it twice as big. Make it twice as big. Would relocate it on the site so that it's farther from the street and so we could have more parking, because if it's twice as big, you need twice as much parking. One of the things that was an early concern were the. The handicapped spots. And yes, we needed more, but we couldn't add them in the manner of the ones that existed. We had to bring them up to the current code, which would have taken out the second row of parking. Although I've been here from time to time, I thought we could have used that many, but it was one of those things that none of us expected this building to be this busy.

[30:09] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: And even after Centennial Hills opened, which, of course, was only back in 2010, I was part of that opening team. 2008, maybe round about that time, which is only a few miles up the road than one of the newer libraries. And this. This branch still remained very busy. And so, you know, always had that reputation of being a very, very busy branch. I remember one of my old supervisors, when I was doing the committee for the Pet Stacula, she was going to send me over here to do an extra hour or two to finish out my day. And she said. She warned me about it. She said, just be prepared, that it is completely crazy over there, but so busy. So. And it was. I came from Clark county, and it was. It was very different, but it's always had a very nice vibe. A very nice feel to me, too, though. And I think that's partly down to a lot of things you were mentioning, like, there's so many windows to see out, and you can. Yeah, it's a very organic shape that doesn't feel like it's fighting against its environment.

[31:10] JANE RICHARDSON: So a thing that you could do, you have to do it in high summer, is come to the building about four in the morning and sit up in that front window and watch the sun come up and watch the sun go all through the building.

[31:31] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: Oh, yes. I bet that's spectacular.

[31:34] JANE RICHARDSON: It was. And then the air conditioning comes on. It just kind of inhales, you know? Oh, it is alive. So it was clearly, I did that.

[31:49] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: Once, but, yes, at four in the morning, you were here. That's dedication.

[31:55] JANE RICHARDSON: Yeah, well, I wanted to see what it was like. I wanted to see how the sun hit it. And it was the summer solstice, where the sun is as far north as it ever goes. That's why there aren't curtains on the north facing windows. You don't need them. The sun doesn't get quite that far north.

[32:13] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: So that's awesome. That's amazing. So how long were you a librarian for? Altogether?

[32:22] JANE RICHARDSON: I think 30 years or so.

[32:24] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: You did your 30 years? And what lessons do you think you learned from being a librarian? What sort of life lessons would you want to pass on to somebody that maybe wanted to be a librarian?

[32:36] JANE RICHARDSON: Work with visionaries.

[32:40] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: Do you think you got to be able to do that? That's something you did?

[32:42] JANE RICHARDSON: I believe I did. I think we all did. We were always thinking all the time. And it was one of those, well, what if we tried this?

[32:52] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: Yeah.

[32:53] JANE RICHARDSON: Okay, let's try that.

[32:54] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: Yeah.

[32:55] JANE RICHARDSON: And the thing I tell my nieces and nephews is everybody's got to work, but try to find a visionary. And if you can't find one, you be it.

[33:07] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: I like that.

[33:08] JANE RICHARDSON: You be it.

[33:10] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: I like that. Is there anything else that I haven't asked you that you would like to tell us about this building or about your career?

[33:21] JANE RICHARDSON: What fun.

[33:23] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: Right?

[33:24] JANE RICHARDSON: What fun.

[33:25] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: Yeah.

[33:25] JANE RICHARDSON: That's just fun.

[33:26] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: We get paid to do the fun stuff.

[33:28] JANE RICHARDSON: Yeah. Yeah. I like librarianship. Get paid for being smart.

[33:31] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: Yeah. And sometimes playing with puppets as well.

[33:37] JANE RICHARDSON: Yeah.

[33:38] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: Would you recommend it as a career?

[33:40] JANE RICHARDSON: Oh, I do. Every time anybody wonders, even still, even.

[33:44] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: Though things have changed a little bit, maybe.

[33:48] JANE RICHARDSON: I could not do your job today. I don't meet the MQs on entry level librarianship any longer. The field has evolved, but so has everybody else coming into it. I'm the dinosaur here, and I kind of like that stomping around.

[34:12] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: So that's great.

[34:14] JANE RICHARDSON: What do you want me to ask you?

[34:17] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: I'm more interested in you, but, yeah, no, I think I would agree. It is a. It's a wonderful career. I think if you are somebody who's naturally curious, no day is ever the same. We get to work with some amazing people, we get to do something to help the community, and there's never really a dull moment. And the field itself is changing, but I think that's a good thing. Like I say, if you're naturally curious and you have passion for learning, there's always something you can be learning. And, I mean, in the next few weeks here at Rainbow, we're going to be getting a hydroponic garden for the youth area that we can do some programming with, some STEM programming. And we're also going to be getting a memory lab, so a digitization station so people can convert their old vhs's to digital.

[35:13] JANE RICHARDSON: Brilliant.

[35:14] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: Yeah. Or they can get the camera, SDK cards and things and convert those. So, you know, there's always something. It's hard for me to keep up with all the things that we get to learn about, but it's still a wonderful field, I think, and still one that I would definitely recommend.

[35:36] JANE RICHARDSON: And this is Patty. I would just like to add that this library, my introduction to this library was coming to one of the events in the amphitheater. And the first time I ever saw someone spinning on a spinning wheel was in the gallery. Those are things I miss. So I hope that that can continue. But I think that we have an incredible library district here.

[36:00] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: We do.

[36:01] JANE RICHARDSON: And I love the way that the library has evolved to support what's going on in today's digital world.

[36:11] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: Thank you, Patty. Thank you, Jane. It's been really nice to connect with the original branch manager for me. It's really. It's wonderful that you come in here and still use our library and that you introduced yourself to me, and we get to talk about these things, too. It's been a real honor and a real privilege.

[36:27] JANE RICHARDSON: I carried those scrapbooks with me for 20 years.

[36:31] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: I know.

[36:32] JANE RICHARDSON: And I thought, nope, it's time.

[36:36] PATTY DOMINGUEZ: I appreciate it. And everybody here really enjoyed looking through. They're currently in admin, so, yeah, they were really appreciated the detail and the memories that was in there. Thank you.

[36:47] JANE RICHARDSON: You're welcome. Thank you.