"We’re going to have a human here for you.””

Elektra Greer

NEDERLAND - "Libraries store the energy that fuels the imagination. They open up windows to the world and inspire us to explore and achieve, and contribute to improving our quality of life." - Sidney Sheldon, Author

One of the main directives of any library is to provide open access to information for everyone. But at the heart of the best institutions are those librarians who go above and beyond directives, who nurture that freedom to explore, learn, and create, and who guide us to just the right windows, just the right worlds we were looking for. 

This passion to nurture fuels the staff and volunteer board of the Nederland Community Library (NCL), and drives them to make improvements to our local community through outreach, advocacy, and boots-to-the-ground networking and resourcing. 

NCL’s latest victory in procuring a state-of-the-art Quiet Cube is not only the result of that passion in action, but is a major step toward true accessibility for all, as the Cube’s main function is to provide telehealth to those among us who need efficient and convenient access to a variety of healthcare services. 

“Even just something small for accessibility makes a huge difference and it doesn’t feel so othering,” Analisa Manzione, Librarian Assistant and Outreach Coordinator for Low Vision at NCL, said as she explained to The Mountain-Ear the importance of representation for our community members with disabilities and for our older adults.  

“Building off of the community relationships, it helps to feel vulnerable enough to ask for some advocacy. Otherwise, it does feel a little bit daunting to confront and have conversations about,” Manzione said.

“In these conversations around Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, seeing yourself or someone you know being represented is so important,” NCL Director Elektra Greer told The Mountain-Ear. “To see that somebody took a second just to think about you is huge.”

Greer connects the NCL’s progression with such initiatives back to that main directive of providing information for everyone.

“Because without accessibility, what’s the point?” she asks. 

NCL’s Telehealth/Quiet Cube comes from the Boulder-based owner-operated company TalkBox Booth, which specializes in providing environmentally sensitive privacy booths for a variety of purposes. They come outfitted with their own patented UVC germicidal light, as well as air circulation with HEPA filtration. 

The prices range from $5,595 to $16,895 per booth, which does not include the cost of installation, or the cost to fully equip the booth for telehealth. The model that now fits in perfectly among the stacks at NCL is a TalkBox Double, which is 88.5” wide by 48” deep and 90” tall.

“We have things like blood pressure equipment and a laptop, and more on the way, so it’s going to be fully decked out,” Greer added. “And when it’s not being used for telehealth, which is priority, then it’s a quiet space for anything else.” 

During the interview with Greer and Manzione, a patron made an appointment to use the Quiet Booth to complete a job interview and to send a picture of themselves for their new employee ID. At that time, NCL received the very first request from a patron to reserve the Cube for a telehealth appointment. 

This journey began last year, when NCL became involved with the Connect To Health initiative, created from a partnership between the Colorado State Library and the Office of eHealth Innovation, with the aim of supporting rural libraries in implementing access to telehealth. 

Manzione began a campaign of community outreach which included meeting with library patrons and local organizations such as Nederland Area Seniors (NAS). It also included leveraging partnerships to provide further support. 

“That’s been our main focus: to hear from the community on their experience, or someone in their family or a friend with low vision disabilities, and about mobility accessibility,” Manzione detailed.

“We did a community survey and we had the resource fair, and what we learned had to do with language,” Greer added. “It wasn’t about asking ‘do you have low vision?’ It was ‘does somebody you know have low vision?’ It was such a pivotal switch, showing us that we should be reaching out more generally.”

“We spoke at the senior luncheons, interviewed various patrons on their thoughts and their journey,” Manzione continued. “As for what they would like to see for accessibility, a lot of what was coming up was about lighting. Also, ‘Where do I go?’ and ‘How do I get resources?’ were two of the biggest questions we heard from patrons.”

The outreach helped NCL to understand the gaps between their services and patrons, and to come up with a plan to fill those gaps.

This started with being awarded the $10,000 grant from the Connect To Health program and led to investments in bigger computer screens and lighted page magnifiers. 

NCL also began expanding their dynamic partnerships with organizations like Colorado Talking Book Library (TBL), which helps libraries source audiobooks and braille materials. Others approached were Ensight Skills Center, which offers assistance with low vision advocacy through community engagement services and personalized training; and the Center for People With Disabilities (CPWD). 

Following this initial burst of advocacy producing results, Greer and Manzione’s networking led them to connecting with TalkBox, which offered a discount on the build of NCL’s own Telehealth/Quiet Cube. 

And the local philanthropy continued, as those imbued with the Nederland spirit helped NCL on their mission of accessibility. These included Martha Young, who donated a Closed-Circuit Television system to the library, and Tom Mahowald, who assisted in NCL being awarded a $20,000 grant from the American Library Association’s Libraries Transforming Communities program.

Manzione explained how the opportunity will allow NCL to provide their telehealth users with connections to resources, to key partners like CPWD, Ensight, and TBL, and also to local organizations, such as NAS, the Nederland Food Pantry, and the Peak to Peak Housing and Human Services Alliance.

“One of the things that we’ve been talking about doing are these workshops where people can experience what it’s like to be hard of hearing, or to have low vision disabilities,” Greer added. 

"The most important asset of any library goes home at night: the library staff." - Timothy Healy, former President of the New York Public Library, 1923-1992.

“I feel so grateful to have Elektra, a fierce advocate and trailblazer, as a boss. She helps give things momentum and gives me courage,” Manzione said, before sharing her own personal experience with the matter at hand.

“I am a huge advocate, especially when I see something unjust, unfair, and that keeps happening. I was a teacher for school classrooms, but also did Professional Development for the district on advocacy, and talked about bias in the classroom, where it shows up, and advocating for the students. I’ve always been passionate about that,” Manzione said. 

“Personally, I advocate for my family, too. My daughter is deaf, hard of hearing, and I am too, and these little steps of advocacy and change make a big difference, and help me to advocate for her and be that ‘mama bear.’

“It also helps to balance that all-or-nothing feeling, and I sometimes have to think and be grateful about that.” 

“We’re a group of educators, where being a librarian is a second career for a lot of us, but I think it’s because we’re all former teachers that we’re very outward facing for a library,” Greer remarked, citing the NCL team and noting how their passion for nurturing little sparks into roaring fires is in their nature. 

Greer’s firsthand experience with her own family, navigating the difficulties that come with aging in Nederland—including lack of housing, services, and ADA-compliance—helped to give her additional insight into the importance of providing accessibility and in ensuring that those in need of telehealth are treated with care and respect.

“We kept hearing that the telehealth numbers here are low and instinctively we could guess why,” Greer said. “The people who need telehealth aren’t always going to be comfortable using the computer, but we’re not just saying ‘Here’s the booth, here’s the computer, and here’s the stuff’; we’re gonna actually walk you through it. We’re going to have a human here for you.” 

With thanks to Greer, Manzione, and the dedicated staff and volunteers at NCL, a revolutionary new path has been laid in Nederland, providing open, unbridled access to healthcare services for all, with full consideration for those in our population who are often overlooked.  

"Bad libraries build collections, good libraries build services, great libraries build communities." - R. David Lankes, Professor and Director of the School of Library & Information Science at the University of South Carolina

The Nederland Community Library’s Telehealth/Quiet Cube can be reserved for use by one to two individuals for up to two hours per day and up to two times per week, but no more than five times per month. In the event of a cancellation please contact the library at least 24 hours in advance of a reservation as cancelled reservations may incur a fee. 

  The Cube is intended for telehealth calls, quiet virtual meetings, and focused studying or work. Eating and loud conversations are prohibited in the Cube, though a closed water bottle container is permitted.

Please call 303-258-1101 to book an appointment. For more information on after-hours availability of the room, please email: nederlandlibrary@nedlib.org.