Library financial education programs

1. Smart Investing @ Your Library:
A Program Partner’s Experience
Barbara O’Neill
Rutgers Cooperative Extension
oneill@aesop.rutgers.edu

2. What’s Happening?
• Libraries are receiving funding to provide
financial education to patrons and/or staff
• Prohibited or discouraged from using financial
services professionals as speakers
• GREAT opportunity for Cooperative Extension,
academics, non-profits in financial field

3. Personal Experience
• Two current library financial education grant projects,
2011-2013
• Burlington County (NJ) Library System: 30 consumer
classes (@2.5 hours) and two 6-hour library staff trainings
• New York Public Library: 42 programs for NYPL library
staff (@3 hours)

4. Why Libraries as Financial Educators?
• Aura of trust
• Environment is not overwhelming
• Internet access
• Free/low cost services
• Referrals
• Personal assistance/help
• Variety of objective resources
4

5. Recommended Archived Webinar:
http://cfs.wisc.edu/home.aspx
Center for Financial Services (CFS), Univ. of
Wisconsin
"Public Libraries as Financial Literacy Providers"
December 13th, 2011.
CFS Affiliate, Kristin Eschenfelder presented her research which
examined the activities public libraries use to increase the financial
literacy of their service populations.

6. Big Concern of Librarians:
Information vs. Advice
• Giving advice is telling another person what they
should do. It may send an unspoken message that
the listener is not capable of making his/her own
decisions, but needs to be told what to do.
Giving information lets the person know what the
options are so he/she can make the decision about
the best course of action.
6

7. Library’s Role is to
• Be a resource center of information
• Assist patrons in formulating their questions/needs
• Assist patrons in finding answers to their questions
• Guide patrons to appropriate resources
• Encourage research
• Encourage personal action
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8. NYPL Grant Project Objective
Provide Assistance- NOT Advice
Help patrons find information and answers
RFP: “NYPL will create a corps of frontline staff equipped
with the skills and confidence to meet the growing need
among their patrons to access timely, accurate, and
trustworthy information about personal finance.”
8

9. Financial Education Helps Libraries
• Build patron and staff knowledge and skills
• Provide new or extended resources
• Form community partnerships
• Access the underserved
• Provide information for today’s needs
• Serve as a valued “information intermediary”
Source: National Endowment for Financial Education
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10. Benefits for Library
• Improved expertise
– Don’t have to know all the answers
– Better at finding and providing information
• Ability to handle increased requests from patrons
• Better use of information, resources, materials
• Improved and enhanced credibility in community
• Increased use of services by patrons
• Funding opportunities
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11. Benefits for Library Staff
– Increased knowledge for self
– More confident
– Improved financial behaviors
– Greater understanding of resources
– Increased knowledge for patrons
11

12. Benefits for Program Cooperators
• Access to new audiences
• “Low-maintenance” programs
– No marketing and arrangement responsibilities
– Just show up and teach
• Grant subcontractor funding
• Form community partnerships
• Access the underserved
• Provide information for today’s needs

13. BCLS Grant

14. Six Consumer Classes at Five Locations
• Finding Money to Save and Invest
• Preparing to Invest
• Getting Started As An Investor
• What You Absolutely Need to Know About Investing
• Selecting and Monitoring Your investments
• Investing For Long-Term Goals

15. Two Six-Hour Staff Trainings
• Condensed version of the consumer classes
• Addressed “fear of giving advice” issue head-on
• Included multiple learning activities
• Provided ample opportunity for personal questions

16. FINRA Investor Education
Foundation Content Modules
• Free of charge and downloadable
• 11 content modules; together = “a book”
• Source of consumer program and library staff training
• Designed for beginning investors
• http://www.finrafoundation.org/resources/education/modules/

17. Saving Versus Investing

18. What is Your Risk Tolerance?
http://njaes.rutgers.edu/money/riskquiz/

19. Let’s Help the Harringtons
(Case Study Analysis)

20. Investing For Your Future Jeopardy Game
100 100 100
100
100 100
100 100
100
200 200 200 200 200
300 300 300 300 300
400 400 400 400 400
500 500 500 500 500

21. When a Library Patron Asks…
• How to check the background of a broker
• For a free online investing course
• Where to save money for a child’s college
education
• Where to find money about the performance
of a particular stock
• Where to find a retirement savings calculator?

22. NYPL Grant
Program Title: Money Matters

23. What is Money Matters?
A project of the NY Public Library, funded by the IMLS, to
provide professional development to NYPL staff on personal
finance as a means to help patrons find and assess
appropriate personal finance information and tools.
• Multi-prong approach:
• Workshops on 11 personal finance topics
• E-learning modules
• Leader’s guide
• Resources
• Triangulated evaluation
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24. Core Workshops
Core (Required)
– Banking
– Credit 1
– Retirement
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25. Elective Workshops (8)
– Credit 2
– Investing 1
– Investing 2
– Living on the Financial Edge
– Paying for College
– Identity Theft
– Taxes
– Insurance
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26. Project Time Frame
• Feb. – Aug. 2012: 5 different workshops held in 3
locations
– banking, credit 1, credit 2, retirement, identity theft,
• Sept. 2012 – Apr. 2013: Additional workshops
held in 3 locations
– insurance, income taxes, investing 1, investing 2, living
on the financial edge, paying for college
• E-learning modules available fall of 2012
• Evaluation – ongoing
**Staff may attend workshops at any location 26

27. Knowledge Gain #1: Xtranormal
• Creating an educational video is easy...
– Choose from hundreds of actors (avatars or stikz)
– Choose their voices and other sounds
– Choose their gestures
– Select your background
– Type or record your dialogue
• http://www.xtranormal.com/

28. Knowledge Gain #2: Critical Incident
Technique
• http://www.adb.org/documents/information/knowledge-
solutions/the-critical-incident-technique.pdf
• Qualitative research technique
• Ask subjects to describe through interviews incidents that
they handled well or poorly (need not be spectacular events)
• Provides rich personal perspective
• Respondents like to tell stories and feel their experiences
are important

29. Key Take-Aways As a Partner
• Library partners are very positive about financial education
• You don’t reach out to libraries; they reach out to you if funded
• FINRA has great Web site for librarian financial education:
http://www.finrafoundation.org/resources/education/modules/
• There are synergies between the two projects
– Content development
– Consumer questions from BCLS classes for the public will inform
content of training for NYPL staff (simultaneous programs)
• Incorporate information about librarians’ retirement plan and
benefits
• Librarians are NOT financial educators: offer to help them with
marketing, logistics
• Put all work expectations in writing with a MOU or contract

30. Comments? Questions? Experiences?
Financial Literacy @ Your Library:
Get involved!