Episode 006: Tim Coates and the Freckle Report

Recently Heather sat down with Tim Coates to talk about public libraries, and his Freckle Report. Tim has been in publishing and libraries for over 40 years, and his research shows some interesting trends in public libraries that we should all be thinking about. 

Rough Transcript of Episode 006: Tim Coates and the Freckle Report

Heather:
Hello, and welcome to the Common Stacks podcast. This is the show that brings together professionals from within the library world, as well as interesting experts from other professions to engage in discussions around the issues, libraries, and looking at the ways in which libraries are dispelling the myth of: "this is how it's always been done." This is episode six, I'm chatting with Tim Coates. I first met Tim about 10 years ago when I was at Califa, and he had an ebook project in the UK. He's getting a fair bit of attention right now because of the 2020 Freckle report, which covers two studies. There's a consumer survey that tried to discover how people get hold of what they read and particularly where libraries fit in. And then there's a study of IMLS data, which shows how the data from the consumer survey is changing over time.

So Tim has worked in the book industry for more than 40 years in retailing, libraries, and publishing. He's been the managing director of several large book retailers, including Waterstones, the leading UK bookstore group, and of WH Smith in Europe. He has also been the UK general manager of YBP, the academic division of Baker and Taylor, now part of EBSCO. He's consulted for library authorities and library vendors in the US and UK. He's frequently called upon to write reports for local and national government bodies on the public library sector. He's an author also of fiction and historical works and an editor of over 40 historical papers. He currently works as a lead advisor on both the public and academic libraries in the Freckle Project in the US, his published work on the library service includes a wide range of thought, provoking articles and calls to action.

Heather:
Tim Coates. I've known you for a long time. I dont know, 10 years or something. And you you've got this project that you're doing, which goes against the grain of some of the kind of conventional thinking of libraries. From what I can tell you're on a mission, it seems like - would you call it a mission? I'm not sure. So tell me about your work that you're doing right now and kind of, it seems like your mission is to kind of sound the lot that libraries might be missing some key data points that would help increase usage.

Tim:
Yeah. 

Heather:
So tell me about that.

Tim:
That's that's fair. And what people seem to have picked up from the work in the last couple of years is exactly what you're saying, that I seem to be saying something that nobody else seems to be saying. What's notable, I think at the moment is that Crosby Kemper, who is the head of the IMLS in Washington called me about this time last year, completely out of the blue. I didn't know who he was or, I mean, I know what the IMLS is - and I had tried at various points to, to make contact, but without any success at all, and then suddenly outta the blue, I got a message. Would I, would I speak to him? And and then, I mean, yeah, he's the director of the IMLS.

Tim:
And to be, to be absolutely honest, he was the first person maybe apart from you actually, but, but he was the first person in a senior position to say, I think this is, this is important stuff. And who can tell that nobody likes to hear it. You know what I've been saying? But nevertheless, he, he thinks that the, you know, it needs to be heard and it, and some of the things need to be addressed. And so there now there is this convening, he calls it next week in Washington at, at which he's trying to as lay down in simple language, what just what public libraries are there, which I applaud because it's very important, you know, to do that. And I think it has, I think the mission has drifted and, and that's, that's a lot of the point of what I've been trying to say. Yeah.

Heather:
Yeah. So I just want to cut in here for just a minute, because it seems like your, you are saying, and I, we're kind of hinting around here at what you're saying, going around in a circle that libraries are focusing on the wrong things to drive usage right now, focusing on digital content, on eBooks, on E audio books and events and programming, rather than the core of reading from what I can tell. And, and the virtue of you talk about pride of it, reading. And it's interesting coming from you because when I first met you, you had an e-book project that you were doing. So tell me about what led you to this finding and sort of what, how you got to this place.

Tim:
I think it's very easy to answer that it, I looked at the figures. I mean, it's, it's, this is not a, a romantic argument. This is not a, you know, kind of passionate argument. It's just simply that the numbers of people using the library are going down to a serious extent. And, and, and as you know, because I know you're familiar, that's been going on in the UK for a long time and, and the, that it raises a whole set of issues. The first thing is people say, it doesn't matter. We shouldn't be measured by footfall. That's not what we are here for. That's, that's a very common response that you hear. And I say, that's not right. You can't say that if, if the use of the library service is going down consist because you've seen the graphs. I mean, it's been going on for 8, 9, 10 years now, three or 4% a year, which is, which makes 30% over, over that time.

Tim:
If it, if it's going down like that, it means a number of things which are very important. One. It means that there are now people who no longer rely on life in the way that they did 10 years ago and to us. And that's to se it means that the reputation that made them want to go to has gone down. We've lost that reputation that we had for, you know, where, where people and their families and their, their communities would go to the library, because it was a dependable resource. So we've become UN dependable to, to those, to those people. So you may say you don't like the numbers and you say numbers don't matter, but that's what it telling you that, that we have lost reputation. Then it, it also implies because it's been going on and it, and it, and it's across the whole of the country.

Tim:
It's every single state. It's every single one of the top. I think I looked at 90 libraries in the country, all the big one, every single one of them has the same characteristic falling unit. It means that nobody is looking at it. It means that there is no management, which is saying it, you know, we ought to do something about it. It just doesn't that process, which happens in everything else in the world just, just doesn't take place in, in lives. So all of those things add up to a problem that you can't to ignore. I say, whatever, as I say, it's nothing to do with the romantic. It just means that in 10 years, 20 years time, probably 30 years time there won't, the graph will have hit zero. There won't be any anybody left wanting to go. And okay, all those of us who are working in the service now we'll either be on our pensions or we won't be on anything, you know, but, but that means that we won't be passing onto another generation. The thing that we inherited, which was a wonderful idea, you know? So that, that's, that's the essence of, of what I've been trying to say. And, and, and Kay, I can offer some solutions. I, I think there are some, you know, solutions me there, but, but the really the first step is to recognize that problem.

Heather:
Do you think there is this romantic notion of libraries? Like, oh, okay, well, it doesn't matter because libraries are more important and numbers don't matter as much because libraries are more important. I, I want to ask you about that idea. And, you know, if that ultimately would wind up being people think they're doing something so positive by saying, oh, the numbers don't matter, but it ultimately funding is dependent on numbers, right. So can you kind of address this romantic ideal around, around libraries?

Tim:
Yes. It's not fair to ask the public to pay for something that it's actually what's being show is they don't, they don't really want, you can do anything you like in the world in your life. And if you're asking for public money, then there's, there's a degree of responsibility attached to that. I mean, whichever country you're in it, it isn't directly linked in the same way that if you were running a store on the high, on the high street, where the, the amount of money you've got is, is the amount of money that you take. It's not quite as closely linked as that, but at each year when somebody sits down with a budget and a revenue budget and is asked, please can we have, you know, so much money for next year's operation, really, truly some are going to say, but do you notice that the use is going down? What are you going to do about it? What, what is going to change? That's going to make the use go up again. And I, and, and that process just doesn't take place. And so it, I think it's irresponsible is the word it's not romantic at all. It's just, you can't do that in with public money.

Heather:
My, my other question is around this data, you said it shows this drop in the last 10 years. I wonder how much of that. If you go back, there was such a spike during the recession. Do you think this is a natural leveling off from that spike that we saw during 2008 to 2010? Really? When there was suddenly a huge amount of usage of libraries, cuz people it for wifi and job applications and stuff, do you think this is just a natural leveling off? Or is there something else happening?

Tim:
No, it's not. It's absolutely not at all. Because you can see that spike it's in the figures. It's actually very small. It's, it's a time it's hardly a year's worth of growth. And within a year it been, it had been wiped out. So the, so no, but you're not the best person to say that. I mean, that's the response? Oh, well, you know, it's kind of like boom and burst. It's only what's happening, but 10 years of, of declining use is not the same thing.

Heather:
Okay. And then my next question is where are you? Tell me about this data that you have, cuz you've taken a lot of effort to, to do surveys and, and tell me about the work that you've done gathering this data and where get it from.

Tim:
Okay. So there's two, there's two places that the data comes from. One, one is that they're absolutely straightforward. The IMLS figures, which are published every year, which are on spreadsheets, which anyone can look at all, all I'm saying now I've been, we've been talking about, comes directly from the IMLS published data. It's a bit late coming out. It takes them a year and a half to produce it. And I, I know that's because it's not really intended to be management information. It's a sort of audit of, you know, of public expenditure. That that's how they describe it. But nevertheless, it's there and it's, and it's crystal clear and it's, there's a figure for every single one of 17,000 library in the country. You, you know, anyone can look at it. So that's, that's part one. The other part is, is different. And it, it, it's a whole subject.

Tim:
Really. If, if you are in given the job of managing an operation, whether it's a, a consumer operation or a political operation, and somebody says to you, please come and you make it better, which is kind of what managers have had there to do. In my experience, you, you need a number of sources of information to be able to do that. You, you need to know what, what your operation is doing every day. Like you do with your, with your publications. You, you know, every day, how much you've sold or, you know, whatever you need that and you and you, and nowadays it's perfectly possible to have that every night at the end of the day, you know what, you've, what you've sold or you what circulated or whatever it is ever. Everybody knows that. And they know, and you can know it in de insufficient detail, you know, to know what, you know, if you've got problems or not, or if everything's fine or not, that's, that's one source of information.

Tim:
And it comes from inside. What you're doing that the other source, which is terribly important is to know what the public, the general pub, some of whom will be your patrons and your customers, but some of whom won't be is what they think of you. You know, do you, do they see you as a place that they might use for something that they might want and you, and so you have to know whether they that's healthy or not. Whether whether there are people who want, want you to do what you're doing and they just don't know about it, or, or they want you to do something slightly different. So you have to get the, the that's called market data. That's the, the external market you need that now. So eight, nine years ago, I said, if someone had asked me, you know, what do we do about mages?

Tim:
I need those two sources of information. Where are they? Well, I couldn't find them. And, and because they don't exist. And, and, and so the MLS data is, is a poor substitute for the first one. Not, and that's because it's too slow. You know, you need, you, you don't need it every two years after the event, you need it every night on the day. That's one. And then the other one, there is no market data about what the public think about public labor. There is none. There's a few pure researchers that go on and maybe every two or three years or something like that. But that's not the same thing that's of, of, that's a sort of an opinion research about what we, but we want data every quarter, every couple of months to know whether, what people think about the public library service and what, you know, what's going up and what's going down.

Tim:
So that's the research that I started doing a couple of years ago. You know, and with no resource at all, I had to, you know, we we've had to do it equally as possible, but just to show people what, what you see when you ask those kind of questions. So, and the, and the survey is called, where did you get that book? And it, and it asks people, first of all, do they read? And then it asks, if you read, where do you get the stuff from? And then, and what format that you get it in. So, so then you can begin to see, you know, where are the other places that people get books from and, and typically what they use libraries for it, it's, it, it, it's very simple. So that's, that's where we start.

Heather:
And out of this data has shown you, tell me about what the data has shown specifically around, you know, these ideas that a lot of the libraries have around becoming community centers, places where you do yoga and where you have all of that kind of stuff happen. And eBooks specifically are the kind of the two things that you talk about in, in your work and in your presentations.

Tim:
Yeah. So one of the questions is we asked when you last went to a public library, what, what was your main purpose for going? And the answer we get, and it's totally consistent is 85% to 90% of people have gone to a public library because they want to book, or they want someone to sit and read it, or they want to do some, you know, they want to work the traditional reasons that you would, any child of eight, yours would write. Now what's a public eye for 90%, really of the, of the, the use that people say, that's what they use the lie before is for those things. And then there's a sort of whole, you know, small list of 1% for this 2% for, and they are things like go and actually using the use of computers is now very small, but that's gone down over the last, you know, eight or nine years.

Tim:
There are very few people do that any longer. The, there are the, the use of, you know, for clubs and courses and things is, is next enough. It's also reflected in the iron it's, it's, it's a tiny fraction of library use. I mean, it's less than 4% or something like that. You couldn't build an operation on the basis that this is a place that provides courses. You know, it's just not worth the money. So that's one of the most important things. And then the other thing about ebook is that, of course, well, there's a whole lot of that out of our eBooks, but if somebody uses an ebook, they don't have to go to the library. So if we are worried about the amount of people using the libraries, because they're going get shut. If they're not, they don't get the visitors, then pushing the whole thing towards eBooks and digital services.

Tim:
It's just pushing them out the library fine. And of course, I mean I read on ebook so that that's not the problem, but the problem is we try to run a service that we need people to visit. And we didn't. And, and, and you know, because we we've talked about this a lot over the, over the years, it is that the libraries went into the, into eBooks without a proper strategy as to what they trying to do. Because, because there was never any money to buy eBooks, the money that's been used to buy licenses has come directly from the money that was being spent on print. So we weren't trying to replicate the collection in debt, in ebook for because, because no, that was never the O that was never an objective. What what's happened is we've tried to buy licenses. That pit publishers would let us have, you know, for the most popular things, cuz that gives us some circulation, but that's not doing any good for the reputation of the library as a whole. And so there's a real question about what, what was the strategy? How did anyone think it would work if there was no money and, and you like now we find that publishers don't like us for doing it, which doesn't tell.

Heather:
And I wonder, you know, listening to you talk, I wonder how much of this is just, you talked about this lack of strategy is like, okay, eBooks are a thing. Libraries are in the business of books. We should get into that without necessarily knowing why, but it's like a shiny new toy that has now become this thing that's expected. And yet for many libraries, the user experience of eBooks for patrons is less than stellar because there's long holds lists, you know, it's, you have to put it, the, the apps are kind of not as elegant as using, you know Kindle or something. And so you're, you're providing what I hate to say this, cuz I've worked in eBooks and I it's like a my thing, but you're, you're providing a service that is rather substandard to what the market itself is providing. Yeah. Without actually even knowing why you're doing it, you're doing it just because it's like the shiny thing that you're supposed to be doing. Like, is that kind of like what you're saying?

Tim:
Well, you put it beautifully. Obviously I don't need me to say it. And this is why, you know, people get cross with me saying the things I say is that that problem of, I can remember sitting in a conference in 2012 saying there is no strategy. So it was an, and, and, and people get own saying, you know, well, but yeah, but it's important that we get into it, which is exactly what you've been saying. And, and the problem is that's the, that's the way the whole library service operate you. The, there are 17,000 library directors all around the country who make up their own mind of what their strategy is and then, and, and then they demand money, you know, hurry. And so in contrast to that, Amazon who you mentioned there with indoor, there's some very clever people sitting every Monday morning, working out, what do the people, what do the public want that we are not doing?

Tim:
And by Thursday they do it. It's just, you know, kind of like they just get on with it. There is, there is no mechanism for improvement or responding to public need. There's no identification of public need goes on in the library service. If you think, you know, we, we set up a committee, it takes five years and then, and nothing happens and we dissolve it, which is which actually what happened last year with a thing called measures that matter, which I, you know, you would've thought, I would've thought that's, that's a really important project. I don't lasted five years. And then it, it, I, I sort of dissolved itself with nothing happening. That's so librarian you, you, you are up against the best people in the world to be honest. And and they started out with nothing to be honest, and you know, their, their performance during the pandemic mean the, obviously that comes outta the figures that we've done. I mean that people have read more during the pandemic use of libraries has stayed more or less steady, you know, they've libraries have done. Okay. But Amazon have doubled, doubled, double their, you know, their, their, their circulation there of books in two years.

Heather:
Tell me, tell me, who's paying attention to what you're do, what you're saying and what kind of reactions you're getting.

Tim:
Well, I get really, I, I get absolutely horror because what, what I'm challenging is why people go to work. I mean, people go to work to enjoy themselves really, and they enjoy what they do. And they're very proud of it, you know, rightly so and, and everything. And I'm saying, but it might not be what people want. It might not be what the public wants and they go, well, of course it is that, you know, everyone comes in and tells us how, how wonderful we are, that this is a, this is a message that, that never has, has never been spoken and a particularly terribly young company. I mean, and you know, in the, you, I've been saying these things for, you see the color of my head, you know, for years and years and they, and people just go you know, it's horrible, but the truth is that we've now have lost almost half library service in the UK because, you know, because you, you have to, you have to address the kind of issues that that are being made.

Tim:
No, I get, I, I get, but anyhow, so, but your question, you phrased nicely effectively the bit, which was who's, who's listening and, and I I've been astonish in the last couple of weeks actually, because since Crosby Kemper has elevated me to someone that he thinks he's worth listening to suddenly the, there are few others who are, who, you know, think that's a good idea too, which is really, really nice. And, and there've been one, I better not say who, but some really important library services have come sort of on the line and who are, who are going to be at this thing next week, then actually, you know, there is something here that we really have got to listen to. And that's nice.

Heather:
That is, that must finally feel very reward. You're funny. That's nice. And I like you are sort of a profit in this sense because you've seen what's happened in the UK and, you know, you mentioned half the library. Can you just very quickly, the, the short 32nd overview of what's happened with libraries in the okay. For people who might not be familiar? Yeah, sure,

Tim:
Sure. So 20 years ago the profession and it was the profession completely decided that books were a bit boring and they wanted to get into what they saw as the future of, you know, communication and information. And that was the moment that everybody around the world sort of put a load of computers into their, into their libraries and provided access, you know, internet the, in the UK that was done by removing a lot of books. They, the space for books reduced the number of books by something like 30 or 40 million books, which meant that two things really, it meant a, there were, there were 30 million books less to choose from, but it also meant that the managers that these, the senior guys who, who, who were responsible basically had been told that books really matters. Now we are now we're in the electronic age.

Tim:
We, we we're, you know, that that's past and that pervaded the entire, the training of new people coming in the attitude or library management threat. Anyhow. So the use of books, what just went down and down and down. And of course with it, the use of the libraries went down to, and then slowly, and, you know, there came a political point where politic changed and, and the, the finance people said, but nobody's used these places, why we paying for them? So the use for the month, so the money was starting going, and it's just, it's just a horrible cycle. Once you're in that cycle, the opening hours get reduced, stop get, you know, books get reduced, then there are closures. You can't get out of it because there's, cuz there is no model to say, this is what we should be doing. Everyone's confused about what, and, and it's just awful to us. I know you've seen it.

Heather:
Yeah. And it seems too like lot libraries there's you have to have something that differentiates you from other people in order to be successful. Right. And saying, okay, we're going to do eBooks, but not as good as the private market or we're going to do computers, but actually computers are getting less expensive. Wifi's getting less expensive. People are doing stuff on their phone. So that might have been a good strategy when it was still super expensive. And you know, you could have, but, and people did during the pan or during the the recession, like we talked about, use the computers and that was very important. But now that those costs have gone down so that it's not as big of a thing for many people. So that brings me to my question of the core. When with your data libraries are a place of private reading of reading of discovery of books. Tell me what the kind of upshot of what I guess, tell me the way out of this. You have recommendations for library managers and tell me like the, the positives of what your data shows, because I don't want to just be dooming gloom here.

Tim:
No, no, no. So what you do, it's what you do. And on occasion, you know, I've been allowed to sort of supervise it happening over year is that you just fill the place up with lovely books and you take the children's section, particularly. I mean, you and the children's, the children's book market is the most wonderful place on the planet for the last 50 years, 30 years, 25 years, the, the design, the stories, the authors, everything about children's books. It's just wonderful, wonderful.

Heather:
I'm discover this whole world of it, myself with Hannah who's eight and the books that were, I had no idea, some of these magical books even existed. And they're amazing. Exactly.

Tim:
Yes. And so you, you present those nicely, you don't have to, you know, have green dinosaurs and all that kind. You just put the books out on shelves, nicely, lots and lots and lots of them. So, so if somebody takes one, that doesn't mean that's the only copy you had, you, you, you have six copies of the same book you have. If, if an and children love a series. So once they find something that they like, they want to read all 25 books in the same, the, you you'll be finding that. And so you have every single book in the series, you don't kind of just have three do copies of it. So, and so

Heather:
Don't even get me started on a particular Southern California library system I discovered in the autumn that only has two Ever After High books. And this became a really difficult situation for us to, we had to wind up buying them then...

Tim:
Well. Exactly, exactly. And, and it's not, and they're not that expensive. You mean you're not know, but you know, for a library, you know, it's not going to blow the budget to have a decent collection of, so you start. So with the answer is you start with the children's books and you do them really wonderfully. And then you, what you find then is that the children from the neighborhood would all come in and they, they, they spot it very quickly and, and they tell each other at school. So you don't have to do marketing. You Don have to. And suddenly the use of the library is go, goes rocket here. And then of course you do the same thing. All the other things, the cookery books, the travel books, history, books, fiction, you know, all those things, you just have lots and lots and lots of them, and everybody loves it.

Tim:
It's the nicest thing in the world. And, and but we have got to mean about it. You know, that that's not the way to infuse to your community. I tell you the, the other bit here, cuz this thing about we serve the community, right. An expression that comes up again and again and again. And I was thinking, I, I, I don't like it. I think it's, I think it's a completely misleading expression because say during the lockdown in our neighborhood here and we are, you know, we, we are in west London, there, there is a, a row of shops down the end of the street. So there's a pharmacy, there's a late night store. There's a guy who does coffee. There's a newspaper shop we have here. You know? So, and, and then there's a, there's, A's a medical center just around the corner and every one and, and, and had a growth.

Tim:
So every one of those people was serving the community and every one of them was going outta their way, you know, to help people who couldn't get to this shop or they would deliver something, you know, there was not, there was no big fuss about it, but, you know, because that's what everyone was doing for each other. Cause a lot of people couldn't go and, and that's serving the community. But if, if the late night shop didn't have what you wanted, you wouldn't use it. It's, they're serving the community because they do well, the job that they do, if the pharmacy didn't have the medicines, you need, you'd have to go and find somewhere else. So the it's not sufficient just to say, we serve the community, you have to do, that's an adjective, the nos by providing vegetables and we do it well and they are fresh and we'll come and bring them to you if you need it.

Tim:
So it's what you do is what matters. So, and the library just said, well, we, you know, we're wonderful in the community said, but what, you know, what, what is it that you do? That's so, you know, that gives so much to the community. And, but because the truth is, it's an expression that's come from within, you won't find people in the community saying that that's what I didn't, you know, they still there are, they still open? It's a, it's an invention, you know, for disparaging a conference, it's not a reality of, of what the community actually thinks is a useful thing. So

Heather:
And I want to be mindful of our time here and, and just kind of not take too much of your time, but it does seem like you are, you are showing a way out through specifically people using data to make decisions, data driven decisions, right? Yeah. And you talk about how this is data that people have, that they have access to like library directors branch managers have, have access to their circulation. Like what, how, how would you briefly recommend that people use their data to make these kinds of decisions?

Tim:
Well, I think, I, I think I would say every night you need to know how many children you've looked after during the day, you know, how many children's books you've circulated how many, I, I I'm particularly interested in other communities of other languages. You, so you know, what we call diversity or whatever, whatever the expression is at the moment. Because as, as you know, in London there, a lot of the communities, less than half the people are English speaking there, there's all, you know, there, there's wonderful variety of, you know, people from all over the world, years and years and years, and they all have families and they all have. So, so your local community library is in terribly good position to look after those communities properly. So, you know, you can have a, you can have a Portuguese section because there, you know, there's a load of Portuguese families in there.

Tim:
That's fine. Great. And they, and they not, they have children and they do cooking and they, they have history. So you, so the section needs to be exactly the same as it would be, but better. And, and it, and we don't do that. Well, we, we just don't do that well. So, so I would be measuring the amount of the language material that I was circulating every night, and then I'd be going, well, then you go out and talk to the people in that community and say, what is it that we are not doing? And then you often actually in those instances, there's no publishing or no distribution. So you you're beginning to get some quite serious problems. But then, then you're beginning to, to make some progress as to what a library can do that nobody else does. Cause the book starts, it's hard for the bookstores to do that. I know. And so there, there's a whole feel wide open if you just look every night what's going on. That's good.

Heather:
All right. Well, I look forward to hearing how your work is received at IMLS conference and moving forward, if we start to see a load of, of people who are taking up your challenge, your gauntlet, I suppose, to pay more attention to what the community tells you that they need rather than what you might think, that the community thinks it's difficult,

Tim:
Isn't it? I mean, it is so difficult to you can, you know, because you know the community better than I do. It's incredibly hard for people to listen to. And, and so, and that's really the problem is, I mean, I there's nothing. I, you can't, there's nothing. I mean, what I'm saying is terribly simple. And the, the problem is that we've got ourselves entrenched into a world that we don't really want to hear. If people say we're not doing very well and you don't want to go out to the people with the money, the politicians and all that and say, actually, we're not terribly good because that's not what they don't want to hear either. They want to go out and say how wonderful our libraries are. Do we have no mechanism for, you know, to go, you know, correcting what goes on. So rather like someone will, will never go to the doctor and say, they're ill. So poor. The poor doctor just has to kind of guess what you've got. What, what disease you might have today. If you won't say anything, you, you can't, you can't make it better. It's that's that's the problem is, is defensive.

Heather:
Gotcha. Well, this is, this has been very illuminating. So I appreciate you taking the time to chat with me.

Heather:
Thank you, Tim, for taking the time out of your day to share insights and recommendations. If you want to read the full Freckle report, you can buy it on Amazon. I'll include a link in the show notes. Thank you so much for listening. Make sure you subscribe. So you never miss an episode and leave a rating where you're to this. If you like the show and why not join our slack channel so you can continue the conversation after the episodes, just check the show notes at CommonStacks.com for the link. We'll talk with you again soon.