 Good morning, and welcome to this week's edition of Encompass Live. I am your host, Krista Porter, here at the Nebraska Library Commission. Encompass Live is the commission's weekly webinar series where we cover a variety of topics that may be of interest to libraries. We broadcast the show live on Wednesday mornings at 10 a.m. Central Time. But if you are unable to join us on Wednesdays, that's okay. We do record the show, and it is available in our archives. And I'll show you later where you can access the archive shows. Both the live show and the recordings are free and open to anyone to watch. So please do share with your friends, family, neighbors, colleagues, anyone who you think may be interested in any of the topics we have on the show. For those of you not from Nebraska, Nebraska is the state library agency for libraries in Nebraska, similar to your state library in your states. And that is for all types of libraries. So you will find topics on our show for all types of libraries as well. Public, K-12, academics, corrections, museums, archives, anything and everything. Really, our only criteria is that it is something to do with libraries in any way, shape, or form. So we have book reviews, interviews, mini-training sessions, demos of services and products. It just runs the gamut. We do bring in guest speakers from across Nebraska and actually across the country sometimes. And we also have Nebraska Library Commission staff that do presentations for us. And this morning we have a mixture of that. And what I'm going to do is here, I'm going to start, there we go. Today we're going to be talking about book clubs during the pandemic, of course. And Lisa Kelly is with us here. She is here from the Nebraska Library Commission from our reference department. Good morning, Lisa. Good morning. And I'm just going to hand over to you to start and introduce everyone who you've gathered together with you today to talk about book clubs and how we, how you guys all handle it during this past year. Thank you. Thank you to Kay and Dana and Chuck for joining me today. I appreciate your willingness. I fear you're never going to share with me how your book club is going because that's why you got picked. But please keep telling me because the reason I asked you all to join us is because your emails are the things that keep me going. How it went, what you did, and how you got through it. So I appreciate that. And don't let this session stop you from telling me because it's the lifeblood of how I get through taping books and mending and cataloging them. So just a brief introduction about our service that I'll let you introduce yourselves and we'll get on with the conversation. The Nebraska Library Commission started book clubs in 2006 book club collection. We have over 1900 titles in our collection. They are available to those who serve as librarians in the state or media specialists. So it could be school or publics and we have them down to grade three reading level. We've tried to make it a very eclectic and broad scope in our collection. We have highlighted special collections like Nebraska authors and the 150 lists that we've used to celebrate the sesquicentennial a few years ago. And holidays, everyone wants to read a holiday book in December, although it makes us we don't seem to have enough titles. That's one of our busiest most popular ones that nobody can ever, you know, try to keep buying more holiday titles. There's no standard checkout like some it's reliant on when you're going to meet when you're going to hand them out. A lot of book clubs meet monthly, some meet every other month. So that's why that form is helpful for you to fill out. And I'm speaking to those of you who've used the collection. You'll know how that works. And we do about 1500 items a month circulating. We circulate about 1500 items from our book club collection a month. I don't know how that compares with the rest of you all for your search. But for me, it makes me run my legs off. So it's all good. I would like to know our collection is growing all the time. Every time we've talked about when you're doing book clubs, that number keeps going up the number of tiles in the collection and how many are going out. And I must say we received gifts from people like Kate. She's so kind. She just sent us the latest Eric Larson book and it's already gone out again. So when you donate to our book club collection, they will be used. Carney has given us when they read their collection, they give us several. Her name just left me. Anyway, I want you all I'm going to start with Kate and then Dana and then Chuck. I want you to introduce yourselves. And tell me when you introduce yourself, tell me a little bit about your book club. You know, how many people are in it? How did it come together? So give us your name rank and then your book club statistics demographic, if you would. Kay, let's start with you. Sure. My name is Kay Schmid and I'm the director of the Horuska Public Library in David City. And we have had our book club since 2007. We have between eight and 10 members that attend regularly. The average age is between 45 and 85. So we have a variety of people. We do not serve refreshments. So that's kind of different than other people. And we have reviewed over 200 books in the period of time since we started. Oh my God. You meet monthly then Kay. We meet monthly for a while. We had two book clubs, noon and evening, but we've kind of, because of the pandemic, we've kind of consolidated into one. And Kay, what's men and women or just women in your club? So we have all women, but we do have what we call our satellite members who are the husbands who actually read the books a lot of times with their wives and share their comments through their wives. So every once in a while we have a man come pretty much when the title interests them, but otherwise it's mostly women. Okay. Thank you. Dana tell us about yourself and your group. Hi, I'm Dana still I'm from the Hastings Public Library. I'm a library assistant. Our group has been together since, I believe before 1995. It's mostly women. We have a morning and an evening book club. And are they regular members or sort of come and go? How does that work Dana? No, it's a it's a pretty set. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Very good. And next to me I have Chuck from Hebron's Seacris Library. Tell us about your group. Good morning everyone. As she mentioned, I'm Chuck which I'm the director of the Hebron Seacris Library. Our book called started when I became the director in Hebron. So we have been meeting since March 2018. So far we have read 36 books. We meet on a monthly basis. We meet the last Tuesday of every month. Our club of because of people working, we always meet in the evening. Sometimes we have refreshments and sometimes we don't. It just all depends like last month I brought cookies, but we don't always do that because technically the library has rules that says no meaning. But since I'm the director I overworld that we sometimes have brownies or cookies, which everyone seems to love. So as far as our group, we usually have about nine people there. We have a mixture of both men and women. And our club usually meets for an hour, sometimes an hour and 15 minutes. We usually have the same people that come occasionally. A husband will come, but usually it's the same people. Okay. So last year last March, the pandemic shut up, shut things down. And I spent and my colleague and I calling librarians around the state. Are you still meeting? Are you still meeting? Do you still want your book clubs? So I want Kay to start with you. What sort of decisions were you making when the pandemic hit for your book club to continue? Did you stop for a little bit? Think back to last March and tell me what your process was and how you got to where you are a year later. So we closed in mid-March, like most of us, everybody did. And our next discussion would have been the end of March. We always meet the last Monday of the month. And so I asked the group what they wanted to do and they didn't feel comfortable meeting. So I sent the questions that we always discuss out. And then they provided the answers back to me that they would have shared in the group. And so then I shared those with everyone. Then in April, the book that we were going to discuss, we did discuss, was a gentleman in Moscow, which is about a man who is trapped in a hotel. He's being held captive, yes, so it is in a hotel. And so I asked them what they wanted to do and they really wanted to meet. So I talked to the board and we asked people for TV trays. And so we have a big community room and everybody wore masks and we had more than six feet between us and those who wanted to attend came. And I think it was really great for their mental health just to be able to get out. So that's what we did. And you've been meeting that way currently, that's been your current strategy, right? The only month we didn't meet was March. The only month we didn't meet was March. And the library was closed, but we did have the meeting room open for this group of people and they wanted to meet. Okay. Dana, how about you starting in March? What sorts of decisions and accommodations did you make for your book club? It was one of those things we were like, oh gosh, what are we going to do? So we quickly, the morning in the evening book club got together and we decided we would just do Facebook live. And so the two of us were on screen and we were discussing the books, our likes, dislikes, and we've kind of gone with that ever since. We have added more staff, so there's five of us that get together and discuss the book. We're never in the same room. We all sit separately, but I think we're getting ready to start changing back to going back to live. Otherwise everything has been on our Facebook live. How has that worked for you? Have you lost members, gained members? What would you say the effect has been? What I know of is we've lost members because they moved. We had a couple that moved out of state, so we lost them. But now those who would get on Facebook would get on and discuss it or they would email me and tell me about their thoughts on the book. And we tried to keep things that they could get digitally when we were completely closed. So we used Hoopla a lot. But now that we're kind of opening back up, we're making sure we have books available through the commission or through other libraries. And we are providing the items for them. Dana, so you provided things electronically to avoid touch contact. Was that a priority? Okay. And you had enough copies through Hoopla for everyone to get. I don't think there is a limit on Hoopla, I think. Right. Yeah. So that's why we chose Hoopla because we didn't have to limit how many we could give out at a time. And Kay, you were still giving out print copies. Is that correct? Right. We were still doing curbside book pickups, so we just did it that way. Yes. Okay. And Chuck, to you, how did you move forward in the pandemic? What did you do with your group? Well, like has already been discussed, we closed the library in March. That is, we posted the patrons, our staff still worked. People can get their books through a process. And then in June, the city council approved us reopening on a limited basis. When our book club first met, we met upstairs around a table. And then when COVID started or became a problem, we moved downstairs in our downstairs meeting room. Right now we all sit in a circle apart. We were a mass. And so basically we did not meet for a couple of months because of that. And then the group decided that they missed it too much. Then they begged me to start again and so I said, fine. So, so that's what we've done. So right now we're meeting in our basement and that seems to work out really great. So you sit six feet apart with your mask on in the basement. Yeah, we all sit in a circle, but we're through the social distance. Okay. My library requires that everyone sanitize their hands when they come in. Yeah. And that's been a part of the book club as well. I'm glad you were able to borrow from us. So I know you be using print books. Yes. Okay. I talked to the group about possibly doing something online, but they know they all wanted to print books. So that worked out really well. And I really appreciate your loudness to borrow those. Oh, of course. But that Dana, your group was really happy to just to move right to online. because my group didn't want it, my book group did not want to do that. Yours did. What, what, what do you credit that to? I'm, I, hmm, I'm kind of hard. I think it was just the staff just made that decision. Just safety of our, our patrons and for the staff themselves. We just wanted to make sure everyone was safe. I got that. Tell me, you've, you've touched on this a little bit that your book club member said we can't go without meeting, but why was it important for you all, okay, for your group to keep meeting? Why did you go that extra mile to make that work? Because you opened your library for the group to meet. Why was that so important for you all? Okay. Well, I did ask them if they wanted to do some kind of Zoom meeting instead of meeting in person and they didn't, didn't want to do that. So I just felt it was important that they, there was something that was normal and so something that they looked forward to that they could come and you know some people didn't because they didn't feel comfortable, but that was an option that they had and we worked hard to make sure it was a safe environment for them. So I just felt it was something normal that they could do together. And Dana, you had two book clubs that you moved to online. Why was that important for you all in your community? You've had a very long term book club. How does, why was that important for you all in Hastings? Well, like Kay said, we wanted to keep some normalcy. We wanted, and we figured we could probably reach more people going on the Facebook live. So not just members, but others could get in and listen. We've even had some from out of state. Really? Yeah. Come across this. This is so interesting and so cool. So yeah. How did you feel about the interlopers joining in your book club? Was that a distraction or? No, it was kind of a woohoo. Reaching more. I like that. Check what, why was it important for your group to continue? I think it was important because meeting together every month gives a sense of community. Yeah. Gives us a chance to talk about books. Whenever somebody new joins our book club, I set out to them a few rules of a book club. One of the rules is that in our book club we have absolutely confidentiality. I live in a town about 1700. So confidentiality is a very important thing. So when somebody starts, I let them know right away whatever said in the book club just stays here in the book club. And another thing I let them know is that everyone's comments are important. That everyone should feel to say whatever that they want to. Don't have to worry about somebody making fun of them. And what I really appreciate about my book club is that they're willing to share their life experiences. And I think that was one of the big reasons that they missed not getting together. Because through the books, through the experiences there, they're able to talk about things that have happened in their own lives. And when we didn't miss, when we didn't meet, they just really missed that. And I missed it too. Yeah. So I realized that we have a question that I think might be good to fit in here since we're just talking about the how everybody was continuing to meet. And someone wanted to know mainly for, well yes, we probably, when you're doing the book clubs, did you have any other in-person program and going on as well? Did you have other groups being allowed to meet? Specifically they're asking, this person says, my library is still doing remote Zoom book clubs and no in-person programming yet. The fear was if we let our smallish book club meet and word got out that we were in person would trigger other groups to ask to begin meeting in person as well. So have you, those of you that were still having your book club meet in person have any issues with that? Did you do any other in-person programming will be the first question? And if not, did you have any issues with people saying, well they get to come and meet, what about our thing? Well I can say in Hebrew that we currently still do not allow other groups to meet in the library. We have one group that meets on a weekly basis, but other than that they're not allowed to meet. Our city council has said that they might be a maximum of 10 persons in the library at one time. So the groups that were meeting that before we just said, I'm sorry during this time we're not going to be able to let you meet. And it really wasn't a problem. I know I'm complaining to me that the book club got to meet and other groups did it, but you know in a small town everybody needed the book club was meeting. Right, yeah. Say how about you, did you have to hear complaints about how come my club doesn't get to meet at the library when your book club does? We did not have that issue, no. Okay, all right. And Dana, that doesn't really apply in your world. Yeah, okay. Any other questions that have come in, Krista? Yes, but we also have a comment actually from, let's see, I'm just double checking where this is. I'm scrolling back up to where I had this. Yeah, we have someone, Dina, from the Austin Public Library in Austin, Texas said that their Austin Public Library has a true crime book club that went online during the pandemic. And we meet them through Microsoft Teams, another one of the things you can use. We also had a few people that joined from outside Austin and we thought it was really cool. So just like you, Dana, they said yes. That's what's great about some of these program services with Zoom or Facebook Live especially and they, if you make them public and open and they are unlimited with attendance, people could come across them and join in. And if you're willing to moderate that and have no issues, yeah. So they had a good success with that as well in Austin. Well that segues to what I wanted to ask about then. Chuck brought up confidentiality. Now when you're in person for Kay and Chuck, that can be a really significant thing. I want you two to comment on that but then Dana, I want you to comment on that too because that's a very different world of confidentiality if it's a significant factor in your discussion if people are sharing parts of their life. Kay in your club, do you talk about confidentiality with to help with sharing or is that an issue in your group? I don't see that as an issue. We've had a lot of the same members for a long time but we do have new people come in and I and it is in a public facility so I think people know that they are sharing to a group and must feel comfortable with what they share and we haven't had that issue now. Okay so in your group has it been challenged or have you known they just take it that what they say there will stay? Like I mentioned when we have somebody new come in I make that a point to say that. Sometimes the stories that we talk about become very personal to people in our book club and I've actually had people cry and other people in the group have been very sympathetic you know they share their life stories as it relates to the book so I think confidentiality is just assumed and it's part of why our book club has been successful. I'm pretty intimate. Yes definitely definitely. So Dana in your world then how does that translate or how does the what's the tone of your conversation on Facebook then as opposed to in person do you notice differences? Nobody really got into the conversation on the online we would get comments like thank you so very much really enjoyed your discussion they didn't actually join our discussion I don't know if they didn't want to or but everything has been positive notice that the staff don't show the openness like you do when you're in your private group they pretty much stick to the script the questions that are being answered they don't okay yeah because when we were live we would stray because things would lead from one to another and it was like okay guys we gotta get back to the book I want to ask is that a loss do you think that feels a little bit like a loss in that perspective you don't have that conversational tone anymore? I miss yeah I miss my patrons and I miss that part of it the staff you know we try to give a little bit but it's pretty much stick to the script so much different than the life doing things in person yeah so Dana the difference was that you had done used it Facebook live and everyone knew anybody could be watching this rather than just our just our group right so they're I mean I haven't used Facebook but I know but I know with other things like Zoom and Microsoft Teams and things you can do I used to call it private group you know online so rather than using a public where anybody who wants to could join and anybody who wants to could just be listening in you could do if you wanted to maintain that confidentiality and as someone actually commented the what happens in book club stays in book club if you want to keep that vibe doing something where it was a private room a private online session the password or lockdown or whatever would have um helped with that situation I think or pre-recording we have done some pre-recordings just because it wasn't fitting into everybody's schedule to meet on a certain day every time so you meet we may have to meet at 10 a.m to record it but it wasn't getting shown until four o'clock that afternoon right yeah so then you also knew there's is just us yeah just us um I'm going to jump ahead Dana I want to in my questions I was going to ask you one of the things that you did during the pandemic that impressed me and why I wanted you to be in this conversation where you're two author visits that you did um could you talk a little bit about how you arrange those and to me that seemed a product of the pandemic that you were able to accommodate those author visits virtually actually more simply and that impressed me so could you tell us about how you came to do those author visits well we decided we would do Nebraska authors and we actually had four oh I'm sorry tell me about all of them um so we had uh Chagosi Opoyoma who wrote The Fisherman he is a UNL professor Stephanie Grace Whitson she did 16 brides um Melissa and I know I'm going to say her name wrong and I'm so sorry Amateus Marsh she did the Nebraska POW camps um and then we just had Matt Mason the Nebraska state poet and then we have James Kimble coming up in June with Prairie Forge and what we found is that all of their live discussions were getting cancelled because of the pandemic and they were like yes I would love to do a recorded author visit and so we would send them questions ahead of time of what we were going to discuss of course we had to read the books ahead of time too and it just was like a win-win situation for everybody they got to get out to the public virtually and we got to have some really good conversations with some great authors. Dana were you the one who set up those virtual presentations um Christy did most of it she's my supervisor um but we each got to pick a different author okay and I picked Chagosi he was so interesting how were the honorariums what sort of feeds for a group that says I'm anxious about trying that what were they like and what did Christy negotiate to make that happen we have been very lucky and there were no fees they were all willing to do it because of the pandemic they were all willing to do it um free of charge and because they could stay in their home or at their business and do it it was just taking barely an hour out of their day so we were very lucky that was that's the reason you're here Dana I was impressed by what you did I mean you all done great things to keep your clubs going but I think that was an added enhancement that really the pandemic kind of made possible for you and the fact that it was at no cost to you meant that it meant a lot to the authors I think to be a part of your discussion I think I think so we'll ask a question yes um right now our whole club is reading the fishermen how did you get him to agree to who said it was a pre-recorded questions um yeah we sent him an email asking if he would be willing to do the presentation via zoom did we do that on zoom or facebook I can't remember um and we sent him we told him we would send him questions beforehand so he knew what we were going to be asking and so we took turns asking those questions during the presentation instead of him just doing all the talking we all communicated so did you do that during the actual book club yeah yeah cool was that a live one or is that a pre-recorded those were all pre-recorded because of having to fit into their schedules sure sometimes we were filming at six o'clock at night because they wanted to wait until they were done with work or other obligations well it sounds like Chuck might want his email address from you to yeah I'll try to remember to send it to you it's interesting that you asked that question lisa because I didn't I didn't I don't know the questions you've got set up for a thing but earlier um Kathy from uh had mentioned that the state library of Pennsylvania has regular um author talks that we make available to all Pennsylvania residents it's very popular those kind of they mentioned that and then you came up with this question you said this question I'm like hey well this is not my favorite way to be together the pandemic has created some different opportunities and I don't know how long state library of Pennsylvania has been doing it she didn't specify it's because of pandemic but um virtual author talks have been a thing for years actually um they've lots of schools do it to bring into the students so that they can um you know meet them but um there used to be a couple of websites out there that you could find that were like collections of here's all the authors that will come and speak to you and um as as dana learned many most of them would are like thrilled and doing it for free they they love that they can um just be able to reach out and talk to some the whoever if it's the students the kids or the adults and just to you know face-to-face sish online so um that's been a thing for a long time but all of this is yes as you said Lisa becoming more prevalent and people becoming more comfortable with this type of setup um yeah we've been doing Compass Live for over 10 years so virtual for us it's not new but I think people are getting a lot more used to it. Kay have you ever had any authors offer to speak or have you invited any authors to your groups um we have not we we have not done a lot of Nebraska author books so um we have not but um I have that's it's an interesting thought yeah I might investigate so and no two groups are the same that's that's why I wanted to I'm not talking about my own I wanted you to talk about yours and how things work for yours um so in just actually that's just Katherine Pennsylvania just mentioned which I think this is fun so I just want to mention this um that you did used to do them in person but with pandemic they now do it virtually so they were they did switch they did make that turn um they said we but because of this we did one with a person in Great Britain it was lunch time for us and tea time for her perfect yeah yeah um I want to segue a little bit into just the regular workings of a book club and ask them questions since I have all three of you to answer differently um are you three the selectors for your book club titles okay select for your book club right I do not actually the book club itself selects um we use the Nebraska Library Commission list and because we have between we average between eight and ten people we we look at how many title how many copies you have of a title and that determines the list that they pick from and they like to do they like to do five fiction and five nonfiction so we switch back and forth so they they pick the books Dana how does your club select are you the selector or do they do it no it's it's a group effort we ask the members for suggestions um we've kept a spreadsheet since before 1998 of every book that's ever been done so we try to not repeat books um we also try to work in fiction and nonfiction if one book is really heavy we try and do a lighter book the next month um otherwise it can just be so overwhelming um but we like to keep things diverse as well I would strictly read nonfiction myself so I have learned to love a lot of mystery which I've never really enjoyed but I'm I'm really enjoying them now one of the questions that I'm frequently asked is we need a lighter title so Dana offline I need a list of your lighter titles because you're not the only person many clubs feel that and and check how do you go about selecting for your book group well uh basically I select two books um I've selected both all of them for one month when I had an assistant say she was being charged of it so she selected the books that month I've tried to encourage the members to tell me some books that they would like to read but they're all willing to let me select the books now when I was in a book club in Stromsburg the group selected them but my group they were very happy for me to select the books and Dana and Chuck um do you pick from the commission's list or do you go outside of that list I I always pick the commission's list because you don't charge right when I decide what books I always want to see how many copies you have and if you don't have enough copies that we don't I don't pick the book but I always I always pick the new commission because like I said some book pubs are willing to members you're willing to pay for the books but mine are quite happy to have them for free Dana do you limit your list to our collection or you go outside of that list we go outside as well we use the commission list and then we also have book sets of our own I'm trying to think I'm thinking we've got around 20 titles on ours and we try to rotate them out every couple of years our director belongs to a book club and so we will use a lot of their titles too and we try to use other book clubs titles try and we'll in our library loan forum so I want to go to title selection K you mentioned reading a gentleman in Moscow during the pandemic which is the quintessential to me yes I bet that really was a great I think I remember you telling me what it was a great discussion was a good question we could relate to the character for sure yeah my question is were there titles that you nixed because of the pandemic was there a title that you thought you know any other time maybe but was there anything that you vetoed because of this pandemic circumstance we're living under or was everything still good to go our our lists remain the same we had picked the books in December and they remain the same Dana was that true for you as well or we didn't make any changes we did add one that was about grieving just for a discussion to help people you know it's okay to have these feelings and to hear the book that will help you work through them did you have any special guests to attend that book club that sounds like a really worthwhile topic no we did not but the staff really enjoyed the discussions we all got into it pretty good imagine so much grief during the pandemic from big to small things Chuck did you alter your title selection at all I think I tried to have books that were not really heavy one of the books that I think that they really enjoyed this book called with blue girls and that is a very I found it to be a very funny funny book and I think because of what was happening the people who looked up really appreciate having lighter books yeah so you guys I tried to have lighter books during the pandemic okay so we did have a book in in December called Christmas on the Great Plains and that was a little bit heavier but even so we didn't mention that you command this um uh Chuck can you the title of that one was that boot girls someone's asking no girls it's actually a series that takes place here in Nebraska and then what the full girl stands for is burned out old broads you know this acronym yes it's an acronym ah boob girls gotcha okay by J. Johnson or excuse me Joe Johnson she's in Nebraska yeah yeah um we do have a couple of questions that popped up that I could maybe um about this book selection okay that you guys are in um so Kay you said something that you select in December so you plan out the entire year's titles 12 months worth all in one shot we do we do and we do use the library commission's list but we also if they want to read something newer then I do purchase usually twice a year the newer titles so we do um have newer titles as well which is where the commission got the splendid in the vial so yeah so you guys all provide the books some because this other library is saying that their members are responsible for obtaining their own books um that Colorado does have a similar book club collection um but they don't limit to that if there's going to be a title someone wants people have to get it themselves and some of our members are in other book clubs and they do have to provide their own books so it depends on which one you're in yeah um there's a lot about does the the person who suggested a particular title are they and this in this book club this one person's good club they are responsible for leading the discussion is that how it works with all of yours or do you this do you have like one person who's the always the leader or does that rotate to who suggested a particular title or some other way I usually leave the discussion we we have had in the past if people if a person feels very passionate about a book if they want to leave the discussion but most often they leave it to me and a lot of times they will take the lead in their own way even if they're not leading the discussion they will have um more relevant comments I guess so um yeah same with us oops go ahead then I I usually leave the discussion are you okay with I'm Kay and Dana are you okay always almost always being the one to leave the discussion does that work well yeah I I enjoy it and check you are the leader of your discussion too right right I I am definitely the leader except for one month but basically the group we seem to laugh a lot in our bookbump and I think that's when we didn't like people like to get together because yeah we always look for something funny and so by the time some of them might come and feel a little bit depressed when I get there but by the time they leave in a much better mood so it works yes definitely it works I've asked other people if they'd like to leave it but they're all willing to let me do it so I mean one last question about selecting books has anyone ever suggested their self-published book for a to be read have you ever dealt with that kind of a suggestion or do you have rules about I don't mind but you all answer for you no day David no no I don't know I just had that happen in my book group and he provided copies so we're he's a self-published author so we're reading his book for my book club and so he so they didn't have to try and find copies themselves he provided them all that's nice he gave us all copies my rule in my book club is the library has to have copies and they're on their own to go get from the Lincoln City Library and or and I tell them if it's on Hoopla or Overdrive so that they can get it but they're on their own you all are very kind in handing the books out but I don't yeah there's there's many different kinds of models for that but independent of the pandemic I wanted to ask again you all have shared some data with me I wanted to talk about books that particularly made a difference or sparked a really memorable discussion in your book club and k I just remember you talked to me about the book Filomena that your group read and you may have another one I don't want to put you on the spot but can you talk about a particular title or titles that you felt like man that that's going to stay with me for a long time or that maybe change someone which is what I love about a book club the book Filomena dealt with gay marriage which our group is as I said between 45 and 85 so we have a variety of of people with a variety of ideas about the world and and so that was a lively discussion but then the amazing thing about it well it's it's not amazing because they are an amazing group of ladies but the thing that I shared with Lisa was that everybody had their point of view nobody was trying to get a person to the other side of their opinion and so everybody was kind and civil and listened with respect to the other person's opinion so that one just because it was a more polarizing subject sticks out to me but we've had lots of very good discussions and lots of books where people came into the discussion not liking the book and ended wanting to read it again just thinking that they might have missed something or they saw it in a different way so thank you k Dana did you have that happen in your discussions ever was there a book that was more memorable because it was life changing to somebody or anyone in your group none that really pop out I think all of our books have touched one of our members some way and like k our members are so respectful of each other that they will listen and they'll tell you if they didn't like the book and I just didn't finish that book because I just didn't like it but they still give into the discussion our other members will be like well why didn't you and so that helps make things a little more memorable as well because not everybody's going to like everything and but they're so respectful of each other that they will listen and give positive comments and check your conversation about just mercy was one that I remember for a long time tell tell me about that one or others if you want sure well just mercy is a story about a black author who after graduating decided that he was going to move and his practice was helping prisoners who were in death row and I think the reason that that really resonated with my group is because we live in a small town we don't have the minorities that other community larger communities might I think that really opened the eyes of a lot of the people in my group about what it is like to be a minority the things that they have to go through I think that was a book that worked by friend is one that caused some of our members to cry because they had no idea these kinds of things were going on and two other books that I can think of that I think that really touched our members was a book called all the ghetto men the first member of the U.S. air zone survivor it's a one book by Nebraska author Donald Stratton who is now deceased but it really let our members know what really happened during Pearl Harbor and then I think a book that really I really enjoyed was called a dirty work of town and that that really opened our eyes about what was like to be in Omaha during the early part of the century and I remember I don't know if you remember but when I sent you an email about the book I said Omaha might be a dirty work of town but Lincoln isn't such a saint either so those are three books that I think actually really made a difference in the lives of my members is that Damon has been let's see it's okay David Bristol David Bristol okay we have some smaller press Nebraska specific titles in our collection that I'm always happy to see them know out and not many people have borrowed that title you know it's a it's a really it's a really eye-opening work to really what happened we're getting close how do we have any questions Krista everything going okay I um no no no left no hanging questions at the moment like you said we still have about a little over five minutes left for I have two more things I'd like yeah two more things I wanted to touch on we are all readers but I want to talk about why individual reading and group reading are such very different experiences than as librarian than as a person who now manages this book club collection it's a book for a book club is maybe a different book as a singular reader you know not any book can be discussed but I'm wondering how does reading and talking about books really enhance that book experience and how has that been for you all maybe personally for you and when you read a book now do you think that wouldn't be great for a group or that would be great to discuss okay yeah go ahead I think the biggest thing is that when you read a book you read it through your own eyes through your own experiences but when you get together in a book club then you get to hear everybody's experience and it makes the book more exciting more fun to read uh something good book pick out things that I I didn't see the book at all and that's what's great about a book club is that it gives you a totally different view than you might have just by reading you by yourself exactly I agree okay Dana any comments about reading individually and reading as a group one of my favorite things that happens in book club is when somebody comes with lots of sticky notes in the book passages from different things that affected them and so often the same passage will have affected more than one person in the room and so that's just such a wonderful way to read a book and to experience a book so that's probably one of my favorite things that happens Dana how about you I have to agree with Kay I love when they come in and they'll tell you what page and what paragraph almost down to how many words over it it's just and how it affect people differently somebody'll say well I didn't get that and so they'll all be looking and someone will read it out loud and go oh I understand where you got that I just love that interaction with the page with you know our members um and lastly one of the things I never asked in my book club I don't know why but I never say did you like it I think that's not really part of the discussion so much is I will say would you recommend it would you is this something but how have you ever had someone say I really did not care for that book but I really enjoyed the discussion I think one of you alluded to that earlier has yeah Dana that's happened to you has that happened in your group Kay where the book was a washout but you created a great experience for them it's happened to me it's happened to me I've gone to a book discussion and thought oh this was the most horrible book why did this get picked and come and I listened to their discussion and I come away with the idea that oh maybe I need to give that a second shot so so yes absolutely that happens how about in your great chat um yeah I think so maybe I think I think that sometimes people say they don't like the book but after the discussion they see things that they didn't see before so then that they really like to use the book so yeah probably that one of the most impressive books that I ever read was a children's blizzard that gets borrowed so much from our collection which kind of surprises me because when I read it I thought I really I was depressed after I was done but every book affects people differently so yeah but yeah I think I think really having the discussion is a big part of having the book right so which is why this was important for me to you all to for you all to share how you continue to do that in these circumstances um so given then you all put in this my last question unless there's others Krista um you all really do a lot I know what it takes to pick I know what it takes to hand out come up with questions you come up with your own questions as library programming goes I want you all to talk to how how do you feel about book clubs will it always be a part of your life has it been worth it for you are there some days you'd like to chuck this throw that out as a program um how are you feeling about book clubs now and how does it fit into your library program and clearly it's a priority but um is it worth the cost for you I guess is what I'm asking worth the hours the money the effort that you put into it Kay how do you feel about that for your group is absolutely worth the cost um it is just such an amazing group of people that I get to visit with once a month and we get to talk about books which is something that you don't get to do a lot in regular life and so it's it's a wonderful thing Dan how about you oh definitely worth the cost just to be able to interact a little more personally with our members is enlightening you learn a lot from them and I think book clubs should be around will be around for years to come and check yeah I I totally agree with what Dana and Kay have said that book clubs are I think a very important part of any library and to suggest that someday there might not be book clubs is just I think it's just to tell the lie I think as long as there are people who like to read books like to get together and talk with them always be a book club it's a special person who joins a book club because you agree to read books that you wouldn't normally pick for yourself and you agree to respectfully talk about a book that I have one coming up this Thursday that I can't wait to be done with I I load it and I expect the club to turn it around but I'm waiting to see how that metamorphosis will happen but we all choose we all choose to read books we would not read normally and that makes already a good reader I think that we all you all seem to have in your clubs so and and not only that person in the book club agrees to dedicate the time to reading the books right when they could be doing other things right so please keep sharing with me your stories I hope you don't feel like I called you out to be a part of this discussion I think you've offered a lot to other groups who had to figure out how to navigate this last year also and I appreciate what you all have done to make that make your clubs continue to meet because it's clearly an important thing for your folks for your group and for you so thank you any other comments you all want to make I just want to thank you for money you're welcome appreciate it any comments from you all Dana okay I just want to thank you personally Lisa for all your help because I think the hardest thing about book club is sometimes getting the copies back from the people that have them and so I do appreciate your kind of patience with us sometimes so thank you things happen we have popular titles that are tough tougher like the one book one Nebraska that we reserve just back to back to back and that can be so hard but people are gonna have trouble getting their books back that's like we'll make it happen but thank you for saying that any other comments or questions or and then I think we can wrap um yes we actually do um we have a question that did come in and I'll just let everyone know it is 1101 officially central time but if anybody does have any questions to the audience you want to ask of any presenters or anything you want to share um we don't cut things off right at 11 o'clock here so if you want to get your typing in there so we can get those questions or comments out um but the one question that did come in uh was um they wanted to know if you have any ideas on reaching senior book club members I'm assuming they mean older and I know well one of you said you have members up to in the in their 80s already in your club but any tips on reaching senior book club book club members to get them more involved or how have you done it um we didn't really target them but we do have members up to the our oldest member is 85 and she's been a loyal member for a number of years but we didn't really target her she just is an avid reader and she she liked the titles so I guess I don't have any things to to share. Dana since you were online did that preclude preclude some age groups from joining I'm guessing it did I did it did yeah um there were those at some point then your senior readers who don't want to bother with technology would you work to get them back and re-recruit um I try and send them emails and let them know what we're reading and that I will try and get them a print copy if they want we do have a locker system and we are getting ready to start reopening and bringing our book back so so I'm thinking in my 87 year old neighbor who reads voraciously she has no email so is that how do you how do you bridge that gap then Dana how would you do that if they don't have the emails then I would call okay yeah. Zach how about you do you recruit a certain age reader do you try to know? No when I first started the book club I had a list of people I thought might be interested and I don't specifically recruit everyone now I might ask someone you know we're still having a book club would you like to join as far as the senior members one thing that I've noticed is that our senior readers almost exclusively will only read a book that's large print I can't get them to read books that aren't large print so that affects our collection. That's good. Laura the audience has an answer for that version their suggestion on that pre-pandemic our outreach team worked with nursing homes and assisted living facilities to host book clubs on location of course during pandemic you would not do that but that is a tip for when things yeah back say that would be something to do. I led a book club discussion in a retirement home for one book one link in one year have you ever traveled and done a book club discussion not during pandemic but elsewhere just as the book club leader have you done that okay Dana? Not but that's another good idea. Yeah okay. And she says also seniors not in the nursing home or in assisted seniors they're not in the nursing home living facility but not able to physically come to the library would join during as a conference call so not you know that's the technology we'll call it they know I can call on a phone and talk to people so they set up a conference call type thing for people who are homebound or whatever to join in rather than excuse me figure out technology and email just call in and you can hear all of us talking and you can talk to. But technology has been a barrier for them as you know. Anything else to share or comment upon I appreciate your time thanks for logging in and being with us thanks for being here and thank you for continuing to share your stories with me please keep sharing your stories with me I won't rat you out okay so you had all of our contact information if anyone watching wanted to email and further discuss something with a presenter today I think they'd be willing to answer more questions independently of this session if you'd like so thank you keep your book clubs going and be free yeah um and we will I will also um what we usually do when we put up the archives of this is we do um share the slides as well so um if you weren't able to grab the info off of here it will be available well in the recording of course and then on the slides um so yeah thank you everyone for being here today excuse me I'm going to actually I should do this switch over to there we go our website now there we go um so thank you everyone for being here with us thank you Lisa, Chuck, Kay and Dana of course for doing this and Lisa really for organizing this entire our entire session today this is great um as we said you know book clubs are very popular here and we and I'm actually it was good to hear that it seemed like even in the audience everybody still got hip their book clubs going as well in one way or another that um just like all of you everyone was trying to keep things going and as with as much normalcy of something still being there as possible so that will wrap it up for today's show um here on our Encompass Live website if you use your search engine of choice and just type in Encompass Live to find our website so far that's the only thing called that on the internet nobody else is allowed to use that name this is our main page we have our upcoming shows and right underneath here this is where the archive will be the archive shows are here the most recent ones at the top of the list by the end of the day tomorrow everything should be processed and available everybody who attended today and registered for today's show will get an email from me letting you know that the archive is ready I'll have a link to the recording on our youtube channel and a link to our slides so you have all that information as well while we're here I'll show you this is our full archives of the show um let's see here and you can search this from here you can see us search the whole all archives or just the most recent 12 months if you want to that is because this is the full archives of Encompass Live I'd mentioned during the show that we've been on for a long time uh January 2009 was when we first broadcast our first show so over 10 years worth of shows are on here I'm not going to scroll all the way down because that'd be crazy so just pay attention if you are searching our archives for any topic that you want pay attention to the original broadcast date many of our shows will stand the test of time book review sessions like this one discussion things may still be good but certain shows depending on their topic technology may have changed services and programs will no longer exist links may be broken to things that are out there just just pay attention to when it was originally broadcast and understand that's when this particular information was relayed but we will always keep our full archives here we're librarians we archive things and keep them out there for historical purposes as long as we have somewhere to put them out they'll always be here um we do have also a facebook page you can see I've got link here to it on our session pages but here's our facebook page we post reminders as reminder to log in today's show information about when our previous show recordings were available um when your shows are coming up so if you do like to use facebook give us a like over there you can um you'll get notified of when we're doing things we also use the hashtag ncomp live a little abbreviation on other social media um twitter instagram I'm not sure where else our people are doing it but um look for that you'll also find notifications there other than that just keep an eye on our website for upcoming shows I've got some May dates in I'm working on stuff for next week and into June and July I've got things um finalized and um we'll get some those actual just uh descriptions up on the on the page here so keep an eye on our website and um thank you everybody for being here hopefully we'll see you at a future episode of encompass live bye bye yarn and thank you