 Let's see how everything's going. Okay, this is ready to go. I'll do a quick introduction, and then Erica will turn everything over to you. Great. Thank you. Yes. Hello, and welcome to Encompass Live. This is the Nebraska Library Commission's weekly webinar about all kinds of things that have something to do with libraries. I'm Sally Snyder. I'm filling in for Krista Porter today. We are just want a quick reminder that things you say will be saved for posterity. So if you have a comment and you want to talk to everybody, I can make your microphone active, but be careful how you phrase things is all I'm going to say about that. We're very happy to have everyone here. We have a nice group of people and they may have questions, in which case, if you use the question section of your go-to-webinar interface there and just type in your question, I'll make sure to tell Erica Rose that it's there so she can respond to it. And with that, I'm going to turn things over to you, Erica. So let's get started. Great. Thank you, Sally. I'm sharing my camera. I don't know if it's helpful for you to see my talking head or I'm just sort of going on faith here. I hope that you can see it. Good morning. I'm so excited to be with all of you today, and I appreciate that introduction, Sally. I think this series of webinars is really special, and I love getting to be a part of it. The fact that we can talk with one another about what we're living and learning as we go through our professional lives, I think that's some of the most powerful education that there is. And so I'm very honored to be a part of it. And I'm very pleased to talk specifically about this topic, diverse literature, especially within the context of youth services. So just to give you a little bit of background about who I am, who is this person talking to you today. I am a library science faculty at the University of Nebraska Omaha. So I do some instruction for our library science coursework. I also coordinate our bachelor's degree in library science, our online bachelor's degree. But before I came to academia, I worked in libraries for 20 years, and I cut most of my professional teeth within public libraries. And I wore a lot of different hats, but it seems like every single one of those hats that I put on always had a focus on youth services within it. And so it has been one of my great joys to work with children in all kinds of different communities in libraries in the public sector. So in addition to that work that I've done, I currently teach children's literature. I'm one of our children's lit instructors. I'm teaching that course right now. One of my favorites, I'm sure, as you can imagine. But I'm also here today to talk about this because I'm a concerned citizen, just like you all are. I see a lot of things in the world that are troubling. And I think that this conversation about diversity and the way that we approach this topic can be part of a big solution. So I'll be honest with you, this topic is, I'm so passionate about it. And it's something that is interwoven throughout not only our children's literature courses, but all of our curriculum, diversity in every aspect of service in libraries. But when I sat down to write this presentation and think about what I was gonna say for roughly an hour, I was nervous. I thought, you know, this topic is so important and what can I possibly say that doesn't sound patronizing and then I was truly authentic. And so I struggled and I spun my wheels. But ultimately I decided to start with where I usually end up in life. It's kind of my modus operandi with my truth. So I wanna share with you a little bit of my story and how this topic impacted me. So I grew up in a rural community on a farm. My brothers and sisters were much older than me. I spent a lot of time by myself. I spent a lot of time immersed in my books. It was an extremely conservative community. I was surrounded by people who really loved me, but it was a very closed group. And I had a very narrow scope of materials that I had access to even though I was a voracious reader. And everybody who I was surrounded with looked like me. They tended to believe the same things that I did. And I just thought that that was how the world was. And I grew up, I got older and I went to high school and that whole model kind of continued for me. And it made me judgmental and fearful. And I was very worried about what happened beyond my sort of circle of safety. And then I went to college and my head exploded. All of a sudden I was surrounded by people everywhere who looked different and talked different and believed different and lived differently than I did. And they were wonderful. They were good and kind and they did amazing things in the world. And my entire world view shifted. And that didn't happen all at once. It happened over time. It happened throughout my undergraduate degree. And then it became even more powerful when I went to graduate school. And I realized how narrow my view of the world had been for so long. And sometimes when I think about some of my actions and about some of the stances that I took when I had that narrow world view, I'm sad because they were based on an incomplete vision of the world. And so when I think about the children that we work with in our libraries on a daily basis, when I think about my own children and how I wanna raise them, I want them to have a bigger view of the world. I want them to celebrate the amazing kaleidoscope of people that are around them. I was really lucky when I was a kid. I'm gonna skip ahead here to be able to see myself in many of the books that I read. And I would ask that you just take a minute and think about that for yourself. You know, what books did you see yourself in when you were a child? Remember when you fell in love with books? Remember those characters that just made you feel like you had found a friend that made you feel that somebody understood you and what you were going through? We all have that book. I was, when I was thinking about this last night and I was thinking about the books, I thought, oh my gosh, you know, look at all of these amazing strong redheaded female characters that I was able to relate to in books. I even got a Disney princess. That was really huge when the Little Mermaid came out. That was a big deal for me. And so I was so lucky to be able to connect to those characters in books. I want that for every child. I think about how powerful it was for me to relate to the characters in these books but then also admire them so much and be inspired to think about what I might be capable of because of the strength that I saw, because of the challenges that I saw these characters overcome. It's very influential for me. We don't give enough credit to how powerful fiction really is in our lives and how it shapes us. So that's where I come from in this conversation and that's how it's really impacted me and every one of you is impacted by this conversation in a different way. But this topic is, well, it's been, it's heavy on my heart always but particularly recently when we see hard and violent things happen in the world, I get to this question and I think, I think about what fear drives us to do and how because people cannot overcome their fear it makes them be hateful and it makes them be violent and it makes them be intolerant and just very sad. And then I was thinking, what is the opposite of fear? How do we overcome fear? And so I've been doing a lot of reading on this and I came across all of these different adjectives. The opposite of fear is calm, the opposite of fear is courage, the opposite of fear is trust and peace and I agree with all of those things but I think that when it comes to moving from fear to peace or from fear to courage, there's an important step in between there and that is understanding. And what better place to foster understanding and education and awareness and a broadening of your sphere of understanding than through the books that we read in the library. And so for all of us who are responsible for deciding what books we put on ourselves and what books we place into the hands of children, this discussion is incredibly important because the choices that we make really will shape the next generation. So I hope that when we move through this conversation, when you walk away from all of this, you're thinking about books that you can offer to every child in your community that help them find companionship and empathy and growth, inspiration and thoughts about the potential for what their world can be and what their role in the world can be. So within this presentation, I've included links to a couple of articles that I think are very powerful and very educational about this conversation and this is the first one and it's called Multicultural Books Bring the World to Your Child and I've included a link here and I'm happy to share any of these out after the fact. That would be great, thank you. Oh, good, yes, absolutely. So, but one of the strong statements that B.J. Kastmeister in this article is the importance of windows and mirrors within literature, particularly multicultural or as I'm going to call it, diverse literature. Remember that through what we read, it can serve these two purposes. It gives us a window to see outside of what we know, to see a world that's bigger and brighter and with far more than we thought possible. But also within literature, we use it as a mirror in which we hope to see ourselves and sometimes it reflects what is really good and sometimes it reflects what's not so good and we learn from both of those things. And so this is something that we need to look for and be conscious of when we think about what makes good diverse literature. So let's talk about this definition of diversity. A lot of people like to approach this conversation by calling it multicultural and I think that's fine except for perhaps it's a bit narrow. Really at its heart, diversity is just a whole bunch of different stuff. It's all kinds of things with nuanced differences. It's not one set of formulaic circumstances. In its narrowest definition, I think multicultural literature, we used to think of that as only being, talking about different ethnicities and talking about different races, but that's not enough and we all know that that's not enough. Really we need for diverse literature to encompass all kinds of groups beyond just ethnicity because nobody, not you, not me, not any child in your community is just one thing. We are all shaped by so many experiences. And so this is such an important part of us helping each other understand that the outside package is just one piece of who we all are and we need to think about all of the unique pieces of our backgrounds and history that make us each the people that we are. This link here is called The Danger of a Single Story and if I had one wish for all of you, it would be that at some time within the next week or whenever this is sort of fresh on your heart, you take the time to listen to this very powerful speech delivered by a woman who discusses the fact that she was a victim of stereotyping for her entire life. And the quote that she makes that is so very powerful is that it's not that stereotypes are untrue, it's that they're incomplete, wretchably incomplete. I have goosebumps just talking about this video so I hope that you will take that push to check it out. I believe that diversity is ubiquitous and I believe that it is infinite and I think that it is fantastically beautiful. And so here are just a few things that we tend to think about when we think of diversity. It can be different ethnicities, different religions, it's different compositions of family. The LGBTQ movement is included in here. It can even just be people who choose to live so differently. I was shocked and chagrined the first time I visited my cousin in New York City. I, you know, for a farm kid, that was some crazy living. It's just about being exposed to all kinds of different ways to go about life. I worry about labels because labels are not the point here. The point is that we need to think about all kinds of different ways that we can approach the world. It's what makes things interesting. It's what makes us more capable of being informed, creative, critical thinkers. And I'll talk more about that in a minute. I like to think of diversity more of like this palette where we dump in a bunch of different things and some crazy new wonderful colors come out and we need all of these different colors to make beautiful pictures. Okay, so why is this really important? On the left, you see what I think happens if we don't prioritize this celebration of diversity. I think if we don't do this, we foster people being sheltered and ignorant, unaware, this concept of being narrow-minded and ultimately fearful because of that ignorance, because of that lack of awareness. We are fearful for what we don't know. And ultimately this fosters, hatred, it fosters stigmatization, it fosters stereotyping at the expense of creativity and critical thinking and acceptance and love and joy. That's really dangerous. It has the potential to destroy goodness in our world. And so this is not something to be taken lightly. On the other side of this, think about what happens if we do this, if we sow seeds of change. We can expose our children to a larger world and they are aware of all of the possibilities around them. They approach the world through this spirit of open-mindedness and what's possible rather than what they should not explore. This requires courage. It leads to peace. It leads us to trust one another. This is about fostering a world that's full of love full of children and adults who celebrate curiosity because when we do that, we are creative. We solve problems and we will no longer suffer from these epidemics where we exclude people and where we're stuck behind status quo because we can't move past our circle of safety. I do believe that all children deserve to see themselves reflected in literature and they deserve to have that window that we talked about earlier to see and learn about others who are different from themselves. It took me a while to understand how cool it is to be surrounded by people who are different than I am. It's so much more interesting. It's so much more fulfilling and I have grown so much more because of the fact that the people that I'm surrounded with are different than I am. I celebrate that and I didn't always and I'm so grateful for that. But think about what the most likely scenario is for children who never find a book in which they can see themselves, in which they never found that friend, in which they never found that space in which they felt like they were understood and somebody was experiencing what they were experiencing. I think that there are serious repercussions to this. If you don't see yourself in books, why would you read books? If you can't connect on some level with what you're reading, this does not lead to children who love reading. It's deeply, deeply dangerous for children who are already these teetering reluctant readers. You're never going to convince a child who is already a struggling reader to pick up a copy of a book that's already hard for them to read and then they can't relate to the characters at all and they're not interested in the subject matter. How do we help people learn to have healthy discourse if they grow up believing that there is only one way? This is the other question. So at the end of the day, I think that we have come a long way since the 80s when I was growing up and there are more choices and I think that we need to celebrate that fact. But even though we've made progress, we've still got quite a long ways to go. So this is actually a breakdown of diversity in children's books from 2015. And what you can see here is that we still have a lot of books that had little white children in them. We had a lot of books with animals and trucks in them and then those percentages just keep going down when we try to diversify the ethnicities there. So there are a lot of opportunities for more diversity within children's literature so that we have not only more choices, but better choices. And that is so, so important here. I can't wait to see what 2018 will be in percentages because I think that things are just exploding right now. Sorry, I had to just jump in and say that, looking at those numbers. I really hope 2018 is completely different. I agree with that so much, Sally. And I actually, I thought, oh, would they even have one for 2017? But they didn't have any numbers when I checked. So we definitely keep our eye out though because I agree it is exploding, which is very exciting I think. So the next part of this conversation now that we've talked about the importance of it is really getting down to the nitty gritty, which is then how do I find and select good diverse literature? And let me be clear here. This is just the same conversation that we have when we talk about selection on any level. Not all books are created equal, just because it might fall under that heading of diverse literature doesn't necessarily mean it's a good book. And I think that in many cases that becomes one of the big challenges for people. So I would start by saying all of the same rules apply that apply to selection as a whole. A good story is a good story. So pick good stories. That means that we look for books that have endearing and relatable characters. It means we look for books that help engage our children with a growing vocabulary that draw them in through the use of rhyme and sing song and cadence of language. It means that we choose books that have interesting content and dynamic imagery when we're talking about children's books because those are the things that engage children with any book. So we start there knowing that all of those same rules apply when we're thinking about diverse literature selection. But there's another element that we need to be very aware of when we're thinking about this, particularly within that context of understanding how important diverse literature is within our collections. So here's a link to another article called Straight Talk on Race, Challenging the Stereotype in Kids Books. And what I really loved about this author's approach to this article was that she was talking specifically about the fact that it wasn't necessarily so much that she didn't have choices to read, quote, unquote, diverse literature, but that they weren't very good choices when she was growing up. And so she offers this list to consider when we are evaluating the quality of a diverse book. So she first asks us a question about characters. So when we're looking at the characters within one of these books, we need to think, okay, so are these realistic characters that are truly relatable, that are accurately portraying whatever the context is that they're covering? Are they too good to be true or vice versa? We all know that the quality of a story hinges around good character development and it's no different here. But we have this other set of considerations to think about in understanding whether or not these characters are really a good example of whatever piece of diversity that they are supposed to represent. Next question, is the cover art true to the story? I think we could probably have that conversation about every book that we look at selecting. But certainly it's no different here, are they creating a visual image that our potential readers are going to connect to that actually portrays realistically this group or this character or whatever piece of this conversation that they're trying to cover? The next question I think is really interesting, which is who are the change agents in the story? And her point here was this, every once in a while there seemed to be these sort of, gimme characters who are thrown in so that they could check the diversity box, but they're not really doing anything other than being kind of a side character within the story. We need books in which we have change agents who really are characters that aren't our stereotypical white kid. We need change agents who are the heroes in the story of all shapes and sizes and colors and religions and everything. And then the final question here, which I had to really stop and think about and it gave me pause, is how is physical appeal or beauty defined in these books? What message are we sending to readers by how we are portraying our heroes, our heroines and what they look like and what standards that we're asking people to achieve in order to be appealing or desirable or heroic? So after I read this, this really changed how I looked at books and whether or not I felt that they were truly good quality literature. One of the other pieces that's come out of my reading is that there's sort of two categories for us to think about when we think about diverse and multicultural literature. And they're both important. So the first is to think about culturally generic books, which means that the characters are very culturally diverse or diverse in any way, but the plot is very generic. So an example of this would be a lot of the picture books that we see that are focused on family in which the families are made up of all kinds of different colors and sexualities and religions or whatever it is. But the concept of family is generic. My mom loves me. My dad loves me. I have a sister and a brother and we fight. I don't like going to bed at night. So I need somebody to tuck me in. That's universal territory for children. And so it's really important that we have books that they can connect to the content with even as they see that the details around that can play out very differently. And that's a wonderful way to introduce diversity to a child. On the other part of that, we see culturally specific books. And these are books in which the plot and the characters and every piece of the book is really about cultural diversity. And we read these books with children knowing that they are broadening their understanding of a different way of life, of a different culture, of a different country, of a different religion. There's not that sort of generic theme that is within that earlier category. So thinking about both of those things and understanding that we need to be mindful and including both of those categories of books within our collections is really important. So at the end of the day, the question then becomes where do I go to find good diverse books? And it's challenging, it really is. Although I think as Sally said, it's getting much, much easier and we're seeing more and more of it come out when we open up our book lists or when we're looking through Scholastic or any of our book reviews. But there are some places that I go to on a regular basis when I am trying to pick great diverse lit. And I do this fairly often because this is such a big piece of the course that I teach. So the top link that I have shown here is actually called weneediversebooks.org. And I, Sally, if I try to show my web browser, I'm wondering if it will come up here. So are you all seeing this website? Yes. Oh, perfect. I think so, let me double check. Yes, it should be on the screen. Okay, great. So this is one of my favorite websites that's called weneediversebooks.org. And I like a lot of things about this website, but first I'll focus on the fact that it offers great resources for finding good diverse books. So if you come down here, there's this whole tab that ultimately lists all kinds of different types of diverse literature, different awards that are attached to them. And then of course they have the lists, the books that have received these awards. They have this entire section dedicated to disability in children's lit. And what I love about this is that not in all cases, but in many of them they have reviewers who are providing fantastic and very honest reviews about books that they've read. And I appreciate that because I like to know what they didn't like just as much as I wanna know about what they did like. So I find this to be a very objective resource for finding good diverse lit. The other reason that I love this website is that it's really a community and it provides all of us with an opportunity to actually become part of this initiative if you feel called to do so. They're really receptive to communication. So I think opening lines of communication with this organization is a great thing. Emailing them questions you have about this or suggestions that you have, they're really open to that. Let's see. So, ALA has a very robust list of awards. Certainly that's another great place to look. This color in Colorado is, many states have their own kind of list of books, but this one I found to be the most current. And so I often check here when I am looking for some new titles to look at. I'm a big fan of Goodreads. I know that might be blasphemous for some people to list that as a source here, but I think it's a powerful community. And I think there's a lot of great stuff on there. Is all of it authoritative? Absolutely not. But it sure has been a great go to place for me to get ideas for new titles and to get some great, just to hear what people are thinking about books. So with that in mind, as I have started having this conversation more often and as I continue to have it with students and we think, gosh, we need to have a place where we can go to easily find good diverse literature. I set up my own little bookshelf on Goodreads. And I'll show you. I'm going to be visiting that often now that I know it's there. Oh, good. I'm so glad. Well, and the thing about this is that it will grow every semester. So just to give you some context for this, within our children's lit courses and we have a lot of them at UNO, we have this very conversation with our students. And so throughout the semester, they are reading and evaluating current diverse literature. And I am just creating a little archive of their recommended titles. And so what I think is maybe a little bit unique about this particular resource, as opposed to the other ones I showed you is that it's only going to be current new releases because they have to select things that are within the last three years for copyright. So this might be something that's useful for you to go to if you want to know what's current right now. Not that we need to be limited to that, but that's what this particular resource is going to be for. I have limited this to children's and juvenile fiction. I'm not including young adults on here. That will be a different bookshelf. But I hope that that's useful for anybody who might need a spot to go. So next part of this conversation. I think we have to stop actually viewing this as a separate conversation. Good diverse collection development is actually good for your collection development overall. Right, these are the same principles that we celebrate as the backbone of our profession, which is creating a balanced collection of materials where people can explore every viewpoint. Good diverse collection marketing is the same as good collection marketing for everything. They're not different. And readers advisory for diverse books requires all the same things that readers advisory does for any other book. So stop thinking of it as a different conversation. Start thinking of this as just part of being a great librarian, a great readers advisor, a great collection developer. But I know I can feel it. I can hear it in your heads. You're thinking that's really nice. That's a great sound by a lady, but this is easier said than done. And I've heard the challenges and trust me, I've lived the challenges. So these are just a few that I've heard. And if there are others, maybe when we get to questions, I'd be happy to explore those with you. My community is not gonna accept this. These books, I've tried it. I've put them on the shelves. They don't serve. My director is not supportive of this issue. So I really cannot risk trying to incorporate this within my own library. And it really is a balancing act. And I know it's very delicate. And I know that very few, maybe some of us, but most of us did not come into this thinking that we were gonna be sneaky politicians. But there is a little bit of being intentional with how we advocate for things and how we pitch things and how we help people understand the ultimate impact. I think we need a lot more selling it in our profession. And you need to think about it. And it really is a sales pitch. And if you don't like that, that's fine. Call it advocacy. But you need to think about effectively selling your collection across the board. And I know that effective marketing is challenging under the best circumstances. So let's say that you do it. You have this collection of amazing, diverse literature woven throughout your collection. But you don't know how you're supposed to get CERC numbers on these books. So I think that just as I've said with all of our other conversations here, best practices in marketing apply to this collection just like they apply to the rest of your collection. One of those things, I'm a big fan of gorilla marketing, which is you just keep throwing it out there. You keep putting it on people's radar. You keep letting their eyes slide by it because the more that you put something on somebody's radar, the more comfortable that they get with it. And maybe they don't see that book the first time. Maybe they don't see it the second time. Maybe they don't see it the 10th time. But after a while, maybe one time they see it and they pick it up. Continuing to put things on people's radar, even if it doesn't give you instant results is just good marketing. Make this a constant in your focus and your collection display. The second piece of this, that again, is a universal idea, which is to get them hooked with the good stuff. I can't tell you how sad it makes me every once in a while not being critical of any of this library, but I have gone in to a library where I grew up and every once in a while they'll kind of, I think, do their obligatory display on diverse literature. And I think, great, this is awesome. Those books are so old and so ugly and so uninteresting. I mean, they're just so dated. Nobody is gonna pick those books up. Don't try, don't put it up on the shelf just because you think it checks that diverse literature mark. Put it on the shelf because it is an amazing book and you know a child is going to open that book up and fall in love with the characters, fall in love with the content, fall in love with the pictures, whatever it is. I think being willing to try different things and to try different things repeatedly and to try different things at different times of year is really, really important. So try a display dedicated to Black History Month or try a display dedicated to LGBTQ or intermingle it throughout your collection on a constant basis in other displays that you do. Make it part of other things. Don't make it a separate conversation. Try both of those things and just see what works. And maybe one of those is gonna be a different way to approach it in your community versus a different community with entirely different demographics. You know your communities, you need to trust yourself with that. But be smart about your approach, be creative with your approaches. The other thing that I encourage you to do is to not just think of this as a collection issue. This can be incorporated into your programming as well. And by incorporating it into your programming, you then have the ability to help readers, children, parents engage with these books through amazing activities and through dynamic discussion and by asking them questions. You have more control over people's reaction to the book when you can share your own enthusiasm about it and marry it to really cool stuff. If you are bringing, let's say you're gonna offer a cooking program in which they get to explore the food within a various culture or you're doing all kinds of awesome physical activities tied to a picture book or you have great songs to sing, whatever it is, those things are going to help the children enjoy it even more. And then maybe they look for other books that remind them of that book or they seek out you to ask what other kinds of titles they can find that give them that same fun feeling. My final piece of advice here and I think it might be the most important piece is that this really is a farming process. This is not a, I put up my display and I left it up for a month and now I've done my duty here. That's not what this is. This is a professional approach that has to live with us always. And so you have to think of this as sowing seeds that are going to be part of long-term change. And so approach this with the spirit of positivity and hope, don't approach it through fear or this thinking that this isn't going to work. There are pieces of this that every single one of you can take. And even if it's just one piece, it's just one book that you put into a story time, start there. If it's just a couple of books that you're able to take part of your budget and buy that maybe you wouldn't have bought otherwise, that's a victory. And every single one of those victories that we have is part of a much larger change. So the other piece of this that I hear, how do I sell this to my director? My director doesn't like this and that's really, really hard. And I was thinking about that a lot as I was thinking about having this discussion with you and it took me to a discussion that we have often which is what's the difference between selection versus censorship? And I think that's a conversation that we can all have with our stakeholders. And you can always tie that back to our code of ethics and to our professional values. Certainly we have a duty to honor our communities and to be good stewards of those resources when we are developing our collections. However, we also have a duty to make sure that we don't cross over from selection into censorship. I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts which if you haven't checked it out the Dewey decibel podcast is amazing. And this particular episode talked about banned books specifically but there were so many pieces of it that resonated for me in terms of what books we are willing to bring into our collection when we're talking about diverse literature too. And one of the things that one of the candidates in the interview discussed was this liberty of thought versus thought control. And I think that's really important for us to think about when we are developing our collections. Are we choosing books that are going to liberate our children and expose them to other things and be that window out into the world? Or are we shutting the blinds so that we can control their environment usually through the lens of safety, right? Like I think most of the time we just lose our minds thinking that we are keeping people safe. And thinking about that has for me been a very useful lens when I am trying to make a good decision about what's right for my community, what's right for each individual within my community, what's right in terms of my role as a professional. I think the second piece here which it talks about the presumption of value versus the presumption of fault is another thing that we need to think about. We can overcome this through our selection of books. We can present these wonderful, valuable, great, engaging books for children in which people might change their perception of what is good and right in the world. And then I also like to think, I believe in a democratic approach, I believe it's my role to foster that democratic approach in libraries. I don't want to be an authoritarian librarian. Oh my gosh, that rhymes. Wow. Anyway, I think it needs to be us fostering a beautiful democratic choices. And that's the focus right there is choice. What choices are we giving our children? Are we giving them choices? Is it a robust array of choices? I hope so. That's my goal. That's why I'm here. That's why I'm doing this. Because I know what the power of choice did in my life. And I believe that it can have a very powerful impact in every child's life. So if you haven't checked out the Dewey Disciple podcast, that's my other extra tip for the day. It's really awesome. All right, so really at the end of the day, my call to everybody here is that you would be a change agent. And I know that that can be scary, but I really think that that's why we're all here as librarians. So think about how you're walking the line between selection and censorship and take some steps toward the selection side and away from the censorship side. And I don't think that any of us do this intentionally, but I think that being aware of the choices that we make might help us reevaluate what we're doing. I really think that we all have a very important role to play here. So the question is, can librarians drive reading trends? Can the selections that you make, can the books that you recommend really make change in terms of what's published and what's available to us? Yes, I believe that it can, in many ways. First of all, when you spend dollars on books, investing in books, they make more great, diverse books. This is also about what you do with those books because for every person that you recommend a great book to whose life it influences and changes, there are ripple effects and they recommend and another life is changed. And so you can be the first stone in that pond that creates the ripple. I also think, again, this gets back to that piece of it that maybe we weren't aware that that's who we're gonna be as librarians, but you have a powerful voice. You are a powerful advocate and you need to raise your voice and you need to write about this and you need to talk about the impact that it has. You need to talk about it to your staff. You need to talk about it to your stakeholders, your library directors, your board members, out in the community, blog about it, write articles about it, communicate about it to organizations that you think can be part of this initiative, that we need diverse books, organization was such a great example of you can be part of the solution here, you can be part of the conversation and I hope that you are because people will listen to you. We have an incredibly important body of expertise. We have an awareness of good literature and its impact on our readers that people will listen to. Remember all of the pieces of your work that this conversation influences. It's not just collection development, it's marketing and programming and readers advisory and just let it infiltrate everything that you do. One of the reasons that I think this conversation is sometimes hard for people and people get uncomfortable with it is because they feel like this is about an agenda and it's politics, it's right versus left. That's not what this is. This is about broadening our sphere of reference. This is about doing our jobs as librarians and making sure that people are able to explore the world through our collections and making sure that every person who walks through our door gets what they need. Forges a relationship with you as the librarian or finds a book that they can see themselves in, whatever it is. We don't bat our eyes at people traveling the world or going to eat at different ethnic restaurants so that they can experience new things. We celebrate that. That is exactly what we're trying to do here through books. We are helping people celebrate their world, broadening their perspectives, enriching their lives. And I believe so strongly that helping our children do this will lead to a generation of people who will solve problems for us and who will find creative solutions and invent amazing things. We need all of this in order to be our best selves. So my call to action for all of you is please fill your shelves with a wide array of diverse literature. Intermingle it throughout your collection, not just a handful, but all over. Introduce these books intentionally to your young readers through that lens of positivity because they are exciting and beautiful and amazing choices and they can see themselves in all kinds of different books. If we do this, we will breed education and creativity and tolerance and compassion and ultimately a better world. And so if you're trying to tell somebody why this is important, that's your answer. Better world, end of the day, you do this. It's gonna be a better world out there. Because nobody, not one person, should ever be perceived as just a single story. So this is the mantra that I try to sage myself on a regular basis. See it, notice it in the world all around you. See, look at your collections, look at your programming, look at your services and really see it. Say that you're gonna do this and then live it. And that's what I got. So we definitely have time for questions. I think Sally, if there are any. Please type your question into the question section of the listing on the GoToWebinar. In the meantime, I just wanna say one thing and that is, I am the master of the obvious, but when you were talking about, you know, my director isn't supportive of this and things like that. If you start with award winners, and this is just a very small drop in the pond, but if you start with the Coretta Scott King Award Winner, the Pura Bell Prey Award Winner, and say, we really need to add these, they've won an award for their obviously excellent books and start, that gives you a toe in the door, so to speak in my viewpoint. And maybe everybody already does that and everybody's already thought of it, but I just thought I'd mention it in case somebody hadn't gotten there yet. I think that's great. It's a great suggestion and great feedback. You're right. If you can tie a prestigious award to a book, that lends a lot of legitimacy to our argument. And then you can put it on your display. Award-winning books, this and this and this and this, are all out, maybe you put it out in January when the Youth Media Awards happen or some other time of year, so. Yeah, absolutely. We have a question here. Do we have access to the slideshow when the feed is over? And yes, you will, it won't happen right away because I'm not good at that. When Krista gets back to the office, she'll put that up and you will, having registered for this, you will receive an email that tells you where it is and how you can view that. So thanks for asking that question. Erica, I really appreciated your connection to a number of different ways to find diverse books and we need diverse books is when I've used more than once and I'm excited to see that your students are, you're putting your students' suggestions on the Goodreads list, which is, like I said, I'm going to be going there quite often. Oh, good. Do you have a list yourself or is this just the students who are, I mean, is there a list of your own that you would share? So I am actually putting my own selections within this shelf too. Oh, okay. Yep, and I'm hoping that this will just grow exponentially. So it's kind of an experiment. I've started it myself with my own classes, but we have 11 different sections of children's literature at the University of Nebraska. And so if we get everybody to start adding in those selections, we will have a very robust list of resources. So it'll grow every semester. Terrific. And I know others will drop off because that semester will be over and they'll start in again is how you're looking at it working. Yeah, I'm gonna, we'll try to keep it as current as possible. So like within the last three years, and then when the books get older then we'll take those down and keep it current. And that makes it more likely that you'll be able to purchase one because it's more current. Exactly, exactly. Well, I don't have any more questions out here, but thank you so much for being here today, Erica. We really appreciate your presentation and your viewpoints and you've done a lot of thinking and you've given me some resources to go to and read again or for the first time and really think myself through this whole process as well. Certainly appreciate your input and your time. Thank you, it was such a pleasure to be here. There is a question, one more question that says speaking kids to read English. I'm not sure quite damn I'm not missing any. It just says speaking kids to read English. I'm not sure what that means if you could type it in again, that would help. I have a friend in Norfolk who has done a story time and she's done it in English and Spanish and she said she had, when she first offered a Spanish story time, Spanish only, not very many people would come because they have a pretty good Spanish speaking population in Norfolk and she found out the reason was that the parents wanted their children to learn English faster and so she did both languages and then she got a good turnout and I think that that also helps. She said the people who only spoke English brought their kids along too because they wanted them to learn some about another language. So exactly. Yeah, I think that's the beauty of that is that it's beneficial both going both ways and I have a friend who's doing the same thing except with sign language story times. Oh yes. And that's really cool to watch that unfold because of the sensory element of that too which I think is always a really powerful way to help children engage as well. That's terrific and you can introduce, if you have some people in your community who speak other languages, you could invite them to come to your story time and either just read one story or do an echo thing where you read the story in English and they read it in their language just so kids can hear other languages that they've maybe never encountered before which is also a lot of fun and a new experience for them. I might be getting off track here, but. That's a really good thing. That's all the questions we have then. So again, I'll say thank you to Erica Rose and while we're here, I just wanted to mention again that we have an Encompass Live every week at 10 a.m. central time for people who want to come at them and listen to it live. Also, it is archived and you can find that on our webpage, the Nebraska Library Commission, it's nlc.nebraska.gov and you can find our Encompass Live archive where you can look at things after the fact. And if you sign up to attend but can't make it, again, you will get an email that will say here's where the archived program is so you can always get a hold of it later. So thank you again. Thank you everybody who attended and have a great day. Bye now.