 Good morning and welcome to this week's edition of Encompass Live. I am your host, Krista Burns, here at the Nebraska Library Commission. Encompass Live is a Commission's weekly online event. We're a webinar, we're a webcast, we're an online show, whatever you want to call us. We're here live online every Wednesday morning at 10 a.m. Central Time. We do record our shows however, so if you're unable to join us on Wednesday mornings, that's fine. You can always go to our website and watch any of our previous recordings for all our shows going back to the very beginning, which was January 2009 when we started this. Wow. We do a mixture of things here, presentations, interviews, mini-training sessions, book reviews. Basically anything library related, we are happy to have it on the show. We have Encompass the Library Commission staff that come on and do shows and we sometimes have guest speakers that come on. And this week we have a mixture of that. This week we have a theme, sort of. It's April Fool's Day. Happy April Fool's Day. Hopefully nobody's doing anything horrible to you today, horrible. Hopefully we're not doing anything too horrible. I don't know. I was just tossed this, Lisa Kelly is here next to me here from the Library Commission and she tossed this idea out of a different type of book club presentation. How to do the worst one ever if you want to have a horrible book club and never ever do the member again. This is the way, we're going to teach you how to do that. Get you right up to speak with that. So I'll just hand over to you, Lisa, if you can take it away, if you can do it yourself and what you're doing. You should really either use the mouse or the keyboard, whichever. It's as far as forward, right? It should be, yeah. And actually we should examine it. All right. Good morning. My name is Lisa Kelly and these two lovely ladies next to me are not only friends, but they are in my book club. And we, I will let everyone introduce themselves. So I will say, I have been at the Library Commission for 27 years and have been in several different book group discussions. Some organized, some on the fly, some for one book, one Lincoln. And from these discussions, we are here to give you counsel on how to get rid of your book group, how to never be asked back again. And you can use all of these tips and tricks in tandem, singularly over and over again, and you will thank us. These are guaranteed to work, I believe. So I'm going to let Siri introduce herself. My name is Siri Daniels. I'm a retired librarian. Happy. I'm my dad. I spent 12 years as a middle school librarian in Wisconsin. Then we moved to Nebraska, Peking. Spent six years as a librarian at Dill College and then spent my last few years at my Williams law firm. I am then, as she said, that this wonderful book group, I have been in one other. And so I feel very qualified to talk about this. I hope I didn't kill that book group, but they killed my participation in it. So I would be happy to be here. You learned from them. I did. All right. I'm Vicki Wood, and I am the new services supervisor for Lincoln City Libraries, where I've been for about 20 years like you, Lisa. One part of my job when we used to have book groups was to train the book group leaders for the book groups of kids. And so a lot of the experiences I've had are about parent-child book groups, but I've also been in several book groups myself. I'm very happy in the one I'm in right now. You're in three, though. Yes, I'm in three different book groups. That's true. I will admit that. They're very different types of book groups. But yeah. So yeah, I know a little bit about this topic. So if this is on your to-do list in your library and you hate it and you don't want to do it, we are here for you today. So we won't have a book group anymore. You won't have a book group, or if someone keeps bugging you to go to a book group and it's not your thing, we are here to help. So just hang in there with us and we'll give you some fire chips for this. So this has been the nemesis of organizations I've been in, not just book groups, really just don't keep your act together. Do not do that. Do not keep spreadsheet. Do not keep a list. Don't keep email addresses. Don't do any of these things. And be very haphazard about this. Has this happened in your book groups that you are no longer in? I was going to say I was in a book group that changed the date a lot. It would be a certain date. And then two weeks before, they would say I can't do it at my house and someone else would do it. And then someone would say they could do it and you'd think it was going to be there in three days before you get another email. No, it's not really going to be there and it's going to be next Sunday instead. That was awful. My other one was so disorganized we didn't know who was going to leave it until we got there. That works. Did the person leave it? No. And sometimes you had a whole little bit of time in your hand like, oh, you're new. Why don't you leave it? Yeah, it works. They can make a new person do it. I know. We've never been there before. I walked in and they said, oh, would you like to leave? Hi, who are you? You can see these really have value of these things we're telling you. I think the best thing is to have it be consistent like we do like the third Thursday or every fourth Saturday or something so that people can actually remember it and don't move it around a lot. But if you do want to get rid of your book group, hide the date or don't tell them what it is and don't re-remind them. Make sure you have that email address so that no one finds out. And you can say you emailed me. I e-mailed you. Okay. So certainly we all have different reading tastes. It goes without saying. And Nancy Pearl is the one who taught us what we read for. If you read for setting or character or language or story. And it is really true that everyone has a different taste. I would say I'm Myers-Griggs of reading. Do you want to read things again? Do you like genres? The first thing is really quirky and far out and eccentric. And then they should choose the books for your book group because then everyone will really struggle. And the interesting thing is they're usually the ones who want to choose. So you can do this easily. Yeah. They'll be bold. Those folks who read odd titles really want someone to discuss them with. Not because they necessarily like them but because they're so perplexed by what they chose. They want somebody to talk to about it. How do you punish the rest of you? Is this happening in your group? Oh yeah. And a similar thing is to have somebody just the boldest person or the most talkative person or the most dominant person to use the book every time because everybody else is passive and they're like I don't know what to read then. The bold person comes in and says let's read this and everybody goes okay. That goes along with being disorganized. You get to the end of the night and you'll say what's next? Yeah, everyone's tired or wants to leave. They have too much wine. And like you say somebody's really loud. We had some rules about the length of the book and if it was available to the library then nobody would have a computer to look it up and so then we would go yeah that sounds good and then find out that there were no copies. So yeah. That's not a good one. That's not a good one. Right and I had two sisters and one person was allowed to they're both in book groups in their respective town so I can reference my sister's book group and you won't know which one I'm talking about. And they took away the right to select from one person because they just said we didn't like your books you're not choosing anymore so Did that person stay and look pretty? I don't believe so. There's lots of ways to handle this. Personally they were a bad selector. I don't know but if you are branded then so you keep this all in mind when you're trying to get rid of your book group. That's what you're interested in? Yeah. Maybe in a well established book group which is certainly not what we're trying to promote today. You would have criteria and it should be I would hope it would be agreed upon by the group what page number availability but a couple of times in current book group old book group chosen things that were just not out there because someone has a real passion for them or they found a copy at a little bookstore when they were traveling in. Well even just our last selection only had two copies of the library. I was on hold at the library hoping that I would get it before it was actually time to show up at book group. I also was in a book group where the attitude was kind of well if there isn't just go buy it. Okay. Some people do not want to buy books. I would be that person. Never want to buy a book. Especially when it's picked by the person that doesn't have your reading taste. Right. This is kind of a pet peeve with mine because I think there's so many great books to choose and there's so many that are coming to e-book or an audio book or a downloadable format and why can't you just choose that book? So, yeah. It just takes a little bit of work on the ups and the before you close the book. Another good example of something that's not available would be maybe something brand new. It's only built in hard cover. So to buy it it's been about 20 to 30 bucks and no library is going to lend it but there are already books to unroll certain people or some libraries do have that role where it will not lend anything outside of our own library for up to six months or something about that person published. I think something brand new that just came out last week. In fact, we had two 2014 copyrights timing up this year. Someone just came to brand new titles but they were multiple free available and in various formats. So that's something for you to decide what your criteria is but I don't mean don't have any criteria. I kind of just laughed at that disorganized base. You're not planning enough to know there aren't any. I was actually in a book group that had a page limit and I thought that was actually also a good guideline. There's great books that are 600 pages long or 500 pages long but there's also really great books that are 200 or 300 pages long that you can actually read for your book group. That was longer but it was a nonfiction selection on children. That was very long. Vicki said choose a couple of chapters. So you can make it again, we're telling you how things could work and that's not really what we want. That book was daunting to read the whole thing but if the goal is just to read a few chapters for discussion then it worked out. My nonfiction was a lot that way too. You wouldn't have to read it all because it was so different. Which one was that? Each one was about a very different kind of system. So you could make it flexible for your book group if you want it to work. If you want to make it work. Which we are sending out. Well I think any group of people with whom you're with and it doesn't matter if you're discussing a book or if you're having dinner or in a family reunion. There's someone who has lots of opinions. It's certainly once you want to know them. So be that person. Get her off. Get her off. And be sure that try to be tactless also. I think that's good. Yeah, tactless is good. And make sure that you state how much you dislike the book at the beginning of the discussion. The likes have been really intimidating. Right at the beginning I hated this. That really promotes me. I need your conversation. I know the Caldecott committee have a rule that no one can say anything negative about a book when they're writing the books until the end. You can only talk about the positive things. That's why they still have a group. So reverse and likewise I won't allow any conversation about the book. So Siri and I go to a movie or something together and we will say I finished that's all we're allowed. So we keep it fresh. That way we're not following something ahead of time and it comes out in a group. That's maybe too militant. I don't know how you think about that. One of the bottom lines about book groups is to talk about a book. It's not even about liking or disliking it. It's about a whole bunch of other things. If you start your discussion there your discussion is not going to go very far. Because liking it or disliking it is not really the bottom line. It closes it down instead of opening it up. By all means start out the group by saying you made the book. Okay. You should definitely advertise, line up your guest speakers and then try to get the book. Because that's a recipe for great success in getting rid of your club. And I put the one book, one Nebraska logo on here because that's something my library supports in terms of checking out books. We buy multiple copies of what's been selected for the book to put state to read and there's usually humanities council speakers or people who align themselves to be available as programs. So line them up and then call us and try to get your books. And good luck. Because that will not work. And there you'll have a speaker. You'll be hiding in your eyes. I hope you're getting what we're saying here. There's also one book, one Lincoln selections and you make book club kits available with multiple copies. So have you ever, or have you also had book bags for schools as well? We do and we also go out to book groups and lead discussions on the one book, one Lincoln selection. So that's kind of a fun thing to do also. Yeah. Right now The Giver is still a really popular title, which has been around forever but I think the movie and the research of that, you know, I was just we just got asked this morning to check out books, you know. So be mindful of popularity and it's really popular. Just assume you're going to be able to get it. Yeah. Because you want it. Make it so. So yeah, if something has a movie tie-in or is a themed book you just be really confident that you'll be able to get copies of it and advertise and line it all up. That's a great way to kill your muscles. Then ask, yeah. This is just excellent. In fact, Vicki and I did an encompass last year on how to discuss a book when it doesn't have prepared discussion questions. So in our world, here today, it doesn't matter. Don't read the book. Oh, you can't even talk about something I should read. Who says you have to talk about that book? Maybe you could just talk about the cover. You could. Or the author. Yeah, you know. You could read half of it. Or and then say, nobody's helping out them. Oh, yes, that would do it. Does it look bad? Sure. Read some reviews. Right. So if you're in charge of reading, and you actually know you're in charge of reading. Yes. Which in a disorganized group, you wouldn't necessarily know. So this might follow show up with no leader. Show up with no preparation. So you're reading at your appointed time. Would watching the movie instead of reading the movie would do this too? We hear someone do that. evaluation of the book on how the movie was done. We actually had someone do that in my group once and we read Mademoiselle Berry. She could not read it. And so she had the movie and watched it. And we were like, no, not this thing. Well, yeah, sometimes the ending is different. If they don't read it all, they can try to fake it. But when the ending is different. She watched the movie. That's good. Now I've done a book group where I deliberately assigned both the bookend and the movie. Well, that would be Derrickson. And they were really interesting. And I said, I don't care what order you view them, but you have to do both before you come back. So, you know, but that's, again, an organized way to go about it. Well, we also had a situation where women selected the book and then we were going to discuss it. And then she hadn't read the book then, but she had read one of her other books. Let's talk about that the whole time. Yeah, just talk about another one. Yeah. And then we read that one. We read this one. No. Exactly. There you go. That's a good one. These are lessons from the real life. From the trenches. This is probably one of my favorites. Oh, yeah. And while it is a goal of mine, and I will say this, to have one conversation, it just never happens. It never happens. I've never been successful at it in any story I've ever been in. It never stops bothering me. It never stops being my Achilles heel. The dreaded side of conversation. So, when you are asked to go to a book and you're hating it, you know, talk to the person next to you. Talk loud. Right. And it doesn't really matter if it's about the book. No. Actually, it's about the book. It's almost more annoying because you're like, why don't you bring it to the group and just telling the person sitting next to you? Right. And especially if you know that there are other people who enjoy that, you should always sit next to them. Because you can be troublemakers all the time. You can make it hard for other people to hear. So they give up. So the leader might try to separate you when you please. A leader might try to put you in different places. But don't you fall for that. If you're an excellent sign-talker, you keep it up. Because people will dislike you. They'll want to appreciate you coming to their gathering. And that's really what you want. You don't want to be liked. Everybody else will get tired of it. And they may not even really value your opinions anymore. Because you clearly don't want to share them with the group. You just want to share them with the person next to you. Well, and I have a friend who's in a pretty serious book group and one of the things they talk about is, this is a term that her husband uses, anticipating each other's periods. So in other words, trying to figure out when somebody is going to stop talking and waiting until that moment and then having a slight pause before you start talking. Wow. So that's formalizing it a lot. That's way too organized. So for those of you who are sign-talkers out there, keep up the good work and keep going to book groups and keep doing what you do. It's easy. Excellent. Well, and on the opposite side of things, you know, the body language at a book group can really tell a lot about your interest in the discussion and how much you really care to engage. So cross your arms, look down. Shut your eyes. I fall asleep. And if someone asks you a direct question, you can always just say it was good or it wasn't good. Answer short. Clicked answers. You can sigh a lot also. Sigh a lot. Look at your watch. Re-fill your one glass. This might be done in talking, however. If you didn't like the book, you can only just say once, this book needed editing. I know that's going to need really good editing and all you need to say really, you don't need to share why or what you thought in addition to that, but don't contribute beyond that. Simple declarative sentence. Only when asked. No explanation. We actually had somebody in our book group who came continuously every week and never... Well, that's what we thought, but clearly we thought, well, she must be getting something out of it, or she wouldn't keep coming week after week so I don't know. But it was sort of uncomfortable because you wanted everybody to participate and she seemed to want to come in with something. On the serious side, we do have someone who I observed like that who you can tell is engaged though. They're not speaking and they're not sharing, but they're actively following the conversation. There's a way to do this right and there's a way to do this wrong. You want to be invited or make your other book club members feel uncomfortable. Pull on howdy behavior will do the trick. Some people are mad when they don't like the book and that also leads to howdy behavior or when they've stated that they don't like it and other people did and they're just baffled and don't want to say anything else because how could you possibly find out why? And of course the best book discussion has really come in my opinion from polarized opinions. If you can really capitalize on that, the road, the idea for us was just one where we were all over the board and if you can really capitalize on that and say you didn't like it, but you did like it. Where's the middle? Or a certain part of it. The interpretation of it. But if you're the leader, don't try to solve that. Don't try to figure that out. When I used to teach people about leading book groups of kids, we'd have this problem a lot, especially when there was a parent and a child because the parent would tend to talk and the child wouldn't talk. Sometimes it was the opposite, but not very often. And so we had kind of specific questions where we directed those at the non-speaking people and usually it turned out they had something to say they just didn't know how to jump in or they didn't. And so that's a job of a leader too, is to kind of ask questions and try to draw people out. Yep. Okay. This is another favorite. Trying to, if you do share, when you do decide it's worth saying something, definitely don't make it about the book. Right. Or in such a tantental way that you cannot really connect. And stick with it. Even when they try to bring you back on track. As happened in our book group once. A long time ago. Just, there was a book that happened to take place in Texas and one of our members did not stop talking about going up in Texas, being in Texas, wanting to go to Texas, whatever. Every time we tried to bring it back to the actual book it was hard. There is a book I picked that I really loved and it just derailed. It was totally derailed. It's a perfect example of how to kill because I tell you, I don't know if we ever did talk about the book. I was disappointed and I thought well clearly I can't love a book too much when I bring it to the group because it got one person singularly dashed that entire conversation. That's all it takes people, one person. And actually that person now started off by saying how she didn't like the book. So you had two of those at the same time. Didn't like the book. And then could only talk about her experiences in going up in Texas. And this book was written by a Pulitzer Prize winning author in the group. Yeah, right. So it was worth discussing. We never really got to. Yeah, this was definitely the death of one of my book groups. At least for me because we would spend about 10 minutes talking about the book and then someone would bring up a political book or political thing or some restaurant they had eaten at. There was no way and then you were like you know they were looking at okay now let's talk about the book again. They were gone. Now I should add a sidebar that one of my sister's book clubs it's perfectly acceptable to just talk about all kinds of things in fact it's a group. Just don't call it a book club. Call it a coffee club or something. I think they do talk about the book but they allow they're much more liberal so when she hears about what I'm teaching it sounds fairly vengeance. So they acknowledge and they come together and they acknowledge we're going to talk about the book and we're going to talk about a lot of other things. So if that's your gig this may seem like My mother's book group has morphed into that but they actually changed the name of it it's an official thing. It's their eating and reading group. Eating is the primary purpose we're getting together going out to dinner but if we all have to read this book we said we're going to read it. But it's not the main purpose. They put eating in front of reading. And a lot of family members who have another family member in the book club know a book is just an excuse for that member to leave the house and they may not talk about the book. So I should add the caveat that maybe your book club is designed to be as focused on the book but if it is it's a good idea to be off topic if you want to bring it to its knees close the discussion and make it really not worth the time. So everyone who came and read the book doesn't get to talk about it. And there's a difference between talking about issues in the book that maybe kind of expand and don't relate directly but still come from the book. That's different than just going off and talking about some political issues. Exactly. And one of my three book groups is actually called the Margarita Book Group and so there's no false advertising. The group is really about Margarita and the books come stuck in. But as long as you know that going in you're good. What's the ratio of book to not book discussion in that group? That's a group where every other time we bring a book that other people haven't read and we bring our own like three books that we've read just to share. And so we tend to talk a lot because each of us have a certain amount of time to talk about the pile of books that we've brought that we think other people might be interested in. And I would say as far as the actual discussion goes maybe we get maybe 20 minutes 30 before the Margarita's hit we get distracted by that. But no, it's not as serious as the book group as my other one. But you're exchanging here's three books that I read about and then you all take notes and take them off. And we make them available to each other. Well, the key is like you said is you know that going in. Exactly. We don't have our expectations, aren't we? Maybe that's another one we need to add. Don't share your expectations for the book club. Don't properly define what it is. People don't know what they're getting into. Because we're in book groups. We literally do. We define their definitions. That's a good one. That's very connected to the one we just did. I only recall one evening where that really happened in our happened in a group where we went probably an extra half an hour. Were you both there that night? I think so. I don't know. Yeah, you were. I think I know. Well, the issue the book yielded some issue and somebody really went off the rails and man they went on and not only did they go on, but they were angry. Really angry. And boy, we were held captive by that person for quite some time. If you haven't been able to discuss something personal in your life in a book group for that. Bring that up. It's a relationship issue or something for which you can't discuss at home so take that to your book group. Use a convenient segue. Yeah. And make others feel really uncomfortable about your book. Yeah, share time. Overshare. People in your book group aren't necessarily your friends. They're either your book group friends but those are your friends. They certainly aren't being paid. Well, and to compare it to actual group therapy where you take the confidentiality of the book groups don't do that. Exactly. So what you share there might be gain. We're doing, we're sharing some things about our book groups but have you had that happen in your other book groups? Oh yes, yes, definitely. And as a matter of fact, when you're working in parent-child book groups kids will often say things that their parents are mortified about. You know, she used books that were a little chunky, you know, books that had some issues for the kids to talk about. And I know there have been situations where the parent was like, oh, you believe me. I don't think the child was taking therapy. The child was being honest. But in my adult book group there were also things where, you know, internally you're saying, I can't believe she just told us that. So yeah, that happened. Yeah, and now we should also go on the other side. If you're really close friends then that is the confidentiality and the comfort that you have in there. Right. Okay. But if that's not what the group is set up for then by all means. Your book group could happen on your word stay ever. Yeah. And you could make a point of going to your book group after you've just had your word stay ever and in that case there's a little venting. But with our book group the venting is built in because we have the meal before. So that's when you do all of your personal and physical and otherwise and you do a space where it's about the book and not about you. Yeah. Right. The first rule of book club is you don't talk about book club. If that's the way you're going to go. Yes. Or you don't. And you share everything you've heard to everyone else. Yeah. Oh, and I suppose that would follow then if someone shares something really personal in your book. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, go ahead and deliver that to other people. You might find that interesting. Did you know someone so share this and that group? I just find that just ridiculous. Right. That would be good. Because that will make that person feel really safe in your book. Yeah. Okay. Now in our particular book club and everyone might select differently but I make everyone and so it just stands to reason when you're asked you should just refuse. Don't do it. I am so happy to find out that's an option. I do not like selecting. Siri really hates it and yet she always chooses really great books. She won't believe me when I say that. She won't believe me when I say that. I make her choose. She does. And you know it follows that you should give people a good lead time. So if you want people to select don't give them a lot of time. Just any didn't have a book right next week. Yeah. What's on the side of your bed? What's on the side of your bed? Yeah, that'll work. Well, I think it's time to do it. Yeah. And for some folks that might be fine. Vicki and I have talked about in other sessions that he really should read a book before maybe even twice. And I've read my books twice before. Right. So again, we're a few things on how maybe to do it well and how maybe to do it to bring your book clubs in one hand. Yeah, don't be a helpful book club member. Right. Because if you say no, the people who say yes are those people we were talking about earlier. You don't want to read their books anyway. So everyone wants out. Yeah. Problem solved. In your other book groups, do you have a plan? Well, we had the group where we never decided ahead of time who was going to choose. That was really bad. So then it was, like I said, it was the most dominant person there that day or the person who argued strongest for their book and thought everybody else would like it. And it just wasn't a really great way to do it. I like it when everybody has a term to do it because that way it spreads, it makes you feel more connected and more responsible. It's always just kind of posting and you have to be involved and you have to think ahead and all that. So I think it has some good reasons. That does require you have one person in your group that keeps track. Right. I'm wearing a labor of having a group leader. Yeah. I know some people think it's un-democratic but I'm all for that. So if you want that, these are the models you will choose. And if you don't want that, that's the way to go. But I do keep a spreadsheet and I can see when we've read it. If it was a one book, one one game. Anyway, that helps me sort of as people come and go from book group decide whose turn it might be. And then I do give people about 3-4 months notice. Yes. Okay, are you up? Can you come up with some titles? Some people will struggle with me and say give me some time and they'll say not this time around. Is that an option? No. It doesn't mean I'll come back to you. No, really. You just go down to the next person. Yeah. Poor Siri. I'm really eager. Oh, this will do it. Yeah. Let's say that you're picking a book. Freakin'omics we read. And everybody's spouse read. Yeah, they did. That's right. Siri and I live in a building and it's usually just one partner who belongs to the book club. It's never the both partners, which is interesting. But the night we read Freakin'omics, the partners series selection and I just wanted to say one partner came, another part. I think we had two. And we were sitting on the floor because I was expecting those people to come. But they had read it because they were like, okay, I'll read it. It was nonfiction, so we got a combo from spouses. And that was an interesting night. I certainly wasn't prepared for it, but it worked. People were sitting on the floor, which I rearrange my living room to try to deal with it. But if you're meeting in a home, you only have room for really so many. And that's just meeting in a church hall or something. And that goes to size of your group and your expectations about conversation. Do you want to have one or do you want to have several? Well, there was a little difference in the sense that we knew the other people who were coming too. We didn't know they were coming, but we knew them. The other thing about that is you could bring people nobody know. And so then it's just kind of the struggle of not only are there more people than you thought, but you don't know them and they are interested in their taster. But to fully clarify how to do this wrong, let's say we picked a book and I recommended it to Krista, who's not in my book. I said, go ahead, just come and join us. And then I throw Krista into my very intimate group. And she brings a friend to her. Yeah, you bring another friend. That's a good way to treat the both. Yes. To keep other potential new members out of your group. That if you do this as a surprise and they feel completely uncomfortable with another group, they don't know the book. They don't know how it's supposed to go. Then they'll never come back again. That's true. You have to worry about developing your group. You can't change your new chemistry. Yeah, and really feeling uncomfortable is a good idea. Because then you're not really compelled to share your honest and true thoughts here. So being uncomfortable with guests that aren't expected. Now again, one of my sister's book groups keeps their group tight. They actually discuss what new member they're going to bring in. Because they want the chemistry to be better. If someone moves away, they'll actually discuss should we fill that spot or should we leave it empty. You might really go to a serious amount of detail to decide who belongs. So guests, unexpected guests. That can really throw things off for a group that has worked hard to develop chemistry. Your groups really have a specific chemistry. Oh yeah, they definitely do. And one person can make a big difference. So the chemistry is more casual in some. The Margarita one, I imagine is the most casual. Is that come and go? Can you drop in? Can you bring friends to that? Yeah, I don't think anybody ever has but the people in comments are kind of a moving group. I think there's 10 in the group and there's usually 6 or 8 people at any. People will have conflicts. Alright. This is a good one to see. Some books only feel that long. I love that graphic. I don't know what that is if it's a dissertation. I feel like something's happened to book editing that books are not edited like they used to be and I don't know if it has to do with publishing industry or the way the writers do anything. Just keep putting stuff in there. A well edited book is a shorter book. There are a lot of times where you're reading and you're thinking I'm really enjoying this but this whole part was completely unnecessary. So yeah, long books and those are hard because book group books tend to be books that you wouldn't necessarily want to choose to read. You're not going to be speeding through them. You're putting it into the reading that I normally do. It's a long book and you're meeting monthly. You may have a lot of people who won't finish who are irritated about that. I remember we had early in our book club, we had someone select a book by Republican Mystery and it was quite long and she was very concerned about it. But everyone agreed to okay, this is when we're all agreeing to take on that. So we did. But our group also meets every other month and so many groups really meet monthly. So that's asking a lot of someone who's working, reading other books, taking care of family, all sorts of things to deal with an 800 page book just because I really liked it. Even if you like it, yeah. Even if you like the book and doesn't mean you're going to be able to finish it and not be able to finish it as a big problem. So bring a group to its knees by choosing things that are just 800 plus. Go for that. We've touched on this but I can't stress it enough if you don't send out new vectors. Even though we meet every other month at the same time, it's hard to recall when it's going to be serious sometimes when it's going to remind you to send a reminder. Just saying no book groups. We have an event at your house by the way. We have an event that meets on Thursdays and Fridays. So we're planning something else. We could go on that Thursday. We're going to have a bunch of people at your house. It's not going to work. Just writing down counter way ahead. In the real world, I try to send out a note about a week in advance. Reminder, here's the book. Some people still haven't gotten a hold of the book and for speed readers it gives them enough time if they want to get out there and read it. It's 300-ish pages. They're all readers. So I know people have that's the note that sends to the library to get it. And they'll read it that week. If it was available. That would make me stressed. But I will also label my notes. Keep this list. Here's your assignments. Do what you can to make it easy. But if you change your time a lot, and you should, you know, cancel, reschedule. Right, right. So I never mind. But if you do want to be mindful of that, you know, I send out notes about a week in advance. And it's strongly label what they are. If you're not going to be able, here's the next one. Here's the next one. So if you're going to miss what's ahead and you can find your reading schedule on what you need to do. We do. We have a Facebook page. And then the other one. So one group manages on the Facebook page? Does that work well? Yeah, everybody is on the Facebook page. I mean, that's so, it works. I mean, everybody is on Facebook and they're pretty regular users. It just so happens that it works. So there's no one. There's certainly not one model. Right. Very good. Yeah. And then ask what's already been talked about. There's a lot I want to do to start over. Yeah, we want to start over. We've been talking about this for an hour, but hey. I don't think we've had anybody like that. We have early. That's right. Once again, the dinner preceding the discussion house a lot of times. Because you have kind of a buffer time. You have a window of time to come in. Early. So for those of you who have and I know we explained this, but the book group that we're in that meets at my house has a six to seven o'clock dinner drink time. And then at seven o'clock we go to the living room to look for drinks. And then we physically change locations to talk about the book. Otherwise it's just chatter. What movies do you see? What else are you reading now? I'm off topic the whole hour. So if you maybe in a world where you don't want this to be a problem, have a window of time where people can show up. So it's not just, we started seven. Maybe you want to do something so people can arrive and slide in. As there were schedules and errands allow them to do. I was in one that was like a Sunday afternoon group and we tried to do kind of food and drink ahead of time discussion and people would come for the food and drink and they'd be like, oh I'm gonna go pick up my phone. Oh my gosh. That group is so wild. It was killed. It was killed. That's what I was going to ask actually because you mentioned some people come earlier and I was wondering would that be a way to have a bad thing if somebody comes early like you say and you start at six when they show up at five and you're not even ready at your house. And then whenever my wife shows up I say alright well I've been here for a couple hours I've got to go. That's a bad attitude towards the whole event. Some people have show up really reputations and we have a few of those. That can be frustrating for the hostess. And make you not want a host anymore. They don't know. I quit, right? Kill a host of you. Then we can have a mystery. That's my job. And kill a host. Okay. We've talked about this one. In some group that may be a norm to show up and not be done with it. But again those go to your expectations for the book club. Is that acceptable? We've made it a bit of a norm that people don't do that in our lives. You finish or you don't show. And if you haven't the understanding is we are going to talk about it. So if you haven't and you come you know that. That's kind of up to you. There's no spoilers. It's all game and you show up in the conversation. We actually had someone who wouldn't read it and come and listen to the discussion and then decide if she was going to read the book or not. That's a dead group. That's a dead group. It's possible that we're helping to define that singular person. And I think that might bring us to our next slide maybe. Oh I'm not. I'm jumping ahead. If someone selects a book and has gone to all the trouble to selecting it and they present it in the club you should just hate it right away. Before you read it don't have an open mind. Try to just shut that thing down and hurt their feelings. I think that might be good too. How do you choose something like this? It's kind of a cardinal rule of books. If you just wanted to read what you want to read all the time then why are you in the book group? Again those certain book groups are organized differently. We're going for a sort of a pure we're going to read it and talk about it. But again there's on the spectrum many different kinds of clubs. If you oppose everything that's selected there will be no hope to read it. You will have to do a weird book club successfully. And you will be invited back. So problem solved. Stay late. Stay really late. If you're meeting someone's home that's a really good idea. Especially if it's a work day. Don't offer to do anything and just keep talking. That's a very good idea. Usually a group kind of sets up its pace maybe you'll see I don't even do your other clubs kind of have a pace to a wind down. You feel it. Yeah definitely. And people's attention spans are wired for about an hour. Sometimes you jump over that how can you go another hour. And people are in the groove again. It depends on the look. I can tell when you're in a sweet spot stay there. But stay beyond that. This is more for killing the hostess. And so I think this whole session might be really summed up well. We're describing that one person who will come to your book group and just make a mess of it by the behaviors and attributes we've described. We've all had them. And they're either and we're not in those groups anymore. Yeah. Sometimes they stay and you go and sometimes they go and you stay. So if you don't know what a toxic book club member is by now, I don't know how much I've tried to clearly make it over now. And being overly judgmental Yeah this drove me from my other book group. If you want to send people away just tell them flat out they're wrong. And matter of fact interrupt them partway through their opinion and tell them they're wrong. Just say you are wrong. Everybody loves to hear that. Yeah this wasn't in one of my book groups but I've heard of one that some of my friends were in that imploded really badly over this exact thing where somebody just said you're wrong. You couldn't be more wrong than you are wrong. And the whole book group just Well it's again just Some people went to here and some people went here and they couldn't stay together anymore. Well and we're a result of some of those things that have happened. So we speak from experience. Absolutely. I was thinking about earlier slide about say right off the bat what you think about the book right at the beginning of the night it was horrible and I think you could add to that and I'm glad you had this like it was horrible and if any of you guys think differently you're wrong. That is the mantra of the toxic but I don't know Make sure your body language shows that you mean it. It's a little way. It's a little way. And so here we are at the end. We want to wish you a really happy We hope that you don't want to kill your book. I've given you a URL for the resources that we offer here at the library commission if you are a librarian in Nebraska we have resources and book club kits so actually multiple copies of titles over 900 now that you might want to pick from all the way from young adult year up to adult all sorts of titles fiction, non-fiction, genre literary fiction all sorts of things so if you're ready to jump into this murky pool with us and make your definitions of what you'd like we certainly support that but thanks for playing with us any last parting words you want to say I was wondering if anybody had any questions were there any questions let's see does anybody have any questions comments, thoughts your own ideas on how you killed book clubs experiences to share if you have any ideas if you have any ideas or any comments you use the questions section go to webinar interface during we didn't have anything except for that first rule of book club comments well and I think one of the things that you have to realize is like any relationships book clubs have a dynamic to them and they there's definitely chemistry and when you're in a group and you've got a great group going it just feels good for everybody I think and so messing with that it's not good and so I think a big part of that is having well defined expectations and ideas about whatever, if everybody's got to be kind of on the same page no pun intended about what they want out of the book group and they're going to be a lot happier some people might be really unhappy in our book group for instance because they don't think we're way too serious about talking about the book we need to lighten up and talk about other things so you know it just depends on what kind of a reader you are and what your expectations are we have had some people leave there's some geographic and I'm fully aware why? I think we were too serious we might have found something else if you're wanting to join a book group start one try it out make a good book group before bring up Shwell and when I had that bad experience I didn't join a book group for a long time so I think the net too is just know that they're not all the same and that you have to find one where you fit in and you feel like you fit in so yeah, they'll give up okay, any questions? I'm not just saying I enjoyed this and the suggestion too that you should take these key anti-success points and make it into a cool infographic one of those things we have a PowerPoint slide so we'll use that thank you all for joining us good luck to you all in whatever you're trying to whatever you're trying to do great, do it with gusto and thanks do it in thank you very much guys that was great learned lots of great things about booklets and I can't believe she's no I am not and after this she's not my mom and my sister both do it I've never tried one before it's just it's felt like not my thing I was an English major in college did a lot of reading, a lot of book analyzing and reviewing stuff because it was what I did from college and like I said, groups are different but I just get the feel that it would be more like work, like school I have to read the book and I have to have something interesting to say about it and I have to learn from what other people think about it and generally I don't feel like that, I feel like I want to read it and I enjoy it cool on the next one this was really cool here I read this one or my sister, hey I found something I thought you might think it was cool but that's not as far as it goes I just don't feel like I would get into sitting around and talking about it because it would feel like my college years I think that's typical I think that's a really typical opinion and probably the more the majority no not me I want to talk about everything I'm reading a book and I'm like who's reading this book it's not that many that's my point you're extrovert, extrovert, extrovert now there you go because extrovert is processed by talking about things it's the same when I've seen a movie and I've gotta find somebody who saw that movie so now we're using this as a therapy yes for example all our YouTube streams in process here well after I saw that I actually watched it with a group of friends I don't know did you see it? no I have not I've heard a lot about it I watched it with friends and several of us were there and it was really great to have people if I would have watched it at home by myself I would have been just like somebody to talk to about this and I could continue to have many conversations with people I've seen a lot online people are just going oh my and the jinx oh yes that's another one you have to watch the crazy in this it's just well yes alright okay thank you yes that will oh yeah we're still going to thank you very much everyone oops happy April Fool's Day hope you have a nice of your day whatever may or may not come your way that will wrap it up for this week's In Compass Live we are recording it it will be available on our website later this afternoon if you want to come and watch it again enjoy and this is where our website all the recordings go on here down here is our archives underneath our upcoming shows and we post the recording PowerPoint Slides we post as well and any links related so I will have links to what the resources we have in the library commission website will be available for as well for you to quickly jump to those that wraps up this week I hope you join us next week I was actually talking about this before our annual summer reading program session Sally Snyder our coordinator of children and young adult library services every year she comes on and talks about all the new books or whatever the summer reading program theme is and that's our show next week every hero has a story it's super heroes that would be really fun so sign up and join us for that next week or for any of our other shows that you see here on the schedule also if you are a Facebook user as you were saying we do have a Facebook page for In Compass Live no discussion goes on there but that's where we post notifications of new shows recordings are available every week on the fly here so you can just log in if you didn't get registered ahead of time to remind you that the show is coming up so if you are big on Facebook you definitely go over there and then like us we are good to go for today thank you very much see you next time on In Compass Live