 Okay. Hello. Good morning and welcome to this week's edition of Encompass Live. I am your host, Krista Porter, here at the Nebraska Library Commission. Encompass Live is the Commission's weekly webinar series where we cover a variety of topics that may be of interest to libraries. We broadcast the show live every Wednesday morning at 10 a.m. Central Time, but if you're unable to join us on Wednesdays, that's fine. We do record the show every week as we are doing today, and archives are then posted on our website for you to watch at your convenience. And I'll show you at the end of today's show where you can access all of those archive recordings, both the live show and the archives are free and open to anyone to watch. So please do share with your friends, family, neighbors, colleagues, anyone you think might be interested in any of the shows we have. And for those of you not from Nebraska, the Nebraska Library Commission is the state agency for libraries. We are like the state library in many other states. So we provide services to all types of libraries in the state. So on our show, you will find things for all types of libraries. Public, academic, K-12, correction, special museums, archives, it's all over the place. And the federal criteria is something to do with libraries, something libraries are doing, something we think they could be doing, services and products we think might be useful to them. We bring in guest speakers from across Nebraska and across the country, sometimes, and we sometimes have library commission staff that do presentations for us. Today's show, we have a combination of that. But before I get in today's show, I want to do a quick reminder to everyone I do this every week to make sure everybody knows what's available here. We are still in the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it is getting worse all across the world. And here at the library commission, like many other state libraries and state library associations, we are providing resources for our libraries. We have a post here that is pinned to the top of our web page. Always will appear there right at the top with resources that we have put together. Our library staff here, library commission staff, gathering resources. We are attempting to keep a list, actually is at the top there, of libraries in Nebraska. So this is just Nebraska libraries, who's open, who's closed, who's making special accommodations, curbside pickup, etc. So we're pre-closed, that's happening now. So we have that information there we're trying to gather. If you're in Nebraska library, let us know if you've had any changes. And then we have this sub-page here with a lot of different information for libraries. Things you can help, they can help your patrons, financial help, unemployment, what do I do with my kids. But then the second section here specifically for you is running your library, helpful resources that might be out there. Some guidance on what you could do, testing that's been done, advice how to hold meetings here. Is this specific meetings here in Nebraska? What are special accommodations have made for that? So we try to keep this up to date. There's always new updated, there's always new things being added to it as we hear about that new information coming out. As you know, this is a ongoing situation and changes every day. So definitely keep an eye on that for you. If you are not in Nebraska, many of these resources are good for anybody, but check your state library or your state library association. They may be doing the same thing and talking to you about in our state, this is what these statutes are and local requirements and things. So I just wanted to remind everybody of that. What I'm going to do now is I am going to hand over presenter control to you, Tessa. You should see a pop up telling you that you have been made a presenter. And that you can share your screen. There we go. All right. You can do it. Whatever you do to make it at your full screen present. There you go. Perfect. All right. Okay. So on today's show, as I mentioned earlier, we have a combination of presenters. They were going to be talking about, well, I'm, they're going to be talking about letters about literature. And with us is Tessa Terry, who is the communications coordinator here at the library commission. And Christine Walsh, who's from our Carney public library, but also our Nebraska center for the book president, correct. Correct. Yep. And Sally Snyder, who is our children's and youth services coordinator here at the library commission. So I'm just going to hand it over to you guys to take it away and tell us all about this awesome program we got going here. Yeah, thanks, Krista. So like Chris said, my name is Tessa Terry, and I work here at the Nebraska library commission. And we partner with the Nebraska center for the book humanities Nebraska and some other organizations to put on Nebraska's version of letters about literature, which is a writing contest. So I'm going to hand it off to the Nebraska center, the book president, Christy Walsh and let her tell you a little bit more about this writing competition. Sounds good. Thank you, Tessa. Letters about literature used to be a national program. It is over 25 years in existence. I believe Nebraska has participated for better than 18. It's a strong heritage of Nebraskans participating in it, which is really exciting. At this point, it is a statewide reading and writing program. It does not go on to a national competition any longer. But we're having fun reinventing it is for young readers in grades four through 12. When you're asked to write a letter or a poem to an author, any author doesn't have to be, it can be living or dead, any genre. So if it's a book you love and you want to write to that author, please do so. That is what your letters about literature entry is. And it's not a book report. We want to know how that book, how that authors work changed your view of the world or made an impact on you in some way. So it's a conversation with that author to say, hey, you made a difference and this is why there are three different levels of competition. So there are several, there are options for lots of folks. Level one is grades four through six, level two grade seven and eight and level three grade nine through 12. You'll see the dates of submissions and those will be accepted November 1 through December 31. And Tessa will tell us more about how to get your entries in a little bit later in the program. What is the Nebraska Center for the Book? Excellent question. The Nebraska Center for the Book brings together the states readers, writers, booksellers, librarians, publishers, printers, scholars, educators to build a community of the book. And we are people who know and love books and who value the richness that they bring to our lives. So it is a mixture of great literature and literacy and all things book, I guess, to support that. So our mission is to continue getting the word out and have competitions and events and things that promote reading and writing and literature for all ages. Letters about literature is a program to connect young readers with authors and with books that they are passionate about. And in addition to that, they get to display their awesome writing skills too. So it gives you a chance to practice writing a great essay or letter to someone that has made an impact on your life. Nebraska Letters about Literature is different from past national competitions because we only do it on the state level. There are state letters about literature competitions across the country, but each one looks different. And most of them are in some way coordinated by the state affiliate center. So it might be the Texas State Center for the Book or the Iowa State Center for the Book. But each state gets to decide how their competition runs, what's looked like, how long, who judges all of those different things. So we'll just talk about what Nebraska does. I think I touched a little bit on how long it has been going on. I believe we're over 18 years in the state of Nebraska, which is really exciting. That means that lots and lots of young people have shared their stories with authors on how they made a difference. If you want to see some of those stories, I believe we have links up on our website. There are still a few links through the Library of Congress State Centers for the Book available too, but on a more limited capacity than in the past. There are prizes in each category for a winner and a runner up. So it's exciting to recognize all of those writers. And there are prizes that will be determined down the line in the past. They have been sponsored by Houch and Bindery and chapters bookstore in Seward. And a variety of other supporters and donors. So we will have more details on that as we get deeper into the competition. And as always, the winners and the runner up letters will be displayed in the heritage room. So they receive that national recognition. The celebration to recognize our winners. We don't really know what that's going to look like this year as with so many things. Flexibility and creativity are kind of the catch words. And we will have something that certainly acknowledges the accomplishments and celebrates the accomplishments of these young writers. But what that looks like is dependent on so many factors that we can't possibly pin that down at this moment. Okay. And libraries certainly there are ways for libraries to be involved. You can partner with classroom teachers. You can promote the library as a place to find the book that makes a difference. Talk to your favorite library and see if they have a recommendation of something maybe you haven't read or a new author to explore. They are always a fabulous resource. The libraries can certainly share all of the materials and the links for the Center for the book and the letters about literature materials on how to enter all of those things. And it would be kind of fun. I was thinking maybe with our writers group at my library to challenge adults to write their own letters as examples. Wouldn't it be fun to put it out there and write your letter to Rick Riordan or whoever it is that you are really excited about. And you could even send it to a living author. You never know what happens with those. But I think it's good for the adults to model the possibilities that are out there. Libraries can also recruit writing mentors from local writing groups or college classes. Maybe there's somebody that would help those kids or interns. The participants tune up their work a little bit. How do you spruce that up and really make it pop. So it's one of those top entries. And then the option to host a letter writing clinic for students in your area. This year, much more challenging. So I think we're going to have to look for online resources for that. But there are lots of things out there. And once again, contact your local library or the Nebraska Library Commission. There are options for all kinds of great resources online. So we're going to take a minute to go through the submission process together. It's changed since last year. We're no longer using submitable, the online submission site we used last year and the year before. So it's a little bit different, but I think it's a little easier as well. It's much more streamlined. And since we're doing it all here in house, it's just a lot easier for us to control it as well, which we're kind of excited about. So the very first thing to know is that all letters are submitted on the Nebraska Center for the book. Letters about letter to your web page. And if I go to that web page. Everybody see that okay. So we've got a great web page here with resources for you. We've got past letters that you can take a look at. That's really helpful for students to know what we're looking for help them understand this isn't a book report and just read what other students have written that they're their same age their same grade and what they've put out there. We have it nice and bold up here in the corner a submit button, but there are also links all over the web page for our submission platform. And then all the way at the bottom as well. We have another big submit button. So we want to make it as easier for you to as easy as possible for you guys to find and letters about literature isn't just for students in a classroom. It's for any student they could be homeschooled they could be doing this on their own time as a creative writing project. So we wanted to make it as accessible as possible. So you just click on that link and it takes you right here to the submission platform where we give another little overview of what we're looking for as well as some specifics about how long the letter should be. And the first thing we want is a school name. So if you're homeschooled you probably have a homeschool name, even if you're doing this on your own time as a student and not for a class in particular we want to know what school you go to, and a way to contact your school so that we can let them know you need the students first and last name. We also need the students age since we are submitting these letters online. There are some rules about how old someone can submit something online and whether they need parental permission. So if students are under 13. As of November 1, which is already passed. They need a parent's permission to submit their letter. And we've made that very easy we have an online signature and consent form that the parents or guardian needs to fill out and it's just like when you do your taxes online it's an online signature that you are saying you are fine with your child submitting this letter to us. So that's very important. We need you to pick what your submission level is just pick the one that is your grade. We want to know specifically what grade you're in. And then we would like some sort of adults information so if you are a teacher helping your class do this we want your information. If you are a librarian holding a letter writing clinic we want your information. If you're a parent or guardian. We want your information so an adult we can contact if you are the winner and let you know. And also the email that your submission will. Oh my gosh I can't think of the word confirmation you will get an email confirmation to this email that you submit that your letter was received so that you know everything went great. We want to know the author you're writing to their name and the title of the book you're writing about so that we have all that information up front. But not least we want your actual letter so you have two options you can fill out this text box and just go ahead and type it in copy and paste your letter. Or you can click here and you can upload a PDF of your letter. So either one of those options are perfectly fine we would prefer letters are in PDF format. It means that they can't be edited by us by accident we can't go in an excellent deadly delete anything or they can't be. Wow I cannot think of words we can't mess them up. Yeah, I don't know that that I know sometimes in forms like this there's limit character limits in the fields. Is that field like, I don't know unlimited is allowed but how much how much space do they have if they do just type right into there. So you do have a limit of 800 words for this letter so that is your space limit in this text box. Okay, so so it's matched up with what the limits are for the contest itself. Yeah, so and that's something we'll be keeping an eye on. We want letters to be a little bit consistent so it's easier for our judges so we don't want a letter that's just a couple of sentences but we also are judges don't have time to read a five page letter to your author as much as enjoyable as that might be. So we kind of have that limit on there so they're consistent, and it's easier for our judges to compare them. And then, like I said if we click here, you go to a drop box link where you can add your file right here. And after you get the submit button. If you have filled in every box with an asterisk, which is required, you will get an email confirmation that says we've received your letter. It will have some of the information you typed in so you know it's your letter we received, and it will also have my contact so that if you upload your letter and then you realize you uploaded the wrong copy you uploaded your first draft instead of your last draft. And you're panicking you can contact me and we can figure out a way to help you because we know mistakes happen and I've definitely uploaded the wrong document before myself. So we're not we're not heartless. We want we want to see your best work we want your best work to be judged so if something happens that you make a mistake, let us know and we will work with you to fix that so that's important to us to. Okay, let me see if I can get back to our PowerPoint. Alright, I think we said we got all this. One thing to just we want you to know once you submit your letter to us, it is the property of the Nebraska Library Commission, and that just means we will post them on our website so that other people can read them. And that you can't stew us for copyright infringement at some point later on. So we want to make sure you are aware of that we also want to let you know that we will not send you a copy back of your letter. And so, please keep a personal copy so you have that on record for any other type of work you want to keep and. I'm going to look up your letters we've had to do that in the past for sure for students that maybe lost their copy but it's always been a personal copy. And then we do know some students right extremely personal information in their letters, I mean it's about how your life has been changed and that can be very personal so if you are really adamant that you want to write to us but you are very concerned about your personal information right now. Maybe send us an email and let us know that if you win. That's maybe something you'd like to be consulted about and we're we're open to work with you. How do we go to the letters. This is really good to talk about because it's good to know what our parameters are and what you should really be writing about and that's why we have Sally with us today Sally is a judge for our level one letters. And she's been doing that for many many years Sally do you know how long you've been judging letters. I was trying to think what it's got a since you said 18. I didn't get in right away so it might be 15 years. Long enough to be a pretty good expert. This is one of the things I really enjoy because you get to see the heart of the kids that are writing you get to see. And we don't know who the kids are just so you know, they're they all have. Well I know what we're going to do this year but there's some kind of code. So I know letter something or other that's the one I want to vote for. But I don't know if it's a boy or a girl unless they say something in the letter about themselves. And I don't know how old they are, except for the grade range. So it's all very anonymous and I think that's also important for people to realize. Should I just keep on talking or did you have something else. No, tell us about what you look for in a letter. What we're looking for is what Christine said earlier is. How did this book make an impact on you and your life and it changed your worldview I think was one of the things we said earlier and so we're looking for them to say. What about this book that really made them stop and think about their own life and where they are, and maybe have a different perspective about what things had been happening to them that might have been similar to the character in the book. Some of the things that people talk about have the kids I whose letters I read, they'll talk about bullying, or they'll talk about losing a love family member, these kinds of things are things that really come from the heart. When they talk to the author and when this happened to your character in the book, it, I really stopped and, you know, thought about my own family in this way. So you're looking for that connection that the book has made with the reader, and also how that has impacted them. So that's first and foremost what we're looking at, along with that are also some things that are maybe more boring but important like grammar and sentence construction and Now I'm like I said we said I'm I'm with the younger group the grades four to six the youngest group so we're not looking for a sophisticated college level. Letters, but we're looking for how they how they get their feelings and information across and and the impact that the book made. So, what kind of what are some memorable books you've had students write it out. Oh my goodness that's such a good question. There's been more than one kid who's written about a skeet Steven King book, which, you know, I get terrified I'm just a chicken and scary story so not my cup of tea, but I'm familiar with the books and their, their general themes, so to speak. So many kids are a lot braver than than me. Okay, fine. Go ahead and read it. Just don't tell me about it. No. Also, they, they've chosen such interesting ones because sometimes it'll be something that was published a while back and I think how did you run across this book that would be fun to know too. So Stephen King is an also the Hunger Games has been in. And this is again this is a just our grades four to six and I always thought of the Hunger Games as older, but you know, kids hear about things and they, they grab them and read them and those books are very compelling. I can't remember the connection. The Hunger Games are so horrifying as an adult going, what are the kids you know they're yikes, but it's her perseverance and her, her trying to do the right thing when she can that they react to. Would you say there's, there's a right book and a wrong book to write about like how, how would you address a question like that. That's, that's another good question. I would say any book might end up being the right book for that child or student to write about if there's that connection that's happened in there. Something that happened in the book that really made them stop and think about their own life and, and what's going on. The wrong, the wrong book, not really it's just that that link didn't happen, or as far as I can tell from reading the letter. I have received a few letters that are more like a book report, so to speak, where oh this happened in the book and that was fun and this happened and that was exciting and I thought it was a really good book thank you. And that's nice but that's not the heart that we were looking are looking for with the contest. I wouldn't say there is a wrong book. And the right book has to be the one that you connect with. Yeah, I think one of the things to just highlight is that the book is important, but it, we want to know what you think we want to know your thoughts and how it affected you, not. Yeah, the plot of the novel so. Yeah, I like that that it's any book can be the right book, if it made an impact, definitely. Um, so we always have two judges for each level so it's not just Sally reading the letters there are two people for each level so there's back and forth how does that process work for you Sally. Well, for the librarian that I've been working with the past several years, we both read separately read the letters, make our comments you know I write the little notes about each one and set them in this pilot. I print them off yes I'm sorry I waste paper, but then I can set them in this pilot that's not so much. Well I'm trying with electronic I'm trying just to print the ones I think are at the top of the list, so to speak. So I print them and mark things in there and, and then we call each other on the phone. And that's where we really talk about. Well, here's my top three what are your top three and, interestingly, we are often very similar in that we've in the ones we've chosen. So we feel good about that. Why did you make this number one when I had it number three. Oh yes those are good points but my number one is this and I have these points about that and so we have a real discussion about it and sometimes you have to go think about it some more and call back again later. But sometimes we get it all agreed to in one phone call that might last a while, but it's a good way to, we should start using. I don't know if she wants to see my face when I'm talking about my book that looks like the writers who I think are at the top. Have you guys ever had a disagreement about who should get first or runner up or is it almost always you're able to come to a decision. Before we have all always had the winner and the runner up that we name are both in our top three or four. So, so we've been very close and now I realized there's going to be a day when that might not be the case and I'm not sure how we'll handle that but we'll figure it out because that's what we're supposed to do. Yeah, I think we've never had that happen before where we've had judges not be able to come to a consensus on who they think should win. So that's kind of heartening that there's always someone very clear they they feel deserves first and runner up. I think if we ever did have that happen we would probably have a judge from a different level, you know, pass on the type breaker. I try really hard not not to pick the person who wrote about my favorite book in the world just because it's my favorite book in the world. I don't have just one I have like 400 favorite books in the world. So I was going to do that book but they have to, you know, do the things that we've talked about and so that's you have to keep those things in your mind as you're reading. And I think book selection is definitely something that teachers and librarians and parents can help with and help, you know, talk about a book with the student and and really ask those questions to try to weed out if it's a book report or if it's actually something that has affected them kind of a thing. And then, as far as our judges how they're selected, they're selected by the Nebraska Center for the book and they all volunteer their time. We've got a wide range of people who do it we've got college professor we've got Sally who works for the Nebraska Library Commission. We have Richard Miller who is retired from the Nebraska Library Commission that he's been a judge for many years so like Sally said her co judges a librarian a children's librarian so we have a really great pool of judges that read these letters and and really know what they're looking for so you can you can know that the people judging these letters aren't just chosen willy nilly they're they're very accomplished. Okay, this is a part of our guidelines that we make every year for what we're looking for and I think it just really reflects what we're looking for so we want you to read the book. That is important. We want you to really think about it and reflect on what you've read, and then write a persuasive personal letter. So this is a great thing to print out or send to students or perspective kids that you think would be great for this project, and let them know and we'll go over where that's located, where you can find resources. So if we go back to that first page. Oh, it's going to open up a whole new one in our Nebraska Center for the book. Under programs and letters about literature. We have a whole web page made for you to help you get your letters written and your students meeting all our qualifications. So we have a teaching guide that was made in the past but it is very informative and it is there for you to help your students your kids at your library, home school, really get the best letter out of them. So I would definitely take a peek at that. We've got this webinar. We've also got past webinars from years past that might be a little bit different. As far as the submission process but what we tell you every year is very similar as far as what we're looking for for waters. We've got past winners. And any tease all about books did a program several years ago in 2016 about two of our winners, and their letters are recorded on there for you. And those are really fun to listen to. We've also got a complete list of all our winners in the past as well as links to their letters so there's a great resource to just see what people have written about in the past. And then a reflective writing assessment that you could go through with students that would really help them. And then just entering again. At the top we also have our 2020 guidelines that opens a PDF for you. We've been looking at pieces of it this whole time. Let's see if it opens. Should look very familiar. Great information we've got a link to our webpage down here so you can find our submissions. And then we've got just our information that we've kind of gone over today about who to contact for questions what we're looking for information about students under the age of 13, as well as what we're looking for from judges, and once again our website so we really can't say that enough. We do have information for letter writing clinics. I don't know what that will look like this year for you if that's even a possibility. But we still have the information from when we have letter writing grants, so we didn't want to get rid of that. And it's just a little helpful information sheet we also have a resources page that goes over many of those same resources. So just to make it all there for you on an easy to reach. I think it's good that we still have a lot of those resources about writing letters out there, even if potentially can't do something like in person with the children when they're about how to do a letter. I know that something that some people who writes letters still, and how do you write a letter. Is that still taught in school, I don't know. I think it's something that's being lost. I mean, we're so short and concise emails text messages are the way we normally communicate with people tweet a Facebook post, but sitting down and really writing a thoughtful letter is not something I do on a regular basis that's for sure. Yeah, and thinking about it. We had, I know that issues, or that we about this is that it's not a book report of what I liked about it it's how did this personally affect me. That takes a lot more writing and I think thinking of it more as is journaling something or like writing in a diary about my feelings and stuff is something that it's more akin to then I like this book because. Yeah. Yeah, a lot more interesting. If you think of it as a conversation with the author. What is it you want to share with that author, because you think it's a terrific book. They already know what's in the book so you don't need to explain that to them but tell them why it made a difference to you what is your story that came out of reading their story. Which parts of the book were the things that really grasp you know caught your attention and maybe right. Have those strong feelings or reactions. Yeah, I agree with that. And, you know, authors, they put this work out there. And I cannot even imagine the amount of time and effort and blood sweat and tears that it goes into them making these works and for them to know that somebody had an immense reaction to it, I think would be very they want to hear it yeah they want to know. Exactly. We also have social media we have a Facebook page for the Nebraska Center for the book, where we post updates and we would love to hear from you guys as well if you have questions or books you want to just talk about we love talking about books in general. That's a great place to connect with us, as well as email but we'd really love to get a conversation started about letters about literature and what you guys like to do when you're recommending books to children and helping them reflect on the writing they've read. Anybody I haven't we haven't had any comments or questions come in throughout the show yet today. But if anybody any of you who are on today have any tips or tricks or ideas about what you've done. If you've done a letters about literature before with the kids in your library or if you have any thoughts or ideas about how it could be done like you said you know doing readers advisory for the kids and what they might like to read. I like what you said earlier Christa about comparing it to kids who are journaling or writing in a diary because that's more of their personal emotions and personal personal reactions to their world. And then they can pull that to the book. And I know that kids do write in journals and diaries, because authors are still writing books about kids writing in journals and diaries so. Personally you don't know any kids who are so it makes me curious. Yeah, sounds great. So we have several organizations that help to make letters about literature possible. And under the Center for the book, we've got the Nebraska Library Commission we play a big part, and we just partner with the Center for the book to make this possible. We've got humanities Nebraska, which has donated funds before for grant opportunities. And then we've also got how to binary and chapters bookstore that have participated in the past, helping donate prize money, as well as just funding for us as well. Anything to say about that I know you touched on sponsors just a little bit earlier, just that we so appreciate all the sponsors and all the organizations that continue to make this an exciting project to work on I mean it is a team effort and we couldn't do it. We didn't all work together I guess so. And the continued support always have sponsors who make it possible to recognize these young writers and their accomplishments and help us celebrate. In the year we have a celebration there's proclamation from the governor and we get to celebrate and those students are recognized with a ceremony at the Capitol. This year, that is a great big question mark, but we will figure out a great way to celebrate and acknowledge all of our winners again. And then kind of talking about what our other options might be so we will know about that. Eventually, the contest your submissions come in by the end of December, and then we send them off to the judges at the first of the year so they have time to read all of these and really consider them. And then our normal ceremony doesn't happen till April National Library week is when we try to celebrate the winners and honor these students. But that might look a little different this year so we have a little bit of time to really figure out what our next steps are as far as in person celebrating versus maybe doing something a little more virtual. We also have my contact information email is a great way to get ahold of me. We've got the Center for the book email on the website as well as the guidelines page that goes to me as well I see the Center for the book emails and my phone number so great ways to get in contact with me. And I think that's my last slide. Chris, do we have any questions yet. No, it doesn't look like if anybody does have any questions or comments or anything you want to ask of Tessa, Chris, you're Sally about the letters about literature, or anything you want to share as I said about what if you've held one of these or ideas you have go ahead and type into the question section. We have still have plenty of time here in our hour this morning. I'm going to double that window over here yeah. There we go. And like I said if you do have your own microphone you can, you can ask your question or make your comment that way as well. I can unmute you just need to let me know. Hopefully this has been a time where people have been able to read some extra books maybe they didn't have time for. So, some time for reflection and get those get those letters in the works. I have a question and I think you might have sort of mentioned this but maybe a little more detail. Is it is the program funded by the library commission or other sponsors like where does the any. I know you mentioned about prizes and things but where does the actual funding come from how is that. All right, can you hear that. Yeah, it's okay. I've got a dog that wants attention. All the prize. Money funding is comes from these sponsors it's donated by chapters bookstore kitchen binary. Or it has come from humane Nebraska before in the past I know. So, as far as, or what are the costs are for it are really the active are the prizes there's not any other. So the website and doing this is just something we do at the commission is one of the things we do so there's not special funding on on our budget that would need to do anything for this. Yeah, yeah, in the past. That was something that was funded by the Center for the book. The commission's partnership with that really is our time and helping host the website. We do the updates and things like that. And coordination. That is also something we help with. But yeah, it's more our time and effort than our direct funding. Yeah. And the judges are volunteers so they generously give up their time. And there are various. Center for the book board members who behind the scenes help with things too. So, once again, it's a volunteer support. Here at the commission. Yeah, we have lots of different programs that we're involved in with the center of the book with the rescue manities with other library or organizations. Yeah. Yeah, I know we just see this as another way to be able to talk to people about what they're reading and how, you know, important literature and literacy is to everyone from students as young as fourth grade up to, you know, however old we are reading them. I know we're always kind of blown away by the letters we receive I think Sally can talk about that a little more as a judge, but you know, just because they're from fourth graders doesn't mean they don't, you know, we don't read these letters and are impacted by them as well. You know, some of them are very touching and you and the things that have happened to a child and and that child family so far in their lives is, is stunning, and, you know, either wonderful or, oh, I'm so sorry, but how they are responding to it is amazing. It's so resistant and surviving and moving ahead and noticing things around them that the authors have done and that has really helped them get through something and that's so touching. So yeah, there's been a tear or two reading some of these, but then there's also been some very funny ones. And that's, you know, another joy is that they, they caught something very humorous and and brought it along with them into their lives and kids are great but of course I think that it's a great day of looking at things and reminding us that you know, here's where we are and here's where we need to go. I think sometimes we too often dismiss children as what they can, what they think and what they're thinking and how things are affecting them. They're very resilient, like you said but they're so insightful. And very often I've read things from kids and said, Wow, I would not have thought of that or are you, you know, every and you've done this said this before Sally and when you do your sessions your book lists that all children are at different age different levels really there's not really a hard. You're only this age so you only know this and you can only read this book, and you can only respond to it this way it varies across the board and you could have someone younger who's just had so much experience and just has been able to, you know, read into this book so much more and just, that's why I like the fact that you said I think so you don't know the gender and who these kids are it's just a here's a letter from someone from a child. Read it and see what you think. Yeah. Yeah, and I think the skill of being able to recommend a book for a kid to read is something you should really be talking to your librarians about because they have such a skill for, you know, having a conversation with a kid about what they've read and being able to recommend something else that might take it a step further or be another great compliment to something they already are interested in and just expand their reading and. Yeah, so it's a really great partnership between teachers and students and their librarians and opportunities for the parents to collaborate with them you know what what a great way to encourage your student to write. If it leads to something additional then you want to write to grandpa and grandma to say hey, I read this book, and it touched me this way. Do you remember when, or something along those lines so their possibilities I think for it to be a springboard for other writing opportunities or connections. And this seems to be a great year to look at those family connections and keep in touch. In years past, sometimes it's been teachers assignment to the kids to write a letter for this contest, and teacher has guided them along probably with their librarian as to the writing and this and what they should include. And it's been interesting. I don't know if there's anybody still doing that because I can't tell but a number of years ago. I guess almost have told me that or something because you can't tell when you get the letters you really don't know where they came from, except Nebraska. Yeah, I know I've already had a teacher contact me asking me when this contest was getting started because they love having their students do it as an assignment and really. Yeah, think about it's a different type of writing that it's an annual thing that they and the kids always look forward to. Yeah. So it's a different type of writing than maybe what kids are used to in class, and as far as you know, a book report versus reflective writing, which is something they look at for in, you know, as you get older and English classes and if you go on to college classes they don't want to book report from your, your paper they want to know what you think so it's a really great springboard for for that as well. Good point. Well, we don't have any questions. Anything else you want to say. Yeah, doesn't look there's any other questions. We do have a couple for a couple more minutes. If anyone does anything desperate you want to ask of Tessa, Christie or Sally right now get it typed in there. Otherwise you do have their contact info. You guys know where to find us and of course all the links on the letters about literature website. You can always reach out with questions and if you're thinking about getting the children in your library or school involved in doing letters about literature. I'm excited we can continue this process even with the change with the Library of Congress and how it is being done now. It's exciting to continue it and I think it's given everybody time to reinvent and maybe it makes it a little more personal because on the state level we are responding to our, you know, to Nebraska and so that's a different experience than living in a different state. Yeah. Do you know, I don't know if you mentioned this earlier I might have missed it. Our, how many other states are continuing it still, you know it all. I don't have a number off the top of my head. Most of them. I would say that at least 35 are continuing in some manner, there are some that are taking a year or two off to decide do they want to continue do they want to do something completely different. That's kind of an ongoing conversation. Yeah, I do remember when the Library of Congress it announced they weren't going to be supporting it as previously had been done that there was many, many states that were like, no. This is a huge thing we do. It happened pretty abruptly so it. It was kind of a surprise and shifting gears. It's a challenge. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's definitely taken us a couple of years of some trial and error to figure out what works best for us as an individual state for, you know, outside of the national competition. So, so that's been a good learning process and I'm sure we don't have it perfected yet, but we're working on it. We tested out. We're able to connect with some of those other state centers who were running theirs fairly independently anyway and they have been extremely useful resources to ask questions and say, what are your best practices, how did you decide to manage it yourself and so, you know, that collaboration is also very valuable. And some of that experience to work from nice. Yes. All right. We have a little comment. Thank you so much. One of our attendees says very informative great program. We think so. All right, it doesn't look like there's any questions right I think so I think we will wrap up a bit here today. If you go to the website. The submissions just opened this week, and you've gotten to you got the next two months to the end of the year to get the letters in and submitted so you got plenty of time to get on top of this. And now if we will get some really great letters. All right, I am going to pull back presenter control to my screen now and switch to go. Awesome. All right, so thank you everybody for attending this morning. Thank you, Tessa and Christie and Sally for being here with us to talk about the letters about literature. They do it. As I said the show's been recorded we do have a link here to the letters about literature on webpage to so you'll have a quick link from there, when we do have the archives up. We'll be back to our encompass live main page here and I said I'll show you on the show's been recorded of recording should be available and ready for you as long as go to webinar and YouTube cooperate with me by the end of this week at the latest. And go here under our archive shows ever upcoming shows here and then right underneath there's a link to our archives, and it'll be the top one here, most recent ones at the top will have a link to the recording on our YouTube channel and a link to the slides that they used. Everyone who attended this morning and anyone who registered will get an email from me letting you know when the archive is available. We also push it out to all our social media we do have a Facebook page for a couple slides. See if you do like to use Facebook, give us a like over there. We do reminders about when we're ready to start today show about upcoming shows when recordings are available so we can push it on there. And also to our other social media, Twitter, Instagram, etc, we have a hashtag for the show and comp live a little abbreviation there so look for that online if you wanted to know what we're doing about the encompass live. While we're here in the archives I'll show you there is a search feature here you can search through our full archives and see if there's any other topics you might want to watch any shows from you do the whole archives or just most recent 12 months if you want to. That is because and I'm going to scroll down a bit here but not all the way. This is the full archives of encompass live from the beginning of the show. We premiered encompass live in January of 2009. 2009. Yes. So we have over 10 years worth of recordings here. So 50 some shows a year. That's a lot. So we do have the search features you can search by topic or limit to just most recent year if you just want recent information, but if you search the whole archive just pay attention to the original broadcast dates for when this information was certain things may be still valid book reading lists reviews of things like that, of course, but sometimes things about, you know, how to use Google forms or what are the processes for library accreditation from three, four or five years ago. They're going to things have changed so just pay attention to what you're watching of when the original broadcast date was so you know if it's something maybe older than you just need to take that in consideration as you're watching the recordings. So that is for today's show. We have our full our schedule here over the next few are coming shows in November and December. My hobby dress next week. When our topic is open educational resources creating an open educational resource. I don't know if I pronounce it right I'll find out next week German language online curriculum. This is a project done through McAllister College in St. Paul Minnesota and staff and they're becoming on talking about that. And important, you can see here in red I have this this will be on a Tuesday instead of Wednesday next week special day because Wednesday is Veterans Day holiday. And as you can see here in Nebraska, we are closed on Wednesday. So we bumped it to Tuesday. So just pay attention to the fact that this will be Tuesday and compass live on a special day. And then we go back to our regular Wednesdays after that. I don't think I don't have any other weird Wednesday holidays coming up. So thank you everybody for attending this morning, and hopefully we'll see you on another episode of and compass live. Bye.