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 online event. Yes, we are a webinar where we cover a variety of things related to libraries. Encompass Live is broadcast live every Wednesday morning at 10 a.m. Central Time, but if you're unable to join us on Wednesdays, Wednesday mornings, that's fine. We record all of our shows and post them on our website and I'll show you that at the end of today's show so you can see where those are all posted. Both the live show and the recordings are free and open to anyone to watch, so if you do see any topics, any of our upcoming shows or recordings you think might be of interest to any of your colleagues, friends, neighbors, family, anyone, just send them to our website and have them take a look at a sign up for our shows or watch some of our recordings. We do have our recordings going back to the very beginning of the show, which we actually started Encompass Live in January 2009, so there's a lot of old stuff in there, of course, but everything is dated. We're librarians, so we keep everything for historical purposes for archives, so you will find some things that are dated or no longer up to date in there, but everything has a date on their presentation. You should be able to tell what things are the old info and what is the new info, but we keep it all out there just in case. We do a mixture of things here on the show, book reviews, interviews, mini-training sessions, demos of services or products, things that we think people may be interested in, and this covers all types of libraries. The Nebraska Library Commission is the state library for Nebraska, and we serve every type of library in the state, public, academic, K-12, special, museum, basically anything. Really the only criteria of the show that is something library-related, something libraries are actually doing, some new programs and services or something they think they should be doing or could be doing. We have some sessions that are done, presented by Nebraska Library Commission staff, but we also bring in guest speakers, and that's what we have today. We have a group of people with us here today, and I think I will hand over to Beth. Beth, you are going to introduce Beth Nolanski, I'll do that, is the Executive Director of the United for Libraries, the Association of Library Trustees, Advocates, Friends, Foundations, you may have heard known as ALTEF and other previous incarnations over the years, but now it's all United for Libraries, and we have a presentation today about Book Club Central, and some exciting things we're going to be talking about, so I think I'll hand over to you, Beth, to explain what we're going to be doing this morning. Okay, great, thanks so much, Krista, and it's a pleasure to be here again as part of Encompass Live. United for Libraries really loves working with the Nebraska Library Commission and all of the passion that you have for your libraries and supporting everyone, so it's a great partnership in the statewide group membership, and those of you on or watching a recording in Nebraska who are not aware, be sure to check out the United for Libraries website, ala.org, slash united slash Nebraska to see all the great resources that you all have access to, and if you look about mid-August, there's a recording of me talking about all of those great things that you have access to, but today we're here to talk about Book Club Central and National Friends of Libraries Week, so I have up here, this is one of my favorite quotes about libraries, and I include it in all my presentations. What is more important, whoops, I've actually skipped right past that, my apologies, my thing off here, what is more important in a library than anything else than everything else is the fact that it exists, and I really believe that, and I take that to heart when I go out and I'm talking about libraries to everyone that I have an opportunity to talk to libraries about, because even people who are not library users themselves, when they understand the value and importance of the existence of the library and what it means for us as Americans and in our democracy, then they are and can become great advocates for the library, so I like to always spin in that piece of advocacy, because we're here for libraries to port libraries, we all have that love and passion for libraries. Okay, so again, we're the Association of Library Trustees, Advocates, Friends and Foundations, we're part of the American Library Association, and we represent about 5,000 group and personal members around the country. This includes, that's actually higher now because as of October 1st, we just welcomed on South Dakota and Maryland as statewide group members along with Michigan and Texas following in the footsteps of Nebraska that was actually the very first state to do that statewide group membership and provide all trustees, friends, foundations and library staff resources to help us all work together, because when all of those support groups work together with the library, there is such powerful things that we can do to support the library and have solid funding. So our mission as an organization is to support those who govern, promote, advocate and fundraise for all types of libraries. So today, this is this, we are right in the middle of National Friends of Libraries Week, and so many people out there don't really understand what friends groups are. I think more people can understand the concept of a trustee, but less so about what a friends group is, although when you say use book sales, most people go, oh yeah, I've been to one of those. So we are now in our 12th year of celebrating this. It is the third full week in October, and it's an opportunity to celebrate within your friends group, your library and your community. And it's also an opportunity for library, the library and trustees to thank the friends and express appreciation for their support. Now, if you're watching this today live or you hit the recording and you're thinking, ah, it's in the middle of National Friends of Libraries Week and we didn't do anything, don't worry, you still have time and we have some easy things for you to do. And then next year you can pick up and get involved in a larger celebration. So we have a lot of resources on the website that you can use much of this for next year again, because since we're right in the middle of the week now, but you can link on to some of the social media resources that we have and I will show you our website in just a moment. And I also want to share, this is a brand new benefit to our five statewide group membership states that you now have access to download here on your left is a poster and on the right is a bookmark, and you see there are blocks in the bottom there where you are able to add information about your own library. So this is a downloadable graphics template from the ALA store. You actually download it on the United for Libraries website and you can personalize these materials and then use them throughout the year, Friends of Libraries Week, but throughout the year as well. So I want to real quick show you how you can see go back over here.  You can actually take this graphic right here and use it on your own page as well with this nice friend your library burst to use on the Libraries website, the Friends group website or any of those other places that you might have social media. And then we also have a variety of posts. I'm going all the way down here, of course, promoting Encompass Live here, but I want to take you down to this video right here. I'm not going to play this whole video, but this is a really neat. I want to play just the beginning of this if I can get it to go back. If I can go all the way back here. Okay. The audio that's not coming through your headset, so your microphone. Okay, that's all right. So thank you, Chris. So anyway, if you go here to our website, this is a collection of authors talking about libraries and what they love about libraries. So go ahead and repost this onto your own Facebook page. And then as you scroll down, you'll be able to see that there are a lot of other things that you can use to promote as well on your own website and Facebook page. Alright, so I'm going to go back here. So of course, since we are in the middle of National Friends of Libraries week, I wanted you all to be aware of how you could do some quick celebration and promotion. But our main topic that we're here today to talk about is Book Club Central, because we all love books. Alright, so Book Club Central is a new online resource for book clubs and readers and it features book reviews, author interviews, discussion questions and more. And it's really a growing in the sense that we had an idea of where we wanted to start. And then we're growing from that and expanding and we'll see what our users are looking for as well and grow in those areas. We are really excited that we have award winning actor, producer and avid reader Sarah Jessica Parker as our honorary chair Book Club Central. And she is a passionate advocate for libraries and literacy. And as part of Book Club Central, she has her own SJP picks and we're going to be learning more about those in a few minutes. So I'd like to thank our sponsors here, our sponsoring partners, our book lists, libraries transform. If you're not aware of that campaign through ALA, please check that out at the libraries transform website Penguin Random House and United for Libraries and our other corporate partners are novelist and overdrive. And we really thank our corporate partners and our sponsoring partners for their support to get this launched and to make this of this resource available. So here's a quick look, just a screenshot of the website here. And I pulled this off with our newest pick that was announced last week and we're going to be talking about that more in a couple of minutes. And I want to go back, I apologize for the switching back and forth, but here, but I want to show you on the site real quick, you'll see things that we have. Find a book club, find books for your book club, how to lead a book club, troubleshoot. We also have here, find books for your club, various book love book lists. I'm going to talk a little bit later about some of these other resources. We also will be developing some new pages on here, which I'll mention later as well. So the site has a lot of resources for you, both from the librarian side, to help those who are having book clubs in their library, but also for all those book clubs that are meeting outside the library as well, to find resources and then connect back to the library. So what I would like to do now is actually introduce Skip Dye with Penguin Random House. He is going to talk about Sarah Jessica Parker and how she's gotten involved with us and her interest in supporting libraries. I'm going to throw up this slide here. Skip, I don't know if you have slides that you're going to share or not, so if you do, that'll come down, but there's a picture of Sarah Jessica Parker and Stephanie Powell Watts. Skip is the vice president of library marketing and digital sales with Penguin Random House. He is also a board member of United for Libraries and currently our president-elect. He will be president immediately after the annual conference in 2018 and we're just so excited. Skip has been such a supporter for United for Libraries and he's also a very passionate advocate for libraries and believes in the work that friends and trustees and foundations are doing and and he's just been a really great supporter for United for Libraries. Skip, talk to us about Sarah Jessica Parker. Do you have slides for this part, Skip? No, I don't. I don't have slides for this part. I'll have slides for other pieces later on when I talk about resources, but first off I want to say thank you to Encompass Live for having me here today. I want to say thank you to Beth for the great introduction and Krista for all your expertise. You are delight. So thank you. I'm looking forward to going to the YouTube channel and just having fun. I'm looking to see what else was on Encompass Live. So SJP, I can't think of a better picture to show. Beth, then Sarah Jessica and Stephanie together, two lovely ladies, two bright lights. So I want to talk a little bit about SJP and I thought it'd be great for you to understand how this all came to be. I thought it'd be interesting for you when we first started talking about Book Club Central and started talking about what the Book Club Central wanted to do. One of the things that came back to my mind is that I had been meeting with Sarah Jessica in our New York offices because she's now started an imprint for us under the crown imprint that she's going to be acquiring books and she has been. So one of the things that she in the meeting talked about was her avid love of book clubs but even more importantly she basically said I love libraries. Libraries are where I go, it's where I was raised as a child. Her family, that's what's her day care. That was her baby center, was the librarians of Ohio and her family and she has a wonderful family and we may know of her history of stuff. She is an avid reader. If you follow her on Instagram you'll see all the books that she loves to read. So it seemed to be a natural idea so I approached her with this and first off she was totally awed by the fact that she's being even considered and so it's kind of evolved and the whole idea was she hasn't avid book club. You can see what she's reading all the time. She reads what her kids are reading as well so every book that her kids read she reads as well and she reads all the time between photo shoots or if she's on the set and she's sitting as they're changing at the set she's reading. That's what she has to do, that's where she has her escape, that's where she has her best mental exercise she feels is reading. So then it began. So then we have the process of where she started picking books and started to think about what her first book would be, her first pick and it became for her a daunting task because she felt she had so many great books and I must admit and Stephanie knows this and know Sarah talked about this here Jessica talked about it but when she read Stephanie's book for the first time she knew it. She had it, she knew what the voice, she saw what would be brought to bring this this talent to hopefully a different level and she wanted to introduce it but she also felt it was a book that was rich for book clubs. She read it for home book club it's something that she still felt passionate about and what Stephanie was able to capture you'll be talking to her later I think you'll all agree if you've not read it yet you should but if those who have read it as I it does, it's trans fixing, it takes you into another world and so I don't want to spoil Stephanie's stuff but going back to the book club we're going to do four picks a year maybe five it depends on her schedule and her time but also she just launched her newsletter which we'll talk about later but her newsletter is going to be talking about not only the picks but also at the same time what's exciting for her and what's in what she is looking forward to learning more about and in reading and so it may be stuff that may not be a pick but maybe classics that she rereads because she rereads them all the time so there's a lot of fun things that the newsletter letter will provide and book club central is a great resource that is only going to evolve to be more so I think that kind of gives you a little insight of what's going on she is a big fan of united for libraries she has now become an honorary at quotation marks board member we've we've kept her from having to attend the strenuous roles of our fascinating board meetings but she has been very active in fundraising so she has been doing a campaign right now that goes back to celeste homes if some of you may know who's left homes was but during after the war she did a people would want the equivalent of a photograph from her and so she would have a her photograph is clever she used to carry them around she'd sign them and pass them out to people but she would say I would like you to donate a dollar because I would give this to and which was less homes because would save the children so sjp I mean sir Jessica always gets asked for selfies so she said you know I'm going to ask for money for united for libraries so that's what she's been doing so literally she'll come out of a restaurant and she'll be you know the paparazzi is there but then all of a sudden all these people will come with their iPhones and one of the selfie and she'll say I'm happy to do it but I need you to donate a dollar to united for libraries and so she's been collecting dollars and changes and euros and all different currencies and it's been pretty exciting and she is loving doing this but it goes back to her passion she's very active with her own libraries her her mother is active in the library as well the importance of a friend's organization she's but she understands and she definitely sees that what needs to happen right now with advocacy is important for libraries she is frightened as some of you may have heard or speak about the the current atmosphere of taking funding away for libraries or libraries being challenged so that's just empowered her to try to do more so I think it's a great partnership with sjp united for libraries and with book club central and I do encourage you to keep on checking out the site for those of you who are live with us now you know please take some time today and those who watched recording later skip through my stuff and just go to book club central have fun there I'll tell you it's a lot of great time so let's say for the Stephanie these that may be great yeah yeah all right thank you so much skip and yes the the selfies with sjp is very exciting and because she's so passionate about supporting advocacy those funds that are being donated will be used to help support advocacy training for friends and trustees so that we really can move everyone to that place of being a natural advocate it does not come natural to a lot of people and friends groups have been over the years more of a fund raising group and moving them to understanding that you can raise far more bring far more regular consistent funding for your library is as advocates and still do the fun stuff too but that central piece of advocacy and also for trustees that it's really a part of all of what we do to be incumbent upon us to be advocating on a regular basis and and certainly she's she's been fantastic so makes me laugh with the with the euros and I will say that Pete some people are paying more than a dollar for those selfies because there were some fifties they do and it's been a really yeah we had one person try to stiff her and she chased them down so she's been fair about this one yeah apparently everybody they didn't take her serious so they ended up giving her a lot more money than a dollar that might have been a hundred she offered to make change because she didn't want them to feel bad and so it was it was hilarious that is that is funny so I want to come back and I you know I've had this photo up here on the screen so and it was amazing to be in the room there with Stephanie and Sarah Jessica Parker this past summer at the ALA annual conference and just the excitement and really to hear Stephanie talk so I'm not going to steal any thunder here because I'm so excited to have Stephanie with us and to be speaking with her again and I just want to say that here we are Stephanie was an inaugural pick of the SJP Book Club and and then of course we'll be talking in a few minutes about the second pick but really this is a family of authors here this is as we grow in and continue along this path with these picks that Skip mentioned I want everybody to know that Book Club Central will be a place where you can continue to come back and find updates about what's happening and I'm sure Stephanie will be sharing a little bit about this arc that has been this journey for her and where things are going in the future but please know that that as users of the site come back we'll be we'll be making announcements about what's happening in the lives of the SJP Book Club pick authors that family of authors so welcome Stephanie Pao Watts and Kristen Stephanie I'm turning it over to you great thanks Beth so Stephanie do you want to get your webcam going there we go hi how are you good good morning we're very excited to have you here with us this morning I also as we I think we were people had mentioned earlier to being fans of the great Gatsby I am as well I was an English major I'll tell you that before I became a librarian so that's my background and I have I feel bad I have started reading your book but have not finished so partway through it so hopefully I won't get any spoilers so the description that you used for no one is coming to save us is about the great Gatsby imagine the great Gatsby set in rural North Carolina nine decades later with desperate black people what about the great Gatsby inspired you to write this oh I'm a big fan of the great Gatsby I always have been I read it when I was a kid when I was about 16 and I think part of the genius of the book is that it can meet you where you are when when I was a kid I read it for the love affair you know when when you're a child you're you're interested in that that's or I shouldn't say a child a young person you're interested in that kind of thing because it's not something in your experience and so you're hoping for it I also read it for the party and the beautiful dresses and the ideas about identity that are so prevalent in Gatsby but when I got older and and started to and read it again and have read it many times and and read it again there are also some lots of really compelling issues about America who is American who has a right to claim that and what do you have to do to be fully American those kinds of issues and so I started thinking about that in terms of my my own characters and when I when I first said that I was absolutely I mean it was I was joking I was absolutely joking but I do really feel like that the themes of Gatsby the idea about ideas about nostalgia and about returning to the place where you started and hoping that the past has not changed so significantly that you can't find a way forward I feel like that those themes were part of my book but as in terms of story probably not so much No I can see that in the book reading it that you can see you can feel that the connection there how it's how it is similar to to the great Gatsby and in yours yeah absolutely and of course yet is a different story but it's in the background I guess as I can tell that it's what is going on yeah that you're thinking of that when you're writing it absolutely what kind of topics do you think that I hope that book clubs will explore when discussing your book you mentioned some already but what kind of things you're hoping they might get more spring to bring to the surface I suppose there are a few things that I was really interested in when I was writing the book and one of them is the kind of generational divide between the Eva who is who is a child although she's right about 40 and her mother Sylvia who is around 70 and there is there's there's always a generational divide but it is even more so when the world has changed so significantly Sylvia is part of a generation that includes my parents who never went to school with white people who lived right at the end of institutionalized racism institutionalized Jim Crow and so they have a very different experience in the same kind in the same landscape that I grew up in and so I wanted to explore that that idea how much do you do you know how much do you think you know and how much is it important to know about that past to go forward and so that was something that I really that was really key to me to for the book I also I was thinking about loneliness and there this is not something particularly in books about or by African Americans that we talk about that much but the because there's usually a big boisterous family that's kind of you know boosting the characters or tearing them down one or the other but and there's often a church you know a church body and a church life that is key to the to the protagonist lives but a lot of people don't have either of those things and they're living in certain kind of isolation and I really wanted to talk about that what do you do with that sort of of loneliness in your life and a lot of people are living in that kind of lonely space I mean there are some people who if after they go from work they don't talk to anybody until they go to work again or and if they don't go to work they don't talk to anybody and of course we've we've been hearing about it's become prominent news about the elderly being lonely many people not having those connections that we either hope that they had in the past or hope that was a part of our landscape in the past or or and it actually was for a lot of people so you know that's an an issue I wanted to talk about and I was also interested in the whole concept of the change of life and when when I was a kid I thought you grew up you went through puberty you hit middle age somewhere and there was the change as as my my grandfather would say and then you and then years later you were an old person and that's it and those are the things that you went through and it's just you're always changing there's always there's always something new that is causing a change in your thinking and a change in you as a person I have a friend who who is also a writer and she said you're always coming of age and one of my characters is seeing that for the first time when the the older character she she thought she had it down and every time she thinks that something else happens that proves to her no you're changing and you always will be changing it's a gradual thing and it's not as defined as it sounds like when it's described as your different ages yeah yeah exactly and it's different for each person as well so it's good to read about someone else going through it in a different way than maybe you are that's right that's right you know the probably the other thing that I feel like is a big part of my book is it's set in in rural North Carolina and is set during a time when the factories are closing there's a they're most of the factories in at least in the western part of the state were furniture factories and so if you've ever watched the prices right or any show like that the Bernhard and Hamry and Thomasville and those big names that was the furniture that we furnished the world and so so many of those factories are closed because of mechanization because of globalization because they're just closed but because they've moved somewhere else and so but so there's not a lot for the for people to do in that area of the country and we've seen this sort of thing all over the country particularly in the Rust Belt but also but really in the south and so what do people do when the kind of the low the lower rungs to in the ladder of success are gone you know how do you get up there and so that's one thing I wanted to to think about in the book absolutely it's not going to be the same as it was for your parents or your grandparents necessarily right right absolutely so since we are about libraries here of course can you talk about the rule that libraries played throughout your life your personal life oh yeah I love libraries I'm one of five I'm the oldest of five and four younger brothers and yeah I know don't do that by the way if you're planning your life don't plan it that way but but but my younger brothers and I when my parents got divorced my mother moved around quite a bit and this is I thought that I was the only one but this is actually not uncommon this is I've read about people like that Hillbilly Elegy Vance and W. Camau Bell and it's just a number of people whose mothers who single mothers moved around a great deal and and I think it's you know I think it's trying to find that place that fits you know that that if you can find the right house you can find the right life and so that's what that's what happened with my mother but no matter where we went as a kid we always found the library and it was it was a place that was always welcoming to us where we felt like we we belonged it Sarah Jessica Parker said when I met her this this summer that it was shelter to her and that's how it felt to me too in addition to being the a place where you could learn things you had no ideas about before which is which is remarkable and a wonderful a thing in and of itself but just to be that kind of shelter for people is it's such a it's such a blessing and it was it was for me and when I was a child that of my both of my parents worked my mom worked on Saturdays and my dad would take my sister and I to our local public library Saratoga Springs New York public library every Saturday that was a thing and I just have memories of that throughout my life dad taking us there we spend that a few hours there looking through things reading through everything take it home come back the next week it was a yeah an anchor yeah that's right my mom was away that's right yeah us too us too we got to get two books a week and yeah that's exactly our experience too and my sister and I both actually grew up to be both to be librarians I don't I'm sure there's a connection there I just gotta be so Book Club Central is I'm I know it's it's very exciting I think it is what's it what has it been like being the first author the first pick of Saratoga Parkers it's been so wonderful I mean it's really been amazing it's something that everybody recognizes you know and is and is excited about I mean and there's their entries in all kinds of places you know with my librarian friends and with my reader friends with my Saratoga Parker it's just true from all sides yeah yeah yeah it's it's been so fantastic and you know one of the things that I know that you guys know but I hope that every everybody knows is that Saratoga Parker is a real deal I mean she's a reader she cares about literature and she cares when she talked to me about my book I mean she really clearly read it and understood it and wanted to know things about it I mean so she's not a figurehead she is she really cares about literature and about libraries and about spreading the word about literature so I was I was so touched by that but it's been a it's been a great experience Nebraska Library Association and School Library and Association Conference was just last week and we were promoting that we were going to have you on the show and talk about Book Club Central and there's a lot of excitement from people at the conference we're very excited about the about the the new you know prod program through ALA and reading your book as well we had flyers we're handing out and everything so oh great great we here at the Library Commission the Nebraska Library Commission we have Book Club kits that we mail out to libraries if they want to so we have over a thousand different titles now of five, 10, 15 different titles all together so if a library is doing a Book Club or someone from that library we can just send them they don't have to try and find 10 different copies for each person in the group we just send them this they let we learn it to them for every money months they need and they send it back so it's kind of a thing that we a lot of libraries know about here in the state so that's great we're rushing on to this now that's fantastic yeah I want to communicate you know we want to be part of of a conversation and a part of a contemporary conversation with peers and so of course you know it's in it's kind of counterintuitive I want to communicate so I write this thing and pass it over and never see you you know that kind of thing but you do that's your that's your impulse you really want to talk to people and Book Clubs give you that literal space to be able to talk to people and say I read this thing I was moved in this way or that way or I understand this but I don't understand that or tell me what you think about how this is impacting our world I mean it's just such a wonderful opportunity for people to literally communicate yeah I didn't get this part of it what did you can you explain to me what you thought about it when you were reading it right exactly and that's okay you don't always have to all you know understand or like the same book too which is interesting I've heard we've done some sessions about Book Clubs and I know it's been said that when there's it's more interesting when there's disagreement or differing viewpoints about what the book was rather than yeah we all loved it it was an awesome book right right so something like yours gets a lot more more talk going yeah it's great so do you have any picks for Book Clubs your current picks for books that you think people might want to read I do into their list I do I have a couple one is the 9th hour the Alice McDermott her new book have you read that skip you're like well skip you got no we don't hear you hear your your audio is out it looks like skip you might need to try and reconnect again I'm not sure you might have muted yourself skip is that better yeah yeah I love this it is a wonderful book I mean Alice McDermott it's hard to go wrong but it's just a beautiful meditative book and it's about Brooklyn nuns you know which you know might not be on the surface at least the most exciting kind of topic but the but the stories are really wonderful about this extended kind of intergenerational story about the nuns and so that's that's one I've I've recently read that I really love and I think could provoke a lot of conversation there's another one that's a little bit well I'll just describe it it's called this could hurt and it's Jillian Medoff and it's a book about human resources it's fiction it's a novel and it's about a human resources department and there are a number of people a number of voices people who are part of the department who are who get to speak in this book and it sounds I mean you know what it doesn't sound like it would be riveting in in some way I mean it's about human resources but it's fantastic I mean and the you know who've ever worked at a at a corporation even a mid-sized corporation you will recognize so many of the people but she's fleshed them out in such beautiful ways and so they become real people and not just beer cuts with stamps and you know so it's characters of themselves now exactly it's a it's a lovely book there's a a book of short stories that I really that has been my go to this summer recommending and it's what it means when a man falls from the sky it's the leslie arima book and it's a a short fiction it's really wonderful and then probably the the other thing about leslie's book is it's about immigration and about immigrants and it's about trying to negotiate when it is when you're one thing as opposed to the other and mostly the the characters are from africa or have parents from africa and it's it's a lovely book the other is 12 miles straight elinor hinderson book and it's about a couple is about twins and one is very light and one is not and their trajectory through life and some some harrowing experiences but it's it's a really well told story lyrically really well told awesome sounds good I've got to add things to my list now of more things that I don't have time to read I don't know well thank you very much Stephanie that was that was great is there anything else you want to say before we wrap up this little interview section about book club central or what you're going to be doing next oh well just thank you so much for having me and I so I so appreciate this platform and it's been a thrill to get to meet and know so many of you and thank you I really appreciate thank you skip you're welcome thank you Stephanie for every yes yeah thank you yes and and I hope we are you okay if we put up on book club central people see on this webinar anyway your your list of suggestions of book club titles can we please oh it would be great I would love I would I would love it I was like frantically writing down yeah yeah yeah so I would for my own benefit if you could that would be yeah no it's wonderful yes I'll pull that back off of here and we'll get that promoted out I'm excited I think that one about human resources is going to be great and I imagine yeah that would be fantastic book club talk because it represents so many different voices and people can talk about their own experience and corporations and where they've worked that sounds really amazing something unique a unique what a unique setting and a story I think yeah something out of the ordinary that people will be intrigued about I think right absolutely absolutely I just wanted to add to that I hear I am hearing this more and more like when you're both were talking Chris and Stephanie about the library and what that was for you as a child it was for me my dad was in the military and we moved around a lot many many times often for short periods of time and the first thing that we did every place that we moved was get a library card if there was a base library we'd go there but we'd also go the public library because that's where you get to know the pulse of your community where you are what's happening around but you also get introduced to your community as well so I think and I again you're going to tie this back to advocacy these are the stories the passion that we bring when we talk to other people about libraries and what libraries mean and what they represent for us and again it's the most important thing is that they're there and they exist and they're there for us always and from cradle to grave really and truly they're there for us in any way that we need and as as we're coming of age I love that comment that you're always coming of age in a new place in your life and the library is there for you as a resource as you are going through that so just amazing so thank you for that great interview and I know we're going to have some questions at the end from from the audience if anyone does have any questions I should have mentioned this earlier too you can type that into the questions section of your go to webinar interface and we will grab those at the end and ask for anyone who is here on that skip Stephanie yeah and whoever who's yet to speak yeah great well I know we have we still have a couple more things to talk about so I'm going to bring skip back on and he's going to talk about the newest SJP pick which was announced last week exit west and he's also going to talk about book club resources that are on the Penguin Random House sites and of course that will be leaking too off of a book club central and then after that we're going to have Jennifer Hart from Harper Collins who's going to talk about book club girl and their book club resources as well because really there is so much out there and and the point of book club central is to bring all of this together for our book club leaders those who are in book clubs to find all these resources in one place so you'll find it's it's not just Harper Collins and Penguin Random House but all the publishers out there that we are working to bring all those resources together free for people to find and use so skip talk to us about about the newest pick I'll be happy to go ahead and show my screen share it if I could so make sure that goes up did I hopefully you can see it so the next pick it's by motion I mean I I I I I've got the link here for book club central and the SJ pick area so we can go get more information there by going to to the website but in it she talks about why she chose this book and it's a and I know when we were talking about it and she has a group of there's a group of librarians and who are meeting and who talk about all the books that she's reading and she wanted to have people that she would have a dialogue with so we have a sort of a you know we sort of reading the books and this was a book that we all was just came back to it was a haunting tale of this couple who is in a in this this country and this city unnamed country unnamed city where there is a lot of violence and they are basically a story of of immigration it's a story of love it's a story of the urgency and the passions around it as the world is collapsing around you and the costs and when they have the opportunity to walk through a door both literally and figuratively into this new world was just them it is a harrowing experience but it really is poignant right now and I know that for Sarah Jessica in she thought this was an important book for people to read next she thought that you know after Stephanie's book she wanted to continue to have interesting voices she wanted to have interesting experiences and I think exit west that's that for us so I hope you guys get a chance to go and explore exit west it is a great book it is a wonderful read it was shortlisted for the booker it did not win another one my favorite books did so it was always good but I do hope you get a chance to go and explore this book so next should I talk about some of our resources that people in Random House or a bed scissors okay so I'm going to share something else and so if we want to hopefully you can see this okay I can share the whole screen a little bit for there you go looks perfect perfect okay what I talk about a couple of things I'll try to be quick borrow read repeat this is a monthly newsletter that we produce it is talking about not only Penguin Random House title but it's talking about everything all the books that we're reading in this collection and we have the tiny URL we really suggest to you sign up we have a lot of librarians we have a lot of patrons we do a lot of outreach on this but it's a great way to find new books and we give a lot of excerpts there from our books but also other publishers for for being you know Penguin Random House centric what we have right here is we do a book club regular brochures that we have both printed but also we have them on scribbed and you you can definitely go and download them as well but we have the tiny URL for this in it we also have all the book club questions as well and we also tell you what has been the most popular book club selections in libraries so you can see what other people are reading as well I don't mean to go quick through everything but one thing that I do and joined up is called The First Look Book Club some of you may know Dear Reader the website Dear Reader we started working with her in creating our First Look Book Club and this is basically new titles that are coming up this is a this is from as we say here mysteries to memoirs to literary fiction to why why crossover sci-fi it's been exciting this is for me I read this every morning I sign up for it you get a little snippet it's perfect for me from my commute into work I take a train I'm not driving but I'm reading on my phone that would not be pretty but from this though I get an idea and I get to read something that I may not read otherwise and so you get probably about the first 50 to 60 pages that you get to read and it's wonderful but I highly recommend signing up for it it's available for everyone the tiny URL is there the first book club it's really been a great resource for me and for my club we also do a regular sampler of debut fiction that we do we give out this is a printed sampler but also at the same notion it is on digital as well you can download it to to your e-reader et cetera this is a give you an idea what you dip into some new books coming out there only debut authors one of the things that Sarah Jessica loves is the feeling of discovering an author she likes the comfortability we talked about this of people that she knows but in some way she loves to hear new voices and so this is a great way to get introduced to those new voices another thing that we started up called with is called ask a librarian and I know some of you online may already join this already it goes every Thursday from 12 to 1 each standard time it's open to everyone and it's basically hashtag ask a librarian on Twitter I had loved I just finished reading Stephanie's book I wouldn't know why should I read next and librarians all across the country chime in and give you book recommendations so this is one place where you can actually go and get personalized book recommendations and I'll tell you it's a little fun because I've tried to be trickster say I'm looking for a book for my mother who only likes books set in Alaska but loves it to be she loves also the same time she loves mysteries and she also loves things that are try to freak them out but I usually find to see what people get and I think that everybody can join it again is hashtag ask a librarian try it out it always trends on Twitter every Thursday between this time so it's really a great way to get great recommendations finally I have to end with you know of course book club central which I think is going to be the best single resource for book club materials that anyone can find and here's just remember we have the signups there for how you can sign up but also read with SJP the newsletter that she's doing this newsletter it's a really exciting endeavor with her she's very excited she's very committed to be a participant here and I think that really will give a a book and we'll talk more about more than just her pick it'll be other things that she's reading and also recommendations from a lot of her friends she'll start seeing so hope that gives you an idea of stuff I tried to be quick and if you have any questions but there you have it great thank you so much Skip I love that because librarians know all I'm not much on Twitter but I'm going to give it a try just for that oh I thought it's great yeah so Stephanie joined Stephanie's mom their hashtag Ask a Librarian and I'm in there yeah it was a great recommendation what's been what's being said not to ask my own questions I'd like to yeah exactly oh I'm a lurker I'm a lurker so now we also want to welcome here Jennifer Hart she's been very patient she is the Associate Publisher and Group Marketing Director of William Morrow and she's going to be talking about Book Club Girl and the resources that are available through there and again I'll just remind everybody that we are building these pages on Book Club Central where we'll be linking off to all of these other great resources so you can always find these at the various publisher websites but come see us first and link off to there as we really will be that central resource for you to find everything so welcome Jennifer and tell us about Book Club Girl okay I just want to go back for a second here first oh this is Christa just you know we are getting close to 11 o'clock okay at the time it's our official and time but we did start a little late and we will go as long as it takes to get through all Jennifer has to say and anything else we're talking about today that we don't have to cut off at exactly 11 a.m. this is our software I run it so we'll go as long as necessary if you as an attendee need to leave because you only allotted this hour that's fine we are recording and you'll be able to catch anything you missed later when we post a recording to you all right it's hard to get people to stop talking about books we can go as long as we need to all right thank you thank you Christa I appreciate you letting everybody know that and all right back to you Jennifer okay thank you so just confirm um can you hear me and now you're seeing the screen that says book club girl at the top yes yes okay great so thank you so much for having me this was a delightful way to spend an hour rather than sitting in a meeting where we also talk about books but in a slightly different way so this has been a real treat I really appreciate you inviting me so I wanted to tell you briefly about book club girl I won't take too much time to do so so book club girl is a blog that we launched back at Harper Collins several years ago as a way to really pull together all the resources that we have for book clubs and also the way to showcase all of our authors who are great for book clubs in terms of posting excerpts author Q and A's author essays behind the book stories and things like that but it's really grown out of this blog so what you're seeing now on the screen is the is the blog but it's really grown now that with the you know uptake of social media and it's really a vibrant social media platform as well we also have a newsletter the newsletter sign up is right here on the top screen we send this newsletter out twice a month and it's filled up with book giveaways excerpts early looks at books and author Q and A's all of our posts are obviously here on the blog but what's really almost a more vibrant part of the community now is our Facebook page which is nearly 200,000 people at this point which is pretty terrific hang on I'll show it to you not in the admin view and this has been a great place for us to post excerpts you know news of new books coming out books that are coming you know going to be movies soon a lot of book clubs like to pick those because it's a great thing to you know read the book and then go see the movie as a book club and what we find here is that we have a really great community of readers who are constantly commenting on our posts recommending things to their to their friends so it's been this has been I would say the most super active part of the book club girl platform we're also on Twitter and Instagram and I think I need to get in on that ask a librarian Thursdays because that sounds fantastic and we also have a series of podcasts so if you go if I go back over here you can click to this off of our book club girl page okay I've got you guys here my I can see you guys hang on let me just close that we have a series of interviews that we've done with authors over the years from Laura Lipman Jacqueline Winspear Adriana Trigiani and more and these are terrific resources for book clubs to listen to whether you know before you sit down it's to talk with your you know with your club or or at the club if you want to have an author call in but they're not available this is a great you know thing that you can do instead so we've really tried to sort of pull all of these things together into into one place and it would be great to be looked to be linked off of book club central as well and in addition all the reading group guides that we've created for our books are on the book page on HarperCollins.com so if you're ever looking for a book club reading group guide you can always find it on on that page so I think that's a very brief but thorough overview of book club grow and I just want to say that I am also a lover of libraries skip and I share two towns and some great libraries locally that we frequent a lot so we're very lucky in that regard and it's a real pleasure to be able to talk to you guys. Great. Thank you so much Jennifer. I can't wait to go check out those podcasts. I want to say another one of my favorite resources from HarperCollins is the Library Love Fest page on Facebook as well with Virginia Stanley and her staff. I don't know if you can bring that up real quick. Yeah, here we go. They are they are funny. I love Virginia but they are really funny and they put some funny funny videos out there with some of their recommendations. A lot of lovers of libraries there too. So do check out everyone book club girl and Library Love Fest and of course every all of this will be linked from book club central. Sorry about that. All right. So I want to get to the Q&A and for anyone who has any questions just a real quick to say some of the other features that are on book club central. We do have something from United for Libraries which is called book club choices. I go back and show my screen again here and go back out to the site. So book club choices is a feature that we've had in our United for Libraries newsletter for several years where we look at it's actually our staff or a member who reads the book and does a quick summary and then also explains why the book is a good choice for your book club and that's a really neat feature to be able to say book clubs who enjoy exploring this theme will enjoy this book. So that is a resource that comes directly from United for Libraries. Another resource that we have is our authors for libraries page as well and I'm just bringing that up. This is authors join this our authors for libraries program and it represents authors who choose to join on their own. All of the authors who speak at our various events the United for Library events at the ALA Midwinter and Annual Conference. We also have thousands of authors from both Sisters in Crime and the Horror Writers Association that are also in this database. You search by zip code in a distance from where you are and it will bring up authors in your area. You can reach out to those authors talk to them about maybe coming and doing a book talk at your library or in some other way partnering with your library. One of the great ways that this resource has been used as well is that it's unfortunate but it does happen around the country where libraries are still having to fight against budget cuts or really fight for increased funding both capital and operating expenses funding in those areas. So authors are a great voice in supporting your library just as friends and trustees and foundations and the general patron population and those who don't use libraries. Authors are another key group of people who can write op-ed letters. They can write letters to the editor. They can speak out, contact the elected officials and talk about the role of the library in their lives. So if you are in your community facing an issue with funding or anything related to your library remember that authors are great advocates as well and we don't just need those bestselling authors. There are thousands and thousands and thousands of authors around the country who don't hit the bestseller list but also are great advocates for your library and talking about what the library has meant for them in their lives and achieving their own personal goals. So check out authors for libraries as well and there's a sister site up here called library quotes that you can go and find great quotes from current authors contemporary authors entertainment sports figures historical figures but great quotes about libraries literacy reading books and these are wonderful to use on your website in your newsletters and all and all kinds of different ways. Okay, so that is my wrap up here. I will just go back of course check out the United for Libraries website and so Chris I'd like to turn it back over to you for questions that we anyone might have. Sure, absolutely. Thank you very much, Beth. Yes, so does anybody have any questions? Do you have any questions type in your question section for any of us about book clubs? Any other questions you want to ask Stephanie? Nobody typed anything and while we were all chatting and that's okay because we maybe covered everything they needed to know. So do go ahead and type that into there. As Beth had mentioned earlier for here for anyone here in Nebraska we do have a page on United for Libraries. It is a section specifically for Nebraska and each state has their own section there with resources and things for trustees and board members. If you are in Nebraska library and want to get your board some continuing education credits or to learn more about how to do things contact us here at the library commission for the password to log into the Nebraska specific section of there. As Beth said we pay for every librarian in the state to have access to these resources so definitely use them for us. Absolutely and they can also contact United for Libraries office or email united at ala.org and will help as well and of course if anyone is ever having any issues accessing anything give us a call and we are here to help we answer emails evenings weekends and yes many holidays you'd be surprised at the number of trustees and friends who are accessing training and resources even on Christmas we know that you're volunteers and you are doing this in the time that you have available and we want to make sure that we we provide those resources. Chris if there are no questions I have a question. Okay go ahead yeah I don't know anymore. Okay this came up in a recent discussion and I think you touched on it a little bit Stephanie but I thought I'd frame it in the way that this particular idea came up in a discussion about a program idea and that would be if you were leading the book club discussion for your book what would be the first question that you would ask the group? Oh interesting. That is interesting. I you know I probably talk about the relationships between the the mothers and the daughters and there are a number of relationships some that don't that that are not central to the book but are central to the lives of the characters Sylvia's mother and the relationship that she has and also the mothers and the the sons I feel like that I'm always exploring in in some way or I'm often exploring in some way the roles of mothers and the things that we expect from them and the things that they cannot possibly do and this you know this outsized role that that seems to grow ever more expansive larger as time goes on and so I'm really I'm really interested in the roles of mothers that's that's really interesting so I have a follow-up question to that and that would be specifically following along that same idea is there a another one or two titles that you feel explore that same issue and would enable a club to kind of continue that discussion about the roles of mothers of any other book that I would any other books books that you've read that you think would sort of help to continue that conversation and if I'm putting you on the spot it's I apologize but it's a very interesting topic I I really I'm interested in exploring that more yeah yeah I'm I'm I am too I think about this a lot and you know have you read the mothers is that that's what I was going to say the mothers yeah that's a great book I have not read it but it's next on my list it is and it is very much about the what we can what we expect from our mothers and the limits of their powers and and you know also I think that there's a there's a a cult of blaming of mothers and and I am I'm so nervous when when I'm writing about about them because I am a mother I have a seven-year-old and so that that's I'm sure part of it and then starting to understand in some in some bigger ways the kinds of the kinds of psychological baggage that I that I have with the with that those kinds of responsibilities so I mean there so there's that but also just by extension this whole idea about what women are supposed to be what and women are in in both personal and societal space I think it's really interesting and then that pushes that the discussion to another place I mean it's a kind of mothering that I think that often we we are expected to perform in other sources of spaces too so I'm really interested in that you know and I've I've just thought of you know I just thought of Gatsby only because nobody ever remembers that Daisy's a mom you know and that you know that's seemed that somehow is is alighted in the whole in the whole discussion is and I I find that really really interesting that in some in some crazy ways the the the sort of blame that we put on bad mothering and the the sort of label that we put she's she somehow escapes it and in I think that's I think that's really fascinating because that's the first thing we think of when we see a mom that we feel like doesn't live up to or you know to our standards this is a great theme to explore more too for for book clubs I think one of the great things about book clubs is you really can take the books that you read and and explore these issues in in a somewhat of a safe environment a group to explore how these things impact us parenting in general so it'd be a great topic also for for fathers or parents it you know as couples to to talk about these themes and then how would those sort of intertwine into our lives so that's great and I definitely will check out that other book it's it's a really good one and definitely have that mom guilt too and your son is a good mom I met Stephanie's son this summer at at the conference and and he he is bright very bright and and very friendly and outgoing and yes can't wait to see what he does and very proud of his mother yeah very proud of him he is he's my best publicist when we go into or something and he's like you should read my mama's book so Chris did we have any other questions that came in no nobody typed any questions while we were talking probably doing the same thing as you skipped writing down all these books that they want to read I'm gonna go back through and listen and write down that that list and we'll get that pushed out on the site and through social media and I can't can't wait to get this such a fabulous fabulous session today I really enjoyed this time and I can't wait for everyone else to experience the the same feeling from participating and talking with you Stephanie and and as I said keep us posted on what you're doing we're going to be featuring that on book club central and I'm excited about this growing family and thank you for being the the first and and all of your excitement and and passion and energy and this has been fantastic oh thank you it has been such a real of my life thank you so much great okay well then I think we will wrap it up for today's show let's see here I am going to share my screen now here so there it goes so yes we'll wrap it up for a show thank you very much Beth and Jennifer Enscape and of course Stephanie definitely for being here we're very excited to have you on with us this morning I'm glad everyone was able to make it I wanted to show this is our Nebraska Library commission at website but the book club kits that I mentioned that we have here there it is book club kits we have a database where we have them all listed here that you can search for so if anyone in Nebraska is looking for them or if anyone just wants to see ideas about where they wanted to look for let's see I'll do a keyword search on um that's sorry cats I don't know and you'll see we have oh we just have one but we tell you how many copies we have your request that we include discussion questions there's all sorts of different resources on here so definitely if you're in Nebraska Library take a look at our book club kits other than that that will wrap it up for today's show back to our Encompass Live page so we will we have recorded the show as I said and we'll be here right underneath our upcoming episodes is our archives sessions and this is where today's show will be probably later this afternoon as long as YouTube cooperates with my processing and uploading I'm going to be posted here at the top of the list this was our most recent show about our talking book and braille service we'll have the recording linked here any power points that were included if you guys send them to me I can include them here as well and link to them so you'll have that access anyone who pre-registered for today's show or showed up on the fly will get an email automatically from me when that archive is ready and available and as I said it is free and open to anyone to watch so once it's up there share it everywhere anywhere you want to so we're going to help you join them we'll share it all over all over the place yes well hopefully YouTube can handle it my mother's going to be watching this a bunch of times these are our archives going all the way back we are working on right now it's just one long list I'm not going to scroll all the way down and make it dizzy but we are working on a search feature for this because as I said it goes back to 2009 we do this show every week every Wednesday 51 weeks of the year the only week we take off is actually last week during our state library conference so you do the math to figure out how many there are here 400 in something recordings in our archives so I'll help you join us next week on encompass live on our topic is Google forms for your library Megan Boggs is a librarian at our Seward Nebraska Memorial Library just a little west here of Lincoln I'm going to talk about the free resource Google forms that you can use for all sorts of things there's lots of pay resources you can do to do polls and registrations and planning things but Google has some free items that you can use and she's going to come and show and demo that for us so I hope you'll sign up for that show or any of our other upcoming topics you see we have here I've got all my know almost all my November dates on December I've got something scheduled as well and working finalizing things so keep an eye on our schedule to see what new topics come up also Encompass Live is also on Facebook as well so if you're a big Facebook user give us a like over there we post here's a reminder to log in for today's show reminders about the upcoming show when the recordings are available I post them on here as well see if I can scroll down there's a recording from last previous show so if you're a big Facebook user definitely give us a like over there and keep up with things other than that that wraps it up for today thank you everyone for attending thank you to all of our speakers this morning this is a great show and we will see you next time on Encompass Live thank you