Good morning and welcome to this week's edition of Encompass Live. I'm your host, Krista Porter, here at the Nebraska Library Commission. Encompass Live is a commission's weekly webinar series where we cover a variety of topics 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 a Wednesday, that's fine. We do record the show every week and it is posted onto our website as well. And I'll show you the end of today's show where you can see all of our archives. Both the live show and the archives are free and open to anyone to watch. So please share with your friends, family, neighbors, colleagues, anyone you think might be interested in any of the topics that we talk about here. The Nebraska Library Commission is the state agency in Nebraska for libraries and for all types of libraries in the state, not just public. We tend to focus in public, just because we're their major area of support. But we have a state agency for all types of libraries and you will find shows upcoming in our archives for K through 12 schools, academic, university colleges, museums, correctional facilities. I don't know what it depends on. Anything you can think of to probably find on the show. We do a mixture of things here on Encompass Live, book reviews, interviews, mini training sessions, demos of services and products. Our only criteria is that it is something to do in libraries. Something libraries are doing, something we think they should be doing or could be interested in doing. So it goes across the board. We do have Nebraska Library Commission staff that present certain topics that are things that we are providing services and things we provide here through the Library Commission. But we also bring guest speakers from across the state and outside of Nebraska too sometimes. And today we will mixture of that because we have a topic today that is statewide, but the commission is involved.  A month or two. Yeah. She's been at the Library Commission years for this, but just recently to a new position. Lorraine Riesel on the end here. He's the director of the Beatrice Public Library at the south of us here. We're here in Lincoln, Nebraska. And you are the coordinator of our Nebraska letters about literature program. And then remotely online with us is Christie Walsh, who is the assistant library director at Carney Public Library in Nebraska, and the current Nebraska Center for the book president. Good morning, Christie. Good morning. And they're going to tell us about this year's letters about literature for competitions. Great. Thank you. So I Chris said we're talking about letters about literature. And it's something we've been doing here in Nebraska for how long. Well, I just think you're doing the math. We started in 99. Nearly, you know, they were saying it's 26 years and I think that must be heading to about 20 now when you start 99 and we're 18 and count the first year. That's about, that's my math before noon. So obviously, many people in the state, teachers and librarians know about this contest, but they have made some changes this year as far as what their submission process looks like. So what we'll be doing today is talking about the contest in general and just hitting some highlights about what it's actually about. So Nebraska is involved, House of the Center for the book is involved, as well as going over that submission process for everyone. So we'll just go along. What is letters about literature, Maureen? There's the slide. I have to say that you've reduced things to bullet points and I'm one of those people to write some paragraphs. So give me, you know, it has been a while. I do like the new slogan, the read the inside right back. I think that really says a lot about it. I'm glad to, they're talking about it's a program. I don't really like contests and they're definitely surprising some people more than that would be involved with this, let alone this long. But the first time I ever heard about this, I just thought, how fantastic to get kids who've been inspired in their hearts, they know they're different. You know, something's happened because they've read this book, and to encourage them to write to the very person who created those that work that came up with those words in the first place, whether they're living or dead, because, of course, it's the process of the child that's really important. So just have to say, I'm sorry, don't write to them, they're dead. They're dead, but we know that's very mysterious in itself so that they may be hearing these letters, reading these letters right over the person's shoulder. And the other important thing is that there's also some genre possibilities here that people often think of, they think, oh, this is going to be a child writing to their favorite author and it's going to be, you know, never really clear. It's going to be Jake Brown. It's going to be some of those suspects. Yeah, it's going to be somebody that it's not a novel fiction. This can be fiction or nonfiction. It can be a short story. It can be a poem. It could be an essay. It can even be a speech. What it cannot be, the song works. So put that out of your mind. We're not going there. It's a form of writing, but that's not what we're doing in this case. But otherwise, there's a lot of possibilities so that something that has really touched this child's heart. But more than likely, they can be writing to the person who wrote that.  They can go ahead and do that. But the crucial thing is that what they're doing, I like, somewhere in all of this dimension that they're having a conversation. And this is their chance in a sort of, it's a letter format, but in a conversation to say, you wrote this, and I just want to tell you how much it's meant to me, and how it has changed the way I perceive it. What could be more powerful than that? So we'll move right along. Christine, would you like to talk a little bit about what the Nebraska Center for the Book is and how it's involved in letters about literature? Sure. The Nebraska Center for the Book is something that brings together the state's readers, writers, booksellers, librarians, publishers, a variety of groups to build the community of the book. And so there are people that know and love books and value that richness that it adds to our state and to readers anywhere else. So we are involved in several different activities. One is, of course, letters about literature, which is a cooperative venture with the Library of Congress Center for the National Center for the Book, which is in the Library of Congress, the Nebraska Book Festival, the celebration of Nebraska books, and one book, one Nebraska, which is obviously supported in part by communities, Nebraska. Letters about literature is one of those things that we hope will touch the hearts of lots of people to highlight the inspiration that comes from books, both with the reading and writing, and build those connections. So hopefully anyone who is involved in it, whether it is a teacher or participant, they enjoy the process. They understand why they're willing to put into words what it is that speaks to them from a particular author or a particular book. And so the Center for the Book, the Nebraska Center for the Book facilitates encouraging participation from Nebraska schools and libraries. We try to provide the resources, obviously with the Nebraska Library Commission, and thank you to everybody there who does so many things. The resources to successfully submit your entries, answer questions, be a participant in the Letters about Literature competition. Did I leave anything out? I don't think so. You covered everything. Okay. So what is the story about the Nebraska Center for the Book's participation in Letters about Literature? Well, at one time, believe me, I also served as the president of the Nebraska Center for the Book. I will add this, but what I feel about that group is, you know, there's people that when you choose a profession, these are the kind of people I want to know. The Center for the Book kind of people are the kind of people I want to hang out with. These are people I want to know. These are connections that I want to make, and that the year that was actually incoming because I got to put an idea day back in BC. And I heard it. That's the first time I've ever heard about Letters about Literature, and I just loved it. And I thought, what a perfect fit for Nebraska where one of the things that we're known for is our wonderful office. And of course, and I thought, I want these kids to be inspired by the fact that they're from the state that has this kind of legacy. And that what they have people to write to the right, right from home if they want to, but also that they can follow in a wonderful pattern of other people who've been in Nebraska, or whatever you think about Nebraska. I understand the tours and people now saying, it's not for everybody, but for 1.9 million of us it is. For those people writing and expressing ourselves, appreciating literature, reading literature is part of our history heritage. And I wanted to encourage them. I wanted them to think about that. I wanted them to see themselves as possibly the next big thing in terms of Nebraska writing. So it just seemed like a wonderful opportunity for us. And we jumped right in and put together things as quickly as we could. Right from the start, we had the children whose letters are selected got to meet the governor. And we worked that out with Proclamation Day. And so now in Nebraska, part of celebrating this National Library week statewide is recognizing those winners and their names are part of the proclamation. And they get to stand and shake hands with the governor and have the picture take a little bit. I thought that that was so important. Their letters initially would just this to the archive now their letters go to the archive of the Martin libraries. So again, this example becomes something that is actually prized. Of course, we all go out to eat. And I really want those kids to feel as special as any kid at a sports banquet. I really want them to realize there is something to this. There's something to this reading. There's something to this appreciating a writer. There's something to expressing yourself about what you're reading. This is really, really important. So we had a chance to kind of put all of that together. Thanks to the library commission. Thanks to the support from the Nebraska Center for the book right from the start. In addition to the national prize, which of course is $100 for the person that's this letter is selected. We houch and bindery from the start has given the we have an alternate winner. We don't have any second place where and I always tell them this. It just in case the first person's letter for some reason or the other can't go on like the state year I heard about one state where they lost the kid moved to another state and they had trouble tracking down wasn't even sure they could submit that letter. Their letter is also worthy and that they also have done produced a super duper worth of art of literary merit. And so those, those people also receive a prize. Thanks to houch and bindery right now $75. And then we get gift certificate from chapters bookstore. The library commission has always been good to give things like a book bag to take things home in. We have the option to the library prayer cells on giving out magic pencils. Sometimes they glow in the dark. Sometimes they're a mood pencil. One year I was able to find some that pinwheels on the end. But because so many authors encourage people to write in pencil and a little many kids tell me if they know their computer from they don't know how to write it. I'm still handing out the old fashioned pencil just in case they do that. And some of the prizes and things that have happened. The stories could go on and on I promise that it's I'm dangerous on this subject but I have to say for those of you think this might be something that only the brightest kid with the best. Well I would say penmanship but of course we don't do that anymore the best skills and the best grammar when this is something that does come from the heart and one of the stories I was thinking about today is that one year when I called about the winner. I just had quite a time with it. And when I reminded them of what the criteria was they said now we know which one. When I called the school the teacher would have previous winner said to me is this a joke. And I said oh you should know me better than that. I never joke about letters about literature. It's way too big a deal to just be telling a little casual jokes. And why would I call until someone they won.  And it was because the student had just been mainstreamed into the regular classroom. It's the first thing that. They had read Gary Paulson's Hatchet and this was a book this kid. It was at Huntsby's dad and that story just touched him and it came through even though it wasn't the highest quality writing perhaps ever. It really show. And then he was worried about was that going to make him read this letter in public because he wasn't that strong and I never do that. Because again this is a speech contest but I had I when I ask him and I can use you can see he was a little nervous and I said to him you love honey bang. He just he just told what that story meant to him in his own words just like that and I think of that often because how many times do we are we able to reach and touch someone like that. The other quick thing I want to mention is one year. People that child was being honored and two parents came forward and the man worked for the power company here in Nebraska, and he has literally had to find his own substitutes was out on a pole. Doing making sure we had electricity in Nebraska. No small thing with our weather. And he had taken off for more. And what he wanted to do was this child already won a poetry contest. And he said, we have nothing like this need a breath went to college. We know what, what, what should we do for our son. And I was so impressed with them because, again, he was actually paying someone else to be there so that they could be there for their son that day. So meeting these kids meeting that parents meeting the teachers that go along with it, because those people are also invited to our special day when we recognize them. Oh, that it, you know, every year, no matter what has gone on in the news, no matter how bad it is, I feel so much better after letters about literature. So, sometimes this is cows just a school activity something you do in the classroom, but it doesn't have to be just for teachers or school librarians. We want the public library, the community library to be involved as well and there are lots of ways that can happen. Well, I will just say, I'm always trying to get teachers to seriously consider doing this, it fits into the whole framework of what they're supposed to be doing. It's one of the activities that they can do. And it doesn't have to be a whole classroom activity. They can just even encouraging the children that they think that this would really mean something to. In fact, actually, I often feel even better about that. But they just say to people, this is something you can do. And I don't know, I'm not trying to tell them how to teach that class, but we know that when there's their kids that this is going to just spark that gleam in there either going to think, I really want to do this. And judging from the fact that often when I'm contacting the people and saying, Oh, by the way, we're presenting a copy. There's kind of a gasp and I say, don't or you didn't keep a copy did you know it was just one more assignment for them. And I said, not to worry, I've got copies. It's okay. But just encouraging teachers to really do this. And I realized that you don't have it because homeschools, people can enter this without going through a formal classroom. But that is certainly the way to contact most people kind of all at once. We do have. Last year we had grants that we worked with through humanities Nebraska as well as Center for the book to have several librarians or teachers across the state provide clinics letter writing clinics. Christine, do you want to talk a little bit about that. Sure. We ended up awarding four grants of $300 piece, I believe, to four different libraries, three were public libraries and one was a school so Baird Public Library, Morrill Public Library, Overton Public Schools, and the House Memorial Library. So that they could host letter writing clinics to entice people or encourage students to enter the competition to help teachers get a better idea of what it was that the competition involves how do you help coach students or anybody who wants to be involved to craft those letters to be submitted for the competition and annually there about 50,000. People who are involved grades four to 12 that, you know, turn in letters which I think is phenomenal and that's nationwide. So it isn't just Nebraska. We just want to make sure that Nebraska is engaged and excited to do this. So we thought with the letter writing clinics, it would help people feel more confident in the process, give them some examples of what's been done in the past to take some of perhaps the fear factor out of it. Because like you said it's not a graded assignment. This is encouraging readers to put their words down and speak from their heart about why something touched them. So the activities were to help students select books so you could work with your public library to go in and, you know, do some book talks suggest what might be interesting. Maybe that's the one that sparks a student to pick up that book and that becomes their inspiration for their letter about literature. But at least to give them some ideas because sometimes it's very overwhelming to walk into a library and go I have no idea what my favorite book is. Or you can have lots of favorites but you have to kind of whittle it down to one and write your letter. But the idea was to help get those tools into the hands of librarians and teachers and then work with those students so that they felt they were confident in submitting their letters. I thought it was exciting to be able to, you know, have the funds to encourage people to be involved because you still run into people going what is letters about literature. So then, you know, Lorraine and I and whoever else. Let me share some ideas with you. I'm so glad you asked. Right. Are you sure you want. Anyway, because it's an exciting thing. And like you said, there are competitions and I know that this isn't really it is but it isn't a competition. We want to encourage people to be engaged and everybody's got different strength and talents. And so there's a place for the readers and the writers and certainly those overlap with skills in music or sports or whatever it is. There's something for everybody. And this is just something that fits in with the mission for the Center for the book, the Library of Congress, all of those things to support the literature part of our lives. I wasn't really that sure about these writing things when it came up for reasons we won't even get into right now because it turned out to be irrelevant. When our one of our winners last year that was one of the things that she's talked her teacher talked about was going to that and how helpful that had been for her. But the reason I was bringing that up is that one of the things I learned out of hearing about these educational opportunities was how exotic a letter is. Who would have thought the letters about literature started that the part that would become a strange message from the past would be writing a letter. And so I know one of the activities they did was write letters and send them to each other. And the excitement of getting a letter was just due to some of these fourth grade kids. And it made me rethink things in my own life, certainly who had I written too lately and has my granddaughter gotten a letter from me ever lately. But it also made me realize that in doing this, initially when this was started, that was not something exotic to do to write a letter. Now we have to stop, not only do you have to talk about all the other concerns, but even what is a letter really? What is it you're doing when you sit down to write this? And I don't know. I wonder about that too, that yeah, do these kids, we don't write letters if we're going to communicate with someone in more of a long form. I guess we call it, you send an email. Right. Basically, it is the same thing. I mean, you're going to write the same info. You just put it into an email instead, an email message rather than writing a letter on a on your computer, which is a project or whatever. Is there any talk about trying to or do they teach it that way to just read, reformat to say it's like an email. You write an email to someone explaining here's what I'm doing blah, blah, blah. It's the same thing, but it's just not in your email account. I mean, are we still trying to keep the idea of letter writing alive too? Well, I think the idea of just crafting good communication. Exactly. That's what I'm saying. So it translates all over life and this just happens to be, you know, to authors, but to be able to put your thoughts. And have it be an email message to somebody rather than a quote, a letter, and it would still be the content is what matters, not how they, they used to write it. And how to be able to edit your thoughts and gather so it's a cohesive message. That does sound like most of the emails I receive. I don't know about the rest of you. I had very incoherent ones arrive at times. But it doesn't mean we can't keep trying to make sure that there are outlets for great communication. Since I knew I was going to be doing this day, I actually got out the rules and looked at them. And one of the things that they were talking about is formatting so that it does appear to be a letter and I know it's a great shock every now and then when I have to actually send out a formal business letter, you know, we have to screw it around and you know.  Exactly. So it's not going away anyway. No. Yeah, just adapted to a different format. Yeah, right, right. So we're going to move right along into the new submission process. It is different this year. In the past, you have either printed out and physically mailed your letters to warring at the after public library. No, they did not. They went to Washington. That's I never had to get all the letters. Thank you. Thank you. This year, it's very different. So when you're submitting, the first thing you're going to do is you can either go to the Nebraska Center for the book website to our letters about literature page, and we have a link to our Nebraska submission on that page. You can also go to the Library of Congress web page, which we're going to look at right now just so you can see what the process looks like. So when you come to the Library of Congress website to the letters about literature page, they have right here at the top a drop down where you will select your state, Nebraska, hopefully, and then it will take you to another page. But the link you're looking for is this enter online link, and this is the same link that we have on the Nebraska Center for the book page. So that's just a bit of a, and you can see, you know, obviously we're here, you know, presenting this from the Nebraska. You can see if you're in a different state, you'll just find your own state's information and go to their link. Exactly. Yeah. Don't go to Nebraska if you're not in Nebraska. Yeah, we don't want to confuse people. I have gotten some, some entries sometimes I got one went from Oyster Bay or something. It was in Maine. Oh, and I knew right away when I got that oyster, I thought this is not Nebraska. Yeah. No Oyster Bay. I know we do have people on with us say we're not in Nebraska or we'll be watching this recording later. So yeah, that's what you're seeing. It does give you a little overview about what Nebraska's or each state's specific details are what your state deadline is. If you don't have access to the Internet and you can't physically submit them online, you can mail them the physical letters to the Beatrice Public Library, and we will upload them to the submission process for you. But please only do that. You absolutely have to. That's really a way to deal with those. It's really a way to deal with those people who are underage. Yes. And the magic. That's why we chose that alternative this year. And it looks like even now that can actually be handled. So at one point it looked like we absolutely had to deal with them through the mail. And now that with this parental permission situation. So please, please make this as please take care of as much of this for yourself as you can. And I'm saying that because it would be coming to me. And so try not to make any more work. So once you click that link or if you go to the Nebraska Center for the page, you will come here and it once again gives you a quick overview of our state specific guidelines as well as a tutorial. If you need it. You do have to create an account in submittable. Now you don't have to create an account for each individual student or submit T. You can do a teacher account and then they submit through your account. So it's all under sort of your school umbrella or your library umbrella. So that will be your first step. So I'm going to get out of here we're going to actually go through a test demonstration form that the Library of Congress has set up for us so that we can see. Exactly what you'll see. Exactly. Yes. So after you create your account. I already have an account. Make me do it again. I hope I can remember my password. Oh, I do. Sometimes our wireless mouse and keyboard don't play nice. Well, I've also gotten used to that. It remembers my login information on my computer. So I hope I don't remember what I made my password. We'll guess. Nope, that wasn't it. I don't know. Lauren, do you remember your password? Are you talking to me? No, I never remember passwords. I try to use the same ones and even then I don't remember them. This is the difference between doing it on your computer and the computer here in the conference room. So you have to write down the cheat sheet that you have. I know. Okay. It's just not something you do for security. Don't write down passwords. No, right. This case. Apparently I needed to write down my password. We'll make a new account for Krista. Krista, you can help us out here now. It's no wonder she's going to remember that one. Okay. So once you're in, pretty easy. They don't ask for too much information up front. You can personalize your account. You can ask them to send you email updates. You don't have to do that. Once you are through into your state submission form, it gives you that overview like we saw before about your specific state. And then it's going to ask you for your information. Okay. The most important thing is these, this first address line is for your specific school or library. It's not your personal information. So it's wherever you want to be contacted. When Lorraine contacts you, if you want, this is that information. So it would be the Nebraska library commission and our address. Lincoln. If I was the one doing this for my students or. If it's a parent doing it for their homeschooler, it would obviously be their personal information, but you can just go through and fill out all this normal information. We'll do that. Oh my gosh, I really can't type on this thing. That just makes it seem more realistic. We all have moments. It does. So that's your first step. The next form it's going to bring you to is. This is the actual submission process. Now you're going to choose if you are having the students do them, do this themselves. You have them all log into this account and then they submit their own letters. That's definitely an option. If you have them send you their files and then you do it. You choose whichever option is most appropriate for you. So if you're a teacher or librarian, it's going to give you this information. Now the nice thing about doing this all under one account is that. All the students will have the same contact information for the school. You won't have to fill that in every time. So you would put in the student's name, which in this case it's going to be Krista. You're there submitting students. So this isn't your name. This is the student that you're actually submitting for, or if the students submitting for themselves. Sarah. That's my sister. We'll take it. Yes. So pretend this is my sister doing this. Yep. And then you pick the age. This is important because this is an online submission. Anyone that is under the age of 13 as of November 1st this year has to have a signed consent form from their parents. So if I click on anybody younger than 13, it comes up with this warning for me. And it pops up the actual form that you have to use. That I can click on and I can download. They have tried to make this as easy as possible to get around these rules they have for submitting online. So it's a fillable form. You can just fill out in. If you have this PDF, you can fill it out online and print it and then have the signature. You can scan it back in to upload it. You can. They even said you can do something as simple as taking a photograph of it with a smart phone. If you don't have a scanner. Accessible. If you're not under 13. You don't have to. It just takes it away. Yes. I'm going to ask you to give us the. Red asterisks. Tell us which are the required information. And then we can put in. A grand were in. What level of competition they're going to be in. And then it does ask you for what type of work. You are writing your letter about. Let's see. We'll do Harry Potter. Harry Potter teacher recently. Hermione Granger quote says. When in doubt, go to the library. Oh, we love that girl. And then it gives you two different ways to submit your file. You can either upload a file. And when you choose that it. Document you've already written. Yep. I can do several different file types. Yes. And then you have a weird format. You might have saved it into. Definitely. Now they are very clear. If it includes the student's address or contact information. As a header or anything on the letter. It will. Include those words in the word count. So they suggest that you don't have that. Since you're already filling out that information above. That you just leave that off your letter. So the document itself. You can also type the letter directly into this platform. So you can just start. Like we said. I'm just Harry Potter. Yeah. Whatever. Yeah. Yeah. You can also type the letter directly into this platform. So you can just start. Like we said. I'm just Harry Potter. Yeah. Whatever. There we go. So it will count your words for you. Once again. Everything you type in here is included in that word count. So it has to be between 400 and 800 words. And then I know in the past. They've decorated the. Envelopes. Sent in drawings with their letters. Anything that. They want to include can still be included. And they've given you a way to do that as well. Please also note right on there. It says, please note. That. These. Materials will not be considered. During the contest judging process. So as somebody that's been at that stage. If it makes you feel better when you're doing it. That's fine. That's not going to be. And you like it. That's great. But yeah, it's not part of the process. I can assure you that in all these years, those letters, it was about the words written down. Yes. It's not required. But if it's part of the tradition that you've already built for your program. They just want to make sure you have a way to share that with them as well. Right. Yeah.  Even more files. Different types of files. They have a terms of use. Which. We are all familiar with when doing online forms, but they give it to you very clearly and you can read through it. And it's actually not as long as you might think. That's kind of short. Yeah. Some that I've seen, but it's there for you. If that's something you're worried about. You do have to click that, that you have read it or that you agree to it. If you read that. And then you, if you're not. If you're typing your letter in and you're not done with it, you can save it as you like. If you're typing your letter in and you're not done with it, you can save it as a draft or you can just click submit. I see it says auto-save too. So as you're going, does it say too if, like when did it last save? Because it has that auto-save. See, I don't know. Because it doesn't indicate that, does it? No. Where does my drafts take me? Hey. Save drafts. Oh, yep. So you do have a saved draft. I'd say double click it anyway. It says double click it anyway just to make sure that it saves. Since it's there, it's a button. Yeah. It's saving is never a bad option. But then you can submit your work if you're ready with it. I don't check the box for the terms. There we go. Common. So it tells you it happened. And then they, so you don't have to be afraid.  Now, just like, and then it takes you back to this page so you can submit another letter if you'd like to. You do have a way to see what letters you've submitted. You can come to your user account up here at the top and look at your submissions. And we see that Sarah Burns has submitted this. It's been received. You can, if you accidentally hit that submit button and you weren't done yet, you can request to edit your submission before the deadline.  You have to request that ability. But as long as it's inside the submission time before the deadline, you can always go back and change it. I see it has withdrawn too. So you can decide never mind. I want. I don't want. If someone changes their mind, that's an option they give you. And I have no saved drafts.  So you don't miss one. Now, before we go off the stage at the bottom, it says there's an app. That's something new to me, but it does say new. So track your submissions and find new opportunities. You're most wise, check out the submitable app. So you can do this on your phone. That obviously would not be something you'd want to actually type in a letter on your phone. Don't do that. But afterwards, if you just need to quickly check something, maybe that's a way to quickly write that you could go in and see the day before the deadline. And it's a weekend. Yeah. Have all my students gone in and submitted their letters. So I'm thinking to check out. They've, like I said, they've tried to make this as easy as possible for you guys since this is a new process. Yes. If you are a teacher and you've used submitable before this will all be something you're familiar with. If it's not, I hope just being able to walk through this has helped. And I'll just let you know, I'm logged into my email here on this laptop. I use this to track questions and things you have. And it did send me an email because Tess had set up the account for me. Letters about literature submission received burns. So I got an email to my email account, letting me know that this one had been sent in. Yes. This is on the test side too. So this is real. Yes. This is all just practicing. But this is the process it would go through. And we were just using the real. Exactly. Live link. Now they have, this is the video tutorial that they showed on the state submission form when we did the actual Nebraska submission. It is about eight minutes. It's really fast and easy. And they walk you through what we just did again. So if you need a refresher or you would like to have your students watch this and have them submit them themselves. This is a great resource. And it will be very helpful. And as far as other resources for writing the letters for submitting them, the library of Congress has several videos about the actual letters about literature process that when you go to it, just what is a letter and introduction to the actual program. So lots of good resources here on the library of Congress website. We've also got several resources on the Nebraska center for the book. Letters about literature page. Right here, you can see the Nebraska submission platform. It's right there at the very top for you. As well as the official rules. So we will have a link to last year's letters about literature webinar, which talks about the actual contest. We'll have a link after this to the reported session of this webinar. We've got links for past winners. There's a reflective writing assessment that Catherine Gurley from the national letters about literature program put out a couple years ago. And it's very helpful as well. So this is a great place to come if you have questions as well. You can also follow the Nebraska center for the book on Facebook. We will put updates about the contest about the winners in April. So that's another great place you can, you know, message the Nebraska library commission and ask questions there. And who makes all this possible for Nebraska? We have several sponsors. We mentioned the Nebraska center for the book and the Nebraska library commission. Loring mentioned chapters bookstore. And we also have a lot of help from communities, Nebraska and huge and binary. So they help with prizes. They help with grant money for the clinics. So a lot of good information. And then this is my, my contact information. If you have questions about the submittable platform, if you have questions about the process in general, you can always contact me by email or by phone. If you have any questions right now, go ahead and in your go-to webinar interface, there's a question section. Some people have already been asked to be other stuff. Oh, wonderful. This isn't really. Oh, it's okay. But if you do have questions about literature, go ahead and take a question into there. And Tessa or Lorraine or Christy can answer your questions now. So did we, the form opened up November 1st. So last week and the deadline is December 14. Okay. And that really is a deadline. It's not just like a random number. Yeah. That one. There isn't. Yes. And if you're mailing physical letters in, they need to come in well before that because we have to submit them before that December 14. They have to enter those letters. Yeah. So it's good to know. Yeah. It's not a postmark date. It's a, we need them in hand because then we go in. Right. I mean, you guys go into the online form and get that information into there by the end of the day. That Friday. Yes. So that is a very important note. And those deadlines are national. The. Right. The National Center for the book from the Library of Congress. Gave the state centers or state affiliates. Like two choices for what those deadlines would be. So it is consistent across the country. Depending on how you facilitate the program in your state. Now, and we need that deadline in order to be. Standing in April with the governor. Having him shake his hands with these kids. Yeah. One of those pictures earlier in the slide. Yeah. So that knows that's what needs, that's what needs to happen. And counting backwards. We needed to have this happen in December. So that. Cause that, that's again, that's a national deadline. So then by the time things come back to us, it's well into January and then our judges need February and. Then the governor's office, those people need all March. So that's a question I have actually the judging, the judges are people here in Nebraska. That's correct. So you're submitting these letters to. DC will say, but then they filter them back to you. Yeah. Or. Yeah. The letters. Once they go national, and they're sent back to the state coordinators. And we have state judges who are. Wonderful, credible people who really take this seriously and spend the time. We have combined there's supposed to be kind of like three rounds. The first one is just making sure the letters fit the criteria. And we let people somewhere else take care of that for us. But then Nebraska starting at the second round. We've combined second and third with. Two judges so that they are choosing from that point, going through and figuring out who are the winners. And there, there is a judges group about what does it take to be a winner that, again, that they have used over the years in terms of. How many judges do we do it? So I know. For other like awards and things, we have different judges for different types of books. These are, I mean, are there, is it just a group of judges that look at every all of them or split up by judges for each, each one that are different judges. So the people who are doing fourth to sixth grade are much more familiar with that age group. And the people who are doing the high school where we've had people there ordinarily that have academic credentials that where they, they are looking at people. That are they're expecting to see in their classes. And so we've had English professors and people that, that have that criteria and are very excited about these letters in terms of, of looking at people who are, are, are leaving high school and going on. How, how are they writing? Yeah. Exactly. So I was amazed when I think that we would have chosen the same ones. I chose, we've always had two judges and that's so you'd have more than one opinion. And I've also always said to them, now what I'm holding back as a state administrator is if you can't decide, I will make, I will break the time. I have never done that yet. Just, just when I mentioned that, they immediately, that's just inspires them. They're going to figure this out for themselves. They're not going to let me break the time. We do have one question that came in somewhat so typically how many Nebraska entries are received? Last year, we had like 420 I think statewide. We don't see that many come back because some of them, sadly enough, right, book reports, you know, write fan letters. So, So over 400 are submitted. And then in, at the, like our Congress, but they decided which ones met the basic criteria. That's what correctly written. And those are then sent back. We just let them, now some states get everything back, but right from the start that, because it used to all be that they, they did a value issue for other people. And we thought, why not let them sort that out? They know what this contest is. And that means that what we get back are the letters that actually meet the criteria. And then our judges are focused on that criteria. The first year that we went to that system, though I have to say is we used to have them, they'd already gone through two rounds. And the first year, the seventh and eighth graders went from us receiving 30 letters back to receiving over 90. And that year I did add another judge and we went through a two cycle process in order to get that, that many letters read in that amount of time. How many came back to us last year? I didn't bring my individual amounts, but it sadly enough you'd think after that many and knowing what the criteria is that we'd get, you know, hundreds and hundreds of letters. And fortunately, ordinarily I would say it's probably about a hundred letters that come back total and counting up all of the, each one of the categories. You can say 20 to 30 and there's three categories to give you some idea. So obviously sad to say some people are not really, that's partly I think too the idea of the workshops is we want these people to be successful. We want those students letters to have a chance to really be judged and not just have them, and maybe for the teacher they were happy having them write a fan letter or happy with them and doing this is more of a book report or something else. Perhaps that was something that met their criteria, but it doesn't move them into the final round of evaluation of those letters. So we have another follow up question and some more specific advice. Any advice when the student is passionately in love with a fairly common title like Harry Potter, what would you use? How do you help move the student to make significant observations about such a popular title? Oh, that's a great question. I mean, they do have to make it personal to them. Absolutely, it has to be personal. We had a winner last year, I can't remember if she was a winner or a runner up, but she wrote about Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, which is obviously a very... I mean, it won the... Everybody loves that book and everybody reads that book in school, I think, but that was still a winning letter. And do we have... I'm not sure if we have that last year's letters available online. I believe we do. I made sure you have access to them, so if you do, it's on you, Tessa. Let's see. I think down here on our Letters About Literature site, we have past winners. And I do, yes. We have her letter on here. We have past winners for Nebraska on here and who their author was. So we've got Suzanne Consper. The Hunger Games. The Herman Melville was a really fun one last year. It was one of his more obscure... Really obscure short story. But I mean, excellent. And so you can see that Harper Lee letter and see what she did differently. She was actually named after Harper Lee. It was her mother's favorite book, so she immediately had a personal connection to that author. But that wouldn't have been enough. Right, that wasn't enough. Lauren, do you have any more specific ways for them to... I was going to say basically variations on that. Try to get that child from just that fan enthusiasm to reach down deep. Why? What is so special about this? What in your experience ties to that book that made you think that is about me? That author is writing this book right to me. And that is hard. Students often aren't going to ask anything like this. A person that's shy or just not very contemplative may have quite a challenge. I think it's hard even as an adult. I mean, I read a lot of books, and some of them affect me. Some of them, it was just fun to read the story. And I enjoyed the entertainment of it, but there was no deep connection. And that's okay. And if you've read a book and not had that deep connection, you say to the kid, okay, yeah, you're a fan of Harry Potter. You enjoy him. And then you ask the question to say, and you want to write about it because you're a fan, but did it deeply affect you or change something about something that you think or make you do something different in your life? And if it didn't, that's okay. Enjoying the book for just enjoyment purposes is fine. Maybe you need to find another title. Right. Or maybe you could find, you know, if they list out a few specific things that, like the hatchet example, you know, the hunting was a very specific theme for him. Yes. And if you were to look at the hatchet, it hadn't been the book that had moved him, but the hunting part had connected. Maybe find some other titles, you know, the reader advisor sort of idea of a library and where you can find other titles that have that same theme that might connect in a more substantial way. Yeah. And another way of doing it too, if you really, really want to write about Harry Potter, and they just, because they're just a fan, tell them aren't you need to think about it in a different way and maybe start with, something that sounds like your life or something that you, and I identify with sometimes, especially if the younger kids could be harder, but just say, did anything in there that you recognized that sounds like something that's happened to you in your life or could happen to you or is something that you and your friends do, there you go, that's your thing. Now, talk about that. They might not even realize that it was something that affected them. They just love the book so much, and sometimes until they think about it too, did you realize that they're just like you and your friends who do these things? Oh my gosh, there you go. I was going to say the other thing is sometimes where this person is going to go, maybe something that's really so deeply personal that they aren't ready to write about it or feel they have permission to write about it. I was thinking about one letter that came in one year, and the judge called me and said, is the teacher aware I don't know how they thought I got this letter is the teacher aware of this situation because they actually felt like some kind of intervention was necessary in terms of what the child was telling us. Now, I knew that the teacher was very aware, but that child had been willing to spill out on a page, a situation that really was serious enough that other adults needed to be involved in it. And they couldn't voice just talking to somebody to be able to write about it. So, All right, so I hope that's helpful when you're talking to your kids about doing this. We're just a little after 11 a.m. here our show is going to go for an hour. Anybody have any last minute questions they want to ask of Tesla or Chris Christie or any type them in and we'll get them answered for you right now. You can always reach out to them. Their contact information is out there and they're getting less words that you guys want to say. I just point you back to that comment which is on the header of this. How did an author's work change your view of the world or yourself? All right, the way you see if any of you is typing anything in you can't see if you're typing. You've got to wait until you actually hit enter. The way that works. But that's fine. I think we'll wrap it up then today and as we saw here and your slides you had yours at the very end. I did something. Here we go. Send all the questions to Tesla. Sure, if you want to I guess. It's something that she needs help answering. I'm the main contact so if it's a question that I can't answer, I'll reach out to Lauren or Christine or someone else that can get that question answered for you. But yep, I'm your first place to ask questions. All right, great. Thank you very much everyone. Go back out to there we go. So that will wrap it up for today's show. We are recording and I will show you here. This is a Nebraska Library Commission website and you can search on here for Encompass Live or you can even just use your search engine of choice. So far Encompass Live is the only thing called that on the internet. Yay, nobody else used this name. We haven't copyrighted it, but please don't. So you'll find us here at where we've got our upcoming shows listed but right underneath them is the link to our archives. So if you click there you will see our recordings go up here. Today's show will be available probably as long as everything cooperates by the end of the day today. And everyone who attended today and who registered will get an email from me letting you know. And we post it up to our various social media, our Facebook, Twitter and we have mailing lists here within the state. The archive will be here. We'll have a link. This is last week's link to the recording and we'll have the slides that Tessa put together as well. So you'll have both of those there as well. The recording is posted to the Nebraska Library Commission's YouTube channel so you can go and watch it there. And the presentations we posted onto our slide share account online. Most recent ones are first or at the top of the list here. Encompass Live 2018 is, you were talking about how long something's been around. 2018 is the 10th year of Encompass Live. So we've been around for a while. And we have all of our archives shows here. If you scroll to the bottom and I'll do that quickly here. Close your eyes if you don't get sick. We do have our very first shows here going back to January 2009. So do be aware when you're going through our archives that you will find some old information in here. You'll find some shows about things that were previously done, like last year's Literature would have been good for, you know, about the program, but as far as the submission, it's different. So be aware of what you're watching when you go through our archives. Everything has a date, so you can find out. You'll know when it was originally broadcast. And you can use that information when you're watching it to know maybe that product doesn't exist anymore. Maybe that service has changed. Maybe the information is different, but we're librarians. We archive things. That's what we do. So everything will be here and keep posted and go back to the top where we do have a search. You can search all our entire archives. The entire archives are just the most recent year and we just want recent information about anything. And it will search in the description of the session, the presenters' names so you can search our archives since they are so big then. So that is where our archive session will be. As I mentioned, we do have a Facebook page and Compass Live is on Facebook. If you are a big Facebook user, please pop over there and give us a like. You'll get notified of when things are coming up. Here's our reminder to log in today's show. When our recordings are available, I post on here. Anything in Compass Live related, so if you do like to keep up with things using Facebook, do like us over there. Other than that, I hope you'll join us for next week's show. We're talking about reading. Reading reflections. What kids are reading now? This will be a discussion about new children's books that have come up in the last year. Sally Snyder, who is our coordinator of Children and Young Adult Library Services here at the Library Commission will be with you, along with Librarian Dana Fontaine from Fremont High School and Carla Wendeland, who is the co-founder of the Golden Soar Award program. That's for children's books where the kids vote on new books. We're going to talk about new titles from the last year or so for children. So if you're looking for some new books for your library or expand your collections, definitely check out that section. She has a companion show, I suppose I'd say, for teens. That's coming up December 5th. It's the same idea, but just specifically for the older kids, so for teen novels. So if you want to see the kids, the younger kids next week's and the teens, then begin December. So, on that, thank you very much for attending. Sign up for any of our upcoming shows and hope we will see you next time on Encompass Live. Bye-bye.


So I'm gonna make a really quick video for you today for you guys on how to have your best day at Canada's Wonderland in their busiest season yet. So with the introduction of Yukon Striker, this is gonna be one of their busiest seasons yet and it's going to be awesome. This coaster is amazing. And I've been on it 27 times already so I thought what better way to make your lives easier than to give you my opinions and advice on how to get on Yukon Striker. So my first suggestion would to honestly buy your tickets on your phone or having them ready to scan at front gate. This will help you avoid the long line to get your tickets at front gate and get right to riding Canada's best collection of roller coasters. I would also suggest checking out their early ride times. So each week Canada's Wonderland will offer early ride time. So you're gonna wanna go check out canadanswonderland.com and you can click details and look at which ride is having early ride time. So for example, tomorrow I'll be at Canada's Wonderland on Yukon Striker's early ride time. I would honestly invest in buying fun picks for the season or days. It's only $44 for the year and this is one of the rides plus more in the park where you're gonna wanna get your pictures after you ride.  You can get as many pictures as you want. You're not limited to a ride or anything. So for example, yesterday I rode Yukon Striker 20 times in a row and I really picked up the pictures and I even like picked up pictures for my friends that rode with me. So you're able to zoom in. So I'd grab two copies in the same row. So super awesome, super friendly, love the service. Definitely suggest fun picks. It's my new favorite thing to have on my pass. I would get Fastlane if you're going on a weekend or a hot summer day. If that's not in your budget or you don't feel like spending cash on something like Fastlane, there is a single riders line. The single riders line can, not always though, make your weight shorter and is there if you want to ride alone. Emphasis on ride alone. Just know you cannot ride with friends or groups if you choose to weight in the single riders line. I did notice some guests would line up with their friends in the single riders line because it's shorter, a lot shorter on some days and then they would expect to ride together. So just know that you can't, if you're in the single riders line, it's literally there to fill in the gaps on the train for groups of like seven or five odd numbers. So the team on Yukon Striker is absolutely amazing and if there's even a full queue line, the weight won't be too long. So don't panic. The operations on this ride are already amazing and the friendliness of the employees you encounter throughout your experience make it that much better. I'm honestly not over exaggerating it. I've had my best year yet at Canada's Wonderland. The employees at every ride, especially Yukon Striker are absolutely amazing. They're talking to guests as you're riding. They're building up your excitement. You know, they're having conversations. It's definitely amazing to see. I definitely am loving it. We spent the other day riding Yukon Striker and we quickly got to know the team and loved watching their interactions with guests and how over the top they went to make you feel important and excited about the ride experience you were about to encounter. If you don't mind waiting in a one to two hour line and want to get other things done, my honest advice to anyone coming to Canada's Wonderland would be to go do other rides in the park and go queue up for Yukon Striker last. I would arrive around 8 p.m. to the line as sometimes at the park's really busy, they may close the queue line a little earlier to ensure they're getting out on time. This allows you to experience other attractions, shows, and food and still get on Yukon Striker last. Under no circumstances should you leave Yukon Striker's queue line for a washroom break, food, or beverages. Canada's Wonderland has a zero tolerance policy for line jumping and they're taking it really seriously this season and kicking anyone out of the line that line jumps. This includes joining your friends or family in line as they wait. I can't stress this enough how amazing the team at Canada's Wonderland has been with their customer service and enforcing rules and safety regulations. They're taking it very seriously and it's really nice to see them also providing that amazing service to the other people in waiting in line and kicking out anyone that has line jumped the line.   So it is a very accommodating ride and it does have two larger fitting seats per row on Yukon Striker. So it's a very accommodating ride otherwise outside of that. And the ride attendants out front are very helpful and will help you with any questions you may have before or while waiting, have which row you'd like to sit in predetermined. So the line splits near the end into rows one and rows two and three combined. The team is very helpful and friendly and from what I've seen with everything, they try their best to accommodate you if possible. Please don't be rude or upset if you can't get your choice the first time and understand they're trying to get as many guests onto this ride as quickly as possible while ensuring everyone's safety. So again, just don't be rude. You may not always get your preference, but from what I saw there being extremely friendly and super accommodating, which is rare for theme parks. So I definitely love to see that. Have all your loose belongings ready to be put into the new baggage system at the top of the stairs as you're sorted into your rows. This includes all loose belongings and bags. Canada's Wonderland is an amazing park that won't force you to get lockers to ride the ride as it has a new system in place to help prevent theft and a place for you to store your belongings while you ride. Your belongings will raise above the station in a very easy explanation and be transported to the exit and only brought down when you arrive to pick them up after riding. It's very cool to watch and make me feel very comfortable leaving my bags while I ride. With all this in mind and all the cool theming and attention to detail surrounding you, prepare to board the train and buckle yourself up for one of Canada's Wonderland's most intense coasters ever. Again, the overall experience from friendliness of the cast members to the atmosphere and theming and the overall ride experience, you're in for a treat this season as Canada's Wonderland introduces Yukon Stryker. So hopefully this helps you prepare for your first and many rides on Yukon Stryker at Canada's Wonderland this season. And I honestly just wanted to give you guys any advice I could think of to getting on this coaster and enjoying your day at Wonderland. If you have any questions, comment down below and I'll try my best to answer anything. And hopefully you enjoyed this video and you're having a great weekend. Have a good one guys, bye.


Hey there, my name is Jo and I am in physical pain literally every single day. How does that work? Hello, my little Burnett friends. Welcome back. Before we dive into today's actual topic I have some super exciting news to share with you guys. My puppies are home Do you see them hanging out on the couch back there like total bums because they're total bums, but they're so cute I finally got to bring them home. I'm recovered enough from surgery. I'm stable I have the capacity to take care of three big dogs and so they are home and oh my god I am so happy. Audio quality on my videos is just gonna tank because there's gonna be jingling collars, paws and claws on hardwood floors And it's gonna be glorious. So let's dive in today's actual topic, which is pain. Before we go any further Dee is gonna help me introduce our sponsor today. Thank you to premium Jane for sponsoring today's video It kind of only seems right that a CBD oil company was sponsored a video where I'm talking heavily about pain Now many of you guys have suggested that I try CBD oil before because I talked about being in chronic pain Here's a thing I actually have I've never found it in a form that worked well for me or that I would consistently use Because oftentimes the taste is really overpowering if it's like in a straight oil form or topically that just didn't really work for me And when premium Jane reached out to me and took a look at their website I was pretty excited by what I found it comes in a gummy bear format and also a soft gel formula So it's really easy to take which is important to me if I'm actually gonna continue with it So ever since it arrived I've been taking a couple gummy bears every morning It's like taking candy literally and so I'm really excited to introduce you to them They're based in Scottsdale, Arizona and another thing that excites me about them specifically is that their products are tested by a third party lab You know anything about the CBD oil industry and the rise of marijuana in the United States You know that there's a lot of companies trying to get in on this market and quality is not always the first priority It is with premium Jane and I love that about them the gummy bears, which are quite delightful tasting are vegan They're also totally approved by Bridget my other rat side note Do not give your rats CBD oil. Just don't do it. That was totally joke Of course check with your doctor before you start taking anything new You've probably heard about this before but CBD oil can be really effective in helping people relax It can help with pain management And so if you haven't tried it or you're looking for a fantastic place to get it from I would highly recommend that you Try a premium Jane not only do they have gummy bears and soft gels They also have two topical formulas right now and they have a number of actual oils And if you use coupon code Joe at checkout you will get 20% off right now They're also offering free shipping so there's a lot of reasons to check out the website Thanks again to premium Jane for sponsoring today's video now. Let's dive back in It's it's rather bizarre for me to sit here and tell you my lovely viewer that I am in physical pain Literally every single day and to my knowledge short of a miracle or something massively shifting in my body or the medical community I will always hurt. That's a weird statement for me to make and that's something I don't love spending a lot of time thinking about because Well, it's just not super happy to think about but it's also the reality of the situation Now the reason that I'm making this video is because recently I've seen a lot of comments of people Celebrating the fact that I'm not hurting anymore. First of all, thank you so much I it means the world to me that you guys care about my journey and that you're excited for the things that I'm excited about But I did want to talk about the fact that I actually still am in physical pain and always will be but probably not in the way That you think so if you're new to my channel, I had my leg amputee to a year ago There were some complications. I had to have an amputee again, which was bizarre now I'm finally learning to use a prosthetic leg and it's incredible and it's really really cool And it's complicated and difficult, but it's neat and my ability to start doing that is a sign that things went Well, right that things are going. Okay, so let's talk about the leg portion of things first first and foremost I think that we will get to a place where maybe my leg doesn't hurt ever again I mean, you know, it'll probably have some bad days But I think it'll get to a point where my leg is not in pain every single day. We're not there yet Let's just clarify that we are not there yet. It is gonna take a while to desensitize my leg It was literally cut off again seven or eight weeks ago now and using a prosthetic leg is nowhere near comfortable I think it will get there and I think it gets there for a lot of people from my conversations with other amputees But it's a journey when you lose your leg your nerves are severed They're rearranged your skin is not used to have it pressure in those places And so my entire body weight that used to come down on my foot My ankle is now coming down on parts of my body that were never designed to take it prosthetic technology Which is incredible distributes it pretty well, but it's still not comfortable It takes a while to get used to that it takes a while for your skin and your nerves and your muscles to be like All right, this is okay, and it takes a while to get the fit right so right now every day my leg still hurts It's still sore. It's still aches I get crazy phantom pain and I hope that that continues to lessen not sure we'll find out But what is ridiculously exciting to me is that there's hope in sight There's an end in sight There's a future that I can envision for myself where I don't hurt there where my leg doesn't hurt Where I could like put on my leg in the morning I could go about my day and taking steps would not cause me pain I wouldn't have to think about that and that was the reason that I did this because Before hand walking was really painful and the only end in sight is I would continue to degrade and get worse and worse and worse And that wasn't the kind of life I wanted to be living because it was something that had a solution it was a problem that had an answer and There are other problems in my life that don't have answers that we'll get to in a second and in my own life I found that having control that having some kind of autonomy and Decision-making over your own life is so powerful and so important so having the ability to say you know what no This isn't working for me. I cannot stand to live like this anymore Let's remove the problem as borderline traumatic and difficult and Exhausting and weird as that is at for the hope of a better life, right? And that's what I'm doing and I'm really really grateful to be on this crazy journey But the flip side of it is there are other problems in my body that Don't have solutions that have huge question marks and that the only answers that I've been given after a lot of research A lot of digging and so many hours in doctors offices. The only answers are I'm sorry It is what it is So I have a kiari malformation which essentially means I was born where my brain was too big for my skull We could say that my skull was too small for my brain either way It sounds like I have a big brain and I'm super smart and that's what you should get from this statement My brain is compressed that causes a host of symptoms and a host of issues one of which is I get migraines often I get them more than half the month So I spend a lot of days in darkness and in quiet and trying to get them to calm down and manage it I'm on a host of medications to try to balance things out and on top of that my neck is really messed up I have compressed discs and that kind of interacts with the kiari malformation because they're all right back in this area They're all stuffed in there and they don't feel great like I said I have spent years and years Trying to find answers from Western medicine to the Mayo Clinic which is incredible and I have a whole video about that I popped the link up above they are great there to alternative therapies to physical therapy to acupuncture to Meditation to fill in the blank like you think of it I've probably tried it and I have found things that help I have found things that lessen the symptoms and I figured out what are triggers But at the end of the day and I hate this sentence I will probably never be pain-free short of a miracle or something completely unpredictable Which I'm very open to I will never not hurt and I realize that that probably sounds funny And I realize that that might sound a little bit funny coming from someone who's Sitting up is dressed in clothes that aren't pajamas. I mean this could be pajamas, but it's not I braided my hair I put earrings in I even put some makeup on my face like I tried to put myself together today and I'm Working and I'm filming a video and I'm doing stuff and I hurt all the time I think there's like a disconnection that happens for a lot of people there At least that's what I've experienced where like how can someone really be in pain all the time? And wouldn't you just get used to it if your body hurt all the time and the answer to that question is no no At least my experience is you don't get used to it. I don't get used to it I don't get used to pain. I find ways to deal with it. I find ways to smile anyways I find ways to look normal and act normal and a lot of people Don't know that I hurt unless it gets to a certain level unless it escalates to the place where I can't handle it And I have to leave an event or lay down or I'm throwing up or fill in the blank But I always hurt and to be honest with you That's a very bizarre life to live and the reason I wanted to talk about this is because I've seen pain free I've seen that that phrase that word those two words show up so often recently in my Videos of people writing to me and again, thank you so much for caring But pain free is a painful statement for me because I don't know that I'll ever get there I will always be trying to I'll always be trying things Chronic pain is weird. It's bizarre It's not how our bodies were designed to function and I'm gonna put some links down below If it's something you want to understand a little bit more about which I would Absolutely encourage you to go check out and it's hard to think about something in your life that is painful Never going away, but at the same time you can find ways to deal with it And I think that this applies to so very many things because there were a lot of painful things in life Whether they be physical or emotional that don't go away that don't ever just disappear that we don't get over and yet We're still here yet. We're still on the planet We're still on earth and we've got to figure out what to do and I don't think time heals all wounds Physical or mental but I do think that we are insanely adaptive resilient creatures who learn how to function the best We can damn it. I will continue to learn coping skills to live in pain to function in pain to love life Anyways, I'll continue to find community and find ways to talk about it and find ways to make life easier It may never go away But I think it will get easier to live with I think back to like four years ago when it was kind of at the Height when things were really really bad and I didn't think I could exist like that And frankly, I couldn't and so I had to change how I was handling life I had to change how I was handling pain and a lot of things in my life so that I could handle it I guess what I'm saying in short is a lot of things in life don't have answers But we find ways to cope and to function and to live anyways So probably always be in pain and that sucks and there's no sugar coating that and I just wanted to clarify that But I'm still insanely happy to be alive. Thanks for allowing me to clarify the whole pain-free thing I'm really excited for the day that I'm walking and it doesn't hurt I'm I'm so excited to be able to take steps and go for a walk around my neighborhood and maybe go hiking and heck even Go running guys and it not be a significant source of discomfort or sharp pain I'm not there yet But if it's possible, I'm gonna get there and I think it's possible If you are someone who is dealing with chronic pain or some other form of any kind of pain in your life That doesn't go away and get it.  I hear you. We're all here for each other and we're gonna find a way through it Gosh darn it. Thank you so much for listening to me talk. You could be anywhere in the world Doing anything you wanted to right now, but you decided to watch this video and it means the world to me Thank you. Also. Thank you again to premium jane for sponsoring today's video Remember you can use coupon code joe for 20 off at checkout. I love you guys I'm thinking of you and I'll see you in the next video. Bye guys


This video is for Jeff Bezos. And Jeff Bezos alone. If you're not Jeff Bezos, please kindly scroll away. I'll wait. Thank you. Now, dear Jeff, a while ago I did this portrait of you and it has come to my attention that you haven't bought a copy yet. And while some do find my prices too high and there is the possibility that you've downloaded the version for free use, it also struck me that it might be because you exist at a much higher price class. My prices may simply be too plebeian for the likes of you. In order to fix that problem, I've made a special promo code just for you. Enter JeffyPoo23 at checkout to buy the Bezos print for one million dollars. Again, to buy the Bezos print for one million dollars. Use the code JeffyPoo23. Disclaimer, negative discounts are completely fictional and all codes are rendered null open entry.


Ahoy, ahoy. Hello again. It's your local homeless person here to speak to you today about a serious copyright problem so I Haven't been able to find out a lot about the response to this, but I know for sure That an SCP reactor well technically I believe they react to a bunch of things, but they also react to SCP content named Isaiah ex cozy has been Copyright struck by a SCP animated channel called detective void What I can see from detective void is it looks and I could be wrong Let's look at the about page. I'm good to okay fantastic I'm detective void. It's not how you think that's a Useful sure okay So what has happened is that and I'm gonna go into why this doesn't really this isn't cool We already know right we already understand what a creative commons license means But it's also important because I think a lot of people outside of my community might not know And I also think it's important to have solidarity with people who are Running into similar problems that you may run into at some future point I'm not speaking to this person's YouTube content in any way I'm not recommend. I'm not necessarily recommending it because I haven't watched any of it Beyond the video where they explain their copyright strike, and I don't want to be recommending something I don't have I don't be recommending something that I'm not familiar with but I do want to shine a light on This issue because it's important Enough to shine a light on so I think most people know that this has happened to me before I had a Copyright strike, but it was retracted within hours of me appealing it From who was it that's that's how that's how in that's how ephemeral it was that I don't even remember who it was It was Yep, it was infographics, but they retracted it immediately got in contact with me. We had a calm. We had a few conversations about it They apologized it was a whole thing, right that happened now what we're dealing with today is Similar to that but on a smaller scale with both Creators being smaller. We have Isaiah X cozy who only has their this I believe their reaction channel they have an Main quote-unquote main channel that's only about 20,000 subscribers and their reaction channel has about 50 that's less than 50 but about 50,000 subscribers and the channel that Copyright struck them only has 35 36,000 subscribers So these are both smaller channels in general and this is kind of thing that can Definitely fly under the radar if not picked up by a bigger channel, which is the only reason. I'm really covering it And I really I went on their discord. I went on a discord. I'm not Well, I was not I was not a fan of the Interactions I saw going on at the time. I arrived. Let's just say that much But I went on their discord to check out what was going on and nobody knew anything of I checked it this morning. I probably should have checked it a few days ago and then waited for somebody to get back to me But I didn't do that So I went on their discord and looked around and nobody was able to tell me whether or not the Situation had been resolved What has happened and we're gonna cover the exact details of what has happened is is a video by Detective Void, which is an animated SCP channel was reacted to by Isaiah X cozy and then I don't know if it was positive negative or whatever But what I do know is that it is that it was copyright struck by the animated people There are two things about this that are important to understand first of all I'm never gonna fall into the thing where it's like I mean all they're doing is making animation based around SCP so they're not doing anything of creative value Because I feel like that's a very that's a very negative way to look at quite a lot of work I love this little piece of hair. That's just sticking up out of nowhere That's a I can't get it to go down Well, but it's a very negative way to look at like a lot of work and animation is a lot of work And even if you outsource it to a studio like that's a lot of resources that you're dumping into it So I somewhat can understand The reaction I'm not saying I understand. Well, it's very complicated, right? I Understand the impulse it is still incorrect and wrong To to follow through on that impulse because SCP content is creative commons content and if you create an animation based around an SCP what you're going to do is create content that is Not protected under normal copyright laws in the way that you think that it is at least let's say not protect It is protected there are protections creative commons provides, but they're not the protections that you're used to So you can't literally just go this person even it. I don't know what the reaction was because the video has been taken down Even if the guy sits silently Entirely through your video. That's just the thing you have to deal with There's nothing you can do about that and And I you know we can say look at that channel and say oh, I you know They shouldn't have done that they should have reacted to it more. They should have and they may have again I don't know because I don't know what the video looks like I'm not making any judgments on the content that was taken down because I haven't seen it But what I do know Okay, is that and this is a very true of that people on the SCP wiki as well This is true of me. It's true of everybody and everyone needs to understand this one truth about SCP content It's the reason why you're never going to see a big budget movie about SCP or television series That's that doesn't involve changing the IP in such a way as to basically make it not SCP right and it's very simply that's though those of us who make a living and or Try or and are trying to make a living off of SCP content What you're doing is you are sacrificing Normal copyright protections you're sacrificing the ability to get people to not steal your work You are Explicitly sacrificing that and you even if you didn't realize you were You need to be clear about this that is what you're doing and in exchange you're getting a ready made fan base that is fairly under exploited for lack of a better way to put it by media Because media the reason why media isn't exploiting the fan base if there was a way to protect stuff like this if these Copyright strikes were actually valid then media would be grabbing a hold of this and making SCP content because the audience is so big a Professionally made like a big budget sort of animation studio would grab a hold of SCP content and make SCP stuff with the SCP logo Wow, you know openly shown the reason why this is an unexplored niche and the reason why big budget stuff hasn't basically invaded the What's the fandom for like a better way to put it? I'm not saying that's a good or a bad thing I'm just saying it hasn't happened is because it's creative comments because they can't Protect their IPs.  Okay, and I'm gonna give links to both Channels and I'm not again not recommending the content of either But I'm gonna give links to both channels in the description So you guys can follow through and make sure that you know This has been taken care of one way or the other and if for some reason Isaiah X cozy or I'm just I think his actual name Is Isaiah cozy because that's his main channel if Isaiah cozy Happens to watch this or somebody like sends him a link to it just Appeal the strike The I know you probably don't have access to lawyers and all these other things You're a little worried about it And I saw in your video that you were talking to SCP like staff and they'll probably advise you the same thing or Advise you they have no idea what to do Possible they'll probably give you they probably have an idea of what to do if they ever get back to you Just appeal the strike There is when I was copyright struck by Infographics show and there was a mistake on their part and they it was there was an automated system and all these other things All I did was appeal it and immediately as soon as a person saw it. They were like, oh, this is not I should not have done this this or we should not have done this or the machine Algorithm should not have done this whatever it was and it was reversed and even if it isn't you will win on appeal This is creative commons content regardless of what they think I'm not a lawyer. Let me clear about that. I'm not a lawyer. I'm not giving you legal advice I am giving you YouTube advice from lack of a better way to put it you should and You're doing this at your own risk, obviously because the way the YouTube system works, unfortunately, but under most circumstances appealing it and Just saying I this is creative commons content. This is not under a protected copyright. I can do this Should be perfectly fine and more importantly. We'll just take a look at one of the random videos This one's one of their most popular ones. Oh, yeah, they don't So it looks to me Yeah, it looks to me like they're keeping this under a standard YouTube copyright so Detective void is actually in violation of the creative like there aren't a lot of limitations for creative commons, right? But the detective void it looks very strongly and I'm not seeing I'm not scrolling through the timeline of this video Just as an example and I don't see any text that says anything of the sort There is like a kind of a conclusion for it, but in the description and Yeah, these are Mm-hmm. Yeah, these are definitely under a violation the creative commons copyright because our creative commons Protections because they do not state in the Yeah, they don't state in the description or anywhere in the video That the works are creative commons and how they're protected They are workers a derivative like for example, this is SCP 4975 an animated video, right? SCP 4975 is Under a creative commons share a like attribution license, right? So first of all, there's nothing in here that shows attribution there's nothing in here that links back to the original work and The work itself is not being distributed under a creative commons license Those are the three elements that have got to be followed You have to link back to the original work. You have to say who wrote it and you If you create a derivative piece of content It's not enough if I just mention SCP 4975 in a video for example Or if I talk a little bit about it But if I literally just make an adaptation an animated adaptation of a thing like these people are doing You have to include those elements You have to say who made it you have to link back to the original article and you have to release the new piece Under a creative commons license. So these people are the ones who are in violation not the reactor And actually let's take a look at mr. Cody because he has other SCP reaction stuff Let's see if he's in violation or not. He might not know Original vid linked out. He's not linking to He's linking he's linking it as a fair use thing I Mean his stuff is so if you're doing a reaction to an SCP Video, yeah, this is a problem for him too. So He needs to include first of all that video has to be released under a creative commons license And he has to link back to the original SCP 133 for just this one for example SCP 1337 and the author of that article and these are not very hard hurdles to overcome and again This is just a matter of people not understanding how the system works. These are the bare minimums though this is what you absolutely have to do in order to create SCP content and the confusion over this problem and again I'm looking that even the person who has been copyright struck is also not doing these things like the confusion over these problems with the newest SCP content is A serious problem and this is for someone I should say For the SCP channel, it's the SCP animated channel It's a little bit less Reasonable for them to make this mistake because it looks like they're throwing a lot of money into animation, right? So anyone who puts this money into animation should have looked into the at the SCP license and understood it first The reactor is just reacting to a video on the internet and thinking, you know, it's fair use. It's actually What's the best way to put this? First of all, reactions are probably not fair use. It's complicated, but whatever a lot of companies will allow it But the particular thing he's reacting to here Doesn't need to be fair use. It is protected Elsewise by the Creative Commons copyright or I should say the creative Commons protections Just follow the Creative Commons license and you're fine You don't need to worry about it be is it or isn't it fair use and we can talk about reactions all day I've done reactions on this channel. Reactions are prop. I've done reaction I had a reaction channel a long time ago reactions are probably not very use but companies often allow them under certain Limitations that because they know that excitement about a particular product or a particular thing will often lead to people Viewing that original piece of content more often Companies are a little smarter than most people give them credit for early on they didn't realize these things and they're like Ah, let's take down.  Some companies just have a very strict copyright policy where they will take stuff down And they are probably within their legal rights to do so depending on how Transformative a reaction is but again None of this matters if you're reacting to SCP content because it is all derivative of SCP wiki content and under the Creative Commons license period Obligatory, I'm not a lawyer so I can't make Obligatory, I'm not a lawyer and I can't make absolute determinations here But I can tell you what I know and how I deal with stuff Anyway, that's it. I just wanted to inform people about this issue and again links to both channels will be in the description below Let me be clear here Do not go to either of these channels for any reasons and harass people or complain at people just make you know if you want to talk and this is just so you can see the people that I'm talking about here and You can find out whether or not these people have solved their problems one way or the other And I think amplifying a voice here is important, but I don't want it to be hostile I'm I'm talking to you Carl Anyway, that's it. Thank you very much for watching If you enjoyed the video hit the subscribe button and the notification bell next to that So you're notified when I upload new videos and then head on over to patreon.com Ford slash D Sumerian and pledge at any level like everybody here on the screen already has including Dr. Jay redacted in syngereke who both pledged at a hundred dollars and Morgan who has pledged at forty dollars It's nice to know that I'm not alone out here, and I will see you all again on Thursday