The American Library Association (ALA) invites library workers to apply for the fifth annual Peggy Barber Tribute Grant, a programming grant named after the transformative ALA leader responsible for the creation of National Library Week and the Celebrity READ series.[NLCEnd]
The Peggy Barber Tribute Grant is an annual grant that recognizes, promotes, and supports meaningful programs in libraries that have limited and/or no access to budgetary support for programming. This grant aims to help ease budget challenges by annually awarding three libraries $2,500 to support a proposed program, program series, or programming effort.
Each year, the grant will focus on supporting a specific type of library programming. For the 2024–2025 cycle, libraries are invited to submit applications for a grant combatting isolation for older adults. Remember: your proposal should be focused on a program that combats isolation for older adults, such as a technology training club to teach seniors how to use technology so that they can stay connected online or a social club to bring adults together around an activity like crafting, gardening, etc.
All library types — including public, academic, K-12, tribal and special libraries — in the U.S. or U.S. territories are eligible. Applicants must have a personal or institutional membership with either the American Library Association OR the Association for Rural & Small Libraries.
Peggy Barber served as ALA’s associate executive director of communications from 1970 to 2000. In that role, she established ALA’s Public Information Office, Public Programs Office and the ALA Graphics department. After leaving ALA, she was a principal consultant with Library Communication Strategies and served as co-president of Friends of Libraries USA, now known as United for Libraries. She passed away in August 2019.
The Peggy Barber Tribute Grant was created with donations from Barber’s friends and colleagues. To support the grant, make a contribution to the Peggy Barber tribute fund within ALA’s Cultural Communities Fund.
To stay informed about future grants and awards offered by ALA’s Public Programs Office, sign up for the Programming Librarian e-newsletter.
January 27th, 2025, is the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and International Holocaust Remembrance Day. In commemoration, today’s Book Club Spotlight takes a look at the life of a young Jewish girl during Hitler’s rise to power. When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit by children’s book author Judith Kerr, has been lauded as an ALA Notable Book, a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, and was awarded the prestigious Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis (German Youth Literature Award). Kerr’s book, taught in classrooms across Europe, is a semi-autobiographical novel about her own childhood as a Jewish refugee. Just like Anna, Kerr’s father was a theatre critic and political essayist in Berlin, who, under fear of Hitler’s regime, fled with his family to Switzerland. Later, his works were banned and burned by the Nazis.
Nine-year-old Anna supposes she is Jewish, though her family isn’t very religious. With an election soon, Anna knows her ancestry is important, but she is more focused on her friends and school. When it looks like a man named Adolf Hitler is going to become Chancellor of Germany, Anna’s father, a prominent cultural critic, flees to Switzerland as a wanted man. Soon, Anna finds herself living in Switzerland with her family as a refugees! Together, they move all over Europe to avoid the Nazis, searching for a permanent home. Each country brings new people, customs, and languages that Anna must learn and follow. While she enjoys the adventure of being a refugee, the stress of moving and the looming threat of the Nazis is hard for her to ignore.
The first in theOut of the Hitler Time trilogy, When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, follows a young, sheltered girl as she escapes the Nazi regime- having to leave friends, family, and her comfortable life behind. Our main character, Anna, is very removed from the violence happening in Germany, but Judith Kerr artfully includes clues, events, and characters that will key readers into the broader context. Kerr, who based the story on her childhood, is only a few years older than Anne Frank, reminding us that stories of the young and vulnerable in times of hardship persist as they show the human cost behind war and fascism. Appropriate for ages 9 and up, classrooms and Book Club Groups can learn about the rise of the Nazi party and how changes in political climates can affect everyone, especially children.
If you’re interested in requesting When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 10 copies. (A librarian must request items)
Kerr, Judith. When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit. Puffin Books. 1971
FOR MORE INFORMATION: Christa Porter
402-471-3107
800-307-2665
Nebraska Library Commission Announces Public Library Accreditation
Nebraska Library Commission Library Development Director Christa Porter recently announced the accreditation of thirty-eight public libraries across Nebraska.
Porter stated, “We are dedicated to helping Nebraska libraries meet Nebraskans’ information needs, opening up the world of information for citizens of all ages. The Library Commission continues to work in partnership with Nebraska libraries and the regional library systems, using the Public Library Accreditation program to help public libraries grow and develop.”
Public libraries in Nebraska are accredited for a five-year period. To learn more about this process and to see a complete list of all accredited Nebraska public libraries, go to http://nlc.nebraska.gov/LibAccred/Standings.asp.
The Nebraska Library Commission congratulates the public libraries listed below as they move forward toward the realization of this vision for the future: “All Nebraskans will have improved access to enhanced library and information services, provided and facilitated by qualified library personnel, boards, and supporters with the knowledge, skills, abilities and attitudes necessary to provide excellent library and information services.”
Nebraska Public Libraries Accredited through December 31, 2029:
Ainsworth Public Library
Alice M Farr Library, Aurora
Arlington Public Library
Bayard Public Library
Bennington Public Library
Bob and Wauneta Burkley Library, DeWitt
Broadwater Public Library
Clarkson Public Library
Columbus Public Library
Crawford Public Library
Dvoracek Memorial Library, Wilber
Elmwood Public Library
Fairbury Public Library
Gibbon Public Library
Grand Island Public Library
Hastings Public Library
Hildreth Public Library
Hooper Public Library
John A Stahl Library, West Point
Kimball Public Library
Laurel Community Learning Center
Lied Scottsbluff Public Library
Lied Winside Public Library
Lincoln City Libraries
Loup City Public Library
Madison Public Library
Morton-James Public Library, Nebraska City
Newman Grove Public Library
Oshkosh Public Library
Palisade Public Library
Plainview Public Library
Raymond A Whitwer Tilden Public Library
Scotia Public Library & Heritage Center
Sioux County Public Library, Harrison
South Sioux City Public Library
Syracuse Public Library
Weeping Water Public Library
Yutan Public Library
As the state library agency, the Nebraska Library Commission is an advocate for the library and information needs of all Nebraskans. The mission of the Library Commission is statewide promotion, development, and coordination of library and information services, “bringing together people and information.”
New state agency publications have been received at the Nebraska Library Commission for November and December, 2024. Included are reports from the Nebraska Board of Barber Examiners, the Nebraska Board of Engineers and Architects, the Nebraska Children’s Commission, Nebraska’s Coordinating Commission for Postsecondary Education, and the Nebraska Office of Violence Prevention, to name a few.
With the exception of the University of Nebraska Press titles, items are available for immediate viewing and printing by clicking directly in the .pdf below. The University of Nebraska Press titles can be checked out by librarians for their patrons here: Online Catalog.
The Nebraska Legislature created the Nebraska Publications Clearinghouse in 1972 as a service of the Nebraska Library Commission. Its purpose is to collect, preserve, and provide access to all public information published by Nebraska state agencies. By law (State Statutes 51-411 to 51-413) all Nebraska state agencies are required to submit their published documents to the Clearinghouse. For more information, visit the Nebraska Publications Clearinghouse page, contact Mary Sauers, Government Information Services Librarian; or contact Bonnie Henzel, State Documents Staff Assistant.
Below is a list of free training opportunities coming up this week and some recently recorded webinars! There is also a monthly list of free training resources which is compiled each month by the Maine State Library and WebJunction.
Many webinars are recorded and can be watched later.
Celebrate intellectual freedom with this week’s BookFace title, “Attack of the Black Rectangles” by Amy Sarig King (Scholastic, Inc, 2022,). When 6th grader Mac opens up his assigned classroom reading, he finds some words blacked out. He and his classmates set out to get the full story. This book is one of the 2024-25 Golden Sower Award nominees in the Meadowlark (grades 6-8) category, and is available in Nebraska OverDrive Libraries as an ebook and audiobook.
“Sixth graders stand up against censorship and systemic bias… The protagonists clarify the various issues for readers who may not be aware of them, and the story skillfully encourages keeping open minds and extending grace to the oblivious and hostile alike… A searingly relevant opus to intellectual freedom.”
— Kirkus Reviews
Libraries participating in the Nebraska OverDrive Libraries Group currently have access to a shared and growing collection of digital downloadable audiobooks and eBooks. 194 libraries across the state share the Nebraska OverDrive collection of 26,898 audiobooks, 36,794 ebooks, and 5,133 magazines. As an added bonus it includes 130 podcasts that are always available with simultaneous use (SU), as well as SU ebooks and audiobook titles that publishers have made available for a limited time. If you’re a part of it, let your users know about this great title, and if you’re not a member yet, find more information about participating in Nebraska Overdrive Libraries!
Helen Simonson’s latest novel, The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club, is set in a fictional British seaside town, in the immediate aftermath of World War I. Its main protagonist is Constance Haverhill, a capable young woman of modest means, who spent the war years managing the estate of her mother’s childhood friend, Lady Mercer. Now that war is over and men are returning, Lady Mercer has informed Constance her services are no longer needed; also, Constance will need to move out of the cottage she’s been living in to make room for the new estate manager’s family. As a temporary courtesy, Constance has been asked to accompany Lady Mercer’s mother, Mrs. Fog, on holiday, but once this interlude is over she will be out of a job and a place to live.
Given its setting and subject matter, this could have been a much grittier book. There are oblique references to the population’s overall gauntness, mentions of crippled soldiers begging for alms at London railroad stations, and multiple accounts of family members lost to influenza. Instead, Simonson ensconces her characters in the charming resort community, Hazelbourne-on-Sea, and directs them in what book publicity material calls “a timeless comedy of manners.”
To pull off this production, Simonson enlists an extensive cast of supporting characters, representing many ranks of British society. There’s Constance’s new friend, Poppy Wirrall, the trouser-wearing daughter of a local baronet, who runs the titular motorcycle club in collaboration with women she served with as a dispatch rider during the war. (She’s also organized Wirrall’s Conveyance, a motorcycle taxi and delivery service to provide employment for less well-off members of the club.) There’s Poppy’s brother Harris, a morose former Royal Flying Corps pilot who lost a leg in battle, and Jock Macintyre, his mechanic, who survived the war but turns to drink upon losing his wife and daughters to influenza. There is Kumar Pendra, an RFC pilot from British India, who notes to Constance that service members from countries with dominion status (“the Anzacs, the South Africans, and even the Chinese Labor Corp…”) receive more favorable post-war treatment than those from colonies like his, which are agitating for home rule. And there is Percival Allerton, a wealthy American engaged to Lady Mercer’s daughter, Rachel, who is concerned Mrs. Fog’s renewed friendship with the de Champney siblings, rumored to be “of mixed bloodline” even though they are the children and acknowledged heirs of a prominent Barbados sugar planter, will damage his family’s reputation.
Together, through clever dialogue and revealing interactions, these characters—some wittingly, others unwittingly—bring to life the social and familial upheaval caused by war and epidemic. You have an old guard adamantly attempting to restore pre-war hierarchies of race, gender, and class; emotionally and physically damaged soldiers whose status as landed gentry no longer guarantees them employment, fiancées, or respect; families decimated by influenza; and women who embraced new jobs and freedoms during the war, only to be laid off and sent home now it’s over.
As expected, characters mostly allude to their consciousness of these rifts and inequities indirectly, through droll and circumspect dialogue. Nevertheless, it is clear who is embracing change, who isn’t, and what some of the collateral damage will be. This book is recommended to readers who appreciate a British sensibility, historical fiction without too much grit, and social commentary in the tradition of Jane Austen.
Simonson, Helen. The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club: A Novel. The Dial Press, 2024.
This 3-5/8″ x 4-3/4″ black and white acetate negative is dated around 1935-1945 and shows an exterior view of a one-story, cross-gabled brick house. The house has a garage underneath part of the first floor, and there are retaining walls on each side of the driveway leading up to the garage. A tree stands in front of the house, and there is snow on the ground. This house is located at 812 N. 38th Street in Omaha, Nebraska.
This image is published and owned by the The Durham Museum. The William Wentworth Collection at The Durham Museum consists of 4663 negatives of images that document life in Omaha, Nebraska from 1934 through 1950. William Wentworth worked as both a freelancer and a commercial photographer, providing a unique view of architecture, businesses, and community life in Omaha.
The Nebraska Memories archive is brought to you by the Nebraska Library Commission. If your institution is interested in participating in Nebraska Memories, see http://nlc.nebraska.gov/nebraskamemories/participation.aspx for more information.
The full schedule for the 2025 Big Talk From Small Libraries online conference is now available!
You will find all the details on the Schedule page. Information about our presenters is available on the Speakers page.
If you haven’t registered yet, now is the time to jump over to the Registration page and sign up – the conference is free and open to anyone in the world to attend! However, please be aware that all times are listed in US Central Time – UTC-6.
You are welcome to watch as an
individual or to host a group viewing of the conference. If several staff
members from the same library want to attend, you can just register for one
seat and have staff members view/listen together via one workstation.
You can also host a viewing party this same way and invite staff from other libraries. For any group viewings, if you know who will be there, you can list your Additional Attendees on your one registration or you can send us a list after the event. Be sure to take all necessary health and safety precautions into account when planning group viewings.
Big Talk From Small Libraries 2025 will be held on Friday, February 28, 2025 between 8:45 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. (CT) via the GoTo Webinar online meeting service.
“Song of the North Wind : A Story of the Snow Goose” by Nebraska author Paul A. Johnsgard is now available on cartridge and for download on BARD, the Braille and Audio Reading Download service. BARD is a service offered by the Nebraska Library Commission Talking Book and Braille Service and the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled at the Library of Congress.
A chronological account of one year in the lives of a pair of snow geese. Includes a considerable amount of accurate scientific observation and information in a novel-like manner.
TBBS borrowers can request “Song of the North Wind: A Story of the Snow Goose” DBC02029 or download it from the National Library Service BARD (Braille and Audio Reading Download) website. If you have high-speed internet access, you can download books to your smartphone or tablet, or onto a flash drive for use with your player. You may also contact your reader’s advisor to have the book mailed to you on cartridge.
Below is a list of free training opportunities coming up this week and some recently recorded webinars! There is also a monthly list of free training resources which is compiled each month by the Maine State Library and WebJunction.
Many webinars are recorded and can be watched later.
Join us for the first NCompass Live webinar of 2025, where you will hear about the ‘Best New Teen Reads of 2024’, on Wednesday, January 8 at 10am CT.
Sally Snyder, the Nebraska Library Commission’s Coordinator of Children and Young Adult Library Services, will give brief book talks and reviews of new titles recommended to school and public librarians, covering both middle and high school levels, that were published within the last year.
Upcoming NCompass Live shows:
Jan. 15 – Talking Book and Braille Service: Improving Accessibility to Books
Jan. 22 – 2025 One Book One Nebraska: ‘The Long March Home: A World War II Novel of the Pacific’
Jan. 29 – Pretty Sweet Tech
Feb. 5 – Fostering Healthy Communication in Your Library
To register for an NCompass Live show, or to listen to recordings of past shows, go to the NCompass Live webpage.
NCompass Live is broadcast live every Wednesday from 10am – 11am Central Time. Convert to your time zone on the Official U.S. Time website.
The show is presented online using the GoTo Webinar online meeting service. Before you attend a session, please see the NLC Online Sessions webpage for detailed information about GoTo Webinar, including system requirements, firewall permissions, and equipment requirements for computer speakers and microphones.
Happy New Year from the Nebraska Library Commission! Ring in the New Year with all new reading goals, like read 100 books this year, try a new genre each month, or even to save some dough by reading free books at your library. Make sure you get the Libby App downloaded on that brand-new Kindle or iPad you got for Christmas; all you need is a library card to read all the amazing books available on Nebraska OverDrive Libraries. One of those great titles is “New Year’s Eve Murder: A Lucy Stone Mystery” by Leslie Meier (Kensington Pub Corp, 2005,) available as an ebook and audiobook. It’s the twelfth novel in the Lucy Stone Mystery series, with 31 books total, and you can find them all on OverDrive!
“In Meier’s solid 12th cozy to feature Tinker’s Cove, Maine, reporter Lucy Stone (after 2004’s Star Spangled Murder), Lucy and her oldest daughter, Elizabeth, travel to New York City after winning an all-expenses-paid mother-daughter makeover from Jolie magazine. But after arriving in the Big Apple, the duo find the contest is fraught with cattiness, tension and mistrust, complicated by the magazine’s haughty editor and bickering staff. The outing turns into a nightmare after Jolie’s controversial fashion editor suddenly dies and Elizabeth falls ill from what turns out to be exposure to anthrax. Dividing her time between her daughter’s bedside and sleuthing, Lucy discovers a host of misdeeds involving real estate deals, animal rights and long-held secrets. Fans won’t mind that Meier’s light tone is sometimes at odds with the serious hot-button issues she raises.”
— Publishers Weekly
Libraries participating in the Nebraska OverDrive Libraries Group currently have access to a shared and growing collection of digital downloadable audiobooks and eBooks. 194 libraries across the state share the Nebraska OverDrive collection of 26,898 audiobooks, 36,794 ebooks, and 5,133 magazines. As an added bonus it includes 130 podcasts that are always available with simultaneous use (SU), as well as SU ebooks and audiobook titles that publishers have made available for a limited time. If you’re a part of it, let your users know about this great title, and if you’re not a member yet, find more information about participating in Nebraska Overdrive Libraries!
Recently I was with one of my daughters, and asked her what she was currently reading. The conversation that followed was all about the book genre that both my daughters have fallen completely in love with: Fantasy Romance. In general this is not a genre I’ve been drawn to, but they are so enthusiastic about it I thought I would give one a try. A Court of Thorns and Roses was the one recommended I read first, so I jumped out of my comfort zone and read something different. I will admit that it was a fun read, with faeries, demons, magic, and adventure galore. I both read and listened to it, and enjoyed both. Sarah J. Maas is an excellent writer, and it was easy to imagine the settings, characters, and story.
“When nineteen-year-old huntress Feyre kills a wolf in the woods, a terrifying creature arrives at her house to demand retribution. She is dragged away from her family to a treacherous magical land she knows about only from legends. There, Feyre discovers that her captor is not truly a beast, but one of the lethal, immortal faeries who once ruled her world. At least, he’s not a beast all the time. As she adapts to her new home, her feelings for the faerie, Tamlin, transform from icy hostility into a fiery passion that burns through every lie she’s been told about the beautiful, dangerous world of the Fae. But something is not right in the faerie lands. An ancient, wicked shadow is growing, and Feyre must find a way to stop it or doom Tamlin—and his world—forever. “
A Court of Thorns and Roses is the first in a series of five books. Ms. Maas has written four series in the Fantasy Romance genre, and there are other authors to choose from as well: Rebecca Yarros, Raven Kennedy, and Callie Hart just to name a few. There are also titles in this genre available to our Talking Book and Braille patrons–just search in BARD, or call your reader advisor. Enjoy! **Synopsis courtesy of Amazon and Audible.
Dated November 1, 1937, men and women are gathered in a large group inside an Elks Club building in this 8″ x 10″ black and white acetate negative. There are streamers strung from the ceiling and some on the wooden floor. Some of the partygoers are wearing masks, while others have party hats. This image was taken for Safeway Stores.
This image is published and owned by the The Durham Museum. The William Wentworth Collection at The Durham Museum consists of 4663 negatives of images that document life in Omaha, Nebraska from 1934 through 1950. William Wentworth worked as both a freelancer and a commercial photographer, providing a unique view of architecture, businesses, and community life in Omaha.
The Nebraska Memories archive is brought to you by the Nebraska Library Commission. If your institution is interested in participating in Nebraska Memories, see http://nlc.nebraska.gov/nebraskamemories/participation.aspx for more information.
On October 12th, 1972, a chartered plane of 45 college-aged rugby players and friends crashed deep into the Andes mountains. And 10 weeks later, sixteen would make it home. Among those in the crash were Nando Parrado, his mother, and his sister. But only Parrado would survive. Now a successful businessman, Parrado and his co-author Vince Rause, tell his personal story of the crash in today’s spotlight Miracle in the Andes. Expanding from the famous account, Aliveby Piers Paul Read, the pair focus on the emotional toil, and teamwork that got the boys through the most impossible of circumstances instead of the more sensational aspects. Like many of his fellow survivors, Nando now travels as a motivational speaker, relaying his experience of survival and suffering to connect with others and heal emotional wounds.
“I come from a plane that fell into the mountains.” When Nando Parrado woke up, there was darkness. From an affluent area on the warm coast of Uruguay, he was a member of a rugby team flying to a friendly match in Chile, but now there was only darkness, pain, and incredible cold. Stranded amongst the remains of their plane, the survivors had to brave the freezing Andes wholly unprepared. The looming mountains were no place for them, and they were doomed to be snuffed out if someone didn’t act fast. With his mother and sister now buried beneath the snow, and no rescue in sight, Nando’s sole focus in life was to make it home to his grieving father, even if that meant hiking the vast Andes in rugby cleats. On the mountain, the team had to do the unthinkable to survive in this moving story of perseverance, sacrifice, and love.
The ill-fated Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 has spawned books, documentaries, and the award-winning movies “Alive” (1993) and “Society of the Snow” (2023). Parrado’s Miracle in the Andes uniquely chronicles the indomitable human spirit in the bleakest conditions. He showcases how the community and camaraderie of the rugby team ultimately kept them alive. And it was because of their humor, strength, friendship, and trust forged on the rugby pitch that they made it home. Parrado’s insights into the human condition and mind during the ordeal are the highlights of this book. While trying to survive the harsh climate, the young men have deep theological and political discussions about life and their Catholic upbringing. Our Book Club copies also feature a 2022 introduction by Parrado and photograph inserts that chronicle their daily lives, their rescue, and beyond. Adventurous Book Clubs will find the moral quandaries presented in this book challenging but captivating. Why do some survive and others do not? Are we obligated to do everything we can to stay alive, even if that means breaking taboo?
If you’re interested in requesting Miracle in the Andes for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 5 copies. (A librarian must request items)
Parrado, Nando. Miracle in the Andes. Penguin Random House. 2006
Here are the UNP books the Clearinghouse received in November and December, 2024:
Colonialism and Literature : An Affective Narratology, by Patrick Colm Hogan. Series: Frontiers of Narrative
In earlier work Patrick Colm Hogan argued that a few story genres—heroic, romantic, sacrificial, and others—recur prominently across separate literary traditions. These structures recur because they derive from important emotion-motivation systems governing human social interaction, such as group pride and shame.
In Colonialism and Literature Hogan extends this work to argue that these genres play a prominent role in the fashioning of postcolonization literature—literature encompassing both the colonial and postcolonial periods. Crucially, colonizers and colonized people commonly understand and explain their situation in terms of these narrative structures. In other words, the stories we tell to some degree simply reflect the facts. But we also tend to interpret our condition in terms of genre, with the genre guiding us about what to record and how to evaluate it. Hogan explores these consequential processes in theoretical and literary analysis, presenting extended, culturally and historically specified interpretations of works by Pádraic Pearse (Ireland), Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o (Kenya), Yasujiro Ozu (Japan), J. M. Coetzee (South Africa), Margaret Atwood (Canada), Rabindranath Tagore (India), Abderrahmane Sissako (Mali), and Dinabandhu Mitra (India).
Contemporary Humanistic Judaism : Beliefs, Values, Practices, edited by Adam Chalom and Jodi Kornfeld. Series: JPS Anthologies of Jewish Thought
Opening up multidimensional ideas, values, and practices of Humanistic Judaism to Jews of all backgrounds and beliefs, Contemporary Humanistic Judaism collects the movement’s most important texts for the first time and answers the oft-raised question, “How can you be Jewish and celebrate Judaism if you don’t believe in God?” with new vision.
Part 1 (“Beliefs and Ethics”) examines core positive beliefs—in human agency, social progress, ethics without supernatural authority, sources of natural transcendence, and Humanistic Jews’ own authority to remake their traditional Jewish inheritance on their own terms “beyond God.” Part 2 (“Identity”) discusses how Humanistic Judaism empowers individuals to self-define as Jews, respects people’s decisions to marry whom they love, and navigates the Israel-Diaspora relationship. Part 3 (“Culture”) describes how the many worlds of Jewish cultural experience—art, music, food, language, heirlooms—ground Jewishness and enable endless exploration. Part 4 (“Jewish Life”) applies humanist philosophy to lived Jewish experience: reimagined creative education (where students choose passages meaningful to them for their bar, bat, or b mitzvah [gender-neutral] celebrations), liturgy, life cycle, and holiday celebrations (where Hanukkah emphasizes the religious freedom to believe as one chooses).
Jewish seekers, educators, and scholars alike will come to appreciate the unique ideologies and lived expressions of Humanistic Judaism.
Great Plains Ethnohistory offers a collection of state-of-the-field work in Great Plains ethnohistory, both contemporary and historical, covering the traditional anthropological subfields of ethnography, cultural history, archaeology, and linguistics. As ethnohistory matured into an interdisciplinary endeavor in the 1950s with the formation of the American Society for Ethnohistory, historians and anthropologists developed scholarly methodology for the study of Native American societies from their own points of view. Within this developing framework, Native cultures of the Great Plains represented a foundational research area.
Great Plains Ethnohistory pays intellectual debts to Raymond J. DeMallie and Douglas R. Parks, whose research from the 1970s onward brought ethnohistorical approaches to the study of Native cultures, histories, and languages into the international community of the humanities and social sciences, sciences, and arts. The work of the scholars assembled in this volume advocates for an ethnohistory that continues to decompartmentalize Indigenous knowledge and scholarly methodologies, including some of the constructs, biases, and prejudices perpetuated within traditional scholarly disciplines.
Including essays by Gilles Havard, Joanna Scherer, Sebastian Braun, Brad KuuNUx TeeRIt Kroupa, and DeMallie and Parks themselves, among others, plus an afterword by Philip J. Deloria, this is an essential contribution to the scholarly field and a volume for undergraduate and graduate students and scholars who study Native American and Indigenous cultures.
Hell-Bent for Leather : Sex and Sexuality in the Weird Western, edited by Kerry Fine, Michael K. Johnson, Rebecca M. Lush and Sara L. Spurgeon. Series: Postwestern Horizons
Hell-Bent for Leather: Sex and Sexuality in the Weird Western builds on the Locus Award finalist Weird Westerns: Race, Gender, Genre. This new collection takes a deep dive into the myriad ways sex and sexuality are imagined in weird western literature, film, television, and video games, paying special attention to portrayals of power and privilege. The contributors explore weird western challenges to assumptions about varied genders and sexualities, drawing our attention to how the western can reinforce existing gender and sexual paradigms or overturn them in delightful, terrifying, or unexpected ways.
Primary texts range from CBS’s campy BDSM-inflected steampunk western The Wild Wild West to the Star Wars franchise’s popular leather-daddy bounty hunter The Mandalorian, from Ishmael Reed’s satirical postmodern western Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down to C Pam Zhang’s acclaimed novel How Much of These Hills Is Gold. Chapters engage texts from Australia and Great Britain, classic horror like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, the popular video games BioShock Infinite and The Last of Us II, and less well-known texts like Laguna Pueblo–Navajo author A. A. Carr’s erotic vampire/monster slayer western Eye Killers.
Public Land and Democracy in America : Understanding Conflict Over Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, by Julie Brugger. Series: Anthropology of Contemporary North America
In recent years the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah has figured prominently in the long and ongoing struggle over the meaning and value of America’s public lands. In 1996 President Bill Clinton used the Antiquities Act to create the monument, with the goal of protecting scientific and historical resources. His action incensed Utah elected officials and local residents who were neither informed nor consulted beforehand, and opposition to the monument has continued to make its day-to-day management problematic. In 2017 President Donald Trump reduced the monument’s size, an action immediately challenged by multiple lawsuits; subsequently, President Joe Biden restored the monument in 2021.
In Public Land and Democracy in America Julie Brugger brings into focus the perspectives of a variety of groups affected by conflict over the monument, including residents of adjacent communities, ranchers, federal land management agency employees, and environmentalists. In the process of following management disputes at the monument over the years, Brugger considers how conceptions of democracy have shaped and been shaped by the regional landscape and by these disputes.
Through this ethnographic evidence, Brugger proposes a concept of democracy that encompasses disparate meanings and experiences, embraces conflict, and suggests a crucial role for public lands in transforming antagonism into agonism.
Taking Charge, Making Change : Native People and the Transition of Education from Stephan Mission to Crow Creek Tribal School, by Robert W. Galler, Jr. Series: Indigenous Education
Taking Charge, Making Change gives voice to generations of Native people—from Crow Creek, Lower Brule, and other reservations in North Dakota and South Dakota—who shaped a school originally designed to foster Catholicism and assimilation. Local initiatives and collaboration transformed the Catholic Stephan Mission boarding school into the Crow Creek Tribal School, which now features both tribal traditions and American educational programs.
Through archival research and interviews with parents, graduates, teachers, and staff at Crow Creek and the surrounding community, Robert W. Galler Jr. places Native students at the heart of the narrative, demonstrating multifaceted family connections at a nineteenth-century, on-reservation religious school that evolved into a tribally run institution in the 1970s. He shows numerous ways that community members worked with Catholic leaders and ultimately transformed their mindsets and educational approaches over nearly a century. While recognizing the many challenges and tragedies that Native students endured, Galler highlights the creativity, collaborations, and contributions of the students and graduates to their communities.
Taking Charge, Making Change shows how individuals and families helped to found the school, maintain enrollment, secure funding, and influence school policies. Its graduates went on to serve with distinction in the U.S. military, earn advanced degrees after college, join and lead tribal councils in North and South Dakota, help their communities push back against federal policies, and continue to run their own education system.
The Windflower Home Almanac of Poetry, edited by Ted Kooser.
The Windflower Home Almanac of Poetry is an anthology of poems originally selected by Ted Kooser in 1980 and published by his Windflower Press, a small, independent publisher that specialized in poetry from the Great Plains. The collection contains almost two hundred poems from dozens of poets and was designed to resemble a commonplace farmer’s almanac.
The Windflower Press was the sole operation of Kooser, who was later named the first U.S. poet laureate from the Great Plains. His press gained national recognition for highlighting the work of the region’s young poets, and its Windflower Home Almanac of Poetry earned notice from the Library Journal as one of its era’s best small press books.
Best known as Emily Gilmore, the mom from Dirty Dancing, or Sheila from A Chorus Line, Kelly (Carole) Bishop has been an icon in both Broadway and Hollywood for over sixty years.
Bishop tells stories of her early days as a ballet dancer, how she broke into Broadway then moved into acting, and the many ups and downs throughout her career (which includes a Tony award) and personal life. Her longtime friendship with Amy Sherman-Palladino (writer) led to additional roles on both Bunheads and The Marvelous Mrs Maisel. She shares a few behind-the-scenes anecdotes from her time on Gilmore Girls and stories about her friendships with Lauren Graham and Edward Herrmann. However, these come later in the book. Her memoir is so much more than her role as Emily Gilmore – sharing her theatrical life, lessons from both of her marriages, love of animals, and marching for women’s rights.
Kelly narrates the audio version and it feels like friends chatting about old memories.
Bishop, Kelly. The Third Gilmore Girl. Gallery Books. 2024.
You can keep the Christmas lights up till January with this #BookFaceFriday!
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from the Nebraska Library Commission! As you’re setting up all those new tablets, Ereaders, and phones that were unwrapped on Christmas morning, don’t forget to download the Libby App and link your Library Card. You’re whole family can have access to free books through your library, and that includes picture books for your youngest kids like this week’s #BookFace “First Dog’s White House Christmas” written by J. Patrick Lewis and Beth Zappitello, and illustrated by Tim Bowers (Sleeping Bear Press, 2010). It’s available as a an eBook through Nebraska OverDrive Libraries: Kids & Teens, and can be found in the specially curated collection “Get Wrapped Up in a Good Book??: Juvenile Holiday Reads,” which is filled with holiday themed titles for kids and teens.
“In this wonderful picture book, the authors give readers a delightfully dog-centric picture of a Christmas gala at the White House. Readers will learn about Christmas traditions from many lands around the world, and they will also come to appreciate that though traditions might be different, the meaning of Christmas is the same the world over, if you are human or canine.”
— Marya Jansen-Gruber, Through the Looking Glass
Libraries participating in the Nebraska OverDrive Libraries Group currently have access to a shared and growing collection of digital downloadable audiobooks and eBooks. 194 libraries across the state share the Nebraska OverDrive collection of 26,898 audiobooks, 36,794 ebooks, and 5,133 magazines. As an added bonus it includes 130 podcasts that are always available with simultaneous use (SU), as well as SU ebooks and audiobook titles that publishers have made available for a limited time. If you’re a part of it, let your users know about this great title, and if you’re not a member yet, find more information about participating in Nebraska Overdrive Libraries!
The center of this image at the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Robert S. Somers, 1015 North Somers Avenue, is the Christmas tree and the two small boys posed beneath its branches. The tree lights are wax candles in tin holders with ball weights for counter balance. Ornaments of German blown glass and paper or pasteboard are scattered throughout the branches. Discernable shapes include a fish, a crescent moon and a mandolin. The small child at the right of the image is Lester A. Somers and his movement has slightly blurred a wheeled toy. The child on the right is unidentified. A marble fireplace front and the cast iron grate are partially visible. This photograph is dated around 1901-1902.
This image is owned by the Dodge County Historical Society, and published by Keene Memorial Library. Both are located in Fremont, Nebraska, and they worked as partners to digitize and describe content owned by the historical society. The collection of photographs documents life in Fremont in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
The Nebraska Memories archive is brought to you by the Nebraska Library Commission. If your institution is interested in participating in Nebraska Memories, see http://nlc.nebraska.gov/nebraskamemories/participation.aspx for more information.