Discover how intellectual freedom and legal principles intersect in our libraries on next week’s NCompass Live webinar, ‘Law for Librarians’, on Wednesday, June 10 at 10am CT.
This session delves into critical topics such as censorship, privacy, collection development, professional ethics, and the First Amendment. Gain practical strategies for advocating for equitable access to information and crafting strong policies. Designed to empower school librarians, this session provides the tools to navigate legal responsibilities while championing intellectual freedom and fostering a supportive library program.
Presenter: Dr. Chris Haeffner, Director of Library Services, Lincoln (NE) Public Schools.
Upcoming NCompass Live shows:
June 17 – Unlocking Nebraska’s Stories: Introducing the Nebraska Literary & History Escape Room Kits
June 24 – Pretty Sweet Tech
July 8 – Library Compliance with the ADA Title II Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Rule
July 15 – Community Literacy Treasure Hunt: The Fun Way to Increase Literacy!
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.
If any young men come for Mary or Kitty, send them in, for I am quite at my leisure this #BookFaceFriday.
If you’re a fan of the book to screen pipeline, and you’ve finished Hamnet, Wuthering Heights, and Bridgerton, might I suggest this week’s BookFaceFriday? “The Other Bennet Sister: A Novel” by Janice Hadlow (Macmillian Audio, 2020) is a regency era novel centered on the Jane Austen’s character, Mary Bennet and is now a drama series streaming on BritBox. It’s available as an Audiobook through Nebraska OverDrive Libraries. If you want to find out what’s new check out the “Latest 500 Titles Added” collection on the main page, updated monthly with what’s been added to Nebraska OverDrive Libraries.
“[A] spectacular debut. . . . Writing in prose with the crisp liveliness of Austen’s own, Hadlow remains true to the characterizations in Pride and Prejudice without letting them limit her. . . . This will delight Janeites as well as lovers of nuanced female coming-of-age tales.”
―Publishers Weekly (starred review)
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!
Visitors to the Louvre often have very polarizing impressions. Some immediately fall in love, and treasure the experience. Others feel rushed. Overwhelmed by the crowds and expansive collection, visitors may leave disappointed. In Adventures in the Louvre: How to Fall in Love with the World’s Greatest Museum, Elaine Sciolino explores the Louvre’s more than 200-year history, and dives into the stories of the art, the caretakers, and the complex issues surrounding this massive museum collection. As an experienced journalist, Sciolino knows how to find and tell compelling stories, uncovering intriguing and personal stories from the people who have unrivaled behind-the-scenes access, including curators, gardeners, window washers, and firefighters. Sciolino also delves into topics the Louvre and many museums face, including ethical questions surrounding ownership, acquisition, and representation. A delightful and thought-provoking read for museum lovers, even stanch Louvre detractors will likely find interest in learning more about its history and the complex issues facing the Louvre today.
Sciolino takes readers behind-the-scenes to reveal the inner workings of this massive institution, and the people that run it. Did you know that the Louvre has a particle accelerator used to identify the composition and provenance of artwork? Have you ever thought about how they clean the glass in the Louvre Pyramid? Spoiler: it involves a Swiss robot named Gecko. These are interesting stories on their own, but the interviews with museum workers are particularly moving. Window cleaners or members of the fire brigade may not have started their careers with a love of art, but they thoughtfully describe the personal connections they have made through their work.
“Even if you don’t really know the sculptures and paintings, you are carried away by the architecture itself. Like you are alone in the world, traveling through these huge rooms. It’s really this feeling of being really small in an absolutely immense world.”
The most meaningful moments many museum workers describe take place in quiet contemplation. Due to the museum’s popularity, the average person visiting the Louvre fights crowds instead of finding contemplative spaces. Sciolino explores the challenges visitors face when viewing the Mona Lisa. One curator put it this way: “She is made for contemplation. For dialogue. To appreciate her, you must be alone with her. To look at her face to face as I look at you. . . We can’t see her because she is hung way too high and way too far away. . . Sad to say, but for reasons of security and climate control, we have to keep her that way. There is also her coloring, she is bathed in muted tones and unrestored, and must co-exist with the bright-colored, restored finishing paintings that hang nearby. . . Finally, there is the long wait. It takes a long time to approach her. . . and then you see her, very small and in the distance, and you never really see her well, and so she may seem trivial.”
So how can museums like the Louvre create any meaningful experiences for visitors if they are the victim of their own success? Due to politics and the resistance to change, the Mona Lisa experience is unlikely to change anytime soon, but Sciolino explores a little-known way that visitors can see original artwork from storage up close and personal. She also looks at how the Louvre’s branch museum in Lens is doing things differently to engage its local audience in a former coal mining region. Outreach and creating community spaces are major parts of their mission. But then there is also the Louvre Abu Dhabi, a museum created through a thirty-year licensing agreement and partnership between France and the UAE. Sciolino explores the museum’s successes and controversies, and examines accessibility issues for the UAE’s large population of immigrant workers.
The book also explores many ethical challenges the museum faces including representation, ownership controversies, and acquisition issues. The Louvre, for example, possesses fragments of the Parthenon and looted sites from other countries. Other chapters explore gender, race, and religion. Sciolino discusses where representation is lacking, and ponders that if excellence in our world today means that you engage your audience, “Who is the Louvre for? How have ethnic groups like people of color been excluded and what steps are being taken to include them? How can the museum be a place of empathy? Of emotional connections?”
These are just a few of the topics explored in this expansive look at the Louvre. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to it as an audiobook, but Adventures in the Louve is also available as an eBook in Nebraska Overdrive.
Elaine Sciolino has had a long career as a journalist, and is a contributing writer for The New York Times. She joined the Times in 1984, where she has held positions including chief diplomatic correspondent, United Nations’ bureau chief, CIA correspondent, and Paris bureau chief. She is also the author of The Seine: The River That Made Paris and The Only Street in Paris: Life on the Rue des Martyrs.
Adventures at the Louvre: How to Fall in Love with the World’s Greatest Museum,by Elaine Sciolino, 2026, W.W. Norton & Company.
This week’s highlight is a 4″x6″ glass plate negative, portrait photograph of Floy Harriet Boston, taken in 1909 in David City, Nebraska. She is wearing a white dress with gathered skirt, elbow-length sleeves and stand collar, and a white hat with white ribbon surrounding the crown and hanging down the back. She is sitting in silhouette on a bench with a carved back, holding up a stuffed teddy bear. Floy was the daughter of Margaret Patterson and Harvey L. Boston, founder of the Boston Studio in David City, Nebraska. In 1925, she married Aubrey C. Hurlbert. A.C. retired from teaching in 1945 and the Hurlberts moved back to David City where A.C. “Prof” operated the Boston Studio until it was sold to Fred and John McVay in 1973. Floy passed away in 1977.
This image is published as part of the Boston Studio Project collection, and is owned by both them and the Thorpe Opera House Foundation. The Boston Studio Collection consists of over 68,000 negatives that record life in and around David City, Nebraska from 1893 to 1979.
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.
June is a month of celebration and reflection for ourselves, and our community. For today’s Book Club Spotlight, we’ll be revisiting an author who is not only a friend to Nebraska Libraries, but an active member in our state’s literary tradition. Winner of the Nebraska Book Awards for Fiction in 2022and previously featured author of the Swan Gondola, Timothy Schaffert’s novel The Perfume Thief takes his readers to the cold, destitute Paris of World War II. But underneath lies a beautiful community of artists who choose to love fiercely, and celebrate each other even in the darkest of times.
Paris, 1941. Notorious thief of perfumes both valuable and rare, Clementine, has hung up her hat and lives life in semi-retirement creating perfumes for the ladies of Paris. With Nazi forces controlling daily life, the once vibrant and lush city is haunted by shuttered restaurants, empty stores, and struggling nightclubs. Residents do what they must to get from one day to the next alive, including Clem, who has enough on her mind keeping loved ones safe before being pulled out of retirement for one last heist. A Francophile Nazi bureaucrat has come to the city in search of a famous perfumer’s notebook, and Clem must infiltrate his confidence to steal the diary before the deadly secret of a cabaret star is exposed.
“For the perfume to work, the wearer has to believe what I tell them .”
– Timothy Schaffert
Pantomiming a performance of the once great city to appease the Nazi soldiers who were promised The City of Lights, artists and those on the margins who were once embraced had to tread carefully to survive. Featuring a protagonist in their 70s, the novel’s acts of bravery and rebellion are not as loud and explosive as other stories of heroes facing Nazis may be, but the subtlety and cunning employed by those not on the front lines is no less important or deadly. There is much to learn from the beautiful and colorful characters who grace the page of The Perfume Thief, and Adult Book Groups who are fans of Historical Fiction will enjoy this look into a world of espionage and perfume resulting from Schaffert’s dedicated research.
Like all countries ravaged by the war, France is still coming to terms with the devastation caused and the effects it still has on its people and culture today. In 2025, Paris unveiled a memorial to the LGBTQ+ victims of the holocaust of a giant metallic star with one side a matte black of the dark and painful history it remembers, and a bright mirror on the other, reflecting back hope and light of a bright future onto the viewer.
If your readers are fans of Schaffert, you’re in luck! He will be speaking at Norfolk Public Library on June 20th, followed by a reception at the Norfolk Arts Center featuring his work.
If you’re interested in requesting The Perfume Thief for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 11 copies. (A librarian must request items)
Schaffert, Timothy. The Perfume Thief. Anchor. 2021
Hear about the Connected America conference, which brings together the key stakeholders driving Internet connectivity across the United States, on next week’s NCompass Live webinar on Wednesday, June 3 at 10am CT.
The conference covered the evolving landscape of technology, regulation, and investment while showcasing the transformative social and economic benefits of enhanced connectivity for individuals, communities, businesses, and industries across the nation.
Andrew “Sherm” Sherman, NLC Library Technology Support Specialist, will share what he learned when he attended Connected America 2026, such as how enlightening it was to hear about the challenges the ISPs (Internet Service Providers) are facing as they try to provide affordable, fast, and redundant Internet connectivity to America’s rural communities. In addition, the BEAD (Broadband Equity, Access, And Deployment) Program’s challenges and the impact of AI were hot topics this year.
Upcoming NCompass Live shows:
June 10 – Law for Librarians
June 17 – Unlocking Nebraska’s Stories: Introducing the Nebraska Literary & History Escape Room Kits
June 24 – Pretty Sweet Tech
July 8 – Library Compliance with the ADA Title II Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Rule
July 15 – Community Literacy Treasure Hunt: The Fun Way to Increase Literacy!
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.
The time is upon us for lounging around with a great summer read, whether that’s on the beach, a hammock in your backyard, poolside, or at the foot of a great big tree. And the NLC book club kit collection has a great list for your book club to pick from. This week’s #BookFace is “The Witch Elm: A Novel” by Tana French, is a classic book club pick. Full of intrigue, family drama, and secrets, it’s ten copies are available, along with two of her other titles in our Book Club Kit collection. “The Witch Elm” is also available as an Audiobook in Nebraska OverDrive Libraries, along with nine more of French’s novels.
“Edgar-winner French is at her suspenseful best in this standalone, in which an Irishman, who’s always considered himself a lucky person, has to reassess his past in the light of a gruesome find on the grounds of his family’s ancestral home.”
— Publishers Weekly
Book Club Kits Rules for Use
These kits can be checked out by the librarians of Nebraska libraries and media centers.
Circulation times are flexible and will be based upon availability. There is no standard check-out time for book club kits.
Please search the collection to select items you wish to borrow and use the REQUEST THIS KIT icon to borrow items.
Contact the Information Desk at the Library Commission if you have any questions: by phone: 800/307-2665, or by email: Information Services Team
Libraries participating in the Nebraska OverDrive Libraries Group currently have access to a shared and growing collection of digital downloadable audiobooks and eBooks. 196 libraries across the state share the Nebraska OverDrive collection of 30,262 audiobooks, 46,663 ebooks, and 6,506 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!
While seeking a new nonfiction book to read, for unknown reasons I focused my attention towards 9/11. Not sure why, but I became intrigued by the collapse of World Trade Center building 7. The official narrative is that Building 7 didn’t collapse due to any direct hit but rather fires that broke out in the building. Videos of the collapse look like a Las Vegas implosion (inside job). No steel framed building in history has ever completely collapsed due to fire, yet in the case of Building 7 that remains the official narrative. In my quest for more information about this, I discovered that practically the only book written on the subject seems to be David Ray Griffin’s The Mysterious Collapse of World Trade Center 7: Why the Final Official Report about 9/11 is Unscientific and False. No public libraries in Nebraska carry this book, so in order to exercise my freedom to read, I would need to shell out $20 (or try and ILL it for $3.50). Freedom to read, in the case of library collection development where choices are made by administrators to include or exclude materials for whatever reason or no reason, or sometimes just because space is limited, ain’t always free of charge. Someone might want to notify the ALA so that they can add this book to their “banned” list. For the record, I make no claim about whether or not WTC 7 collapsed due to fire (the official narrative) or was imploded or collapsed due to some sort of conspiratorial hanky-panky, but I merely would like to read more on the subject and make up my own mind. In the meantime, I did pick up another 9/11 book for today’s write up, Garrett Graff’s The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11. It held my attention long enough to finish it.
Practically everyone of a certain age remembers exactly where they were and what they were doing on 9/11/2001. I was at work in the State Capitol building, where many workers hovered around the wall mounted 20” tube TV in the back room of the cafeteria as the word got around. This book presents in short paragraphs written by various individuals (e.g. family members of those on the planes, first responders, politicians, those that were in the towers and got out, pilots, and air traffic controllers). Their first-hand accounts are easy to digest in these short excerpts, and capture what those individuals experienced from their own perspective. The book takes the reader through the morning of 9/11 into the day after.
On a final note, after reading this book it occurred to me that this would be a cogent choice for a book club discussion, as readers could easily recount their own experiences on 9/11 and the aftermath, which would probably facilitate a nice discussion. It seems as though there is much talk about book club participation and recommendations for and from women, but very little for men. This book could have appeal to men’s groups, or even mixed groups of men and women. This September will be the 25th Anniversary of 9/11, so perhaps something worthy of discussion this fall for Patriot Day.
Graff, Garrett M. The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11. Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster. 2019.
This week’s highlight is a 5″ x 3-1/4″ black and white postcard showing the Kearney Nebraska State Normal School administration building at night with lights on inside and out. This is a “time exposure” taken around 1915. Three bright stars are recorded as slashes, indicating how far in the sky they had moved while the shutter was open and the film was being exposed.
This image is published and owned by the University of Nebraska at Kearney, Archives, Calvin T. Ryan Library. UNK was founded in 1905 as the Nebraska State Normal School at Kearney, became Nebraska State Teachers College in 1921, was renamed Kearney State College in 1963, and joined the Nebraska University system in 1991. The collection shows faculty, students, buildings and activities from the first dozen years of the school’s existence.
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.
In April 2026, the University of California-Berkeley released the first version of their Federal Data Field Guide, a free guide explaining and exploring publicly available federal datasets and how they are collected, maintained, and used.
The guide examines 8 categories of federal data:
Statistical data, measuring population-level characteristics, such as that collected in the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey or the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)’s Consumer Price Index.
Administrative data, collected through routine government operations, such as the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)’s Form 990 filed by nonprofit organizations , or when high school students complete the Department of Education’s FAFSA form to determine financial aid eligibility.
Geospatial data captures spatial and environmental information, through satellite imagery, GPS-enabled surveys, and other location-specific methods. Examples include the North American Bat Monitoring Program and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s Next Generation Weather Radar (NEXRAD).
Scientific data, collected to advance scientific knowledge through both federal scientific agencies and federally-funded institutions, includes programs like the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)’s Framingham Heart Study and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)’s Open Science Data Repository.
Accountability data provides transparency into government functions such as spending and policy implementation. This can include data like the number of Department of Justice’s Freedom of Information Act requests and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s SNAP Application Processing Timeliness rate.
Navigation data helps people access the information, programs, services and/or benefits they need, such as the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)’s Access to Care site, or the National Institute of Health (NIH)’s Clinical Trial registry.
Reference data provides structure, standardization, and consistency across the other data sets. Examples include the National Spatial Reference System from NOAA/National Geodetic Survey, and the National Vulnerability Database from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
The Federal Data Field Guide also examines some of the policies, laws, and regulations that shape the data collection efforts of the federal government, many of which may sound familiar: the Privacy Act of 1974, HIPAA, FIOA, and the Paperwork Reduction Act, among many others.
This guide is a great place to start if you’re curious about what data our federal government collects, as well as how (and why) they go about doing it.
Ross, Denice W. and Marcum, Christopher Steven. 2026. “Federal Data Field Guide.” Version 1. University of California, Berkeley. DOI: https://doi.org/10.15779/J2P043
Learn about ‘Preparing Tech Ready Librarians: A Statewide Initiative’ on next week’s Pretty Sweet TechNCompass Live webinar on Wednesday, May 27 at 10am CT.
Special monthly episodes of NCompass Live! Join the NLC’s Technology Innovation Librarian, Amanda Sweet, as she guides us through the world of library-related Pretty Sweet Tech.
Libraries are being challenged to take on everything from computer basics to artificial intelligence to support job seekers, entrepreneurs, parents, older adults, kids, teens, and pretty much everyone who wants to leverage technology to live a better life. Many libraries have been doing some of this work for decades but remain deeply undervalued and unappreciated in the face of rapidly changing technology. Yet we continue to seek ways to adapt and build new services to meet new community tech needs.
This session will introduce a statewide Tech Ready Librarians initiative to help libraries and community partners work together to share resources, design new services, and come together in learning communities to build better together. In this session you will:
Learn how Digital Navigator models work to leverage the power of ecosystems to fully meet rapidly changing community tech needs.
Explore the growing Tech Ready Nation platform and Resource Hub, designed to support Digital Navigators and accelerate service design.
Hear about upcoming statewide data collection and resource sharing initiatives to highlight the incredible work libraries are already doing.
It’s time for libraries to start sharing their stories, sharing resources, and working together to adapt to the changing world of technology. It may seem like a lot as first, but if we each take one a small piece of the technology puzzle and put them all in one place, eventually the big picture will be easier for everyone to put together.
Upcoming NCompass Live shows:
June 3 – Connected America 2026
June 10 – Law for Librarians
June 17 – Unlocking Nebraska’s Stories: Introducing the Nebraska Literary & History Escape Room Kits
June 24 – Pretty Sweet Tech
July 8 – Library Compliance with the ADA Title II Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Rule
July 15 – Community Literacy Treasure Hunt: The Fun Way to Increase Literacy!
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.
I picked up Good Boy on a whim from the new titles shelf at my local library. I’m working my way through two books that are 550+ pages each, so a slim novella seemed like a nice distraction.
“After a boy vanishes on the outskirts of a small town, a woman spies a mysterious man digging a grave in the exact spot of the disappearance. However, when she confronts him, the man’s true purpose is far more chilling than she could have imagined.”
– back cover
Coming in at 133 pages, I can’t get into the plot too much without giving away spoilers, but it’s been described as “IT meets The Fisherman.”The back cover boasts high praise from Stephen King, with additional endorsements from well-known horror authors in the front matter, including Rachel Harrison, Clay McLeod Chapman, Stephen Graham Jones, Josh Malerman, and Chuck Wendig.
Good Boy is McRobert’s first book, but he’s no stranger to the horror genre. In addition to a PhD in Gothic Literature, he hosts the “Talking Scared” podcast, where he chats up horror authors, going in-depth about the books they write, the books they read, and what really scares them.
This novella is part of a 6-book series called “The Northern Weird Project”, all set in Northern England. If the other 5 are anything like this one, I’m excited to read them all.
McRobert, Neil. (2025). Good Boy. Wild Hunt Books.
May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month (AAPI), so we’re highlighting just one of the many Asian authors in our collections. “Arsenic and Adobo” by Mia P. Manansala (Books on Tape, 2021) is a culinary cozy mystery, full of humor, cooking, and murder. It’s available as an Audiobook through Nebraska OverDrive Libraries. It’s the first novel in a series of six, and you can find all the “Tita Rosie’s Kitchen Mysteries” in Nebraska OverDrive. If you’re interested in more AAPI stories to explore in specially curated “Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage” collection on the main page.
“This breeze-right-through-it mystery mystery follows baker Lila Macapagal as she investigates the murder of her ex-boyfriend, the town’s too-mean food critic, after he dies over a meal in her aunt’s flailing Filipino restaurant. Finding out whether or not Lila can solve the crime and save the restaurant is as satisfying as it is climactic with just the right amount of drama.”
— Bon Appetit
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!
Book Club Kits Rules for Use
These kits can be checked out by the librarians of Nebraska libraries and media centers.
Circulation times are flexible and will be based upon availability. There is no standard check-out time for book club kits.
Please search the collection to select items you wish to borrow and use the REQUEST THIS KIT icon to borrow items.
Contact the Information Desk at the Library Commission if you have any questions: by phone: 800/307-2665, or by email: Information Services Team
This week’s highlight is a 4″x6″ nitrate negative photograph taken 8/13/1937 of the Diamond Gas Station in David City, Nebraska. A one-story, flat-roofed brick building with open garage door and car inside the bay with overhead “Diamond Greasing” sign, front display window with “Diamond” stacks of oil cans and entry door with overhead “Diamond” sign, with three gas pumps in the front flanked by street lights and a display rack with “Diamond” oil cans to one side.
This image is published as part of the Boston Studio Project collection, and is owned by both them and the Thorpe Opera House Foundation. The Boston Studio Collection consists of over 68,000 negatives that record life in and around David City, Nebraska from 1893 to 1979.
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 Nebraska Library Commission has purchased statewide registration! All library directors/staff, Trustees/board members, and Friends of the Library and Foundation representatives receive FREE registration and/or on-demand viewing – a value of $159 per person. Details about sessions and presenters will be announced soon, but there’s no need to wait to register to attend for free.
Registration includes live attendance and on-demand access to three full days of programming, expert speakers, microlearning sessions, and the “Virtual Gala Author Tea.” Programming runs from 10:00 am CST to approximately 3:00 pm CST daily with scheduled breaks. Registrants may participate in some or all program sessions live, and/or watch recordings on-demand. Also: receive a certificate of attendance (for individual live participation or on-demand viewing).
Sessions include:
Tuesday, July 28th – Trustee/Board Member Day
Details coming soon! Save the date, and register now.
Wednesday, July 29th – Foundations & Fundraising Day
Details coming soon! Save the date, and register now.
Thursday, July 30th – Friends of the Library Day
Details coming soon! Save the date, and register now.
Special Events:
Keynote – Speaker will be announced soon.
Past keynote speakers have included Austin Channing Brown and Eric Klinenberg.
Virtual Gala Author Tea – Authors and time will be announced soon.
Join United for Libraries for our yearly Virtual Gala Author Tea. Bring your beverage of choice and enjoy authors talking about their writing experience and latest books.
Invite your library staff and patrons! More details coming soon.
Registration Options – Choose one of the options below to register:
May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, and for today’s Book Club Spotlight, we are revisiting a previously featured author who wrote one of my favorite books from last year, The Samurai’s Garden. Chinese-Japanese American author Gail Tsukiyama, known for introspective historical fiction highlighting her dual ancestral ties, has been recognized as an influential writer and humanitarian across the globe. She was a featured author at the Library of Congress’ first National Book Festival in 2001, a guest speaker at literary and writers’ festivals in Hong Kong, Sydney, Toronto and Vancouver, and she is the current Executive Director at the non-profit Waterbridge Outreach. Tsukiyama’s 2013 novel, A Hundred Flowers, takes a personal look at the impact the Chinese Cultural Revolution and the Hundred Flowers Campaign had on ordinary families.
“Let a hundred flowers bloom; let a hundred schools of thought contend” – Mao Zedong, 1956.
There are many reasons why Tao may have chosen to climb the great kapok tree. It could have been a rush of youthful rebellion that led him to scale up its branches in the early morning light. Or maybe he went in search of the seeds and bark his mother used when making traditional medicine for their neighbors. In truth, Tao climbed the tall tree in his family’s courtyard in hopes of spying White Cloud Mountain off in the distance. If only he could see White Cloud Mountain, his father would return home. Kai Ying’s husband had been gone for a year when Tao decided to climb the kapok tree. Policemen had taken Sheng, like all political dissidents, far away to a labor camp when Mao’s “Hundred Flowers” campaign turned on the intellectuals it previously encouraged. When Tao climbed the kapok tree, Wei harbored a secret that he feared he could never share, giving all his energy and time to his grandson in an act of atonement and love. It is only after Tao falls out of the kapok tree, does a new life begin for the small family.
“But he also remembered the beauty and intellectual curiosity of a country that could have easily caught up with the rest of the world, if she weren’t always being dragged backward.”
– Gail Tsukiyama
Like Tsukiyama’s other works, A Hundred Flowers, is a quiet and introspective novel detailing personal relationships between the family of your birth, and the one that you have chosen along the way. With no strong words or action, A Hundred Flowers is a great read for anyone who is looking for a thoughtful novel to discuss with their Book Club Group. In her signature beautiful and easy flowing prose Tsukiyama uses the backdrop of a beloved country under an intellectually-repressive regime to allow the reader a look into the past in order to learn more about themselves and how it can relate to us today. With a strong belief in the power of historical fiction to engage readers with new ideas and places, Tsukiyama leads her readers to countries beyond their own, in hopes of finding a greater understanding of ourselves as a human race.
“I’m always equally surprised at how the environment of fear can bring out the best and the worst in humanity. But ultimately, it’s the resilience of the human spirit during turbulent times that always remains the most inspiring thing for me.”
If you’re interested in requesting A Hundred Flowers for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 8 copies. (A librarian must request items)
Tsukiyama, Gail. A Hundred Flowers. St. Martin’s Griffin. 2013.
The 2025 FY public library survey data are now available on the NLC website. Thanks to all of you who submitted your statistics. Historical data (back to 1999) are also available on our website. The next survey cycle begins in November, but you should be collecting those statistics now.
Hear about ‘Engaging New Voices in Advocacy: Youth, Trustees, and Everyday Patrons’ on next week’s NCompass Live webinar on Wednesday, May 20 at 10am CT.
As a member of the Illinois Library Association’s Advocacy Committee, I’ve seen how impactful it is when advocacy goes beyond directors and staff. For small libraries, advocacy can feel daunting – but it doesn’t have to be.
This session will showcase practical models for engaging youth, trustees, and patrons as your partners in advocacy. We’ll share examples of storytelling, everyday conversations, and grassroots efforts that build trust and visibility without requiring extra staff or budgets. Small libraries are uniquely positioned to connect personally with their communities – let’s harness that strength to keep our voices strong.
May 27 – Pretty Sweet Tech: Preparing Tech Ready Librarians: A Statewide Initiative
June 3 – Connected America 2026
June 10 – Law for Librarians
June 17 – Unlocking Nebraska’s Stories: Introducing the Nebraska Literary & History Escape Room Kits
June 24 – Pretty Sweet Tech
July 8 – Library Compliance with the ADA Title II Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Rule
July 15 – Community Literacy Treasure Hunt: The Fun Way to Increase Literacy!
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.
How can you be a successful villain, with no experience and no one to train you? You just have to depend on your talking spy cats and unionized dolphins to help you learn the ropes. And trust that they aren’t planning to stab you in the back. It’s all in a day’s work for a Starter Villain.
After being laid off from his job as a reporter at a Chicago newspaper, Charlie moved back into his childhood home to care for his ailing father, and lives there now after his father’s death.
He is trying to secure a bank loan to purchase a local pub when his plans are derailed by his billionaire Uncle Jake passing away and leaving Charlie his business, the third-largest chain of parking structures in North America. Good news, right? With this windfall, Charlie can finally realize his dream of owning the pub.
But, things aren’t what them seem. It turns out the parking garages are actually a front for his uncle’s real business. He is a supervillain, complete with James Bond-style over the top enemies and a volcano island lair. Charlie must learn to navigate this new-to-him underworld, surviving elaborate plots to take him out and steal his uncle’s empire. It’s a wild, imaginative ride with great characters and clever world-building, full of sarcastic humor and insightful storytelling.
Starter Villain is another fun novel by one of my favorite authors, John Scalzi. Like one of his previous books, The Kaiju Preservation Society, it was written during the height of COVID-19 pandemic, when we all needed something to get us through the days. Escapist fiction at its finest.
“In this clever, fast-paced thriller, Hugo Award winner subverts classic supervillain tropes with equal measures of tongue-in-cheek humor and common sense… The result is a breezy and highly entertaining genre send-up.”
This week’s highlight is a promotional piece that describes August Molzer’s musical education and experience in performing for audiences; provides reviews of performances; and, outlines sample concert programs. Photographs of Molzer and two of his professors, Otokar Sevik and Stefan Suchy, have been glued to the item.
August Molzer moved to Wilber, Nebraska, with his family as a boy and studied violin at the Prague Conservatory in Bohemia (Czech Republic) and performed concerts in Europe before returning to Lincoln to teach at both Nebraska Wesleyan University and the University School of Music. Molzer also composed several pieces of music. This piece advertised his performance availability in Nebraska and the area, and Molzer did perform at such places as the Shelby Opera House and the Kerr Opera House in Hastings.
This image is published and owned by the Nebraska Library Commission. The collections include material on the history of libraries in the state of Nebraska, items from the 1930s related to the Nebraska Public Library Commission bookmobile, as well as items showcasing the history of Nebraska’s state institutions.
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.
