Category Archives: General

NCompass Live: Creating and Implementing Library Policies

Learn effective methods for ‘Creating and Implementing Library Policies’ on next week’s NCompass Live webinar, on Wednesday, July 23 at 10am CT.

Policies are a very important piece of how a library is run, but they can be daunting to create or revise for some. In this session, we’ll discuss how to craft policies that fit within your library’s mission statement and goals, are easier to review and revise on a regular basis, and hopefully can be implemented correctly.

Presenter: Scott Childers, Executive Director, Southeast Library System, Lincoln, NE; Christa Porter, Library Development Director, Nebraska Library Commission.

Upcoming NCompass Live shows:

  • July 30 – Pretty Sweet Tech: Introducing AI with Purpose and Practicality
  • Aug. 6 – National Book Festival Near You
  • Aug. 13 – Ditching 1000 Books: A New Initiative
  • Aug. 27 – Pretty Sweet Tech

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.

NOTE:This episode of NCompass Live will be presented online using Zoom. Login instructions will be sent to registered attendees after registration has closed. The Registration End date is listed on each session page, but usually closes on the Monday night before the date of the session.

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#BookFaceFriday “Shane” by Jack Schaefer

Like a #BookFace Cowboy!

Riding out on a horse in a star-spangled rodeo, this week’s #BookFaceFriday is sure to get you in the mood for the Nebraska State Fair or your county rodeo! “Shane” by Jack Schaefer (University of Nebraska Press, 1984) is a classic teen and YA western revolving around the Starrett family and the titular Shane’s arrival on their farm and how he shapes their lives. It’s available as an eBook and audiobook on through Nebraska OverDrive Libraries and is also available as a book club kit through the Nebraska Library Commission. The novel is also part of the Nebraska Publications Clearinghouse, which receives documents every month from all Nebraska state agencies, including the University of Nebraska Press (UNP). UNP books, as well as all Nebraska state documents, are available for checkout by libraries and librarians for their patrons.

“If you read only one Western in your life, this is the one.”

(Roland Smith, author of the Peak Marcello adventure novels)

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

Contact the Information Desk at the Library Commission if you have any questions: by phone: 800/307-2665, or by email: Information Services Team

  1. These kits can be checked out by the librarians of Nebraska libraries and media centers.
  2. Circulation times are flexible and will be based upon availability. There is no standard check-out time for book club kits.
  3. Please search the collection to select items you wish to borrow and use the REQUEST THIS KIT icon to borrow items.
  4. Contact the Information Desk at the Library Commission if you have any questions: by phone: 800/307-2665, or by email: Information Services Team

Love this #BookFace & reading? We suggest checking out all the titles available for book clubs at http://nlc.nebraska.gov/ref/bookclub. Check out our past #BookFaceFriday photos on the Nebraska Library Commission’s Facebook page!

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Throwback Thursday: Scene, Bemis Park, Omaha, Neb.

It’s another #ThrowbackThursday!

Dated around 1907-1920, this 14 x 9 cm color postcard pictures a view of a creek in Bemis Park, located at 34th and Cuming Streets in Omaha, Nebraska.

Bemis was the first park acquired by the Park Commission in 1889. Owners of a strip of land 200 feet wide from 33rd to 36th Streets donated it for a park. Located just north of Cuming Street, it consists primarily of a deep, narrow ravine. Adjoining parcels were purchased, making the park about 10.5 acres. It connects to Hanscom Park via Lincoln and Turner Boulevards.
Source: Wakeley, Arthur. Omaha: The Gate City and Douglas County Nebraska, Chicago: S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, c1917, p. 137.

This image is published and owned by the Omaha Public Library. They have a large collection of 1,100+ postcards and photographs of the Omaha area.

See this collection and many more on the Nebraska Memories archive!

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.

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CCC Library Information Services Classes for Fall 2025

Central Community College classes for the Library Information Services program for Fall 2025 will be starting soon!

Enrollment is open as of April 14, 2025 for classes beginning August 18, 2025. The Library & Information Services Certificate is a 15-credit hour program. All credits can be applied to a Central Community College associate degree.

See details of classes and registration information at https://www.cccneb.edu/lis

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Friday Reads: “Bringing Up Bébé” by Pamela Druckerman

When I picked Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting by Pamela Druckerman to read during my maternity leave, I thought was just in for a cute parenting book with a fun Parisian twist, but it turned out to be a fascinating study of French and American culture surrounding child rearing. Less of a how-to book and more of an anthropologist’s deep dive into french society and culture in a very baptism by fire approach. Newly married to a British sports writer covering soccer/football in France, fellow journalist, Pamela Druckerman moves from New York to Paris to start fresh and begin a whole new life with her partner. As she and her husband embark on this Parisian adventure and begin having children, Druckerman recounts her struggles with pregnancy and raising children in a foreign country as well as a study on the differences she see in the French approach to having and raising children. At times frustrating and lonely, Druckerman navigates prenatal care, french hospital births, newborn sleep issues, childcare, and even child etiquette in Paris. The deeply ingrained culture of raising children in France as additions to your current family and integrating children into your way of life contrasts with the American sensibility of having your life revolve around your children. Fascinating and at times eye opening, I enjoyed the authors honest and raw insights about their journey having children, navigating marriage, and adopting a new hybrid culture for her family.

Druckerman, Pamela. Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting. Penguin Books. 2014.

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#BookFaceFriday “The Peculiar Gift of July” by Ashley Ream

The Peculiar Gift of #BookFaceFriday!

Take a break from real life drama for something a little lighter with this week’s #BookFace. Check out “The Peculiar Gift of July: A Novel” (Dutton, 2025) by Ashley Ream, it’s a heartwarming, magical read featuring Anita Odom, a small town grocer, set in her ways and maybe just a little bit lonely, who’s life is turned upside down when her cousin’s fourteen-year-old daughter shows up on Anita’s doorstep. It’s available as an eBook and Audiobook through Nebraska OverDrive Libraries and is one of two Ashley Ream titles we have in the OverDrive collection.

“Few writers balance vulnerability and wit like Ream, and in The Peculiar Gift of July, she does so with a storyteller’s lightest touch…The setting may be fictional, but the emotional terrain of is rooted in real, lived feeling: grief, caregiving, community and the ways we find family in the most unexpected places…The book’s magical realism is subtle, more sparkle than spectacle…It’s also deeply funny. Ream has a sharp eye for the odd rhythms of community life…The shimmer is everywhere. It’s in the scent of cardamom from the bakery. In the lonely ache of people trying to do right by each other. In the way a town, however eccentric, can knit itself back together around the edges of a heartbreak.”

The Seattle Times

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!

Love this #BookFace & reading? We suggest checking out all the titles available for book clubs at http://nlc.nebraska.gov/ref/bookclub. Check out our past #BookFaceFriday photos on the Nebraska Library Commission’s Facebook page!

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$60,000 in Library Improvement Grants Awarded to Nebraska Public Libraries

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
July 10, 2025

FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Christa Porter
402-471-3107
800-307-2665

$60,000 in Library Improvement Grants Awarded to Nebraska Public Libraries

The Nebraska Library Commission recently awarded Library Improvement Grants for 2025 totaling $60,000 to twenty-seven Nebraska public libraries and institutions.

These competitive grants were funded with state funds allocated through the Nebraska Legislature and administered by the Nebraska Library Commission. These Library Improvement Grants help to facilitate growth and development of library programs and services by supplementing local funding with state funds designated for these purposes.

In order to be funded, projects had to meet one or more of the following purposes:

  • Facilitate access to resources . . . for the purpose of cultivating an educated and informed citizenry;
  • Encourage resource sharing among . . . libraries for the purpose of achieving economical and efficient delivery of library services to the public;
  • Promote literacy, education, and lifelong learning and to enhance and expand the services and resources provided by libraries, including those services and resources relating to workforce development, 21st century skills, and digital literacy skills;
  • Ensure the preservation of knowledge and library collections in all formats and to enable libraries to serve their communities during disasters;
  • Promote library services that provide users with access to information through national, state, local, regional, and international collaborations and networks.

Local libraries also had to provide at least a 25% match in order to receive the funds.

The libraries receiving grants are:

  • Arapahoe Public Library
  • Bayard Public Library
  • Bellevue Public Library
  • Garfield County Library, Burwell
  • Elmwood Public Library
  • Falls City Library & Arts Center
  • Fullerton Public Library
  • Genoa Public Library
  • Lied Imperial Public Library
  • Kimball Public Library
  • La Vista Public Library
  • Laurel Community Learning Center
  • Lincoln City Libraries
  • Papillion Public Library
  • Plainview Public Library
  • Baright Public Library, Ralston
  • Lied Randolph Public Library
  • Ravenna Public Library
  • Sargent Township Library
  • Shelton Public Library
  • South Sioux City Public Library
  • Stanton Public Library
  • Maxine White-Sutherland Public Library
  • Valley Public Library
  • Lied Lincoln Township Library, Wausa
  • Maltman Memorial Public Library, Wood River
  • Yutan Public Library

The projects and services planned include: desktop computers, laptops, monitors, printers, Microsoft software, bookcases/shelving, tables, chairs, makerspace equipment, self-checkout stations, staff desk, a 3D scanner, an Infinity Game Table, cell phone charging lockers, a book return, a bike rack, solar lights, Experience Kits for adults, and AWE Early Learning Literacy Workstations.

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.

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The most up-to-date news releases from the Nebraska Library Commission are always available on the Library Commission Website, http://nlc.nebraska.gov/publications/newsreleases.

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Throwback Thursday: Fountain Beach Swimming Pool

Cool off this #ThrowbackThursday!

Dated around 1920-1929, you can see a large white building with a sign reading “Fountain Beach” behind a swimming pool in this 5-1/4″ x 3″ black and white photograph. The pool contains a diving platform and fountain with water running from it. Printed on the bottom of the photograph is: “Fountain Beach, Fairmont, Nebr.”

The owner of the swimming pool was Ed Hall. In 1919, he built the Fountain Beach swimming pool at 709 4th Avenue. It was 125 x 180 feet with a bottom of crushed rock. It had a water circulating system connected with a artistic fountain which justified its name. Dances were held in the Fountain Beach Pavilion on Wednesday and Saturday during swimming season. The pools closed in 1929 after a drowning.

This image is published and owned by the Fairmount Public Library. In partnership with the Fillmore County Historical Society, they’ve digitized photographs from their collections depicting the history of Fillmore County. The photographs in this collection include images of local businesses, schools, and churches, as well as the Fairmont Army Airfield, which was used during World War II.

See this collection and many more on the Nebraska Memories archive!

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.

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Nebraska Sandhills Book Available on BARD!

The Chosen Land: A Sand Hills Life” by Ira Moss 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 partly autobiographical work which tells of the Moss family’s experiences homesteading in the Sandhills of Nebraska and their struggle to make a good life for themselves. For high school and adult readers.

TBBS borrowers can request “The Chosen Land: A Sand Hills Life” DBC02071 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.

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#BookFaceFriday “Miss Liberty” by Erin Moonyeen Haley

Miss Congeniality meets #BookFace!

Practice your pageant wave with this week’s #BookFaceFriday, “Miss Liberty” by Erin Moonyeen Haley (Storytide, 2025), a novel for 3-7 graders. Hailed as Dumplin’ meets the small-town drama of Gilmore Girls, this fun fourth of July read is the perfect summer read for kids.

“In this heartfelt debut, Haley sensitively portrays a character who’s struggling to hold on to the comfort of the familiar while contending with fear regarding an uncertain future. Savvy’s personal ambitions collide with her desire to support her sister’s efforts making for engaging, relatable familial and internal drama.”

—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

The Nebraska Library Commission receives a large number of children’s and young adult books sent to us as review copies from book publishers. When our Children and Young Adult Library Services Coordinator, Sally Snyder, is done with them, the review copies are available for the Library System Directors to distribute to school and public libraries in their systems. You can see some of her favorites of the past year in the recent NCompass Live webinar episodes: Best Teen Reads of 2024 and Best Children’s Books of 2024.

Love this #BookFace & reading? Check out our past #BookFaceFriday photos on the Nebraska Library Commission’s Facebook page!

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NCompass Live: Printing, Scanning, and Faxing at the Library

Learn best practices for providing printing, scanning, and faxing to your library patrons on next week’s NCompass Live webinar, on Wednesday, July 9 at 10am CT.

Printing has become a “hot app” for libraries. Many people don’t have printers at home or got burned by the expense and unreliability of “affordable” inkjet printers. When they need to print, scan, and/or fax something, they will likely go to their library to do it. Andrew “Sherm” Sherman, NLC Library Technology Support Specialist, will provide recommendations on the best makes and models of printers to purchase and the best practices for providing printing, scanning, and faxing to your patrons.

Upcoming NCompass Live shows:

  • July 23 – Creating and Implementing Library Policies
  • July 30 – Pretty Sweet Tech
  • Aug. 6 – National Book Festival Near You
  • Aug. 13 – Ditching 1000 Books: A New Initiative

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.

NOTE:This episode of NCompass Live will be presented online using Zoom. Login instructions will be sent to registered attendees after registration has closed. The Registration End date is listed on each session page, but usually closes on the Monday night before the date of the session.

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Throwback Thursday: “America It’s Up to You”

It’s an all American #ThrowbackThursday!

Dated 1917, “America It’s Up to You” is a song written by Alevia Chins and Horace Haws of Omaha, Nebraska. Half the price of the music was donated in support of the Red Cross during World War I. Originally published by Haws & Chins Co. Music Publishers in Fairbury, Nebraska.

Verse 1:

You love the freedom that Old Glory gives you,
You know the men to whom the credit’s due
They’re men that gladly gave their lives to save their sweethearts and their wives
They were Americans thru and thru
The country’s going to need a lot of men
There’s lots of them will not return again
But our flag we must protect they must treat it with respect
America it’s up to you

Verse 2:

 Don’t leave the fighting to the other fellow,
Don’t let them say we’ve got a streak of yellow
Remember Lincoln and your flag the chance to fight should make you glad
When you think of what it means to you
Don’t go and hide behind your sweethearts skirt
Don’t let them say Americans will shirk
Let us all go forth and fight for our freedom and our right
America it’s up to you

Chorus:

America its up to you
To show what you can do
We must take this war to heart all of us must do our part
And fight for the Red White and Blue
The president has called on you
Show him that you’re true blue
There’s a debt we owe to France to pay her here’s our chance
America it’s up to you

This image and musical performance is published and owned by the Polley Music Library (Lincoln City Libraries, Lincoln, Nebraska), which contains just over two hundred fifty pieces of Nebraska sheet music, as well as concert programs, manuscripts, theatre programs, photographs, and other Nebraska memorabilia which features an element of music. You can also listen to a dozen performances of selections from this music collection performed by local musicians. 

See this collection and many more on the Nebraska Memories archive!

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.

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Happy Birthday Nebraska Publications Clearinghouse!

*This post is an update to one originally published for the Clearinghouse’s 51st birthday in 2023, written by Mary Sauers.

July 2025 marks the 53rd anniversary of Nebraska Publications Clearinghouse operations!

Prior to 1972 there was no comprehensive program in the state for collecting and preserving Nebraska government publications. In 1971 the Nebraska Library Commission began surveying other states and Nebraska libraries to find out how such a program should work and drafting proposed legislation to give the program legal authority. In January 1972 LB 1284 was introduced in the Nebraska Legislature, passed, and signed by Governor Exon in March, establishing the Nebraska Publications Clearinghouse. The program was launched in July of that year.

State Depository Program
“There is hereby created, as a division of the Nebraska Library Commission, a Nebraska Publications Clearinghouse. The clearinghouse shall establish and operate a publications collection and depository system for the use of Nebraska citizens.” The original legislation has been amended several times to exclude Junior Colleges and reduce the number of mandatory copies that agencies must send, but the basic operation of the program remains the same.

Federal Depository Program
The legislation also directed the Library Commission to provide access to federal publications. “The Nebraska Publications Clearinghouse shall provide access to local, state, federal and other governmental publications to state agencies and legislators and through interlibrary loan service to citizens of the state.” The Commission began participating in the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) in 1972. It served as Nebraska’s Regional Federal Depository until 1984, when Love Library at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln became the Regional. The Commission is now a selective depository and has reduced its selections to about 2% of the publications offered through the program.

How Publications are Collected

Agencies are currently defined as “every state office, officer, department, division, bureau, board, commission, and agency of the state and, when applicable, all subdivisions of each, including state institutions of higher education defined as all state-supported colleges and universities”

The first challenge facing the new Clearinghouse service was creating a comprehensive list of these agencies. The next challenge was getting them to send their publications. Unlike some other states, Nebraska does not use a central printing agency that could make extra copies for the documents program. A network of contact persons is used instead.

“Every state agency head or his or her appointed records officer shall notify the Nebraska Publications Clearinghouse of his or her identity.” Every few years the Library Commission sends agency directors letters with a form for designating an agency contact person. The contacts are sent a packet of information about the Clearinghouse service.

In the early years of the program agencies supplied more copies to the Clearinghouse than they do now and both the statutorily designated recipients and the contract depositories received paper publications. Space restrictions at the depositories, cost limitations for the agencies, and a desire to preserve publications in a long-lasting format resulted in a reduction in the number of paper copies normally required from each agency.

The current statute reads “The records officer shall upon release of a state publication deposit four copies and a short summary, including author, title, and subject, of each of its state publications with the Nebraska Publications Clearinghouse for record purposes…. Additional copies, including sale items, shall also be deposited in the Nebraska Publications Clearinghouse in quantities certified to the agencies by the clearinghouse as required to meet the needs of the Nebraska publications depository system, with the exception that the University of Nebraska Press shall only be required to deposit four copies of its publications.”

One copy is kept at the Library Commission and copies are forwarded to the Nebraska State Historical Society and Library of Congress. Until the spring of 2005 microfiche copies were produced from the fourth copy and distributed to Nebraska depositories.

State Agency Responsibilities

Processing and Cataloging

Once the list of agencies was compiled in 1972 a classification system based on agency names (NEDOCS) was created and the first Guide to State Agencies was published. The Guide lists agencies with their five digit alpha-numeric code and traces agency creation, mergers, discontinuance, and classification number changes. Originally a print publication reissued every few years, the Guide is now continuously updated online.

The Statute states that “The Nebraska Publications Clearinghouse shall publish and distribute regularly to contracting depository libraries, other libraries, state agencies and legislators, an official list of state publications with an annual cumulation. The official list shall provide a record of each agency’s publishing and show author, agency, title and subject approaches.”From 1972 until 1991 The Nebraska State Publications Checklist was produced. The Checklist included abstracts with a title, subject and agency index. It was issued on microfiche several times a year with an annual cumulation. In 1992 the Checklist was discontinued and publications began receiving full OCLC cataloging. Nebraska publications now are listed in the WorldCat, the OCLC database of catalog records contributed by its member libraries worldwide. The WorldCat can be searched without cost by any Nebraska citizen from NebraskAccess with a password obtained from their local library. Older records from the Checklist can also be searched using the Library Commission catalog. Publications received are listed in What’s Up Doc and compiled into an annual publication. 

The Depository Program

Contrary to what the word “clearinghouse” might make one think, the Library Commission is not a warehouse distributing giveaway or sale copies of Nebraska publications. The Commission is in fact prohibited by law from doing that. At first copies were forwarded to the Nebraska State Historical Society, Library of Congress, and Center for Research Libraries. This was amended later to exclude the Center for Research Libraries.

The legislation also authorized the Library Commission to “enter into depository contracts with any municipal or county public library, state college or state university library, and out-of-state research libraries. The requirements for eligibility to contract as a depository library shall be established by the Nebraska Publications Clearinghouse. The standards shall include and take into consideration the type of library, ability to preserve such publications and to make them available for public use, and also such geographical locations as will make the publications conveniently accessible to residents in all areas of the state.”

By 1975 contracts had been signed with six institutions willing to serve as depositories. More depositories were added over the years, bringing the total since 1990 to 13 plus the Nebraska State Historical Society.
Depository Library Responsibilities

Making Government Information Accessible

Internet technology has created an opportunity to greatly improve public access to government information. Most state agencies now post key publications to their web sites, and much legislative information is available online. The Library Commission was already making extensive use of the Internet to direct users to Nebraska government information, and had created special websites such as Nebraska State Government Publications Online and Nebraska Legislators, Past and Present.

In 2005 breakdown of the microfiche camera at the state Records Management Division led to a decision to discontinue fiche production and redirect the program toward providing online access to the same high-priority documents that were formerly sent to depositories on microfiche. They are downloaded or scanned, archived on a Library Commission server, and searchable via Nebraska State Government Publications Online and the NLC catalog. Instead of microfiche, depositories receive regular alerts via What’s Up Doc blog postings which include stable URLs that can be used in library catalog records.

The Library Commission partners with the Official State of Nebraska Web Site to offer an “Ask a Librarian” link citizens can use to email or telephone our reference desk. Many government information links are provided from our NebraskAccess site.

Resources for Government Information

Formats and distribution methods may change, but the Publications Clearinghouse will continue to use new technology and strategies for making government information accessible to Nebraskans.

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Book Briefs: New University of Nebraska Press Books at the Nebraska Publications Clearinghouse

The Nebraska Publications Clearinghouse receives documents every month from all Nebraska state agencies, including the University of Nebraska Press (UNP).  UNP books, as well as all Nebraska state documents, are available for checkout by libraries and librarians for their patrons.

Here are the UNP books the Clearinghouse received in May and June, 2025:

At the Corner of Past and Future: a Collection of Life Stories, by Pamela Carter Joern.

With keen observation and deep reflection, Pamela Carter Joern probes her life. No topic is too small or too sacred, from gutting chickens to Gaudí’s cathedral. Through a range of experiences—growing up in rural Nebraska, raising children, surviving cancer, becoming a writer—she explores the tenuous link between memory and truth. Joern displays a gift for mining wisdom through surprising connections, juxtaposing her father’s life to the discoveries of Isaac Newton or the writer’s task to the ancient art of alchemy. She weds philosophical insight and spiritual imagination and laces this amalgam with candor and wit, resulting in a work that is engaging, intimate, and illuminating.

Into the Void: Adventures of the Spacewalkers, by John Youskauskas and Melvin Croft. Series: Outward Odyssey: A People’s History of Spaceflight.

The world had been fascinated with astronauts and spaceflight since well before the first crewed launches in 1961, when Yuri Gagarin, Alan Shepard, and John Glenn became household names. But when Alexei Leonov of the Soviet Union exited his spacecraft in March of 1965, a new era in spaceflight began. And when Ed White, clad in his gleaming space suit with a large American flag on his left shoulder, eased himself outside his Gemini spacecraft later that year, Americans too had a new space hero. They also learned a new acronym: EVA, short for extravehicular activity, more commonly known as “spacewalking.”

Though few understood the tremendous risks White was taking in his twenty-two-minute space walk, Americans watched with immense pride and patriotism as White, tethered to Gemini 4, propelled himself around the spacecraft with a pressurized oxygen-fueled zip gun. But White’s struggle to fit his space-suited body back inside the claustrophobic Gemini spacecraft and close the hatch confirmed what NASA should have known: spacewalking wasn’t easy.

More than fifty years and hundreds of space walks later, the art of EVA has evolved. The first space walks, preparation for walking on the moon, intended to prove that humans could function in raw space inside their own miniature spacecraft—a space suit. After the end of the lunar program, both the Americans and Soviets turned their focus to long-duration flights on space stations in low Earth orbit, and space walks were crucial to the success of these missions. The construction of the International Space Station—the most sophisticated spacecraft to date—required hundreds of hours of work by spacewalkers from many countries.

In Into the Void John Youskauskas and Melvin Croft tell the unique story of those who have ventured outside the spacecraft into the unforgiving vacuum of space as we set our sights on the moon, Mars, and beyond.

Invisible Contrarian: Essays in Honor of Stephen O. Murray, edited by Regna Darnell and Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz. Series: Critical Studies in the History of Anthropology

In Invisible Contrarian Regna Darnell and Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz have assembled scholars to memorialize and celebrate the prescient vision and interdisciplinary contributions of the late Stephen O. Murray (1950–2019), who did pioneering research in ethnolinguistics and anthropology of gender and homosexuality. His socially relevant work continues to provide a cogent example of an emergent, forward-looking anthropology for the twenty-first century.

Murray’s wide-ranging work included linguistics, regional ethnography in Latin America and Asia, activism, history of anthropology in relation to social sciences, and migration studies.

Along with a complete list of his publications, Invisible Contrarian highlights Murray’s methodological innovations and includes key writings that remain little known, since he never pursued a tenured research position.  Murray’s significant, prolific contributions deserve not only to be reexamined but to be shared with contemporary and future audiences. Ideal both as a primer for those who have not yet read Murray’s work and as an in-depth resource for those already familiar with him, this volume demonstrates the wide-ranging accomplishments of a man who modeled how to be an independent scholar outside an academic position.

James Cowles Prichard of the Red Lodge: a Life of Science During the Age of Improvement, by Margaret M. Crump. Series: Critical Studies in the History of Anthropology

EIn James Cowles Prichard of the Red Lodge Margaret M. Crump offers the first in-depth biography of the early Victorian British scientist James Cowles Prichard (1786–1848). An intellectual giant in the developing human sciences, he was a pioneering psychiatric theorist in the formative years of the discipline and one of Europe’s leading anthropologists. With evocative detail, Crump draws readers into the social and cultural milieu of early nineteenth-century Bristol, a world of pre-scientific medicine and the emerging fields of anthropology and psychiatry.

As the century’s premier theorist of the common origin of all humanity, known as monogenism, Prichard asserted the affinity and equal capacity of all humans. Even though he was politically and socially conservative, Prichard worked behind the scenes to support abolitionism, and he advocated for the humane treatment of colonial British subjects. He challenged the rising tide of scientific racism starting to fester in the academic halls of Europe and the United States. He is also considered one of the pioneers of Celtic linguistics. His influential publications on neurological and psychological conditions called for the humane care and treatment of the mentally ill and mentally disabled and protection of their civil liberties. Born into changing, challenging times, during a revolution in British culture and at the threshold of modern science, Prichard fully embodied the Age of Improvement.

Prison Town: Making the Carceral State in Elmira, New York, by Andrea R. Morrell. Series: Anthropology of Contemporary North America

Elmira, a town of about twenty-six thousand people in central New York, is in some ways a typical town—with quiet, tree-lined residential streets, an art museum, local coffee shops, and a small college. The city, however, is best known as home to Elmira Correctional Facility and, until its closure in March 2022, the Southport Correctional Facility. Hundreds of locals have worked at the prisons, the town plays host to visitors of the incarcerated, and local medical institutions provide treatment to prisoners. The prisons and Elmira are inseparable.

In Prison Town Andrea R. Morrell illustrates the converging and shifting fault lines of race and class through a portrait of a prison town undergoing deindustrialization as it chooses the path of prison expansion. In this ethnography, Morrell highlights the contradictions of prison work as work that allows a middle-class salary and lifestyle but trades in other forms of stigma. Guards, prisoners, prisoners’ families, and meager amounts of money and care work travel through spaces of free and unfree via the porous borders between prison and town. As Morrell captures the rapid expansion of the carceral state into upstate New York from the perspective of a small city with two prisons, she demonstrates how the prison system’s racialized, gendered, and classed dispossession has crossed its own porous borders into the city of Elmira.

Rising Above: Language Revitalization in the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, by Benjamin E. Frey. Series: Many Wests

Today there are roughly two hundred first-language Cherokee speakers among the seventeen thousand citizens of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina. In 2019 the United Keetoowah Band, the Cherokee Nation, and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians declared a state of emergency for the Cherokee language.

In Rising Above Eastern Band Cherokee citizen Benjamin E. Frey chronicles his odyssey of being introduced to the Cherokee language with trepidation as a young adult and his eventual work revitalizing the Cherokee language in a Cherokee way. In the first book to examine the process of language shift and revitalization among this band, Frey explores the institutional, economic, and social factors that drove the language shift from Cherokee to English, interpreted through the lens of a member of the Eastern Band Cherokee community in conversation with other community members. Rising Above navigates Frey’s upbringing, the intricacies of language and relationships, the impact of trauma, and the quest for joy and healing within the community.

In addition to language documentation and preservation, Rising Above explores how to breathe new life into the language and community, using storytelling to discuss the Cherokee language, its grammatical components, and its embedded cultural ideologies alongside its interactions with broader American society.

Sacred Wonderland: The History of Religion in Yellowstone, by Thomas S. Bremer. Series: America’s Public Lands

ince its beginning in 1872, Yellowstone National Park has been an alluring destination with significance beyond its stunning mountain scenery, abundant wildlife, and the world’s largest collection of geysers and hot springs. Once deemed America’s “wonderland,” this national park has long been a repository of meanings for and aspirations of the American people. In Sacred Wonderland Thomas S. Bremer explores the historical role of religion in making Yellowstone National Park an American icon.

The park’s religious history spans nineteenth-century evangelical Christian ideas of Manifest Destiny in addition to religiously informed conservationist movements. Bremer touches on white supremacist interpretations of the park in the early twentieth century and a controversial new religious movement that arrived on the scene in the 1980s. From early assumptions about Native American beliefs to eclectic New Age associations, from early rivalries between nineteenth-century Protestants and Catholics to twentieth-century ecumenical cooperation, religion has been woven into the cultural fabric of Yellowstone. Bremer reveals a range of religious beliefs, practices, and interpretations that have contributed to making the park an appealing tourist destination and a significant icon of the American nation.

Too Good to Be Altogether Lost: Rediscovering Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House Books, by Pamela Smith Hill.

Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the well-known Little House series, wrote stories from her childhood because they were “too good to be altogether lost.” And those stories seemed far from being lost during the remainder of her lifetime and through most of the twentieth century. They were translated into dozens of languages; generations of children read them at school; and dedicated readers made pilgrimages to the settings of the Little House books. With the release of NBC’s Little House on the Prairie series in 1974, Wilder was well on her way to becoming an international literary superstar. Simultaneously, however, the novels themselves began to slip from view, replaced by an onslaught of assumptions and questions about Wilder’s values and politics and even about the books’ authenticity. From the 1980s, a slow but steady critical crescendo began to erode Wilder’s literary reputation.

In Too Good to Be Altogether Lost, Wilder expert Pamela Smith Hill dives back into the Little House books, closely examining Wilder’s text, her characters, and their stories. Hill reveals that these gritty, emotionally complex novels depict a realistic coming of age for a girl in the American West. This realism in Wilder’s novels, once perceived as a fatal flaw, can lead to essential discussions not only about the past but about the present—and the underlying racism young people encounter when reading today. Hill’s fresh approach to Wilder’s books, including surprising revelations about Wilder’s novel The First Four Years, shows how this author forever changed the literary landscape of children’s and young adult literature in ways that remain vital and relevant today.

The Whiz Kids: How the 1950 Phillies Took the Pennant, Lost the World Series, and Changed Philadelphia Baseball Forever, by Dennis Snelling.

Before the 1950 World Series, the Philadelphia Phillies were infamous for a record-breaking lack of achievement that dated from their conception in 1883 through the 1940s. When twenty-eight-year-old Robert Carpenter Jr. took over in 1944, the Phillies had won only a single National League title in more than sixty years. For the next five years, Carpenter and the newly hired general manager, Herb Pennock, would overhaul the team’s operations, building a farm system from scratch and spending a fortune on young talent to build a team that would gain immense popularity and finally bring a National League pennant in 1950.

Nicknamed the “Whiz Kids” because they had so many players under thirty, the team caught lightning in a bottle for one season. Although they lost the World Series to the New York Yankees, the team became legendary in Philadelphia and beyond. The Whiz Kids is about a team that shocked everyone by winning, and then shocked everyone by never winning again. It includes a cast of characters and unusual storylines: a first baseman targeted for murder by a woman he had never met; a young catcher from Nebraska, Richie Ashburn, who became a Hall of Fame center fielder and later voice of the team for nearly three decades; a left fielder who lived and played in the shadow of his legendary father, then inspired Ernest Hemingway with the most legendary swing of a bat in franchise history; and a thirty-three-year-old bespectacled relief pitcher who won the Most Valuable Player Award with an undertaker as his personal pitching coach. The team succeeded under the watchful eye of its young owner, whose father handed him the team, and a college professor manager, only to see it slowly crumble as the slowest in the National League to integrate.

The Whiz Kids recounts the history of a team that, though hand-built to be champions, fell short—yet remains legendary anyway.

**Pictures and Synopses courtesy of University of Nebraska Press.

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What’s Up Doc? New State Agency Publications at the Nebraska Library Commission

New state agency publications have been received at the Nebraska Library Commission for May and June, 2025.  Included are reports from the Nebraska Department of Administrative Services, the Nebraska State Historical Society, the Nebraska Coordinating Commission for Postsecondary Education, various Nebraska Legislative Committees, and titles from University of Nebraska Press, to name a few.

With a few exceptions, such as 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 Aimee Owen, Government Information Services Librarian; or contact Bonnie Henzel, State Documents Staff Assistant.

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NCompass Live: Creative Aging Outreach Opportunities for Libraries

Learn how to host a Creative Aging Arts Program for older adults at your public library, with grants available from the Nebraska Arts Council, on next week’s NCompass Live webinar, on Wednesday, July 2 at 10am CT.

Join us to learn about the Creative Aging Arts Program (CAAP), a program of the Nebraska Arts Council (NAC). Thanks to special funding for CAAP in libraries, grants are available for artist-led workshops during fiscal year 2025 (July 1, 2025 – June 30, 2026). These grants support sequential, interactive workshops that are led by NAC Roster teaching artists who’ve completed training to engage older adults.

Join NAC Program Specialist Anne Alston and NAC Program Coordinator Joshua Brown, as well as the Louisville Library Director, Michelle Daniels, who will share her experience with CAAP at her library. During this webinar, you will:

  • Hear about how CAAP can help libraries address community outreach goals.
  • Learn how CAAP addresses issues of loneliness and isolation among older adults.
  • Find out about the steps involved with applying for a grant, hiring an artist, and hosting a series of artist-led workshops for older adults.

Upcoming NCompass Live shows:

  • July 9 – Printing, Scanning, and Faxing at the Library
  • July 30 – Pretty Sweet Tech
  • Aug. 13 – Ditching 1000 Books: A New Initiative

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.

NOTE:This episode of NCompass Live will be presented online using Zoom. Login instructions will be sent to registered attendees after registration has closed. The Registration End date is listed on each session page, but usually closes on the Monday night before the date of the session.

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#BookFaceFriday “Cat + Gamer: Volume 1” by Wataru Nadatani

You cat to be kitten me right meow, it’s #BookFaceFriday!

Cat got your tongue with this adorable #BookFace? “Cat + Gamer: Volume 1” by Wataru Nadatani (Dark Horse Manga, 2022) is the first book in a collection of eight manga novels. Only recently published in English, this manga series is hailed as a cute, fun, and heart-warming story of a gamer learning to live with a cat. It’s available as an eBook through Nebraska OverDrive Libraries: Kids & Teens and is currently in the “New Titles” collection. Featured on the Kids & Teens main page, this collection has the 200 latest editions to the collection.

“Although the protagonist, Riko, is an adult, the overall story is still appealing to younger audiences because of the cute cat hijinks and the focus on video games over Riko’s life as an OL (office lady). In many ways, the manga is about both how to raise a cat and the basics of Japanese video game culture. This focus is why the series ultimately has a younger appeal and is relevant to all ages. There truly is something for everyone, unless for some blasphemous reason the person doesn’t like cats (which is preposterous).”

Manga Librarian

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!

Love this #BookFace & reading? We suggest checking out all the titles available for book clubs at http://nlc.nebraska.gov/ref/bookclub. Check out our past #BookFaceFriday photos on the Nebraska Library Commission’s Facebook page!

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Throwback Thursday: 16th Street from Harney Street, Omaha

Take a walk on the town this #ThrowbackThursday!

This 14 x 9 cm color postcard has a birds-eye view looking north along 16th Street from Harney Street, in Omaha, Nebraska. The large building in the upper left is the New York Life Building at the northeast corner of 17th & Farnam. The conical topped building on the right hand side of the street is the Paxton Block at the northeast corner of 16th & Farnam. A sign for the Schlitz Cafe and Hotel is also seen on the building at the northwest corner of 16th & Harney. At the far end of 16th street on the west side is the clock tower for the old post office building. The image was probably taken from the sixteen story City National Bank building built on the southeast corner of 16th & Harney. There are several pedestrians and early model cars seen.

This image is published and owned by the Omaha Public Library. They have a large collection of 1,100+ postcards and photographs of the Omaha area.

See this collection and many more on the Nebraska Memories archive!

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.

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NCompass Live: Nebraska Open Meetings Act: 2025 Overview and Update

Join us for a 2025 Overview and Update on Nebraska’s Open Meetings Act on next week’s NCompass Live webinar, on Wednesday, June 25 at 10am CT.

Public library boards for communities of all sizes in Nebraska are required to follow our state’s Open Meetings Act when holding their meetings. In this session, we’ll point out some of the major points of this state law for library boards, changes for 2025, and some of the consequences of not following Open Meeting law.

Note: This topic is very Nebraska specific. If you are attending from another state some of the things we discuss may not be applicable for your library boards.

Presenters: Scott Childers, Executive Director, Southeast Library System, Lincoln, NE; Christa Porter, Library Development Director, Nebraska Library Commission.

Upcoming NCompass Live shows:

  • July 2 – Creative Aging Outreach Opportunities for Libraries
  • July 9 – Printing, Scanning, and Faxing at the Library
  • July 30 – Pretty Sweet Tech
  • Aug. 13 – Ditching 1000 Books: A New Initiative

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.

NOTE:This episode of NCompass Live will be presented online using Zoom. Login instructions will be sent to registered attendees after registration has closed. The Registration End date is listed on each session page, but usually closes on the Monday night before the date of the session.

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#BookFaceFriday “The Southpaw” by Mark Harris

Take me out to the #BookFace!

If you’re a fan of America’s greatest pastime or you just love a slow afternoon at the ballpark check out this week’s #BookFaceFriday, “The Southpaw” by Mark Harris and Henry W. Wiggin (Bobbs-Merrill, 1953) it would be a great choice for your next read. This novel revolves around a left-handed pitcher on a fictional New York baseball team, it is a part of the Nebraska Publications Clearinghouse, which receives documents every month from all Nebraska state agencies, including the University of Nebraska Press (UNP). UNP books, as well as all Nebraska state documents, are available for checkout by libraries and librarians for their patrons.

“As the temperature warmed up in recent days, there was no better way to prepare for the season than to reread Mark Harris’s “The Southpaw, ” one of the finest sports books I know. . . . Harris loves the game itself, and he never loses sight of its value to America.” —George Vecsey, “The New York Times”

This week’s #BookFace model is Bruce Oorlog, NLC’s Mail/Material Specialist and avid baseball fan!

Love this #BookFace & reading? We suggest checking out all the titles available for book clubs at http://nlc.nebraska.gov/ref/bookclub. Check out our past #BookFaceFriday photos on the Nebraska Library Commission’s Facebook page!

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