Computers in Libraries 2024 Conference (March 12-March 14) Discount

Computers in Libraries logo

The Nebraska Library Commission is offering a group discount to all Nebraska librarians who attend the Computers in Libraries 2024 conference. This year it will be held at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City, Arlington, VA, from March 12th through March 14th, 2024. Detailed information about the conference can be found on the conference web site.

This year the Gold Pass will be available for the group rate of $679 (regular rate is $929). The Full 3-day Pass will be $399 (regular rate is $639). No discount rates are available for the preconference workshops, unless purchased as part of a Gold Pass.

In addition, a discounted price of $629 (regularly $779) on the Library Leaders Summit (includes all three days of CIL) is also available.

To receive the discount:

  1. Go to the Computers in Libraries 2024 Registration page: https://secure.infotoday.com/RegForms/ComputersinLibraries/
  2. Type priority code 24NLC in the Priority Code field at the top of the form, and click the “Activate Code” button. Discounted rates should appear on the registration form after you successfully activate the code.
  3. If you prefer, in lieu of the previous two steps use this embedded code link: https://secure.infotoday.com/RegForms/ComputersinLibraries/?Priority=24NLC
  4. Complete and submit the online form by the deadline.

Deadline: Online registrations can be made until February 9th to receive the discounted rates. Please note that if the deadline is extended for regular registration, your deadline will also be extended. After this time, rates will go up by $30 (Gold and 3-Day), and $50 (Library Leaders).

If you have questions, please contact Susan Knisely

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Book Club Spotlight – Tales of Burning Love

Cover of Tales of Burning Love by Louise Erdrich. A woman dressed in red lays seductively on a bed, her hand resting against her cheek. Her face is obscured by a blue rabbit mask

Today’s Book Club Spotlight is a title from prolific Ojibwe (Chippewa)/ German-American author Louise Erdrich! And I can’t think of a better author to start off Native American Heritage Month with. A Pulitzer Prize Winner, Erdrich was one of the first women admitted to Dartmouth College, later becoming the writer in residence for their Native American Studies Program. Today’s title, Tales of Burning Love, is the 5th in her series Love Medicine, following a community in and around a fictional Ojibwe reservation. 

We are introduced to Jack Mauser on the day he met, married, and lost his first wife. Now, years later, his four other ex-wives gather together after tragedy and find themselves retracing the steps of their predecessor. Dot, the last wife; Candice, the young mother; Marlis, the dentist; and Eleanor, the only one who still loves him. All four women, unable to cut themselves entirely from Mauser, were taken in at one point or another by his earnest but selfish ways. Stuck in Jack’s car during a blizzard, they recall their relationships with the man as wild and passionate as the storm outside. 

“Love is brutalizing, a raw force, frail as blossoms, tough as a catgut wire.”

Louise Erdrich

Tales of Burning Love is about more than just blind, passionate love. It follows the trauma of loss, ruinous devotion, and religious ecstasy. The stories the wives tell intermingle and blow with the raging storm outside. While Jack Mauser may be at the center of each story, his involvement, and true nature shape and lead the women far beyond his reach. Their hopes and aspirations start or end at his feet. For Adult Book Club Groups looking for stories to curl up with as the weather gets colder, Erdrich’s prose and darkly humorous storytelling are enough to keep you burning through any storm.

This is Erdrich’s second time featured in the Spotlight, the other being her children’s book The Birchbark House, following the day-to-day life of young Omakayas in 1847.

If you’re interested in requesting Tales of Burning Love for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 5 copies available. (A librarian must request items)

Erdrich, Louise. Tales of Burning Love. HarperPerennial. 1996.

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NCompass Live: Racial & Gender Bias in Search

Learn how to help your patrons improve their search and online information literacy on next week’s NCompass Live webinar on Wednesday, November 8, at 10am CT.

Many library users believe that when they use a search engine, they are always getting factual, unbiased, and objective results. But search engines and the algorithms that power them are not neutral. This session explores some of the racial and gender biases found in search and looks at how these biases impact search results. By examining the idea of search neutrality, we can gain a better understanding of how human beings influence, for better or worse, the creation and ongoing maintenance of search algorithms. Through examining bias in search, we can help our patrons improve their search and online information literacy.

Presenter: Marcella Fredriksson, Web & Discovery Services Librarian, University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW). She received her BA from Boston University in 2002 and her MSLS from Catholic University in 2006. She has been at UNCW since 2016. Her research interests include improving the usability of library websites and the library search experience.

Upcoming NCompass Live shows:

  • Nov. 15 – Redesigning a Library Website
  • Nov. 22 – Best New Children’s Books of 2023
  • Nov. 29 – Pretty Sweet Tech: Internet Librarian 2023 Highlights
  • Dec. 6 – Using Creativity to Grow & Develop
  • Dec. 13 – Canvaholic
  • Dec. 20 – Summer Reading Program 2024: Adventure Begins at Your Library
  • Jan. 17, 2024 – Auditing Library Websites
  • Jan. 24, 2024 – Best New Teen Reads of 2023

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.

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Friday Reads, the Wizard Hunters, Book 1 of the Fall of Ile Rien series, by Martha Wells

Years ago I read The Wizard Hunters, by Martha Wells, and waited expectantly for the rest of the series to come out, The Ships of Air, and The Gate of Gods. So after reading her more recent work (the Murderbot series), I wondered how the older series compared. It’s still wonderful world building, character building, and plotting,


We meet Tremaine Valiarde at her home estate, trying to find a suitable manner of suicide. Her city, country, and world, are under attack by an unknown enemy they call the Gardier. They don’t even know where on their world these people come from. The sinister black dirigibles started attacking with bombs and were protected with a magic they couldn’t protect themselves from. Tremaine has been working in the war effort, risking her life in the ruins to save lives, and is so very tired. She’s been put on leave by her relief group. In Tremaine’s world, Ile Rien is her country, somewhat French in flavor, and set approximately the early 1900s—along with magic and wizards; there are telephones, electric lights, radios, motor cars, and guns.

Tremaine is recruited, with a magical childhood toy, the Damal Sphere, to assist in classified work on an unknown spell left by the foremost wizard of her country, and her godfather, Damal, and Nicholas Valiard, her father, after they disappeared shortly before the war. The sphere had been copied for use with the spell, but backfired tragically. The hope is that the original will make it work correctly. It does, of course, and transports them to a different world. Where wizards are called Sorcerers and are all homicidally mad. The natives of the closest nation are Syprians, and each city is built near a magical source they call a God, which protects them from sorcerers, and their creations, curslings. It is on a small island off the Syprian coast often used by sorcerers, that the group from Ile Rien find themselves shipwrecked. A Chosen of the God, Giliad, and his foster brother Illias, are trying to check the same island for the return of a sorcerer, which is their job, to find and kill sorcerers. Instead of traditional sorcerers, they find a Gardier base. Since the technology is beyond their own level, the assume most of it is “curse” driven, (spelled), when it’s actually guns, electric lights, and an air ship. But the Gardier have magic, too. The pair have never seen or heard of these people before. Syprians are well-traveled merchants, trade with other countries and groups in their world.


Tremaine is an interesting character to begin with, her father is much like a blend of Sherlock Holmes and Moriarity. Two of her guardians are wizards, and one, unknown to her until the events of the book, is one of the Queen’s guard. While she herself feels a bit split about her personality—she was known as a playwright before the war, and the way she can react to threats, is commented on by her new friend, Florian, a wizard in training. She tries to keep the more menacing side of her personality hidden, as well as the strange set of talents learned from her father and his friends. However, in the situations in the series, she certainly grows to accept them, as they come in handy.


Illias and Gilead, from the Syprian mainland are also an interesting pair of men. Their civilization is a matriarchy, so property is passed through the female line, although wars are fought by both sexes. As a Chosen of the God, Gilead can sense “curses”, but has more difficulty sensing the spells of the Ile Rien wizards. They both have a tragic backstory, where a sorcerer fooled them both, and cursed to death three female members of their family.


The Fall of Ile Rien series is much like potato chips—it’s hard to stop at just one.

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#BookFaceFriday “El Conejito Knuffle” by Mo Willems

¿Dónde está el #BookFaceFriday?

No need to retrace your steps to find this #BookFaceFriday! This week, we are highlighting one of the new Spanish language titles recently added to our Book Club Kit Collection, “El Conejita Knuffle” by Mo Willems (Hyperion Books for Children, 2007).

Browse all available titles using the keyword “Spanish” in the keyword search field. For kits that were already available in English, the title will be shown in English; for titles only available in Spanish, the Spanish title will be shown. For both types of kits, the number of Spanish copies is listed at the bottom of the title’s record. At the present time, most of our new Spanish-language kits are geared towards younger readers, but we hope to expand this selection in the future.

“En esta combinación de unos expresivos dibujos de cmic con preciosas fotografías de Brooklyn, Nueva York, el autor de ¡No dejes que la paloma condeuzca el autobús! crea un cuento brillante de la vida real sobre lo que pasa cuando Papá es el que manda, y todo sale humorística ya terriblemente mal.

Using a pastiche of muted black and white photography and expressive illustrations, this stunning book tells a brilliantly true-to-life tale about what happens when Daddy’s in charge and things go terribly, hilariously wrong..”

– Back cover

Book Club Kits Rules for Use

  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? Check out our past #BookFaceFriday photos on the Nebraska Library Commission’s Facebook page!

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Throwback Thursday: Apex Cleaning & Dyeing Company

Happy #ThrowbackThursday from Nebraska Memories!

This week, we have a 6 1/2″ x 4 1/2″ black and white photograph from 1928, showing the one-story brick building that housed Apex Cleaning & Dyeing Co.

Apex Cleaning built its main office and plant at 123 S. 23rd Street, Lincoln, in 1923. P. M. Plamondon was president of the Apex Cleaning & Dyeing Co. In addition to its main office building, the company had an “Uptown Office” At at 326 S. 13th, a south office at 1520 S. 17th and a north office at 1427 N. 33rd.

This week’s #throwback is published and owned by the Jane Pope Geske Heritage Room of Nebraska Authors. The collection of the Heritage Room at Lincoln City Libraries includes digitized items from the Rudolph Umland Papers and images that were scanned from an album titled “Lincoln, Nebraska: A Photograph Album of Business Buildings.”

Check out the full collection 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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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).  Each month we will be showcasing the UNP books that the Clearinghouse has received.

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 September and October, 2023:

Almost Somewhere : Twenty-Eight Days on the John Muir Trail, by Suzanne Roberts. Series: Outdoor Lives.

Winner of the National Outdoor Book Award in Outdoor Literature

It was 1993, Suzanne Roberts had just finished college, and when her friend suggested they hike California’s John Muir Trail, the adventure sounded like the perfect distraction from a difficult home life and thoughts about the future. But she never imagined that the twenty-eight-day hike would change her life. Part memoir, part nature writing, part travelogue, Almost Somewhere is Roberts’s account of that hike.

John Muir wrote of the Sierra Nevada as a “vast range of light,” and that was exactly what Roberts was looking for. But traveling with two girlfriends, one experienced and unflappable and the other inexperienced and bulimic, she quickly discovered that she needed a new frame of reference. Her story of a month in the backcountry—confronting bears, snowy passes, broken equipment, injuries, and strange men—is as much about finding a woman’s way into outdoor experience as it is about the natural world Roberts so eloquently describes. Candid and funny, and finally, wise, Almost Somewhere not only tells the whimsical coming-of-age story of a young woman ill-prepared for a month in the mountains but also reflects a distinctly feminine view of nature.

This new edition includes an afterword by the author looking back on the ways both she and the John Muir Trail have changed over the past thirty years, as well as book club and classroom discussion questions and photographs from the trip.

The Complete Letters of Henry James, 1887-1888, Volume 2, Edited by Michael Anesko and Greg W. Zacharias, and Katie Sommer. Series: The Complete Letters of Henry James

This second volume of The Complete Letters of Henry James, 1887–1888 contains 182 letters, of which 120 are published for the first time, written from late December 1887 to November 19, 1888. These letters continue to mark Henry James’s ongoing efforts to care for his sister, develop his work, strengthen his professional status, build friendships, engage timely political and economic issues, and maximize his income. James details work on The Aspern PapersThe ReverberatorPartial Portraits, and The Tragic Muse. This volume opens with some of James’s social visits, includes the death of longtime friend Lizzie Boott, and concludes with James on the Continent.

Ecologies of Imperialism in Algeria, by Brock Cutler. Series: France Overseas: Studies in Empire and Decolonization.

Between 1865 and 1872 widespread death and disease unfolded amid the most severe ecological disaster in modern North African history: a plague of locusts destroyed crops during a disastrous drought that left many Algerians landless and starving. The famine induced migration that concentrated vulnerable people in unsanitary camps where typhus and cholera ran rampant. Before the rains returned and harvests normalized, some eight hundred thousand Algerians had died.

In Ecologies of Imperialism in Algeria Brock Cutler explores how repeated ecosocial divisions across an expansive ecosystem produced modern imperialism in nineteenth-century Algeria. Massive ecological crises—cultural as well as natural—cleaved communities from their homes, individuals from those communities, and society from its typical ecological relations. At the same time, the relentless, albeit slow-moving crises of ongoing settler colonialism and extractive imperial capitalism cleaved Algeria to France in a new way. Ecosocial divisions became apparent in performances of imperial power: officials along the Algerian-Tunisian border compulsively repeated narratives of “transgression” that over decades made the division real; a case of poisoned bread tied settlers in Algiers to Paris; Morocco-Algeria border violence exposed the exceptional nature of imperial sovereignty; a case of vagabondage in Oran evoked colonial gender binaries. In each case, factors in the broader ecosystem were implicated in performances of social division, separating political entities from each other, human from nature, rational from irrational, and women from men. Although these performances take place in the nineteenth-century Maghrib, the process they describe goes beyond those spatial and temporal limits—across the field of modern imperialism to the present day.

Encountering Palestine : Un/Making Spaces of Colonial Violence, Edited by Mark Griffiths and Mikko Joronen. Series: Cultural Geographies + Rewriting the Earth.

Encountering Palestine: Un/making Spaces of Colonial Violence, edited by Mark Griffiths and Mikko Joronen, sits at the intersection of cultural and political geographies and offers innovative reflections on power, colonialism, and anti-colonialism in contemporary Palestine and Israel. Organized around the theme of encountering and focusing on the ways violence and struggle are un/made in the encounter between the colonizer and colonized, the essays focus on power relations as they manifest in cultural practices and everyday lives in anti/colonial Palestine.

Covering numerous sites in Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Israel, Encountering Palestine addresses a range of empirical topics—from marriage and queer aesthetics to policing, demolition, armament failure, and violence. The contributors utilize diverse theoretical frameworks, such as hyperreality, settler capitalism, intimate biopolitics, and politics of vulnerability, to help us better understand the cultural making and unmaking of colonial and anti-colonial space in Palestine. Encountering Palestine asks us to rethink how colonialism and power operate in Palestine, the ways Palestinians struggle, and the lifeways that constantly encounter, un/make, and counter the spaces of colonial violence.

Galloping Gourmet : Eating and Drinking With Buffalo Bill, by Steve Friesen.

Galloping Gourmet explores an unfamiliar side of a familiar character in American history, William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody. In this entertaining narrative Steve Friesen explores the evolving role of eating and drinking in Buffalo Bill’s life (1846–1917). Friesen starts with Buffalo Bill’s culinary roots on the American Plains, eating simple foods such as cornbread, fried “yellow-legged” chicken, and hardtack. Buffalo Bill discovered gourmet dining while leading buffalo-hunting expeditions and scouting. As his fame increased, so did his desire and opportunities for fine dining: his early show business career allowed him to dine at some of the best restaurants in the country.

Friesen examines the creation of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show in 1883, in which Cody introduced his diverse cast of employees to dining that equaled America’s best restaurants. One newspaper reporter observed that “Colonel Cody displays no more care about anything than the proper feeding of horse and man.” Cody opened the first Mexican restaurant east of the Mississippi and introduced American foodways to Europe. Equally comfortable eating around a campfire on the plains or at Delmonico’s in New York City, he also dined with leading celebrities of his day. In the final section Friesen addresses the controversies surrounding Cody’s drinking, his death, and his ongoing culinary legacy. Galloping Gourmet includes an appendix of more than thirty annotated period recipes.

Godfall : a Novel, by Van Jensen. Series: Flyover Fiction.

When a massive asteroid hurtles toward Earth, humanity braces for annihilation—but the end doesn’t come. In fact, it isn’t an asteroid but a three-mile-tall alien that drops down, seemingly dead, outside Little Springs, Nebraska. Dubbed “the giant,” its arrival transforms the red-state farm town into a top-secret government research site and major metropolitan area, flooded with soldiers, scientists, bureaucrats, spies, criminals, conspiracy theorists—and a murderer.

As the sheriff of Little Springs, David Blunt thought he’d be keeping the peace among the same people he’d known all his life, not breaking up chanting crowds of conspiracy theorists in tiger masks or struggling to control a town hall meeting about the construction of a mosque. As a series of brutal, bizarre murders strikes close to home, Blunt throws himself into the hunt for a killer who seems connected to the Giant. With bodies piling up and tensions in Little Springs mounting, he realizes that in order to find the answers he needs, he must first reconcile his old worldview with the town he now lives in—before it’s too late.

The Grapes of Conquest : Race, Labor, and the Industrialization of California Wine, 1769-1920, by Julia Ornelas-Higdon. Series: At Table.

California’s wine country conjures images of pastoral vineyards and cellars lined with oak barrels. As a mainstay of the state’s economy, California wines occupy the popular imagination like never before and drive tourism in famous viticultural regions across the state. Scholars know remarkably little, however, about the history of the wine industry and the diverse groups who built it. In fact, contemporary stereotypes belie how the state’s commercial wine industry was born amid social turmoil and racialized violence in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century California.

In The Grapes of Conquest Julia Ornelas-Higdon addresses these gaps in the historical narrative and popular imagination. Beginning with the industry’s inception at the California missions, Ornelas-Higdon examines the evolution of wine growing across three distinct political regimes—Spanish, Mexican, and American—through the industry’s demise after Prohibition. This interethnic study of race and labor in California examines how California Natives, Mexican Californios, Chinese immigrants, and Euro-Americans came together to build the industry. Ornelas-Higdon identifies the birth of the wine industry as a significant missing piece of California history—one that reshapes scholars’ understandings of how conquest played out, how race and citizenship were constructed, and how agribusiness emerged across the region. The Grapes of Conquest unearths the working-class, multiracial roots of the California wine industry, challenging its contemporary identity as the purview of elite populations.

The Incarceration of Native American Women : Creating Pathways to Wellness and Recovery Through Gentle Action Theory, by Carma Corcoran. Series: New Visions in Native American and Indigenous Studies.

In The Incarceration of Native American Women, Carma Corcoran examines the rising number of Native American women being incarcerated in Indian Country. With years of experience as a case management officer, law professor, consultant to tribal defenders’ offices, and workshop leader in prisons, she believes this upward trajectory of incarceration continues largely unacknowledged and untended. She explores how a combination of F. David Peat’s gentle action theory and the Native traditional ways of knowing and being could heal Native American women who are or have been incarcerated.

Colonization and the historical trauma of Native American incarceration runs through history, spanning multiple generations and including colonial wartime imprisonment, captivity, Indian removal, and boarding schools. The ongoing ills of childhood abuse, domestic violence, sexual assault, and drug and alcohol addiction and the rising number of suicides are indicators that Native people need healing. Based on her research and work with Native women in prisons, Corcoran provides a theory of wellness and recovery that creates a pathway for meaningful change. The Incarceration of Native American Women offers students, academics, social workers, counselors, and those in the criminal justice system a new method of approach and application while providing a deeper understanding of the cultural and historical experiences of Native Americans in relation to criminology.

Nebraska Volleyball : the Origin Story, by John Mabry.

When Title IX was enacted in 1972, the University of Nebraska volleyball program, like many across the country, received a fraction of the funding and attention given to the school’s mighty football program. The players had to organize a run from Lincoln to Omaha to raise money for uniforms. The women were asked to wait their turn to use the weight room. Today the Nebraska women’s volleyball team is one of the sport’s most decorated programs—with more career wins than any other program and five NCAA National Championships—and draws standing-room-only crowds at home games in the 8,000-seat Devaney Center.

Nebraska Volleyball is the first book to recount how volleyball took hold at Nebraska, through Pat Sullivan, the team’s first coach; through such early figures as Cathy Noth, a decorated player and later an assistant coach into the 1990s; through Terry Pettit, who coached the team for twenty-three seasons and led it to its first National Championship in 1995; and through John Cook, who took over as head coach in 2000. John Mabry highlights the small Nebraska towns that have sent some of the best players to the program and helped build statewide support for the team. Public television helped too, with its power to broadcast games early on and thus build a following across the state.

The success of Nebraska’s volleyball program is one of the greatest stories in sports. As Karch Kiraly, head coach for the U.S. National Women’s Volleyball Team, said: “If you want to learn about women’s college volleyball, your first stop has to be Lincoln, Nebraska.”

Of Love and War : Pacific Brides of World War II, by Angela Wanhalla. Series: Studies in Pacific Worlds.

Between 1942 and 1945 more than two million servicemen occupied the southern Pacific theater, the majority of whom were Americans in service with the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. During the occupation, American servicemen married approximately 1,800 women from New Zealand and the island Pacific, creating legal bonds through marriage and through children. Additionally, American servicemen fathered an estimated four thousand nonmarital children with Indigenous women in the South Pacific Command Area.

In Of Love and War Angela Wanhalla details the intimate relationships forged during wartime between women and U.S. servicemen stationed in the South Pacific, traces the fate of wartime marriages, and addresses consequences for the women and children left behind. Paying particular attention to the experiences of women in New Zealand and in the island Pacific—including Tonga, Fiji, Samoa, and the Cook Islands—Of Love and War aims to illuminate the impact of global war on these women, their families, and Pacific societies. Wanhalla argues that Pacific war brides are an important though largely neglected cohort whose experiences of U.S. military occupation expand our understanding of global war. By examining the effects of American law on the marital opportunities of couples, their ability to reunite in the immediate postwar years, and the citizenship status of any children born of wartime relationships, Wanhalla makes a significant contribution to a flourishing scholarship concerned with the intersections between race, gender, sexuality, and militarization in the World War II era.

Rise Up! : Indigenous Music in North America, by Craig Harris.

Music historian Craig Harris explores more than five hundred years of Indigenous history, religion, and cultural evolution in Rise Up! Indigenous Music in North America. More than powwow drums and wooden flutes, Indigenous music intersects with rock, blues, jazz, folk music, reggae, hip-hop, classical music, and more. Combining deep research with personal stories by nearly four dozen award-winning Indigenous musicians, Harris offers an eye-opening look at the growth of Indigenous music.

Among a host of North America’s most vital Indigenous musicians, the biographical narratives include new and well-established figures such as Mildred Bailey, Louis W. Ballard, Cody Blackbird, Donna Coane (Spirit of Thunderheart), Theresa “Bear” Fox, Robbie Robertson, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Joanne Shenandoah, DJ Shub (Dan General), Maria Tallchief, John Trudell, and Fawn Wood.

Settler Aesthetics : Visualizing the Spectacle of Originary Moments in The New World, by Mishuana Goeman. Series: Indigenous Films.

In Settler Aesthetics, an analysis of renowned director Terrence Malick’s 2005 film, The New World, Mishuana Goeman examines the continuity of imperialist exceptionalism and settler-colonial aesthetics. The story of Pocahontas has thrived for centuries as a cover for settler-colonial erasure, destruction, and violence against Native peoples, and Native women in particular. Since the romanticized story of the encounter and relationship between Pocahontas and Captain John Smith was first published, it has imprinted a whitewashed historical memory into the minds of Americans.

As one of the most enduring tropes of imperialist nostalgia in world history, Renaissance European invasions of Indigenous lands by settlers trades in a falsified “civilizational discourse” that has been a focus in literature for centuries and in films since their inception. Ironically, Malick himself was a symbol of the New Hollywood in his early career, but with The New World he created a film that serves as a buttress for racial capitalism in the Americas. Focusing on settler structures, the setup of regimes of power, sexual violence and the gendering of colonialism, and the sustainability of colonialism and empires, Goeman masterfully peels away the visual layers of settler logics in The New World, creating a language in Native American and Indigenous studies for interpreting visual media.

The Sonoran Dynasty in Mexico : Revolution, Reform, and Repression, by Jürgen Buchenau. Series: Confluencias.

Two generals from the northwestern state of Sonora, Álvaro Obregón and Plutarco Elías Calles, dominated Mexico between 1920 and 1934, having risen to prominence in the course of the Mexican Revolution. Torn between popular demands for ending the privileges of wealthy foreign investors and opposition by a hawkish U.S. administration and enemies at home, the two generals and their allies from their home state mixed radical rhetoric with the accommodation of entrenched interests.

In The Sonoran Dynasty in Mexico Jürgen Buchenau tells the story of this ruling group, which rejected the Indigenous and Catholic past during the decades of the revolution and aimed to reinvent Mexico along the lines of the modern and secular societies in western Europe and the United States. In addition to Obregón and Calles, the Sonoran Dynasty included Adolfo de la Huerta and Abelardo L. Rodríguez, four Sonorans among six presidents in less than two decades. Although the group began with the common aims of nationalism, modernization, central political control, and enrichment, Buchenau argues that this group progressively fell apart in a series of bloody conflicts that reflected broader economic, political, and social disagreements. By analyzing the dynasty from its origins through its eventual downfall, Buchenau presents an innovative look at the negotiation of power and state formation in revolutionary Mexico.

Ted Kooser : More Than a Local Wonder, by Carla Ketner, illustrated by Paula Wallace.

Long before Ted Kooser won a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, served as the U.S. Poet Laureate, and wrote award-winning books for children, he was an unathletic child growing up in Iowa, yearning to fit in. Young Teddy found solace in stories, and one specific book, Robert McCloskey’s Lentil, inspired him to become a writer. As a child and later, while working in the insurance industry, Ted honed his craft and unique style as he wrote about the people and places of the rural Midwest. Ted Kooser: More Than a Local Wonder celebrates the power of stories and of finding oneself through words.

Washington State Politics and Government, by T.M. Sell. Series: Politics and Governments of the American States.

In the twenty-first century, as many candidates actively campaign against the very government they seek to serve in, and as many people appear to believe their government irreparably broken, T. M. Sell argues that in Washington State, the system works better than most realize. In Washington State Politics and Government Sell explains how the many parts of government function and introduces readers to a diverse array of individuals who work in government, including how they got there and what it is they’re trying to do. Sell covers the three branches of state government, plus county, city, special purpose district, and tribal governments. He explains the state budgets and taxes; the functions of major and better-known state agencies; how policy is made; the political landscape of Washington; and parties, voting, and elections.

Sell discusses economic development, including the importance of high-tech industry, aviation, Amazon.com, and more traditional parts of the state economy, such as timber and agriculture. He also provides a contemporary look at Washington’s elected officials, constitution, judiciary, media, demographics, and political culture and landscape. With this volume, any Washington citizen, student of politics, or specialist in government can gain insight into the state’s current political system.

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

Posted in Books & Reading, Education & Training, General, Information Resources, What's Up Doc / Govdocs | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Pretty Sweet Tech: Prairie STEM Library Pack Raffle!

The Nebraska Library Commission partnered with Prairie STEM to raffle off 42 STEM Library Packs! Each Library Pack comes with 12 individual kits that have instructions, career exploration information, and all the materials you need for assembly. Some of the design-related activities can be enhanced by items you have laying around the library.

About Prairie STEM

Prairie STEM is an Omaha-based nonprofit that offers STEM kits, educator training, and outreach programs in the Omaha area and beyond. They’ve partnered with various schools, libraries and educational institutions across the state, including virtual reality, drone, and smart garden programs.

Need Kits Right Away?

Through this partnership, you also have the option to purchase kits directly from Prairie STEM. You can get Classroom Packs of 12 or 24 of any or all of these types of kits:

  • Cell Building Innovation
  • Environmental Challenge
  • Pendulum Painting
  • Toothpaste Challenge
  • Blood Model Innovation
  • Design a Glider Innovation
  • Quick Escape Challenge

Purchase kits directly at this link: https://stem-kits-nebraska-library-commission.cheddarup.com

Feel free to contact Prairie STEM to ask about partnering on any programming, custom kits, or educator/ facilitator training in your community.

Enter the Raffle!

Fill out this quick form to enter the raffle and be 1 of 42 libraries to win a STEM Pack! All the details are in the flyer below:

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Happy Birthday Nebraska Publications Clearinghouse!

July 2023 marked the 51st 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 the Governor 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 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 driver’s license number or 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 web sites 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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NCompass Live: Golden Sower Award: Get in the Know

Learn all about Nebraska’s Children’s Choice Award, the Golden Sower, on next week’s NCompass Live webinar on Wednesday, November 1, at 10am CT.

The Nebraska Golden Sower Award is Nebraska’s Children’s Choice Literary Award, sponsored by the Nebraska Library Association. Since 1982, the Golden Sower Award has sought to sow seeds which stimulate children’s thinking, introduce different types of literature, encourage independent reading, increase library skills, and foster an appreciation for excellence in writing and illustrating. This presentation will address the nature of the award, describe the award process, provide updates on changes to the award and committee structure, and share how to get involved.

Presenter: Anne Price, Nebraska Golden Sower Award Committee Member; Children’s Librarian, North Platte Public Library.

Upcoming NCompass Live shows:

  • Nov. 8 – Racial & Gender Bias in Search
  • Nov. 15 – Redesigning a Library Website
  • Nov. 22 – Best New Children’s Books of 2023
  • Nov. 29 – Pretty Sweet Tech: Internet Librarian 2023 Highlights
  • Dec. 6 – Using Creativity to Grow & Develop
  • Dec. 13 – Canvaholic
  • Dec. 20 – Summer Reading Program 2024: Adventure Begins at Your Library
  • Jan. 17, 2024 – Auditing Library Websites
  • Jan. 24, 2024 – Best New Teen Reads of 2023

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.

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Friday Reads: For the Love of Cities, revisited by Peter Kageyama

A lot of you know that I’m not from Nebraska. I was born near Milwaukee, WI and lived there until I went to college in Minnesota. Over the years I’ve visited a lot of places too. Everywhere I go, I talk  to people and get a feel for the place. I was in Tokyo, Japan most recently, so I’ll use that as an example. As I walked the streets of this foreign land, I had to remember that most people in the city were just home. Bear in mind that I don’t speak Japanese very well, but you can still tell who’s happy where they are, and who is crawling out of their skin waiting for a chance to leave.

That’s what For the Love of Cities: revisited by Peter Kageyama is all about. What does it take to make people fall in love with their city? Why do people choose some cities over others? Whenever I visit a new place, I can instinctively tell whether or not I could live there. I never really considered any actual criteria for the decision until I read this book. I just knew. Now I see greenery, coffee shops, places to relax and connect with people, clean streets, and plenty of shops and art embedded into the fiber of the community. I learned how to really look at a city.

My academic days still make me refer to authors by their last name. But this book makes people feel like family. So I’ll call him Peter. I don’t think he’ll mind, and I’ll also never meet him to find out. Peter digs into how cities come to be, and the many variables that force change over time. I also watched the author talk Peter did with Heritage Village. It’s free on YouTube if you want to check it out. That video adds visuals to his stories about how history shaped cities like Chicago, Detroit and many others. Sometimes dark parts of history like racial segregation and hate shape city lines that must be repaired over time for the city to adapt and thrive in the future.

When I visit other cities I usually dress to blend in. Just another Midwesterner in a t-shirt and leggings. In Japan I didn’t even try. Pretty sure I was the only curly-headed Native American in the whole country, so I wore bright colors or coffee t-shirts and capris everyday. My body type was never going to fit into such a petite country anyway. Even though their waffles are surprisingly good. I digress. Japan was awesome.

If you didn’t factor in the language barrier and distance from everything and everyone I know, I would actually live there. I walked the streets in my deeply American sandals and pondered how cities draw people in to live and work in a new land. What drew me to Lincoln, NE? What made me stay? The people? The place? The job? A little bit of all the above? I have new answers now.

Read this book if you want to look at your city differently. It’s a book full of stories and observations about little things that blend into the background of the place you’ve lived for years. When you’re done, take a walk around your city. Town. Wherever you call home. Try it with any town. Ask yourself why people choose this place? Why do people stay? If people are leaving, what could change to turn the tides? Peter will help you explore old places with fresh eyes. Just give it a try.

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#BookFaceFriday – “Nothing But Blackened Teeth” by Cassandra Khaw

I wouldn’t want to run into this #BookFace in a dark hallway!

Not to make you lose sleep or anything but this week’s #BookFaceFriday has us keeping the lights on. If you love Halloween and a a good scary read, this USA Today bestseller is perfect for you; check out “Nothing But Blackened Teeth” by Cassandra Khaw (Berkley, 2014.) This title is available as an audiobook in Nebraska OverDrive Libraries. Find this title and other tales of horror in Nebraska OverDrive’s curated collection, “Hallow-Reads: Spooky tales for October nights“! Now if you’re looking for something fun and just a little spooky for the whole family, we also have the curated collection Spooky BOO-ks on our OverDrive Kid’s & Teens pages.

“If Guillermo del Toro directed The Ring, it might play out something like this engaging thriller. Japanese mythological creatures come to life in this dynamic, unique tale that will satisfy horror readers eager for fresh blood.”

—Booklist

Libraries participating in the Nebraska OverDrive Libraries Group currently have access to a shared and growing collection of digital downloadable audiobooks and eBooks. 189 libraries across the state share the Nebraska OverDrive collection of 21,696 audiobooks, 35,200 eBooks, and 3,964 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? Check out our past #BookFaceFriday photos on the Nebraska Library Commission’s Facebook page!

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Join the Nebraska WebDewey Group Purchase

WebDewey screenshots

This is a good time of year to remind Nebraska librarians that they can save money on a subscription to WebDewey by participating in the Nebraska WebDewey Group Purchase! Enjoy web-based access to an electronic version of the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC ) database through WebDewey. It is a full representation of all published numbers, plus other mappings and new terms that have been approved by the Dewey Editorial Policy Committee (EPC).

WebDewey also includes:

  • Searching or browsing DDC numbers, Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) and mapped MeSH headings.
  • Adding your own notes and displaying them in context.
  • An easy-to-navigate, simple user interface that is suitable for the novice as well as the power user.

Our next WebDewey Group annual subscription will begin on January 1, 2024 and run through December 31, 2024. Libraries may join the group at any time. Mid-term subscriptions will be prorated. If your library is interested in subscribing to WebDewey, you’ll find pricing information on our online WebDewey Group Order Form. OCLC Membership is NOT required to purchase WebDewey.

If you have questions please contact Susan Knisely.

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Throwback Thursday: “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat”

This #ThrowbackThursday is taking center stage!

This week’s #throwback features a color photograph of six actors in costume of the 1994 Omaha Community Playhouse production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat.” This production was directed by Charles Jones and was produced by The Nebraska Theater Caravan, which is the professional touring wing of the Omaha Community Playhouse.

This image is published and owned by Omaha Community Playhouse. The Omaha Community Playhouse collection includes digitized images of the Playhouse and some of its performances. Some of the actors included in these images are Henry Fonda, Jane Fonda, and Dorothy McGuire.

Check out 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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Book Club Spotlight – Dead as a Door Knocker

Cover of Dead as a Door Knocker by Diane Kelly. An ajar door opens into a house under construction, with a sandy-colored cat sitting on a work bench next to a hammer. An ornate teal skull served as the house's door knocker.

With Halloween a week away, I love to enjoy the spookier books in our collection. But what’s great about Halloween is that there are so many ways for readers to enjoy the season without getting too scared. So, for the scaredy cats this Halloween Season, we’ll be looking at Dead as a Door Knocker by author Diane Kelly. Kelly is a prolific, cozy mystery writer, having (accidentally) worked with white-collar criminals in her former work as a tax advisor and decided to author the criminals herself rather than working with them. She has been awarded the Golden Heart Award from the Romance Writers of America and a Reviewers’ Choice Award.

In the first installment in the House-Flipper Mystery series, we meet 20-something Whitney Whitaker, a property manager living in her parents’ (renovated) pool house with big dreams and a small cat named Sawdust. When a property goes up for sale by the cheapskate Rick Dunaway, Whitney snatches up the deal, thinking it was too good to be true. But she gets more than she bargained for when Rick’s body shows up in her flower bed a few days later! With the help of her best friend Collette, cousin Buck, and Nashville’s newest homicide detective, Collin Flynn, Whitney sets out to catch the killer with her life and the house’s market value on the line.

“Are you going to buy the murder house?”

Diane Kelly

With brief mentions of blood, peril, and, of course, a body, Dead as a Door Knocker is driven by its characters and their relationships, not a murderous fiend. As we tick through the list of potential suspects, there are plenty of stops along the way into the world of house-flipping, rentals, and kitty shenanigans. Cozy mysteries like Dead as a Door Knocker let the more squeamish in your book club groups enjoy the fun of solving a good mystery without all the blood and gore getting in the way.

If you’re interested in requesting Dead as a Door Knocker for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 10 copies available. (A librarian must request items)

Kelly, Diane. Dead as a Door Knocker. St. Martin’s Press. 2019

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‘E-rate: What’s New for 2024?’ Online Workshops Scheduled

‘E-rate: What’s New for 2024?’ workshops are now open for registration! All workshops will be held online only, via GoTo Webinar.

NOTE: This online workshop is being offered on multiple days and at varied times. The same information will be provided at each workshop, so you only need to attend one session. A recorded version will also be made available after all of the live sessions have been held.

What is E-rate? How can my library benefit from E-rate? How do I apply for E-rate?

E-rate is a federal program that provides discounts to schools and public libraries on the cost of their Internet Access and Connections to make these services more affordable. This includes Broadband, Fiber, and Wi-Fi Internet access as well as Internal Connections, such as wiring, routers, switches, and other network equipment.

The E-Rate Productivity Center (EPC) is your online portal for all E-rate interactions. With your organizational account you can use EPC to file forms, track your application status, communicate with USAC, and more.

In this workshop, Christa Porter, Nebraska’s State E-rate Coordinator for Public Libraries, will explain the E-rate program and show you how to access and use your account in EPC to submit your Funding Year 2024 E-rate application. Dates and times:

  • November 20 – 1:00-4:00pm Central / 12:00noon-3pm Mountain
  • November 21 – 9:30am-12:30pm Central / 8:30-11:30am Mountain
  • November 28 – 1:00-4:00pm Central / 12:00noon-3pm Mountain
  • November 30 – 9:30am-12:30pm Central / 8:30-11:30am Mountain

To register for any of these sessions, go to the Nebraska Library Commission’s Training & Events Calendar and search for ‘e-rate 2024’.

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NCompass Live: Pretty Sweet Tech: How Augmented Reality Can Create Optimal Literacy Experiences

Explore how Living Popups transforms classic and original books into interactive experiences on next week’s Pretty Sweet Tech NCompass Live webinar, ‘How Augmented Reality Can Create Optimal Literacy Experiences’, on Wednesday, October 25, 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.

LP Bookspace engages all readers and keeps them coming back for more! LP Bookspace brings to your library augmented reality experiences where characters literally jump off the page and help build comprehension and confidence.

The goal of this session is to explore how easy it is to create an optimal literacy experience within your library environment by applying innovative technology. You will discover the LB Bookspace tools to help you create an exciting Story Time, track students’ progress in the Dashboard, implement Book Clubs for older children and have families returning to your library again and again. You will learn about the Meet the Makers series introducing patrons of all ages to how the books are produced and the potential careers in the future all around great literature.

Join us to see how LP Bookspace could provide you with creative ways to deliver innovative programming to your community.

Guest Presenter: Cheryl Bayer, CEO, Living Popups, LLC.

Upcoming NCompass Live shows:

  • Nov. 1 – Golden Sower Award: Get in the Know
  • Nov. 8 – Racial & Gender Bias in Search
  • Nov. 15 – Redesigning a Library Website
  • Nov. 22 – Best New Children’s Books of 2023
  • Dec. 6 – Using Creativity to Grow & Develop
  • Dec. 13 – Canvaholic
  • Dec. 20 – Summer Reading Program 2024: Adventure Begins at Your Library
  • Jan. 17, 2024 – Auditing Library Websites
  • Jan. 24, 2024 – Best New Teen Reads of 2023

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.

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#BookFaceFriday – “The Lesser Dead” by Christopher Buehlman

Something #BookFace this way comes!

If your go-to Halloween activity is watching a horror flick or visiting a haunted house, you probably also love a scary story. This week’s #BookFaceFriday is the perfect way to get your adrenaline flowing; check out “The Lesser Dead” by Christopher Buehlman (Berkley, 2014.) This title is available as an eBook in Nebraska OverDrive Libraries. Find this title and other tales of horror in Nebraska OverDrive’s curated collection, “Hallow-Reads: Spooky tales for October nights“!

“Cormac McCarthy’s The Road meets Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic…Buehlman…doesn’t scrimp on earthy horror and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors…an author to watch.”

—Kirkus Reviews

Libraries participating in the Nebraska OverDrive Libraries Group currently have access to a shared and growing collection of digital downloadable audiobooks and eBooks. 189 libraries across the state share the Nebraska OverDrive collection of 21,696 audiobooks, 35,200 eBooks, and 3,964 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? Check out our past #BookFaceFriday photos on the Nebraska Library Commission’s Facebook page!

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Friday Reads: The Brothers Hawthorne, by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

After Holli Duggan wrote a Friday Reads post about it, I listened to the Inheritance Games trilogy last year–and loved it! So when a fourth book in this YA series was released this summer, I had to listen to that as well, and it did not disappoint. A 5th book, The Grandest Game, is due out in July 2024.

Four brothers. Two missions. One explosive read. And the stakes have never been higher.  
 
Grayson Hawthorne was raised as the heir apparent to his billionaire grandfather, taught from the cradle to put family first. Now the great Tobias Hawthorne is dead and his family disinherited, but some lessons linger. When Grayson’s half-sisters find themselves in trouble, he swoops in to do what he does best: take care of the problem—efficiently, effectively, mercilessly. And without getting bogged down in emotional entanglements.
 
Jameson Hawthorne is a risk-taker, a sensation-seeker, a player of games. When his mysterious father appears and asks for a favor, Jameson can’t resist the challenge. Now he must infiltrate London’s most exclusive underground gambling club, which caters to the rich, the powerful, and the aristocratic, and win an impossible game of greatest stakes. Luckily, Jameson Hawthorne lives for impossible.
 
Drawn into twisted games on opposite sides of the globe, Grayson and Jameson—with the help of their brothers and the girl who inherited their grandfather’s fortune—must dig deep to decide who they want to be and what each of them will sacrifice to win.

** Synopsis courtesy of Audible.

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Throwback Thursday: Silence Required

Shhhh…it’s #ThrowbackThursday!

This week, we have a 5″ x 3″ card explaining Whitin Library’s policy regarding noise in its reading rooms and corridors. Doane College built Whitin Library in 1894. It served as the campus library until 1970, when the college constructed a new library. John N. Bennett served as president of Doane College from 1919-1925, while Nora Hjelm term as librarian lasted from 1918 to 1925.

This image is published and owned by Doane University Library. Doane University Library is home to a vast archival collection containing a variety of items related to the history of Doane University. Founded by Thomas Doane in 1872, Doane College became Doane University in May 2016 and is the oldest private liberal arts and sciences college/university in Nebraska. Featured in this collection are historical images of buildings, people and activities dating back to the founding of the school.

Check out the collection 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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