Julie Edwards: Okay. So i'm going to start letting people in, and I'm just going to talk at them, and then it'll all become clear, and i'll connect with you later this afternoon.
Julie Edwards: Welcome, everyone! Welcome.
Julie Edwards: Hi, everybody! I see you all coming in. Please
Julie Edwards: join us. Feel comfortable if you would like. You can go over to the chat on Zoom and say, Hi, let us know where you're from. We do publish the Chat transcript. So if you don't want to do that. You certainly do not have to, but I would
Julie Edwards: love for anyone who wants to say hi to pop over there and say, Hi! We'll get started in a few minutes, but we'll just take a few minutes here to gather.
Julie Edwards: Say hello to each other. Hello! From Fresno.
Julie Edwards: hey? From Pennsylvania, North Carolina.
Julie Edwards: hey? Alabama. Hey, Denver? Oh, now people are rolling in! Hey, Vermont, Saratoga, New York, Kentucky.
Julie Edwards: This is my my one of my favorite cards of all the Webinars.
Julie Edwards: hey? Massachusetts.
Julie Edwards: Hey, New Mexico, one of my absolute favorite places. This is, I say, every time i'm a huge fan of the hey from Spencer I grew up in.
Julie Edwards: I grew up in Worcester County. I just leave it at that. Hello!
Julie Edwards: So nice to see so many of you. This is I like playing the license plate game. This is my nerdy librarian version of the license plate game. So hello for those hey? BC: there's some of our Canadian librarians
Julie Edwards: so nice to see some of you. Hey? Vegas?
Julie Edwards: Hey, Missouri. Ontario.
Julie Edwards: French by capital of the world. That sounds amazing. Wow! I did not know that about New Brunswick.
Julie Edwards: Florenceville. I'm. 100% making a mental note of that. Hey? Utah.
Julie Edwards: Florida from Charlton, Mass. Wow, there's a lot of people from Central mass here today.
Julie Edwards: So nice to see everybody. Tucson, also one of my favorite places. Lincoln, Montana. Hey, You're just up the road. I'm here in Missoula. just up the road right in Montana.
Julie Edwards: Shrewsbury. Wow! Oh, Charlton! Wow! You guys are representing today.
Julie Edwards: Hi! Everybody so nice to see you all so nice to see everyone. Hey, Boise. my neighbors. lots of Canadians here. This is just so great. Thank you so much for joining us. We've got a big crowd here today.
Julie Edwards: Not surprising. but already close to 400 people in the room.
Julie Edwards: Excellent! Excellent! Well, we are right at the top of the hour, and so we will go ahead and get started here. I'm. Julie Edwards. I am a librarian and instructional designer with Niche Academy, and I am thrilled that you are all joining us today for this Webinar building community through book clubs.
Julie Edwards: I'm gonna turn this over pretty soon. But I want to do our standard housekeeping first. Just get everybody familiar with Zoom and our process today. Let me start by just quickly introducing Niche Academy.
Julie Edwards: We are an easy to use on one learning platform to help libraries, create and deliver effective training and measure learner's success. So our platform is the perfect tool for libraries looking to increase your E resource, usage.
Julie Edwards: move programming, including your story times online and deliver and track training for staff development. So if you're interested in finding out more about what we do, hearing what your colleagues say, or talking to a member of our team, I will drop a link to Niche Academy in the chat, and so you can have that shortly.
Julie Edwards: This Webinar series is part of our commitment to staff training in the library world, and I will drop the link to the rest of our free Webinars coming up
Julie Edwards: also in the chat.
Julie Edwards: So few things about Zoom, we are recording this.
Julie Edwards: I will make the recording
Julie Edwards: the slides, the chat transcript, the audio transcript and a resource list available for you after the presentation. So you are very welcome today to just sit back and enjoy what I think it. Well.
Julie Edwards: what I know. I've gotten a sneak peak of. It is going to be an excellent presentation. I will email you everything. In a few days. You can turn on closed caption at the bottom of your screen. If you are interested in using that.
Julie Edwards: there are right now almost 500 of us in here, so please feel free to use the chat to chat with each other. Devina has a colleague from Book Browse, who is going to be in the chat in case anybody has any specific questions but it.
Julie Edwards: If you have questions for Davina, please put them in the question and answer box in zoom, because stuff does get lost in the chat with this many of us here, I will do my best to moderate the questions and answers at the end of the presentation.
Julie Edwards: So without further ado, our presenter today is Devina Morgan Wits Divina is the publisher of book brows. One of the internet's leading resources for inquiring readers
Julie Edwards: book Browse offers a curated reader's advisory service, recommending books to entertain, engage, and inform with a focus on book club members, and those who read to expand their horizons.
Julie Edwards: It has reached book clubs and readers in general for more than 15 years, and has surveyed more than 20,000 readers. So Davina is going to share a lot of good information with you today, and with that I will turn it over to her.
Davina (BookBrowse): Julie, thank you very much indeed, and thank you to all of you who are here today to talk about building community through book clubs.
Davina (BookBrowse): My name is Davina, and I am the publisher of bookbrows, based near San Jose, California.
Davina (BookBrowse): and I am going to
Julie Edwards: whoops You got muted there, Davina.
Davina (BookBrowse): My apologies, Julie, these are the topics we're going to be covering today.
Davina (BookBrowse): mit Ctl. And but before getting into the findings and the me to be content, which I hope will take about 35 min maximum 40, leaving plenty of time for questions and discussion. I would like to tell you just a little bit about bookbrows to put into context 142.
Why, we've become a knowledge resource on book clubs.
Davina (BookBrowse): Dot com is a website and an online magazine built by book lovers for book letters, and for more than 2 decades we've been providing a highly created resource of books recommending the best in fiction and nonfiction.
Davina (BookBrowse): We focus on books, as Julie said, but not only engage and entertain, but also deepen our understanding of the world and ourselves. In other words, with a perfect destination for book group members, and anyone who reads to expand their horizons.
Davina (BookBrowse): where other resources list endless numbers of books, sometimes of dubious quality. We focus on recommending a smaller number of books essentially the best of the best, and then we provide all the information we can to allow people to make their own informed decision, about which you right for them.
Davina (BookBrowse): Much of our content is free, but full access is only for individual members and for patrons and staff of libraries that subscribe to our library product. Book brows the libraries.
Davina (BookBrowse): So this is why we have an interest in understanding book groups and more specifically book groups and libraries.
Davina (BookBrowse): and we've accumulated a pretty pretty deep knowledge on that topic.
Davina (BookBrowse): Some of what i'll be sharing with you from today is from our inner lives. Book Clubs Report.
Davina (BookBrowse): Oh.
Davina (BookBrowse): this
Davina (BookBrowse): bold.
Davina (BookBrowse): much previously, which was the mechanics of book clubs, such as how many in your group? Where do you meet what you read
Davina (BookBrowse): to explore? What makes book clubs tick? For example, among the many areas we research. So why do people join book groups? In the first place, what do they want from their group, and what do they like best about their group.
Davina (BookBrowse): We also looked at the typical things that go wrong in a book group, and how real-life groups resolve these issues.
Davina (BookBrowse): So the inner lives is essentially a data-driven guide to running a book club.
Davina (BookBrowse): Then, a year after we published that the pandemic hit.
Davina (BookBrowse): and it was also a pretty heated time in terms of politics and race relations, and we realized we needed to fire up our survey monkey account again and get out to research what was happening in book groups then and there during that pivotal time.
Davina (BookBrowse): So in 4, 2020, we published book clubs in Lockdown. I'll share a handful of findings from this report mainly focused on how book clubs have changed as a result of a pandemic.
Davina (BookBrowse): and there's much more in the report. If that was much more in both reports, which you will have access to afterwards.
Davina (BookBrowse): But in the book clubs and knock down particularly, we've had a lot of information on Virtual Book clubs, which I won't really touch on today, except very briefly, and I think also you might find it
Davina (BookBrowse): really fascinating reading. I I I read it for first time full for about a year last night, and I just thought well what we all went through, and what you, as librarians went through to keep the wheels on, and to create and innovate and keep everything going during during that time is just amazing. Anyhow.
Davina (BookBrowse): anyone who's registered will be getting pdfs of both these reports.
Davina (BookBrowse): If you're not registered, you can find out more information at Book browser, com slash, Wp: where you can also buy copies of the inner lives of book clubs in print. I actually recommend it for reference sections. We sell it at cost through book sellers for $18, with a discount for Ingram.
and it's a really useful resource for your reference section.
Davina (BookBrowse): In addition, i'll be so. Our knowledge of book Clumps clubs is supplemented by ongoing research surveys pretty much every year.
Davina (BookBrowse): the most recent being 2 months ago, plus in-depth interviews with book groups and I've also had the privilege of being guest, speaker on or panelists as a number of library books. Other conferences which has enhanced our learning further, and I'll be sharing a small fraction of all of this with you today.
Davina (BookBrowse): Excuse me first off.
Davina (BookBrowse): What do people not in book groups think of them?
Davina (BookBrowse): No. The reason I suggest this is important is because if you come across somebody in your library who you think really should be a great fit for your book groups and you say to them.
Davina (BookBrowse): Hey, we've got those book clubs. Have you thought about joining them?
Davina (BookBrowse): And they say, No, it's not for me, but chances are the reason they're thinking it's not for them is a reason that actually probably is not correct, for the great majority of book clubs, and particularly for the great majority of book clubs run in libraries.
Davina (BookBrowse): People think of them as social places which barely touch a book, but they're cliche full of women it is true in private groups that we survey 88% of private groups are all female, not always by choice. Oftentimes they've got into that place by forming at a certain stage in their life.
and they would like to bring in more diversity. And I don't mean just men. But it's difficult breaking out of that, because
Davina (BookBrowse): very few of us want to be the sole representative of demographic in a book group, and that is one of the great strengths of the Public Library Book Clubs is the much lower barrier to entry the perception reality that you can just drop in, Give it a go if you don't like it, move on. So that is a strength.
Davina (BookBrowse): Another thing that many people say is they read boring books. They're not challenging, or they read literary fiction and women's fiction. And I should say these comments are from women, all these comments actually up from from women. So they complain about book clubs being mainly cliche of women.
Davina (BookBrowse): I've never met a book club which says, we're we're trying to find non-challenging books to read, and even the groups that tend to focus on what we might
Davina (BookBrowse): deep think of as the typical book club books. Very few of them are always sticking within literary fiction. They're reading genre fiction only 5% are never reading non-fiction.
Davina (BookBrowse): So there's much more variety than people outside of book clubs. Realize
Davina (BookBrowse): this, I find fascinating. I'm. Going to be forced to read something just to be friends with a group.
Davina (BookBrowse): because over over one third of people who are not in a book club say that's one of the key reasons. They don't want to be in one. They don't want to be tied down to reading these books. They're not going to like. whereas in book clubs, as we will see.
Davina (BookBrowse): it's one of a great strengths. They say they love being exposed to books they always wouldn't have read. And the last point is actually something that I think does have some validity. particularly for the private book clubs, and again, is one of the great strengths of the public groups. Is that lower barrier to entry that I talked about
Davina (BookBrowse): the
Davina (BookBrowse): If I am asked to join my friend's book club in my local neighborhood.
Davina (BookBrowse): i'm going to go through a whole contortion of thinking. Well, if I join it, and then I find it's not for me. Am I going to upset my friends by joining it? If I find the books on me. All this goes on, and it's a valid reason not to want to join a a, a, a group where you
Davina (BookBrowse): don't know people, or perhaps you do know people, and it's just too close for comfort. And again a great strength for the public library groups.
Davina (BookBrowse): And when we talk to people in public groups, and I could spend the entire
Davina (BookBrowse): time just giving you amazing comments about what people tell us about the public experience and public library groups. The bottom line is that you are a vital and fun aspect to their life. They enjoy a sense of community and value, intellectual challenge and growth.
and
Davina (BookBrowse): keep on doing what you're doing, because you are so appreciated. People appreciate libraries, librarians, and the book clubs. They join in their library. So I just want you to know that this is such a
Davina (BookBrowse): it's such an important part of their lives.
Davina (BookBrowse): and it's actually become even more important since the pandemic.
Davina (BookBrowse): You know
Davina (BookBrowse): book clubs in lockdown report we asked people
Davina (BookBrowse): compared with last year, how is your experience in your book club?
Davina (BookBrowse): And about a third of people said their experience was worse, which perhaps isn't surprising. Given that they were either meeting virtually 96% of the people we met who we surveyed who are meeting. Virtually we're meeting on zoom, and
Davina (BookBrowse): I think 2 thirds of people at that time were meeting virtually so. They were either meeting virtually, and many were finding the format awkward, or having said that many were actually really enjoying the format about something we get into in the lockdown report, but they were missing the conviviality of being in person.
Davina (BookBrowse): They were stressed by life, or they were meeting in person, but with masks on socially distance. And it was just. The whole thing was
Davina (BookBrowse): awkward, but almost half told us their book club is more important to them than it was because they'd realized that this part of their lives that they had sometimes taken for granted was actually incredibly vital to them, and the many people we spoke to at the time who were not.
Davina (BookBrowse): whose book club was not meeting, and many of those were actually library book clubs were saying to us, Gosh! I miss that group. I'm. So, looking forward to being able to get back to it.
Davina (BookBrowse): and then. So we've looked at people who are not in a book club and have a negative view.
Davina (BookBrowse): People who are in the Book club. And now, what about those people who have a positive perception of book clubs, but are not in one?
Davina (BookBrowse): Well. fundamentally, 60% of people told us.
Davina (BookBrowse): They don't know of any book clubs to join, or don't want to be part of any book clubs they know about. So I say to you, shout from her rooftops about your book clubs, because
I am sure there's people in your community who would love to know about them.
Davina (BookBrowse): And the other 40%. Remember that this survey was in 2,019 just before the pandemic.
Davina (BookBrowse): said I, don't have time, i'm. I'm unable.
Davina (BookBrowse): That was for a variety of reasons from travelling frequently for work, and therefore not being able to be somewhere on 80'clock on the Tuesday evening. Lack of childcare disabilities not wanting to drive, not being able to drive all sorts of reasons.
Davina (BookBrowse): many of which
Davina (BookBrowse): could be resolved by virtual book groups. And since, you know, in the last couple of years. We've again researched this audience, and we found that many of those people are actually now in virtual book groups. Of course there's another portion of the population who just say, you know, I just got too much up too much on at the moment
Davina (BookBrowse): we we see involvement in book clubs tick up
Davina (BookBrowse): essentially the age where people are empty nesting, and when they retire because it's got nothing. We find no correlation between how much people read. It's just how much time they feel they have. And so
Davina (BookBrowse): that's why we find that book. Clubs tend to trend older, although by no means is that a definitive
Davina (BookBrowse): going back to where people meet in their book groups
Davina (BookBrowse): and the virtual in-person scenario
Davina (BookBrowse): previously for the 15 years or so before the pandemic.
Davina (BookBrowse): we would ask people, year and year out. Where do you meet from your book club? And they tell us at home at the library at the Community Center. But it would be physically in person. Maybe 2% of people who said their primary book club were meeting
Davina (BookBrowse): virtually on Skype or something. Others were involved in book club forums like book brows, but we consciously excluded those from the Survey because we wanted to focus on the in Person Book Club.
Davina (BookBrowse): Now
Davina (BookBrowse): February, 2,023. When we went out and surveyed we find that only 40% are meeting in person all the time.
Davina (BookBrowse): Physically in person. Another 20% are mostly meeting physically in person.
Davina (BookBrowse): 14% are always online.
Davina (BookBrowse): Many of those are groups that formed during the pandemic.
Davina (BookBrowse): or they found that during the pandemic they were able to invite people back to their group who had moved out of the area.
Davina (BookBrowse): You know, friends who and who are now able to join the group, and so they want to stay that way, and some of those. And then there's this other whole quarter of people who are in some hybrid situation.
Davina (BookBrowse): The Snowbird groups who used to meet in Florida for 6 months of a year, and then go back to their home States now a meeting year round, but they're meeting half of the year virtually.
Davina (BookBrowse): some people say, oh, the weather is pretty ghastly outside tonight.
Davina (BookBrowse): Let's just fire. Up. Zoom. Some are having an in-person, meeting physically in person and having people
Davina (BookBrowse): zoom in on the TV screen in their living room from out of town. So there's every variation on a theme, and I also hear from many librarians who are now running virtual groups. Sometimes they're running 2
Davina (BookBrowse): the same discussion group twice in a day, once during the day in person, and then again in the evening, virtually so
Davina (BookBrowse): so much variation in the way things are done. But fundamentals are that people still love their book clubs. However, they're joining them.
Davina (BookBrowse): and and we'll come on to talk more about that now.
Davina (BookBrowse): Recognizing that there are an endless variety of different book groups. There is no one from his fits. All book group we have found that there are certain attributes.
Davina (BookBrowse): but happy book groups generally have in common.
Davina (BookBrowse): and the first one is focusing on discussing the book.
Davina (BookBrowse): This chart, like a number of others that I will be showing you split between private groups and public groups. This is all public groups, including book clubs that meet in bookstores, and maybe a book club that's run by a church group or something that considers itself public. But
Davina (BookBrowse): libraries dominate this group so much that basically I could take out this other small number of other types of public groups, and the numbers would be the same. And so we see that 90% of public groups are spending at least 40 min focused on book discussion and but private book clubs. Aren't far behind.
Davina (BookBrowse): Are they doing this out of the sense of oh, this is Book Club. I must do it because it's the thing i'm supposed to do. No, and I can say that definitively, because when we
Davina (BookBrowse): filter cross-reference happiness in Book Club with length for discussion, we get a clear correlation between length of discussion and happiness on the left-hand side. We have that very happy face.
Davina (BookBrowse): 55% of people in a group that discusses a book for 20 min or less. Say, they're very happy in their group.
Davina (BookBrowse): rising all the way up to 81% in groups, but discuss for 75 min or longer.
Davina (BookBrowse): And so
Davina (BookBrowse): nobody's doing this out of duress. They're doing it because they actually it makes them happy to do so.
Davina (BookBrowse): In general.
Davina (BookBrowse): one of the other factors we find that many happy book clubs have in common is they have someone facilitate the discussions
Davina (BookBrowse): and the correlation Here is really that facilitated discussions tend to be longer discussions
Davina (BookBrowse): from the data. It's impossible for us to tease out whether people who want to have longer discussions have realized. If they have a facilitator that tends to create.
Davina (BookBrowse): not just longer discussions, but more focused discussions, more interesting discussions, or whether the
Davina (BookBrowse): it's the other way around. But the bottom line is, there's a correlation between having a facilitator and having a
Davina (BookBrowse): on topic
Davina (BookBrowse): suitably lengthy discussion.
Davina (BookBrowse): The groups that do well without a facilitator
Davina (BookBrowse): tend to be the ones that have a that have really laid down the ground rules in their group. They've sat down, and the group has said.
Davina (BookBrowse): We want a new
Davina (BookBrowse): element. But we also want to focus on book discussion, and we want to stay on topic. And they've agreed what on topic means and on this chart, and so the point of that is that
Davina (BookBrowse): if somebody segways off.
Davina (BookBrowse): anyone in the group feels empowered to say, You know, that was a really interesting topic. But let's bring it back without being
Davina (BookBrowse): being being thinking that they may be being body.
Davina (BookBrowse): But so what is on topic mean
Davina (BookBrowse): on a seven-point scale, and it'll be in the lives of book clubs. We have lots and lots of be 7 point scales for you to absorb
this one. We ask people, what does on topic mean for your book group
Davina (BookBrowse): where one is, we'll only discuss topics directly related to the book.
Why did John do this to Jane?
Davina (BookBrowse): And At the other end of this is the
Davina (BookBrowse): Sevens, where they will discuss personal experiences as they relate to the book that's the key thing. The put the person who manages to to move the conversation to the school run, and what their what their child is doing.
Davina (BookBrowse): That's not on topic, but the person who brings in their life experiences, and they are discussing topics related to the book. Those are the topics that many times people particularly enjoy, and in our book club forum on book brass, for example, we find those, and oftentimes the topics that do really well. For example.
is racism Nature versus nurture. Those sorts of topics that relate to whatever the book is, but allow them to
Davina (BookBrowse): see.
Davina (BookBrowse): see, talk
Davina (BookBrowse): about their lives. As well bring in their own experiences.
Davina (BookBrowse): and it is important to have that conversation with your group, because one fifth of people who left the group due to the satisfaction, said that the discussions I've lost my my chance. I can't see what that says. Anyway, i'll move on from that.
Davina (BookBrowse): What else? The book clubs value
Davina (BookBrowse): respect for each other's, opinions.
Davina (BookBrowse): exposure to other books they otherwise wouldn't have read. And remember what I told you at the beginning about the one of the key reasons people don't want to join. A group is being forced to read books that they wouldn't otherwise read, which is such a strength in the people who are in the group. They they love that part of it one.
Davina (BookBrowse): They also want to learn from other people's experiences, and they want a sense of belonging. But that is different to feeling. A need to socialize
Davina (BookBrowse): Now I should say that only 10% of people in public groups said that socializing was unimportant in their group.
Davina (BookBrowse): But what they tell us. Is it's secondary? Because it is through the open debate
Davina (BookBrowse): and a sharing of perspectives that the friendship grows? So the Public Library Forum, where most of the discussion is on
Davina (BookBrowse): the book with maybe a bit of topping and tailing is a format that people really enjoy.
Davina (BookBrowse): Other common attributes of happy book groups allow ample book discussion time.
Davina (BookBrowse): So we've discovered we we covered that
Davina (BookBrowse): stay on topic, respect each other's opinions, learn from a book in each other
Davina (BookBrowse): vibrant discussions of challenging books we've touched on, that discussions are facilitated, and the last an important one.
Davina (BookBrowse): Set expectations and discuss issues.
Davina (BookBrowse): The reason this is important. I'm: sorry. I'm just going to take a moment to try and control my screen because things are popping up all over place. and I need to try and get rid of this ball.
Davina (BookBrowse): No, I can't do. I just have to live with it.
Davina (BookBrowse): Sorry.
Davina (BookBrowse): One of the things we recommend that book clubs do
Davina (BookBrowse): one of the things we recommend. The book clubs do is have a probably annual health check.
Davina (BookBrowse): This does not need to be a big deal. It can be something you do with your book club.
Davina (BookBrowse): and I wouldn't suggest you kind of hand out a sheet like this, and I don't suggest you do it as a as a anonymous forum, because the whole point is to get feedback and have that open discussion of the group, just to throw out a couple of questions, maybe prompted by one of the one of the ones on this on this list, or by other ones that you feel irrelevant to your group.
Davina (BookBrowse): Ask open-ended questions of your group and find out what people are thinking about their group. What are they liking about the group? Are they happy with the types of books that are being read. Do they have different ideas about what they'd like to do?
Because
Davina (BookBrowse): the best time there's 3 stages where you can resolve a problem in your book club. You can deal with it. You can never deal with it at all in in life, and you just let it fester. And usually that doesn't solve anything. You can deal with it when it happens, or you can
Davina (BookBrowse): resolve it before it happens by discussing, by having those by finding out what people want from the group, and you know.
Davina (BookBrowse): move things along. And the reason this is so important is that when we ask people in Section 5 of the inner lives of book clubs. Why did you know why you left a book club due to dissatisfaction?
Davina (BookBrowse): They give us lots of reasons which i'm putting up in the notes in at the bottom of some of these charts. But then we say, Well. you've stayed so long. Why did you stay so long.
Davina (BookBrowse): and they say, Well, well, you know they were friends. I didn't want to upset my friendship School. New people joined the group. Nobody ever told them that our group was supposed to be focused on this type of reading and focusing on discussion, and they started wanting to do other things and gossiping, and it just wasn't any fun anymore. All the other thing that comes up is I felt i'd grown as a reader.
Davina (BookBrowse): and the other people in the group were still wanting to read the same types of books. So it's really important, I think, to have this sort of regular check in not a big deal. Just throw out questions every now and then, and find out what the group is thinking
Davina (BookBrowse): which moves me on to book selection, which is in the in a live section. 3 of this we cover 12 topics, which are the most frequent problems in book clubs, and how real groups resolve to them. And book selection is definitely up there as one of those topics.
Davina (BookBrowse): So we asked people
Davina (BookBrowse): but 13 different
Davina (BookBrowse): 13 different factors. What is it
Davina (BookBrowse): but you look for in a book club book.
Davina (BookBrowse): and just to make this a little easier on the eyes.
Davina (BookBrowse): I've turned this into a tag cloud.
Davina (BookBrowse): and you can see that enjoyable good conversation are well written.
Davina (BookBrowse): are absolutely key. But there's also this huge laundry list of other things that people are looking for.
Davina (BookBrowse): They want it to be topical. They want it to be controversial. Be good if it was proven. And you know for that definitely consider resources like book book brows where we've got our book club forums. We've got thousands of reading guides, all the books we've recommended. They want it to be inspiring. They want it to be different from something they've read before.
Davina (BookBrowse): but
Davina (BookBrowse): they really want it to be enjoyable. And so I want I The points i'd like to make here are, firstly, for you when picking books for your book club.
Davina (BookBrowse): but also with your reader's advisory hat on.
Davina (BookBrowse): because, while we all know that oftentimes the books that are least popular
Davina (BookBrowse): turn out to be the ones that have really good discussions. I personally don't want to be responsible for bringing that book to my book club, which people are still complaining about years later.
And so when i'm cooking, picking a book for my group.
Davina (BookBrowse): I may have a tendency to play safe, because, while I want to make it inspiring and different, and everything else. I also want it to be enjoyable and safe. and so as
Davina (BookBrowse): librarians. If somebody comes to you, and says i'm looking for a book for my book club. Of course you're going to say, what does your book Club read? But then, instead of saying your group, Lee reads mysteries.
Davina (BookBrowse): I've got some great i'll probably what we'll want to say. I've got some great mysteries over here that you might want to look at.
Davina (BookBrowse): but you might also want to say, how do you considered true crime, for example, or for the group who always reads historical fiction? Have you considered a narrative non non fiction, like the Nazi conspiracy, or whatever
Davina (BookBrowse): something that will gently push them out of their comfort zone, because what we've found is the books that generally do a less successful than book clubs are the ones where
Davina (BookBrowse): people say, yeah, that was good. But
Davina (BookBrowse): we've kind of done those topics before. So finding the new new new is always finding a new new and giving people the reassurance that it's going to be a good choice is
Davina (BookBrowse): critical to them, making successful book club choices.
Davina (BookBrowse): and again in the report, much more information on this.
Davina (BookBrowse): But on the left we've got the private book clubs, and on the right we've got the public groups, and you can see that you know the proportion of groups that pick books in different ways.
Davina (BookBrowse): and
Davina (BookBrowse): a quarter of people who left a book club due to dissatisfaction, did so
Davina (BookBrowse): because
Davina (BookBrowse): of the book selection.
Davina (BookBrowse): Whether the book choices were poor choices, or whether the the just the book selection.
Davina (BookBrowse): Oftentimes some these problems can be resolved by changing the method of selection. For example.
Davina (BookBrowse): in the group where everyone suggests titles, and then they pick
Davina (BookBrowse): that overly dominant personality which is the number. One problem in book clubs and then impacts all other aspects of problems in book clubs.
somehow
Davina (BookBrowse): gets a little bit more vocal than other people, and they get too many of their choices, and other people are sometimes
Davina (BookBrowse): openly frustrated, but oftentimes secretly frustrated, that can be resolved by taking it in terms to decide what books. And so there's lots of other options in the report about how to maybe manage things.
Davina (BookBrowse): Another thing that came out of the inner Lives report. Once we asked book clubs about their use of public library, book bags, book club in a bag.
Davina (BookBrowse): and in public library groups that's for light blue. We found that the Harper groups were generally picking book bags, but among those who were in private groups. Only 5% said they did.
Davina (BookBrowse): And when we ask them, why is that a good number? Say. I don't think my library's got them. Well, maybe they Now I know that not every library of the country has book club kits.
Davina (BookBrowse): but i'm, i'm guessing that more than 5% of the libraries in the country do so. I think there is a possibility of lack of communication around the availability of book bags. 250
Davina (BookBrowse): when we did our inner lives of book clubs report. During the pandemic we found that many groups who were struggling to find books
Davina (BookBrowse): during lockdown were turning to book bags, so they were getting more use, but still I suspect there's a a lack of awareness out there. The other thing that people told us is the Book Club kits for available were not sufficiently challenging the book titles, or they were ones that they had already read.
And so maybe there's an opportunity to canvass your book clubs in your community to find out what sort of book club kits paid like
Davina (BookBrowse): moving on
Davina (BookBrowse): supporting multiple book clubs with minimal involvement is one model.
Davina (BookBrowse): and I've also got another model, which is lots of involvement, but does do a great job in terms of supporting their community with their book clubs.
Davina (BookBrowse): and I will start with the running multiple groups with lots of involvement.
Davina (BookBrowse): This Dairyan library in Connecticut. I had the privilege of interviewing Marian
Davina (BookBrowse): Pad Anditi. I hope I've got pronunciation right about the book clubs, but she and her colleagues run. and
Davina (BookBrowse): this they work with, and you can read the Q. A. In full on book press. We'll send you a link afterwards as well.
Davina (BookBrowse): They work. First of all, they work with local groups, such as the Y.M.C.A. Or museums. I think they will also go out to private groups to help get them established. So, for example, there will go to the first 2 or 3, meet 2 or 3 meetings to establish best practices for how to run a meeting.
Davina (BookBrowse): They provide book club and a bad kids, but only to registered book groups, and they don't ask for just the leader of the book group to register.
Davina (BookBrowse): They have asked for every book, club, member to register, and they get them registering.
Davina (BookBrowse): And even if that outside the community outside the library service area they become members of the library, and therefore can take out books, and they've got about a 100 book clubs currently registered.
Davina (BookBrowse): and only those book clubs are able to get their book club in their back kits.
Davina (BookBrowse): They then run regular book talking meetings with individual groups to help them pick the seasonal books.
Davina (BookBrowse): They have all her events periodic workshops on how to run book clubs, and they also have a monthly newsletter and a dedicated web page. and this is
Davina (BookBrowse): quite a time-consuming model they reckon that between 2 of them they put in about 30 h a week, plus for some team events.
Davina (BookBrowse): But they have a really cohesive book club program where at least a 100 book clubs in the community feel that They are
Davina (BookBrowse): part of the library.
universal want of a better word, and they also have their in library book clubs as well.
Davina (BookBrowse): The other model
Davina (BookBrowse): I was greatly privileged to be on a panel with a wonderful book seller from Tacoma Washington, who is the sole employee in his bookstore.
Davina (BookBrowse): and he runs 12 book clubs, or rather, I should say, 12 book clubs, a run from his
Davina (BookBrowse): from the umbrella of his bookstore. and the way he does this
Davina (BookBrowse): is he delegates and collaborates when somebody comes to him and says, I've got a great idea for a book club, he says.
Davina (BookBrowse): you know to you.
Davina (BookBrowse): And so he collaborates with local organizations, community centers, religious organizations, whatever is relevant
Davina (BookBrowse): to give them the tools to run their own book clubs. And then the book clubs are located where it makes sense to do so. But what he does do centrally
Davina (BookBrowse): is, he promotes the books on the website in his newsletter in the bookstore.
Davina (BookBrowse): and he writes short but compelling descriptions of each book club which make me feel to myself who look at that Well, i'm not sure if i'd really want to join swimming to come up for ever, but might be quite fun to drop in and knowing what they've read in the past, and knowing what they're reading coming up.
Davina (BookBrowse): I've got everything I need to be able to drop in without it being a big deal. I can just come in and go out.
Davina (BookBrowse): And then the other thing is, he doesn't get wedded to ideas. He doesn't get attached to a concept. If it's just not taking off, he will just allow it to go dormant
Davina (BookBrowse): after 3 or 4 meetings.
Davina (BookBrowse): And so that means when somebody next comes to and says, Have you ever thought of having a Cult Classics Book Club.
Davina (BookBrowse): He can say. that's a great idea. Actually, I got a whole template for running a group just like that.
Davina (BookBrowse): and on it goes. So I hope that the those 2 models may give you some ideas of how people out there are running many, many book clubs with
Davina (BookBrowse): hopefully some time to go home in the evening, such as sweet P in Tacoma
Davina (BookBrowse): winding up.
Davina (BookBrowse): I hope I may not have said it enough times because it needs to be said many times.
Davina (BookBrowse): There is so much love for library book clubs out there.
Davina (BookBrowse): and you are so appreciated in your communities. As I've said, libraries, librarians, and book clubs. You are all so appreciated.
Davina (BookBrowse): and the model of Book club that you run
Davina (BookBrowse): is one that fits what people
Davina (BookBrowse): generally look for. When we asked people in the inner lives of book clubs, so they where they would like to meet. Half of people said they'd prefer to meet in the public location.
Davina (BookBrowse): Only only a third of people said they'd like it to be private, and the the 20% who say they want to meet online at that time. They most likely probably meant forums, or they might have meant forums or Skype.
But you know, obviously those people are now rightful.
Davina (BookBrowse): Any virtual book club you might want to be running. They generally want 8 12 people
Davina (BookBrowse): in the discussion. That doesn't mean 8 to 12 people in the group you can have. You could have a book club with 50 people in it, and if 20 people turn up that's fine, just make sure you can slip the group up into 2 for the discussion. I would say, if you have more than 2
Davina (BookBrowse): more than 12 people probably consider splitting it into 2 groups for the discussion, because if you think about, you know. 12 people trying to discuss
Davina (BookBrowse): equally over an hour, that's only giving people 5 min plus. One person is going to talk too much. So you know.
Davina (BookBrowse): don't you don't have to limit the size of your book club. So long as if too many people turn up. There's an option to split it up into a manageable number.
Davina (BookBrowse): and never split it into the same people. Every time make sure names go into a hat and pull out different names. So the different groups each time people want diversity in their group they don't want to speak to people like themselves. They know what they think they want to speak to other people, and when we research we find the Public Library Book clubs are generally much more diverse across the board than the private groups, and that is something that people want.
both in terms of the age range in the groups, the range of male female, the demographic backgrounds everything
Davina (BookBrowse): they want to focus on discussion again. That is what generally the public library groups do. As I said, there's many groups out there. Private groups who enjoy their meals and enjoy their social time.
Davina (BookBrowse): But discussions paramount, and those who are joining public groups are there
Davina (BookBrowse): for the discussion, and they want food and drink to be low-key. Except for a there are some groups who love their You know themed meals and that
Davina (BookBrowse): big big budget productions of dressing up for the event. But most book clubs just want to come along and focus on discussing the book, at least among the 5,000 we've surveyed for this.
Davina (BookBrowse): How important are you to people?
Davina (BookBrowse): Very
Davina (BookBrowse): another 7 point scale this time, where one is not important and 7 is very important, and you can see that book. Clubs are important to people across the board, and you in Green are just as important to people
Davina (BookBrowse): as private book clubs
Davina (BookBrowse): As I think I mentioned earlier. There is a slightly higher turnover in public groups than private groups, with 58% of people in a public group having been in a group for 5 years versus 71% in private groups.
Davina (BookBrowse): But personally, I think that's a strength, because it's that
Davina (BookBrowse): call off membership
Davina (BookBrowse): combined with regular turnover, which keeps people keeps group fresh, and makes it possible for new people to come in without feeling like they have a new girl in the group, like a friend of mine who's been in her book club 15 years, and she's still called for New Girl. It is a bit of a joke, but
Davina (BookBrowse): it's still. You just don't want to feel that. and that is all I have got to say. I hope I've left lots of time for questions.
Davina (BookBrowse): while Julie gathers up questions to give me. I hope you will
Davina (BookBrowse): check out bookbrows. You'll find us@bookbrows.com slash niche. That's a landing page where you'll find some key information. Also information on a 10% discount for Niche Academy people.
Davina (BookBrowse): You won't find it on book brows. So just mentioned, if you just choose to contact us to just just mention the 10% discount. And I I genuinely think we're a great resource for libraries. We are a highly created resource of recommendations, not just listing. We have all sorts of
Davina (BookBrowse): bells and whistles, such as apps to your website, so people can search for. Reader likes one click linking to your website, and much more
Davina (BookBrowse): so over to Julie.
Julie Edwards: Thank you so much, Davina. This has been excellent. There's a great
Julie Edwards: conversation going on in the chat. I do want to remind all of you. Yes, yes, you will get copies of this presentation. I will send you the recording and the slides, and a resource list that Davina has put together, and links.
Julie Edwards: chat, transcripts, all of the things. Give me a few days to get all that together, and I will send it out to you on to questions. Yes, Divina, Can you repeat what percentage of book groups are still meeting online?
Davina (BookBrowse): I can. I can. I can.
Davina (BookBrowse): 14% are meeting online, I think, the whole time. Let me go back to see if I can find it, and 25% are meeting in some variation of virtual.
Davina (BookBrowse): Excellent! Oh, perfect! Thank you. Thank you. We there's a lot of kudos coming in a lot of people we saw. Somebody say, we're subscribers. We love it. That's great.
Davina (BookBrowse): Someone saying what is the best strategy to handle? A member who monopolizes the book conversation. Do you have any feedback about that? The what we call the overly dominant personality in the report was such a frequent
Davina (BookBrowse): topic in our in our Section 3, but we actually sort of ended up abbreviating it to Od. P. So
Davina (BookBrowse): overly dominant personalities were a factor for
Davina (BookBrowse): 39% of public groups and 34% of private groups.
Davina (BookBrowse): Honestly, I I So the what to do, what to do will first of all set expectations make it clear that everyone needs to have
Davina (BookBrowse): you have a chance to speak, have a facilitator.
Davina (BookBrowse): and have that facilitator feel empowered to
Davina (BookBrowse): bring the conversation back on track.
Davina (BookBrowse): occasionally actually have having having the facilitator be the person who
Davina (BookBrowse): who the overdevelopment person be. The facilitator can help.
Davina (BookBrowse): Some Some groups resort to having timers having bean bags. It all seems a little bit much, but that's what some of them do. Sometimes people take. Take aside the person to have a so quiet word with them to say, you know.
Davina (BookBrowse): Did you realize I mean one of the things that we ask in the sorry one of the things we ask in
Davina (BookBrowse): in
Davina (BookBrowse): I'm: sorry. But yeah, one of the things we ask in the in the lives of book clubs is, do you feel that you talk more or less than other people in a book club? And we found. I can't remember the numbers off of my head, but I think about 20% of people felt they spoke more than other people in their group.
Davina (BookBrowse): And so the question to those people is, why are they speaking more?
Davina (BookBrowse): So?
Davina (BookBrowse): I? All I can do is suggest: you go to Section 3, where we cover it in detail, because it does impact every aspect of the group, not just the conversations, but book choices and everything, and it's been so effectively. That's what we spent 20 pages on.
Julie Edwards: Thank you so much, and just a reminder. Yes, there you will get access to to all of these. Divina has been very generous in the resources that she's put together. A lot of questions coming in about marketing, how? What? What are great ways to market, but clubs, from what you've seen and heard from librarians, a lot of people are saying
Julie Edwards: it's They've got book clubs, but they want to get more people, or they want to maintain interest.
Davina (BookBrowse): Well, I think I must hand this over to the 634 people who apparently online at the moment, because you are the people on the ground. I will waffle and answer, but I hope the chat is filling with people
Davina (BookBrowse): sharing what what they've done
Davina (BookBrowse): as that first chart. That early chance said 60% of
Davina (BookBrowse): you know, 60% of people don't know of any book clubs to join or don't want to be any book clubs they know there would appear to be a fundamental communication issue for many
Davina (BookBrowse): libraries also go back to what I was saying about the reasons, the perception that people have of book clubs
Davina (BookBrowse): of many people simply have.
Davina (BookBrowse): I mean, the media has done as a disservice, you know, has done book clubs to service, but this book clubs make this marvelous foil, if that's the right word for setting a plot against, and the Book Club with the glass of wine in their hands, and the gossip, and somebody probably being murdered in the corner of a room, because it's, you know.
Davina (BookBrowse): Is it just such a
Davina (BookBrowse): mit ctl and such a trope in the media, and it's something that so many people believe is what book clubs are about, maybe because their local group is like that. But certainly once we've surveyed so tell people what that your groups are like. Think about the things that people
Davina (BookBrowse): you know. Those comments, all those negatives were from people they were actually from from. They were from within.
Davina (BookBrowse): who were heavy readers.
Davina (BookBrowse): and
Davina (BookBrowse): I mean those specific quotes. But across the board those are comments that come out. So understand what your audience are thinking of what you've got, and
Davina (BookBrowse): correct those assumptions by telling people what your book club is about, about what what you're reading, that you focus on discussion.
Davina (BookBrowse): I mean, actually the reason. But we created the in the lives of book clubs was because there was an article in the New York Times
Davina (BookBrowse): back in 2,019, which caught my eye because it was referencing some of our previous research. But it then went on to talk about how book clubs for this hotbed of gossip and hot bed of drama, and I just knew that was not true.
Davina (BookBrowse): But I didn't have that quantitative data to say this is not true, because we's focused on the mechanics of book clubs. You know where you meet, how often you meet. And so that's why we went out to do this 150
Davina (BookBrowse): group Dynamics project of what's making book clubs tick.
Davina (BookBrowse): because what people think about is not?
Julie Edwards: That is a fantastic answer, and thank you for encouraging chat in the chat box. There are so many good ideas flying back and forth. I cannot keep up with them, but you will all get copies of the Chat transcripts.
Julie Edwards: This is sort of a a tangental question, but trying to diversify groups to get more male attendance or young adults. Anything that's come up in your research that is attractive for those demographics.
Davina (BookBrowse): So I think the challenge is trying to diversify an existing group.
Davina (BookBrowse): It's very difficult, because, as I said, very few people want to be that sole representative of a demographic, whatever it is.
Davina (BookBrowse): I think, trying to.
Davina (BookBrowse): I know it's with the horses left the barn as such. It's rather pointless to say it, but try to build that diversity in in the beginning
Davina (BookBrowse): The for Young Young People. I think I've seen lots of success with young people's groups through to end of middle school. It tends to be very difficult to keep a book club going through high school, because there's just so much required reading by the High School that they tend to drop out.
Davina (BookBrowse): and then I think I suspect that you'll find it easier diversifying a group which is on Zoom because of the flexibility that people have to come in.
Davina (BookBrowse): but I it's difficult to say, but I think it's. If you're going to try to diversify, you need to try and bring in a chunk of people at one time.
Davina (BookBrowse): so that you don't just have that one person who then becomes the the the the person that everyone turns to? Well. your English. What's your opinion on this? I don't speak for all English people?
Julie Edwards: Excellent. Thank you. Someone's asking, do you offer suggestions for children's or team book clubs?
Davina (BookBrowse): We have a Y a section, and we also cover crossover. One of us. Is there? No. it looks
Davina (BookBrowse): do on the young adults. So you know I
Davina (BookBrowse): 1516, plus or whatever we have a Y a section where we cover some
Davina (BookBrowse): exceptional Y. A. Our focus is mainly on adults, adult fiction and nonfiction.
but we also in there have a lot of crossover books
Davina (BookBrowse): for adult books that we believe would be suitable for ya readers. And if you go to the Y. A section. You can also dig into
Davina (BookBrowse): reading guides by
Davina (BookBrowse): well, actually, in any section. But for us you can dig into reading guides by genre time, period, setting and theme to find books that will be suit a particular niche.
Davina (BookBrowse): So yes, we do. And if you go into our
Davina (BookBrowse): in terms of advice for young groups. If you go to our Book Club Interview section under the Book Club Tab, we have over the years interviewed a number of book clubs for younger readers, not not the number, maybe
Davina (BookBrowse): 3 or 4. Possibly so. There's lots of in-depth advice in those as well.
Davina (BookBrowse): But yes, you will find resources for younger groups, young adult groups.
Davina (BookBrowse): and also, you know.
Davina (BookBrowse): the mother, daughter type groups where you're looking for books that are adult books, probably with crossover, appeal, or or vice versa. So so we're pretty strong on those 2.
Julie Edwards: Thank you.
Julie Edwards: Several people are asking how to keep people engaged like at the moment in the conversation. What are your recommendations, or what has the research shown about how to avoid those awkward silences?
Davina (BookBrowse): Is a silence awkward.
Davina (BookBrowse): So she, having a silence
Davina (BookBrowse): especially. You know. Again, one of the 12 problems we go through in is the person who doesn't speak very, very often, and people are worried about that person in their group. Well, is that person ever getting a chance to speak
Davina (BookBrowse): so? I think calling on people individually can help so long as their body language, isn't screaming to you, don't call on me to give people the opportunity.
Davina (BookBrowse): but I think a few. I think silence can feel very long when You're the facilitator. But maybe a little bit of silence can be good.
Davina (BookBrowse): Does that help?
Julie Edwards: It's a great answer, I think. Thank you. Couple of questions coming in about facilitating. So the first is, should the facilitator also be reading the book, or is that person just there to manage the discussion? And the second is, do you recommend that the facilitator select the first few books and then
Julie Edwards: members vote on future topics?
Davina (BookBrowse): So.
Davina (BookBrowse): page
Davina (BookBrowse): paint whatever it is, facilitate a chart. All the things that facilitators tend to do in book clubs.
Davina (BookBrowse): I think facilitators in public library groups where it is mostly the librarian. Sometimes they're doing more than you need to.
Davina (BookBrowse): What we find is that in some groups people tell us.
Davina (BookBrowse): I you know they either the defect that they, either the de facto or formal leader of the group, and they're feeling overwhelmed. or they are members of the group, and feeling that they have very little agency in what's going on.
Davina (BookBrowse): And so there may be people in your group who would like to facilitate. and for maybe people in the group who would like to take on different tasks, such as researching information about the book or the author.
Davina (BookBrowse): It doesn't have to be all on you. But to get back to the question, which was Julie. Tell me that again
Davina (BookBrowse): whether the facilitator should read the book.
Davina (BookBrowse): of course.
Davina (BookBrowse): and also never recommend a book to your library of them to your Book Club without reading it. That's again. I can't tell you how many times I've had panicked people email me, or calling me saying my meetings tonight. I haven't I didn't, you know I I I I took the book on spec. You know someone else's review and
Davina (BookBrowse): and it's awful. I don't know what you know to help me, and other than saying, Well, these are resources you can go to for questions, and you know
Davina (BookBrowse): in future read the book. Now I think if you're going to have a discussion of a book, you you you've got to have read it. I I think it'd be very difficult to otherwise.
Davina (BookBrowse): Sorry
Julie Edwards: that's great. No, thanks. Any thoughts about keeping statistics on attendance, and what kinds of books are read to justify keeping a group going? Do you find that that's good practice for librarians.
Davina (BookBrowse): I honestly don't know as a as a best practice. What I do know is that
Davina (BookBrowse): people who are coming to the group knew would probably like to see what's being said. I think people are coming to a group for first time would probably like to have maybe a gentle guideline of what the rules of the group are that we're going to discuss for so long, this and that, and the other, I think any record keeping is helpful.
Davina (BookBrowse): if nothing else, because groups that stay together for a long time generally are, or at least should be, expanding their reading. They should be moving into new avenues. I mean, we've been following book clubs since the early days of Oprah, and you know those groups that were loyally following Oprah's choices every month, and now out there reading across the board, because they are very sophisticated readers and discusses at this time. So I think
Davina (BookBrowse): whether it's because you need to report to the library
Davina (BookBrowse): what you've done, or whatever I think keeping records is good, whether it's for the reason you're keeping the record, or because it turns out to be useful for something else later. Whether it's a
Davina (BookBrowse): whether it's a way to help people stay in the group I don't know.
Julie Edwards: Thank you
Julie Edwards: someone's asking whether the research shows any. It. Let me rephrase the question, how well do you non fiction book clubs go compared to
Davina (BookBrowse): fiction clubs. Any sense of that from the research. Very well, very well. And in fact, in all
Davina (BookBrowse): book. So in our book Club for this year we've been upping the number of non fiction reads. So it basically was alternating. And we are having some great discussions. I know I was on a on a BBC radio interview last year with somebody who just started a non fiction book club.
Davina (BookBrowse): and he They were reading
Davina (BookBrowse): Napoleon and Napoleon's biography 900 pages, and they were. They were meeting once a quarter to read these huge books that he had just started. But he started recently these huge books. So if it's a very large non fiction book. Maybe you want to
Davina (BookBrowse): mit ctl and spread the you know the clubs don't have to meet every month. It's what i'm getting at. I I know book clubs that meet and discuss a short story every week. I know other book clubs that meet every 3 months and discuss a huge great biography, 152
Davina (BookBrowse): for the right audience.
Davina (BookBrowse): Non-fiction book clubs are tremendous like there's an interview in our section on cookbook book clubs. I'd never come across a concept of cookbook book. But what a brilliant idea!
Davina (BookBrowse): So many, many specialized areas! And, as I said, only about 5% of book clubs never read non-fiction according to the ones we've surveyed.
Julie Edwards: Excellent! Thank you. I'm going to throw this to Devina and also for any of you in the chat. There have been a couple of questions that have come up about. How do you push your book clubs out of their comfort zone so divine? You mentioned this a little bit in your presentation of
Julie Edwards: sort of providing, maybe not exactly what they always read, but something slightly related to it. So some of the questions are, you know? How do you bring up
Julie Edwards: topics of racism or classes, and or other things that might be difficult for people to talk about? Or how do you get a book club that refuses to read anything with a pink cover because
Julie Edwards: of the Association is a pink being beneath them? They want to read Pro. Thought provoking title. So questions about that.
Davina (BookBrowse): So first of all, i'm not in a position to talk about how to i'm not an expert in this, Aaron. Thank you very about 3 min, so I wouldn't be able to get myself dug in too deep. But we do have a blog post on book for us, discussing exactly. You know, the the challenge of discussing challenging topics, but brush to come slash race.
Davina (BookBrowse): a guide that I've personally found helpful is a guide to respect for conversations that we repair. Org.
Davina (BookBrowse): What I would say is when we researched book clubs over the years, we found that a small portion of book clubs would not discuss certain topics, sex, religion and and
Davina (BookBrowse): sex, religion and politics. By the time we researched the
Davina (BookBrowse): analyze the book clubs in 2,019. We found that 11% of book clubs would not discuss politics
Davina (BookBrowse): when we did the 2020 survey which we actually the the book clubs and lockdown. There's a lot of data in there on those difficult conversations people are having, and what what they were reading and what they were discussing, we found that 27% of American book clubs were no longer willing to discuss politics.
Davina (BookBrowse): Meanwhile only 3% of non-american book clubs weren't willing to discuss, and most of those were Canadians telling us they won't discuss American politics, so all I can say is, provide the tools to people. I would suggest sending out a guide to
Davina (BookBrowse): discussing these things ahead of time. So people know that they have a
Davina (BookBrowse): They know what they're going to expect. They have a template, for under understanding how to talk about things such as we repair.org, and they also know that everyone else in the meeting has also
Davina (BookBrowse): had that same information and share it at the beginning of the meeting to set best practices.
Davina (BookBrowse): Does that help?
Julie Edwards: I think that's extremely helpful. Thank you so much. We are right at the end of the hour, Dina, I want to thank you for your time and expertise sharing this with us. We really appreciate it.
Davina (BookBrowse): Well, thank you, and I've solved my stumbles at 1 point. I only had about the third of my screen actually showing anything, everything else that popped up with things. So it was. It was getting a little bit stressful, but I appreciate you sticking with me, and I hope it's been useful.
Julie Edwards: It has been so useful. There are so many. Thank yous coming in. People are are really thrilled. I will get the recording out to you with all of the tangential materials hopefully by Friday. So keep an eye in your email for that.
Julie Edwards: Thank you all so much for joining us. I hope to see you at the next Webinar. Until then stay well, everyone.