SOLIS Book Club at UCM

UCM’s SOLIS has formed a Book Club, which will meet this fall and discuss All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir. That was a highlight, for me, of the SOLIS members’ meeting on March 29, 2023.

(SOLIS stands for Student Organization of Library and Information Services. It is the student chapter of the American Library Association at the University of Central Missouri.)

As someone who advocated resurrecting “One Campus, One Book” at UCM (Parkhill, 2022), I’m super excited at the prospect of a SOLIS Book Club. Just this week, I’d been studying examples of library programming for LIS 5804, and one of the types of programming that I chose to focus on, was what McCook and Bossaller refer to as, “Mass Reading Events.”

“Mass Reading Events are evidence of a robust book culture” (McCook and Bossaller, 2018, p. 266). And a “robust book culture” is certainly one that I’ve always loved to be part of.

This fall, we’ll be discussing All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir (SOLIS, 2023).

All My Rage was the winner, in 2023, of the Michael L. Printz Award, for excellence in literature written for young adults (ALA, 2023). The book was also the winner, in 2022, of the National Book Award, in the “Young People’s Literature” category (National Book Foundation, n.d.).

Benefits of the SOLIS Book Club, cited in meeting minutes, are that it’s “Great for members who are interested in YA literature” and “Good for getting to know other people in the LIS program” (SOLIS, 2023).

Other meeting highlights included a review of officers’ duties, in preparation for elections for the coming academic year: President, Vice President, Secretary/Treasurer, Event Coordinator, and Social Media Coordinator.

Nominations/applications will be accepted until April 1. Elections will be held on April 15, and the officers’ terms begin in Fall 2023. Officers will serve for one full year unless they graduate.

We also learned that all UCM student organizations are transitioning to Central Connect, “an app for managing student organizations and their memberships. As part of this transition, names, emails, and any position/office of members will need to be added in by the president student organization.

“In order to be recognized as a member of SOLIS on your transcript, you must have your name, email, and position added to Central Connect. SOLIS members who decide they do not want to be recognized on their transcript are still welcome to participate in meetings” (Sauther, 2023).

Finally, we learned that a thesis is now one of three options for a capstone in the Education Specialist degree. The three options are a thesis, student teaching, or research problems (SOLIS, 2023).

References:
American Library Association. (2023, Jan. 30). American Library Association announces 2023 Youth Media Award winners. ALA News. https://bit.ly/2023YMA

McCook, K. & Bossaller, J.S. (2018). Introduction to public librarianship (3rd ed.) Neal-Schuman.

National Book Foundation. (n.d.) All My Rage: Winner, National Book Awards 2022 for Young People’s Literature. Books. https://www.nationalbook.org/books/all-my-rage/

Parkhill, C.M. (2022, Oct. 1). Let’s revive ‘One Campus, One Book’ at UCM. Cynthia Parkhill. https://cynthiaparkhill.blogspot.com/2022/10/lets-revive-one-campus-one-book-at-ucm.html

Sauther, J. (2023, March 29). Hello Everyone, Currently, all UCM student organizations are transitioning to Central Connect, an app for managing student organizations and their [Image attached] [Status update]. Facebook. http://bit.ly/40s5CpZ

Student Organization of Library and Information Services. (2023). C: Book club. SOLIS Officer Meeting, March 29, 2023 [Official minutes].