‘Just Mercy,’ UUA Common Read

The Unitarian Universalist Association announced today that this year’s “Common Read” is Just Mercy, A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson.

Since the program’s inception, I’ve closely followed each year’s Common Read selection.

I have long appreciated the shared experience of reading a book in common, and the UUA Common Read was an important addition to the UU lending library where I volunteered as librarian. Promoting the Common Read continues to be in-character as Religious Explorations administrative coordinator and web editor for a UU congregation.

UUA Common Read: ‘Multigenerational’ suggestion

I’ve long promoted the Unitarian Universalist Association’s Common Read, most recently as administrative coordinator for Religious Explorations at a UU community in Southern Oregon. Before that, I promoted the Common Read as volunteer administrator of a small church lending library.

In email correspondence, I commented that the Common Read is promoted by the UUA as a “multigenerational” resource, and I recommended that the UUA select companion materials grouped around the themes in the Common Read: picture books for the youngest UUs, elementary- to middle-school level and so on upward.

‘Reclaiming Prophetic Witness’: UUA ‘Common Read’

Reclaiming Prophetic Witness: Liberal Religion in the Public Square by Paul Rasor (Skinner House Books, 2013) is the Unitarian Universalist Association’s “Common Read” for 2014-2015.

In an Aug. 5 blog post, Gail Forsyth-Vail discusses the selection committee’s considerations among nominations this year, calling Rasor’s book a “gem.”

“Rasor observes that many liberals are uncomfortable with talking about our faith as the well from which spring our social justice commitments. The book includes insights from our theological heritage and our history that have bearing for us today, and calls us to prophetic, faith-based justice work.”

Reading selections support UU parenting

Image credit: Karen Bellavance-Grace

When it comes to wanting to inform constituents about available resources, there is little difference between me as “Religious Explorations” administrative coordinator for the Rogue Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, and as administrator of a small UU lending library.

RVUUF: Religious Explorations Coordinator

This month, I began working as Religious Explorations Coordinator for the Rogue Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. This part-time position helps to ensure smooth functioning of programs for children ages 0 to 4, pre-kindergarten through second-grade, third- through fifth- and sixth- through eighth-grade.

UU World articles accessible as MP3 files

Don Hymel

Readers with print disabilities can access UU World articles, recorded as MP3 files. Files are available for the current issue (as of this viewing, Winter 2013) through Fall 2012. Don Hymel, a Unitarian Universalist from San Antonia, Texas, reads and creates each MP3 file.

Author’s Note: The librarian may leave the library, but the library doesn’t leave the librarian — especially given my interest in promoting accessible collections and services. My first real “library job” was volunteer administrator for the UUCLC Lending Library in Lake County, Calif., and I couldn’t resist passing this along.

‘Behind the Kitchen Door’ is UUA Common Read

The Unitarian Universalist Association’s Common Read selection committee has chosen Behind the Kitchen Door by Saru Jayaraman (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2013) as the 2013-14 UUA Common Read.

Again, it seemed only natural to pass word along, given my attention to the “common read” when administering a lending library for a lay-led UU community.

“The book reveals how restaurant workers live on some of the lowest wages in America and how poor working conditions — discriminatory labor practices, exploitation, and unsanitary kitchens — affect the meals that arrive at our restaurant tables. ... Behind the Kitchen Door invites Unitarian Universalists to intentionally consider their practices in restaurant dining.”

Online group to discuss ‘The New Jim Crow’

The librarian may leave the library, but the library doesn’t leave the librarian. An open Facebook group, UUA Common Read Lab, is sure to interest readers of the Unitarian Universalist Association’s “Common Read.”

The 2012-2013 UUA Common Read selection is The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander.

As recently as three months ago, I administered a lending library for a UU congregation in Lake County, Calif. When developing a collection or recommending books, one area I paid strong attention to was the “common read.”

(This interest extended beyond administration of the lending library; my own most recent common reads are Michael Malone’s The Four Corners of the Sky and Vanessa Diffenbaugh’s The Language of Flowers).

It seemed only natural to pass this resource along, given the importance I placed on the Common Read when building a collection for the library.

The UUA invites group participants to “Post information about a discussion group being held in your congregation or community, extend in-person conversations beyond your group, and connect with others taking part in the Common Read.”

Study guide available for The New Jim Crow

The Unitarian Universalist Association has released a study guide for its 2012 2013 UUA Common Read selection, The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander (The New Press, 2012):

“In this remarkable book, civil rights advocate and litigator Michelle Alexander asserts that crime-fighting policies and systems in the U.S., such as the ‘war on drugs’ and the incarceration system disproportionately and intentionally affect Americans of color. She describes multifaceted, lifelong discrimination and disenfranchisement that affect people who are branded ‘felon.’”

The UUA Common Read invites participants to read and discuss the same book in a given period of time. Its previous selections, Acts of Faith by Eboo Patel and The Death of Josseline by Margaret Regan, are both available in our UUCLC Lending Library. As stated by the UUA:

“A Common Read can build community in our congregations and our movement by giving diverse people a shared experience, shared language, and a basis for deep, meaningful conversations.”

The UUA Bookstore offers group discounts on The New Jim Crow. Study guides for UUA Common Read selections can be accessed from http://www.uua.org/re/multigenerational/read/index.shtml.

Cross-posted from the UUCLC Lending Library Wordpress blog

UUA selects The New Jim Crow as 2012-13 Common Read

The Unitarian Universalist Association announced Friday that the 2012-2013 UUA Common Read is The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander (The New Press, 2012):

“In this remarkable book, civil rights advocate and litigator Michelle Alexander asserts that crime-fighting policies and systems in the U.S., such as the ‘war on drugs’ and the incarceration system disproportionately and intentionally affect Americans of color. She describes multifaceted, lifelong discrimination and disenfranchisement that affect people who are branded ‘felon.’”

The UUA Common Read invites participants to read and discuss the same book in a given period of time. Its previous selections, Acts of Faith by Eboo Patel and The Death of Josseline by Margaret Regan, are both available in our UUCLC Lending Library. As stated by the UUA:

“A Common Read can build community in our congregations and our movement by giving diverse people a shared experience, shared language, and a basis for deep, meaningful conversations. A discussion guide to The New Jim Crow will be available online in October, 2012, to help Unitarian Universalist (UU) groups reflect on the book and consider together what steps they are called to take, as people of faith, in response to Alexander's call for awareness and action.”

Study guides for the previous Common Read selections can be accessed from http://www.uua.org/re/multigenerational/read/index.shtml.

Cross-posted from the UUCLC Lending Library’s WordPress blog

An information curator’s year in review

This past week, our newsroom was focused on compiling a “Year in Review:” the top 10 stories, “Best of the Rest” and notable deaths in 2011.

As an information curator (a professional editor and library volunteer) there were commonalities in several of my selections: 2011 was notable for enhancing readers’ access to information on a variety of fronts.

• At the top of my list is Lake County’s cat euthanasia rate: more cats killed in Lake County than in any other county in California. It doesn’t have any direct relationship with this column’s theme, except that I am an editor who shares her home with a cat who fills my life with love and delight.

If you have a cat or dog, get it spayed or neutered to prevent the birth of more animals than you are willing to be responsible for. Don’t adopt an animal unless you are willing to care for that animal for its entire life.

Thanks for reading.

Continuing on, here are my selections from the perspective of an information curator:

• Lake County broke ground in September on a new library and senior center in Middletown. This development was absolutely thrilling to this library volunteer.

The library collection has outgrown the current building’s 1,790-square feet; the new building will give the Middletown library 5,450-square-feet.

• KPFZ 88.1 FM can be heard via the Internet at www.live365.com.

Online accessibility was bittersweet on Sunday because radio station programming was dedicated to the memory of radio host Steve Elias, who died Thursday. The direct URL to stream KPFZ online is www.live365.com/stations/steveelias.

• Record-Bee’s parent company shifts to “digital first” emphasis upon reporting the news.

In September, MediaNews Group appointed John Paton as its CEO and entered an agreement with Digital First Media to provide management services.

This quote from a column by Vacaville Reporter opinion page editor Karen Nolan offers a good summary of the change in focus: “If newspapers are going to survive, (Paton) believes, they must become digital content providers that also publish newspapers, instead of newspapers that also publish
digital content.”

What this means for Record-Bee readers is that stories are often posted online immediately after writing and editing. Staff reporters and editors post breaking developments on Twitter. Stories are further updated online as information becomes available.

To read Nolan’s column online, visit www.thereporter.com/columnists/ci_19630518.

• For the first time during 2011, Lake County took part in the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)’s Big Read with a variety of featured activities.

“Featured writer Edgar Allan Poe, 150 years post mortem, touched the lives of many teens with his descriptive, poetic language and obsessive fear of entrapment and oppression,” Big Read project director Robin Fogel-Shrive wrote in a recent column in the Record-Bee. “It was wonderful to see these kids value Poe’s literary merit and relate to personal struggles as emerging, but not quite, adults.”

I would love to see Lake County’s continued participation in the NEA’s Big Read. To learn more about the Big Read visit www.neabigread.org/. Read Fogel-Shrive’s column about the power of stories at www.record-bee.com/ci_19612335.

• Lake County Law Library provides access to the EBSCOHost legal reference database with complete text of Nolo Law books.

This is a valuable resource; just a few weeks ago I found a book about copyright that I wanted for a class assignment. To access Nolo e-Books, visit www.co.lake.ca.us/Government/Directory/Law_Library/ebsco.htm.

Published Jan. 3, 2012 in the Lake County Record-Bee

Lending Library’s collection policy approved

The UUCLC Lending Library has a collection development policy, created by administrator Cynthia Parkhill for her studies toward an Associate’s degree in Library and Information Technology from Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo. The policy was approved May 1, 2011 by the UUCLC Governing Board.

Author’s update, Aug. 6, 2014: A link to the document in my Slideshare account corrects a severed link on the UUCLC website.

Armstrong’s ‘Twelve Steps’ is timely read

What moment can be more exciting to an aspiring librarian than the arrival of an order of books, particularly when a title in the selection has direct bearing on contemporary happenings.

Upon learning about the Charter for Compassion, I was determined to secure Karen Armstrong’s book, “Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life,” for my small church lending library. Its emphasis upon the Golden Rule made it a valuable resource for nearly every religious faith and local interest in a Lake County charter gave it special timeliness and relevance.

Armstrong, a religious scholar, is author of many books including “A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam” and “The Case for God.”

‘Big Read’ puts everyone on same page

The book arrived from the publisher without any fanfare, wrapped in plain cardboard and sent through the U.S. mail. With no more effort than it took to tear open the perforated strip that sealed the package closed, the small church library that I oversaw was now part of a "common read." What an exciting moment!

Libraries do more than warehouse books

Cartoon image created with Bitstrips and added July 13, 2016

“[T]hose who see themselves as the keepers of books will be shelved themselves, and those who demonstrate that they can help solve other people’s information, imagination, and inspiration problems will always be in demand” (39)

— Libraries in the Information Age
by Denise K. Fourie and David R. Dowell

Each week when I pull hold requests at the Lakeport branch of the Lake County Library, the lion’s share of patron requests are among fiction and non­fiction books; however, library patrons are also requesting DVDs, audio CDs and books on CD or cassette.

Library training offers chance at new career

I have relied upon libraries my entire life, beginning with the Napa County branch library in my hometown of Calistoga. My mother arranged for my first library card and brought me at least once every week to my local library.

Enrolled in Cuesta College for library and information certification

Fifteen years after earning her BA in English from Sonoma State University, Cynthia Parkhill has re-entered the community college system. Drawing upon her lifelong reliance upon and support of libraries, Cynthia is pursuing certification in Library and Information Technology.

UUCLC Lending Library serves first customer

The UUCLC Lending Library recently served its first customer. OK; so I checked a book out to myself, it was so inviting to see the books that members of our congregation have donated. You can read about a couple of those books in the discussion forums on the UUCLC’s Ning site. June and July books of the month have been posted there. A new title will be featured each month.