Dear Safranim, I run a monthly virtual book club for adults at my Temple. It's called the *Second Sunday Book Club* and the next one is this *Sunday, Dec. 12, at 1:00 pm PT/4:00 pm ET*. People just talk about what they're reading, Jewish or not, so there's no preparation required. I wanted a no-stress book club. I started it during the pandemic, when Zoom was the obvious way to go, but even as some things have opened up again I want to continue the book club online because older and more isolated people can easily attend -- and who wants to drive in LA traffic anyway? My problem is that I had only a few people from the congregation at the start, and now they do not come at all, even though some say that they intend to come -- or come back -- sometime. I advertise the book club in my regular column in the Temple's online newsletter, and I have maybe 30 people on the dedicated email list. Every now and then I ask if people wish to be removed from the list, and no one has ever followed up to be removed. I understand that not getting a response is the norm here, and it's not just me. But what to do?
So I started to invite some of my friends in Toronto (my hometown) to come, and they love it! It just so happens that they are all librarians or married to librarians (something I just realized now!). I wanted to maintain the Jewish character of the book club by making sure that I talked about one or two Jewish books every time, but I have found that pretty much everyone else does too, whether or not they are Jewish, so there is Jewish content every time. I usually talk about one adult book and two or three children's books. I start us off with a poem (often, but not necessarily, Jewish) and then we take turns sharing and talking about our books. What's not to like? Depending on how many people come, we go for an hour or two. It's very small -- maybe five people, and I still have hopes of getting the (new, avid reader, YA fan) Religious School Director to join us. If a few of you would like to come, too, I could tell the Temple that their book club is drawing attention from well beyond our community. Maybe that would spark a little more interest from the people for whom the book club was intended. And honestly, I think you would like it, too! So if you are interested in coming to the book club on Sunday, please reply just to me ([email protected]) and I will send you the Zoom link. If you can't make it this Sunday but are still interested, let me know and I'll put you on the email list. I send out a reminder with the attached flyer about a week before we meet, and then after the meeting I send my notes with the poem and a list of all the books that we've read. Thanks for your patience in reading this rather long post, and I hope to see a few of you on Sunday! And if any of you have advice for me on how to improve attendance, apart from showing up yourselves, I'm all ears. Annette Annette Y Goldsmith, PhD (she/her) Part-time Faculty, Kent State iSchool; Librarian, Sephardic Temple Tifereth Israel, Los Angeles "A book is like a world you can carry around with you." Liniers
Second Sunday book club December 2021.docx
Description: MS-Word 2007 document
__ Messages and opinions expressed on Hasafran are those of the individual author and are not necessarily endorsed by the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL) ================================== Submissions for Ha-Safran, send to: [email protected] To join Ha-Safran, update or change your subscription, etc. - click here: https://lists.service.ohio-state.edu/mailman/listinfo/hasafran Questions, problems, complaints, compliments send to: [email protected] Ha-Safran Archives: Current: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.service.ohio-state.edu/maillist.html Earlier Listserver: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/maillist.html AJL HomePage http://www.JewishLibraries.org -- Hasafran mailing list [email protected] https://lists.osu.edu/mailman/listinfo/hasafran
