Sometimes great ideas come from difficult circumstances.
This can be seen in a group of filled book bags on the shelves of the Johnson County Library.
These are the Book Group Kits that allow adult book clubs to check out a stack of the same book at the same time.
The kits got their start in the pandemic, when distancing altered how the library’s book discussions met, said Gregg Winsor, the regional librarian who initiated the kits at Johnson County Library.
Book discussion groups operate like book clubs and are open to everyone. The discussions are held in a library.
“During the early weeks and months, we didn’t know how long the library was going to be closed,” Winsor said. “We wanted to make books available to the public in any way we could. So, we bought a bunch of the same handful of titles so that a small circle of staff could replicate discussions over Zoom, with the expectation that patrons could just keep the books when they were done.”
However, that didn’t happen when the world and the library began opening up, Winsor said.
“We had a bunch of patrons who gave their book group books back to us when they were able to come back to the library,” he said. “I had a dozen or more copies of books just sitting around not doing much of anything, so I wanted to make them available to the public.”
The book club kits were born.
The library now has about 15 kits, said program coordinator Joseph Keehn II.
Keehn plans to have 50 kits created by the end of the year. Books that are part of the library’s adult book discussion groups still make up the kits. Keehn oversees the 14 adult book discussion groups that meet at different locations and at different times throughout the library system.
“You can always find a place or time that fits,” Keehn said.
The titles in the book clubs are chosen by library staff and discussion group members.
The library provides regular paperback editions of the selected books to discussion group members to borrow. Once done with the discussion, those books head to the book club kits.
Each book club kit has at least 10 books of the same title. The books come in a clear, wheeled backpack. The kits can be checked out for six weeks. They are housed at the Central Resource Library, but can be put on hold and sent to other branches for pickup with a library card.
Keehn said the books for the discussion groups are carefully curated.
“We base it off of what we know from our patrons,” he said.
The types and titles of the books are varied. Often, Keehn said, people join book clubs to be introduced to genres.
“They trust us to curate books for them,” he said. “Also a book that creates a robust discussion — that’s not always a best seller.”
Keehn knows book clubs often find it difficult to find enough copies of a selected book for discussion.
“This is a nice and easy way to check out the books.”
For a list of titles available for book group kits go to jocolibrary.com and search adult book clubs .
Local News
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