JoCoLibrary Uncovered

What is the difference between thrillers and mysteries? What are good recommendations in each of these genres? Readers Advisory Librarian Gregg is back with colleagues Piepie and Bet to do a deep dive into thrillers and mysteries and titles that are a good mixup of the two genres.

Our Thriller and Mystery Recommendations:  
Charles’ Choice: Hell is Empty, Craig Johnson
Dave’s Double-feature: No Country for Old Men and Memento in Kanopy in our eLibrary
From our catalog: Thrillers and Mysteries

Hobbies

What is a hobby? Some say it's any activity you might engage in during your leisure time for pleasure. We disagree. Vehemently! We say it has to have some personal enrichment component. Why? Well mostly because we have so many great leisure time resources that we couldn't fit them into one episode!

Last month we talked about fun activities that bring you pleasure. This month, we're exploring how the library can help with your enriching leisure activities. The Librarians are back to provide a deep-dive into hobbies. Readers Advisory Librarian Helen Hokanson leads a discussion with librarian Jess Gilson, MakerSpace facilitator Lydia Perez and clerk Joyce Mitchell. They share their hobbies and introduce you to all kinds of Library resources.

Our Hobby Recommendations:  
Charles’ Choice: Model Railroading in our eMagazine section 
Dave’s video recommendation: go to jocolibrary.org/elearning, scroll down to the “Great Courses” section and click: “Go to Great Courses.” You will land on the Kanopy page with all of the Great Courses categories. Loh and behold, the second row is the category “Hobbies!” Learn how to draw, cooking techniques, dog training and more! 
From our catalog—Hobbies

Come Celebrate Hobbies:
Discover a new hobby at the Community Connections Fair during the All Together Now Summer Celebration! Twenty-three local organizations will be on hand to share activities, volunteer opportunities, and other ways to connect. From fly fishers to jugglers to gamers to ukulele players, the library is bringing us all together!

Fun Drive

July is National Anti-boredom Month. We combat boredom with fun!

If you listen to public or community radio, or you watch PBS, you are very familiar with “The Fund Drive"—that's "fund" with a "D." We’re not going to do that! Instead, we’d like to introduce a NEW concept—an annual FUN drive—that's ‘fun’ without a ‘D’. That's right: “Fun Drive” 

See, while a “Fund Drive” garners funds, a “Fun Drive” gathers what our Librarians and patrons consider “fun"—we’re talking guilty pleasures, passions, interests, whatever you engage in just for the fun of it. We then take a deep-dive into Library programs, services and even the collection to show how the Library can help you have fun and win your battle against boredom! 

It's a FUN episode. Literally.

Our Fun recommendations:   
Charles’ Choice: Kirby and the Forgotten Land for Nintendo Switch  
Dave’s Double feature: streaming video from Kanopy. Waiting for Guffman & Pee-Wee's Big Adventure  
Fun Drive Recommendations from our catalog  
And, what's more fun than Dad jokes?

Hopepunk

“Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops at all.” – Emily Dickinson

If you look up the term "hopepunk" online, the first definition offered up describes it as "A branch of speculative fiction featuring characters fighting for positive change, radical kindness, and communal responses to challenges." But, we can't just leave it at that. We need examples! Readers Advisory Librarian Gregg Winsor drops by with Josh Neff and Jo Field who share Hopepunk titles that they hope you will enjoy. 

Our Hopepunk recommendations:       
Charles’ Choice: Sourdough by Robin Sloan      
Dave’s Double feature: streaming video from Kanopy. Anthony Bourdain's A Cook's Tour and Alone      
Hopepunk Recommendations from our catalog      
 

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Incarcerated

Individuals faced with temporary detention at the Adult Residential Center (ARC) in New Century, KS, rely on access to Johnson County Library materials on their road to recovery. Incarcerated Services Librarian Melody Kinammon introduces us to members of the ARC therapeutic community, Phil and Dia. They share how exploring books and using the on-site library has helped them.

Also, Youth Services Librarian Jayma Zook shares her experience with Read to Me—incarcerated parents are recorded reading aloud and the Library provides a copy of the recording and the book to their child.

It’s all part of what we call: “Outreach Services.” We uncover programs, stories and services you might not have known about. 

Our recommendations:      
Charles’ Choice: Night of the Ninth Dragon by Mary Pope Osborn (from the Magic Treehouse Series)       
Dave’s Double feature: streaming video from Kanopy. Language and Literacy Development and Father and Daughter.      
Melody: Literature for Justice reading list with a variety of titles—nonfiction and fiction—that address the United States criminal justice system.   This is a list she’s always updating!      
Jayma: The Daddy Book and The Mommy Book. She says both are very popular with the Read to Me crowd, but one that comes to mind that talks specifically about incarceration is Missing Daddy by Mariame Kaba.  It has a discussion guide at the end to help facilitate a discussion with kids about this hard topic.      
Books mentioned in the episode: JoCoLibrary Uncovered - Incarcerated Booklist

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JoCoLibrary Uncovered Presents

Acclaimed author Jacqueline Woodson—who will join Johnson County Library* to launch the All Together Now 2023 Summer Reading program—talks about her writing and reading with Readers Advisory Librarian Gregg Winsor. Woodson discusses how she navigates jumping between genres and audiences, her writing process, collaborating with illustrators, and connecting with communities through outreach. She even gives us a glimpse into her upcoming book!

*Please note: Although registration is currently full for Meet the Author: All Together with Jacqueline Woodson, we encourage you to join the waitlist because that will give you access to the recorded program after the event.

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Fun, Weird, Wild and Wonderful Science

Our librarians are back and this time Gregg Winsor brought a couple friends along—librarians Caitlin Perkins and Wendy Gish—to talk in-depth about their favorite weird and wild science books! "Microhistories" are a genre of nonfiction books dedicated to a deep-dive on one particular topic, like snails, psychedelics, or communication amongst trees.        
        
Our recommendations:       
Charles’ Choice: American Serengeti by Dan Flores       
Dave’s Double feature: streaming video from Kanopy. Super Size Me: The Fast-Food Industry in America.       
and NOVA Universe Revealed: Milky Way.       
Weird and Wild Science Book Recommendations

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Library Kids on Library Books!

It’s almost time for Summer Reading and who better to recommend kids titles than kids?! We attached googly eyes to our mighty handheld recorder and took to the stacks to ask over 20 children which books they love and what they like about them. We also asked adults what their favorite books were when they were kids. This episode is 20 minutes of pure joy that will leave you with a list of gems, and just might remind you of what sparked your interest in reading to begin with!

Recommendations from our collection:

Charles’ Choice: Last Stop on Market Street – Matt de la Peña

Dave’s Double feature: Kanopy Kids: Scaredy Squirrel Makes a Friend and Kitten’s First Full Moon

Library Kids on Library Books list

Adults Recall Their Favorite Books From Childhood list

JOCOLIBRARY UNCOVERED Home Page

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You'll Love this!

Welcome to our first collection deep dive episode! We begin with a genre selected by our readers advisory librarian Gregg Winsor, “Books about book lovers.” Gregg will be serving as more of a moderator for most of our future deep dives, but for today he has brought a couple friends along—Piepie Baltz and Kelly Downs—to chat about their favorites in the genre.

JOCOLIBRARY UNCOVERED Podcast Collection Deep Dives: Books About Book Lovers recommended reading list.

JOCOLIBRARY UNCOVERED Home Page

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The Art of the Library

In this episode of JOCOLIBRARY UNCOVERED, it's a deep dive into the Library's relationship with the arts.

Johnson County Library supports the Local Arts in so many ways! Start with our collection. You’ll find many types of arts books at the library – graphic design, architecture, photography, how to books, journals turned into books, knitting books. We provide exhibition spaces for artwork to be displayed at several branches and it changes out three times a year. We cohost a major film festival with the city of Lenexa. We produce a nationally renowned Teen Arts and Literature publication: Elementia featuring original work by teens in our community. And, the MakerSpace provides a space for you to be hands-on with your craft. Charles and Dave talk with Librarians Bryan Voell and Jen Van Oosbree about these and more.

Recommendations from our collection:

Charles' Choices: The Big Book of Tiny Art and Everybody Has a Podcast (except You)

Dave's Double feature: Kanopy - Banksy and the Rise of Outlaw Art and Van Gogh - A life Devoted to Art

Jen's Joy: Nomad - omadA A Global Approach to Interior Style

Bryan's Backing: Every book in the collection on street photograher Vivain Maier

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