Observations of the Starry Night Book Club

            I am currently a member of two book clubs: my library’s young adult book club, which is open to patrons ages 14 to 24, and the Association of Library and Information Science Students’ monthly book club. Both groups are inclusive and extremely dynamic in their discussions. Both groups are also smaller in size, usually having between four and seven people in attendance. The books they choose are also dynamic and content and format agnostic. Young adult, children’s, and adult books have all been discussed each month. However, I wanted to observe a group that I am not a member of to determine things I could do better in my current and future book clubs.

            On March 12, 2015, I observed my library’s monthly night book club, the Starry Night Book Club, for the first time. It is organized by the library’s adult reference librarian, who is tasked with obtaining copies for all members and for scheduling book moderators for each meeting. Membership is capped at twenty to keep the reference librarian from interlibrary loaning too many copies of any single book and to keep conversation robust without overlap. Two years ago, an influx of new prospective members led many older members who did not like to stay up late to begin a daytime book club: the Afternoon Delight Book Club.

            As a passive observer who was well known to patrons, I felt comfortable being around friendly, recognizable faces. Yet, I would have felt out of place instantly if I was not a staff member. Of the thirteen people in attendance, only two were younger than retirement age, and those two are staff members in their early twenties.

            At the start of the book club meeting, the reference librarian went over some unfinished business from the previous meeting regarding moving book club meetings up an hour to allow for more discussion. Many of the members wanted to meet until after the library closed, but the reference librarian stated that was not an option. Despite their disappointment, the other member s of the club began their discussion of the book Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow.

            The reference librarian provided snacks consistent with the era as Scott Joplin played softly in the background. The atmosphere for engaging conversation was top notch. The patron-moderator began the book discussion with a biography and bibliography of E.L. Doctorow. Unfortunately, this stopped any conversation from getting started. I am a fan of E.L. Doctorow, but his other books are not as acclaimed as Ragtime. Any conversation about exploring his bibliography should be held to the end. This is due to members who haven’t finished the book or didn’t initially like the book may be convinced to give it another shot.

            For this meeting, it appears that the short month between meetings kept many members from finishing the novel. Because of this, only five or six members of the group engaged in discussion surrounding the book while other members threw out generalities about the parts of the story they did read. This stilted conversation could have been boosted from watching a brief interview with the author about his work (such as this interview with Charlie Rose).

            With a better moderator and perhaps another week, this book club would have been a rousing experience. I fear that next month will not fare too much better, considering they will be discussing Steinbeck’s The Winter of Our Discontent.