WLA Readers Section "Never apologize for what you read"

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Present: Willa Schmidt, Past Chair; Bev DeWeese, Bibliographies; Mary Dunn, Newsletter; Janice Dibble, Chair-Elect and Programs; Helene Androski, Chair (reporting)

Programs (Janice)

WAPL: we are sponsoring 2, co-sponsoring 1

Sponsor: Award and Other Notable Genre Books (similar to Notable Books Marathon). Speakers are Gary Warren Neibuhr (mysteries), Bev De Weese (science fiction), Janice Dibble (westerns), Elizabeth Bauer (romance).
Sponsor: Book talk on Blind Assassin by Gary Warren Neibuhr. Had been proposed as an evening informal talk but was scheduled as daytime program.
Co-sponsor with Circ and RASS: Facing Up to New Reading Challenges. Will cover the issue of multiple copies, summer reading programs for adults and teens, readers advisory training for staff.
WLA: we are sponsoring 2

Notable Books Marathon: panel of Helene Androski, James Gollata, Gary Warren Neibuhr, Bev De Weese. Panel will coordinate with Literary Awards Committee to get Outstanding titles to review as well as ALA Notables. Panel will decide among themselves who will do which books. Janice will make handouts.
Second program still not firm. Something about war novels. The Board decided on a panel of 4, each to talk about fiction and memoirs on a different war (US Civil, WWI, WWII, Vietnam). Bill it as a way to attract and serve male readers. Include handouts.
WAAL: sponsoring 1

Great Escapes: Helene will lead a book talk on A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson and discuss other travel literature.
Budget (Helene)

We have $490 in our operations budget and $1269.82 in our program budget.

Wisconsin Book Festival (Helene)

The first annual Wisconsin Book Festival, funded with $50,000 seed money from legislature through Scott Jensen, will occur Oct 11-12 in Madison. Dean Bakopoulos of Wisconsin Center for the Humanities is coordinating. Events will include author appearances, book fair of local booksellers, poetry readings, children’s story hours. Board decided to contribute $150 from our program budget to be listed as a sponsor and will lead 2 book discussion sessions (Bev will do one), probably on current Wisconsin authors, at Madison Public Library on Saturday, Oct 12. Helene will talk to Dean about titles. Drowning Ruth and Paula Sharp’s I Loved You All were suggested. We will also supply room monitors, handout distributors, etc if needed.

Newsletter (Mary Dunn)

Deadline for submissions is April 1. Mary needs articles, especially reading lists. Janice will write an article about upcoming conference programs. Helene will write an article on the Wisconsin Book Festival and Notes from the Chair.

Readers Section Web Site

We do not have a web site on the WLA site. Janice suggested sending Webmaster Paula Ganyard a Word document of our brochure that describes the Section and invites joiners. Helene will do so. Mary will put an article in the Newsletter asking for a volunteer to make a web site for us.

Election

This year we need to elect a Chair-Elect, Newsletter member, and Bibliographies member. Suggestions:

Chair-Elect: Gary Warren Neibuhr and Jeanne Heuer (Helene will ask)
Newsletter: Mary agreed to stay on another term!
Bibliographies: Katie Schultz, who is printing them now (Bev will ask)
Bibliographies (Bev)

Sales at WLA were excellent.
Gentle Reads needs revising. Mary will do.
Bev will revise Contemporary Fiction.
Helene is working on Holiday Mysteries.
Bev will write a Newsletter article asking for help with annotations. People may be willing and able to do that when they cannot compile an entire bibliography.
Deadline for submitting manuscript: end of September.

Meeting adjourned at 11:25am