Spotlight on Wisconsin

NCLA Wisconsin Chapters Share News from Fall Meetings

NCLA’s West Central Wisconsin Chapter met on September 19, 2009, at Trinity United Methodist in Chippewa Falls, WI.

Pastor D. J. Rasner, English Lutheran Church, Bateman, WI, opened with a devotion on book selection. He shared his thoughts on how he does not envy church librarians trying to choose the “gems” for the collection from all the titles available.

The main speaker of the morning was Nancy Clark Scobie, an author who, with approximately 80-100 Chippewa Falls, WI area grandmothers, compiles collections of memories in a series of books called “Poetica Grandma-tica.” They recently completed their 5th annual edition. Nancy believes “All of us have books within ourselves.”

We also had a roundtable discussion about how our own congregations, through their church libraries, can encourage others to share their stories. As an example, one congregation has its members write memories on a particular theme. These memories are then compiled and handed out as Advent Readings each year. Nancy suggested that this could be done as a fundraiser. Booklets could be bound together at the top or side simply with yarn.

The Business meeting followed, and members were encouraged to volunteer for officer positions at the upcoming Spring meeting.

At the end of the meeting, some new, donated books were given to church libraries with smaller collections who graciously accepted these books. (This is definitely a common tie between all the NCLA chapters, that there are church libraries of all sizes. Do we, in our own Chapters, know the sizes of each other’s church libraries?)

Meeting some of the members of the West Central Wisconsin Chapter was a very special time of faith and fellowship for me. I look forward to gathering with them again!

Kathleen Bowman
NCLA Board Member


Fox Valley Chapter Fall 2009 Meeting

The Fox Valley Chapter (Wisconsin) met on Saturday, October 3, 2009, at Ascension Lutheran Church, Green Bay, WI. The meeting focused on books that deal with children in the center of personal and family issues such as divorce, bullying, blended families and other serious topics.

The guest speaker for the meeting was Amy Vanden Plas, owner of Butterfly Books, a secular bookstore in De Pere, WI. Amy handed out an excellent bibliography of titles that could be used in church libraries, and shared the contents of a number of the titles. The attendees appreciated the list, as they never could have kept up with all the wonderful suggestions Amy presented!

After a break, the business meeting was conducted, and an election of officers took place. The members then gathered in a circle to share items they had brought from their own church libraries applicable to the day’s topic. NCLA’s Resources for Church Librarians booklists were a valuable source librarians used when choosing titles in this category for their libraries. It was interesting to see the diversity of titles on the topic and to discover that the amount of information in our libraries did not necessarily correlate with the size of the library. Adult titles, such as parenting guides, were also shared. A side light of this was seeing how other church libraries catalog and classify the materials.

The meeting ended with a wonderful lunch, and social time.

Kathleen Bowman
NCLA Board of Directors