Book discussion groups provide companionship and socialization coupled with intellectual stimulation, and they’re an excellent programming activity for public libraries. The Fiction and Young Adult Department at the State Library Resource Center has prepared a guide on organizing and running a book discussion group. The guide directs the user to Web sites that provide information about the organizational details that the leader of a new group needs to consider in getting a group off the ground, to Web sites that are useful for getting book group reading ideas, as well as to Web sites that are valuable sources of book discussion group guides for individual titles that as group has chosen.Consider these points when you begin a new book group in your library:
- Use established library publicity channels to promote the group and recruit members
- At the first meeting use ice breakers to introduce the group members to one another and to learn about their reading interests
- Food encourages informality and conversation
- A group can use a variety of methods to choose books
- Chose only titles with an adequate number of copies
- Don’t choose brand new, popular titles
- A good book for discussion elicits disparate opinions or reactions
- Prepare discussion questions in advance
- A book discussion group leader is a facilitator, not a teacher or an expert
- Center the discussion on the book itself and avoid irrelevant digressions
- Use open-ended questions, and encourage group members to come with their own discussion questions
- Encourage brevity, open-mindedness, sharing and listening
- After you’ve worked with a group, you’ll come to know what to expect from the group’s members
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