Assuming they don’t get snowed out, Cortes Literacy is holding a mandatory training session for their new Rakuten Kobo e-readers today. Manda Aufochs Gillespie explained this is connected to Cortes Island’s new book club.
Manda Aufochs Gillespie: “This book club is a hybrid of just another community organized volunteer ‘Let’s everybody pitch in book club’ like we have seen multiple times before on Cortes. And an attempt to blend with a program that Cortes Literacy is doing with Rakuten Kobo, which brings 20 digital eReaders into our community to loan and reuse, as well as a subscription to the Kobo Plus book library. They basically saw a need in rural and remote communities. People had no access to books during COVID. Libraries shut down, community halls shut down, schools shut down, and people in these remote communities had no access to books and reading material.”
“I thought, oh my goodness, this is exactly the thing that we need for our community. I was so distressed about that lack of access to reading material during COVID. So I put in an application and we now have 20 Kobo e-readers on the Island and we get to use them in the book club.”
Cortes Currents: How many books are there in the system?
Manda Aufochs Gillespie: “Apparently, it is thousands. I will say that the Kobo Plus subscription seems to focus on new releases, and so I find that it works best if you blend your Kobo Plus subscription on your Kobo with your public library card. This allows you access to all the books that the library has digitally accessible, as well as the Kobo plus subscription books. This is a great way to go. Anybody with a Kobo eReader or other eReader device can use their library card to basically check books out of the library like you would, except for their digital books.”
Cortes Currents: Is there some kind of payment plan involved?
Manda Aufochs Gillespie: “No.”
Cortes Currents: No? It’s free?
Manda Aufochs Gillespie: “Yeah, this is why I jumped on this cause it’s such a fantastic opportunity for our community. All we have to do is have a book club running that is community run and led and keep these e-readers in circulation in our community. They ask for a couple of surveys and that people show up for this online training. As long as we do these very few things, we get to keep these e-readers in our community for forever.”
Cortes Currents: Do they plug into your computer as well?
Manda Aufochs Gillespie: “They do. They plug into a block so that they can charge and they can also plug into your computer and you can download books onto them that way.”
“They do have a couple of really nifty features. You can change the light settings. So at night you can reduce or highly minimize the blue light on them so that you can sit in bed and read them and not disturb your partner next to you. The light is this warm, soft, minimal light. You can also set them on paper mode, so there’s basically no light coming from behind — much more like a book. You can mark and highlight sections in the books that you’re reading on your e-reader. You can take notes, etc. Much like you would in a normal book.”
Cortes Currents: How long do you get to take the reader out for?
Manda Aufochs Gillespie: “Basically indefinitely? What we’re asking is that the initial members don’t hog them too much. As long as you are coming to some book clubs, really using the e-reader and enjoying it, you can use them. You will have to turn them back into Cortes literacy, so that they can stay in circulation in our community. I think a lot of people are going to try this out and they’re going to really want to buy their own. They might have the financial resources to do that. In that case, bring the readers back into circulation. But for other people, this is a pretty unusual opportunity for them to have access to reading material, when they might not othersie be able to access. That’s why we’ve gone through the trouble to bring them to our little community. So that people will have access to books despite the different challenges that we have, both being remote and having limited hours for our library. The other thing that’s nice about these e-readers is that you can download the books, but you don’t have to be on wifi to read the books.”
Cortes Currents: How do we get an e-reader?
Manda Aufochs Gillespie: “We’re still figuring out a lot of these details.
Right now I’m the one who is delivering the e-readers and just about all 20 are spoken for. I did two rounds of advertising and I had the initial eager beavers sign up, and then it took a really long time for us to get the e-readers and then to get all the training set up and for me to get everything going.”
“Now we have the e-readers and we’re distributing them. We’re starting our first book club. I’ve done another round of advertising, so the next round of people have shown their interest. However, the book club is open for anyone. You don’t have to have an e-reader.”
“Even if you don’t have an e-reader yet, coming to the book club is a great way to stay ‘in the know’ about when e-readers do become available. So the book club is going to be community run, so people will be taking turns helping lead it.”
“Lisa Farentinos has stepped forward to help be the book club leader. Thank you so much, Lisa. And so she’ll help figure out where we’re going to be meeting every month and working with the members to pick each month’s books. That will be done in part with what’s available on the Cobo Plus or library system and also with what the members want to read. The idea is that it is really participatory so that it’s shaped by the people in it and not just led by any one person, because I, for one, have a lot going on and it feels like it’s a lot more fun when things are participatory and we’re all taking turns and sharing the responsibilities.”
“The basic format is that everyone will read the same book over the month and then you come together, usually that means coming together in person. A lot of people have said they want is no more Zoom.”
“They want to be together in person. Maybe people take turns bringing refreshments and you discuss the book. People take turns leading them and they don’t have to be a super high brow discussion. The idea is that you talk about the book, what it means to you, connections to other things that you’re reading, and it’s largely a chance to be social and in community with ideas.”
“So new ideas that you’re exploring together as a community, which is something through Folk University and other things that I have helped to put together through Cortes Literacy is really important to this community. We really like ideas and being able to use them, to come closer together in community.”
Cortes Currents: How do people get involved?
Manda Aufochs Gillespie: “We have a listserv. So if people would like to be added to this listserv, then they can get the email updates about what’s happening and find out more. There was just a Cortes Island Tideline post with how to add yourself to that listerv by sending an email to: bookclub+subscribe@cortes.groups.io. Or you can reach out right now to Folk U at U@folku.ca and I’ll help get you on that listerv or answer your questions the best I can, or forward them to Lisa if I can.”
Snuggling up with a nice cup of coffee and my Kobo – Photo by Franklin Heijnen via Flickr (CC BY SA, 2.0 License)
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