[Publib] Great Books Discussion Clubs

[Nora Armstrong]

I've facilitated a Great Books discussion group for about 10 years now. I work with a core group of about 6 very loyal members who rarely miss a meeting. We usually meet once a month (except in December) and use the anthologies published by the Great Books Foundation. 
 
Each meeting is devoted to one reading in the anthology. About half of the group chooses to buy their own anthologies; for the others I always provide photocopies of the reading and discussion questions, and leave extras at the desk for the occasional drop-in participant. the library buys 2 copies of each anthology - one for me and one to go in the collection. I provide a little bit of background material - this last time I used an essay from Cliff's Notes! :-) I also look in the Gale lit-ref sources, Magill's, etc.
 
For the month before and during the library's Big Read participation, I look outside the anthology for ideas and devise my own set of questions. For example, this year we did The Maltese Falcon. It seems every other book club in the system was reading it, so I opted for something different. The month before, we read Chandler's essay, "The Simple Art of Murder, and the next month we read a pair of linked short stories by Hammett, "The Big Knockoff" and "$106,000 Blood Money." My participants liked the variety that still stayed within the overall theme.
 
Because we take the month of December off, the January meeting is when we discuss a full-length book that's featured in the anthologies. I host this meeting in our larger meeting room ,so that I can provide some light refreshments. It's sort of a post-holiday party. The group likes this, especially when I bring some home-baked pastry.
 
I hope this answers some of your questions. Feel free to contact me off-list (John or anybody else) if I can help you with anything else.
 
Nora Armstrong, Information Services Manager
Cumberland County Public Library & Information Center
300 Maiden Lane
Fayetteville, NC 28301-5000
Phone (910) 483-7727 x204 / Fax (910) 486-6661
narmstro at cumberland.lib.nc.us
 
Check out our Reader's Corner Blog: http://ccpl-readerscorner.blogspot.com <http://ccpl-readerscorner.blogspot.com/>  
 
 

________________________________

From: publib-bounces at webjunction.org on behalf of Eury, John Stephen
Sent: Thu 6/4/2009 7:56 PM
To: publib at webjunction.org
Subject: [Publib] Great Books Discussion Clubs


Has anybody out there run a discussion club that was affiliated with the Great Books Foundation out of Chicago (the late Mortimer Adler's outfit)? How did it go? Did you get the books from them or from somwhere else?
 
Thanks for sharing your information.
 
John S. Eury
Reference Assistant
Cabarrus County Public Library
27 Union St., N
Concord, NC 28025
704.920.2054
 
MLS Student-East Carolina University
jse1011 at ecu.edu
 
 

****************************************************************************
Checked by MailWasher server (www.Firetrust.com)
WARNING. No FirstAlert account found.
To reduce spam further activate FirstAlert.
This message can be removed by purchasing a FirstAlert Account.
****************************************************************************


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.webjunction.org/wjlists/publib/attachments/20090605/7a3dbf90/attachment.htm