We Read Smut: Bookish Conversations for Romance Readers
We Read Smut, hosted by Alesia, empowers romance readers to embrace their love for smut and dive deep into the diverse world of this captivating genre. Tired of feeling judged for your love of steamy reads? Join us as we create a safe space to unpack the complexities and joys of smut, challenge societal norms, and celebrate the power of inclusive storytelling.
We'll explore everything from trope deep dives and author interviews to thought-provoking discussions on topics like body positivity, LGBTQ+ representation, and reclaiming the word "fat." We'll also tackle reading challenges, offer "shelf help" for your TBR pile, and venture into the realms of fantasy romance, offbeat erotica, and the vibrant world of BookTube.
Whether you're a seasoned smut reader or just dipping your toes into the genre, this podcast is for you. Subscribe now and join the conversation! Follow us on Instagram @WeReadSmut and use the hashtag #WeReadSmut to share your thoughts.
We Read Smut: Bookish Conversations for Romance Readers
The Power of Libraries with Hosts of Medium Lady Reads
Libraries are more than just buildings filled with books - they're vibrant community hubs offering a wealth of resources and experiences. In this episode, we're joined by the book-loving duo from the Medium Lady Reads podcast, Jillian and Erin, to uncover the hidden gems and insider tips for maximizing your library experience.
Jillian O'Keefe is an Instagram content strategist who helps authors and the businesses that serve them gain visibility by embracing and showing their unique story to grow their community on Instagram. Jillian is also the cohost of the podcast Medium Lady Reads where she talks about books and reading as self-care.
Erin Vandeven is the creator of the Medium Lady community and host of two podcasts: Medium Lady Talks and Medium Lady Reads. She helps burnt-out mothers and millennials rediscover themselves and empowers them to find their place in the world. Erin is also the Associate Chief of Nursing Practice at SickKids Hospital in Toronto, where she creates safe spaces for the nursing workforce. She has a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Nursing from the University of Toronto. Erin reads over 100 books a year and is always available for book recommendations!
In this episode, we're discussing:
- Personal journeys into adult reading, including how the pandemic reignited their love for fiction and inspired them to read more diversely.
- Childhood memories of the library, from story hours and talent shows to the unique smells and librarians that left a lasting impression.
- Integrating the library into their children's lives, highlighting the wealth of programs, resources, and digital tools available to foster a love of reading.
- Leveraging digital library resources like Libby and Hoopla, as well as lesser-known offerings such as Chromebook and Wi-Fi hotspot lending, community events, and more.
- Top tips for managing library holds, including the power of the "deep search" feature on Libby and the benefits of requesting books before they're officially cataloged.
Whether you're a lifelong bookworm or just rediscovering the joys of reading, your local library holds a world of possibilities. Tune in to this episode to unlock the secrets of your community's literary treasure trove and find inspiration to make the library an integral part of your reading journey.
CONNECT WITH GUESTS:
Jillian Instagram
Erin Instagram
Medium Lady Reads Podcast
BOOKS/AUTHORS MENTIONED:
Three Women by Lisa Taddeo (Amazon)
Running list of books mentioned (Doc)
Thank you for listening to the We Read Smut Podcast! If you enjoyed this episode, take a screenshot of the episode to post in your stories and tag @WeReadSmut. Don’t forget to follow, rate, and review the podcast.
Connect with Alesia:
Storygraph
This podcast was produced by Galati Media.
Proud member of the Feminist Podcasters Collective.
Get ready to unlock the secrets of your local library. We're joined by the library aficionados from medium lady reads to discuss everything from hidden gems to maximizing your library experience. Listener discretion is advised this podcast contains mature content intended for adult audiences only. Jillian Erin, I am so thrilled to have you on the medium. Ladies read podcasters. Jillian, let's start with you. What did your adult reading journey look like? So
Jillian O'Keefe:I've been reading my whole life, but there was a span of time where I was only reading personal development business books, and I swore those were the only books that I was ever going to read, and I had no interest in fiction. And what was fiction? Even though my childhood was full of fiction, but the pandemic hit, and I was in need of some entertainment, and a friend had encouraged me to start reading some fictional books. So I grabbed some and pretty much plowed through all of them, I think that year I started maybe reading in May ish, and I read 50 books, which I was super proud of, because I had only read maybe 16 in previous years. And then since then, I've been reading about 100 a year, and it's been predominantly fiction, maybe a personal development or business book spaced in there, but for the most part, it's been fiction, and I've loved it, even with the lulls that I hit. It doesn't stop me from picking up another book. It's kind of like, okay, so that book wasn't great. I didn't really love it, or I'm not really feeling reading right now, but I'm still gonna pick up a book. I'm still gonna have a book in process, and that is pretty much how things are today. Oh, I
Alesia Galati:love that, Erin. What about you? Yeah,
Erin:I mean, not too dissimilar to Jillian's journey as an adult reader. I've definitely been a reader all my life, and also been a library user my whole life as well. But I definitely feel like the last five years post pandemic have seen like exponential growth in my identity as a reader, my practice as a reader, how I see reading as a really essential part of my like day to day routine definitely started in April of 2020, so on medium lady, which is my Instagram account, I give myself a monthly plan, and it's usually for self care, and it's usually light hearted things that I feel like are really going to kind of meet me where I'm at every month. And in April of 2020, I said, Listen, like we're all at home. I was at home with two kids, my husband and my seven month old son. So full house, kind of unknown times. What are we really going to do? And so I purposefully said, I'm going to take a mindset of I'd rather be reading. So April was my month of like, I'd rather be reading. And I purposefully set a TBR, which I'd never done in the past. I'd kind of like, stumbled upon a book here, or someone had, you know, suggested a book over there, or perhaps I saw something in a magazine promoting a book, or Oprah was talking about something, and I was just kind of stumbling my way one book to the next, not really thinking purposefully about when this book is over, what am I going to read after that? And so it was really that April of 2020, where I picked four books that I was going to read, and they were not intense. I think one of them was a cookbook. One of them was three women by Lisa Taddeo. There were two other books. And those four books, I just made my way through them in April, and I realized, like, wow, that felt so good to know what I was going to read. And then in May of 2020 and then following, early June of 2020, after George Floyd was murdered, there was this real encouragement and call to action to diversify your reading. And I reflected in myself, as a white woman, that I really had not been thinking proactively about that at all in my life, but it was coming on the tail of this purposeful reading. What that evolved into was purposeful reading, diversifying my shelves, diversifying my reading, following creators and content creators who were talking about books, talking about diverse books. And then that kind of like one thing led to another, led to another. Now I track my books. I read over 100 books a year. I love reviews. I know people are kind of mixed on reviews. I personally love reviewing a book after I've read it. I love recommending books to people. I love reading broadly. So I read from a broad category of genre. I read from a broad category of age ranges. I definitely read. Predominantly fiction. I would say 80% of my reading is fiction, and this year, about 45% of my reading is diverse. So now I like track mathematically what I'm reading and it and I cannot live without it. So it's a huge thing. My kids have grown up in the last five years. Seeing me read all the time, it's influencing them, and so yeah, it's kind of taken on a life of its own. But I wouldn't be who I am right now without that part of my identity really intact and really nourished and thriving. Yes,
Alesia Galati:oh, it's so powerful. I think reading as an adult and like coming to love reading in a different way and then being like, Oh, wait, I should probably be more intentional about this. Let's go ahead and reassess where we're at. I know I definitely had my my moment of that as well. Even as a woman from the biopod community, I was like, wait, I'm not reading as diversely as I want to. It was definitely a wake up call, and I was really disappointed with myself and my numbers, but it was seeing those numbers allowed me to say, How can I do better? And that's where I think tracking our reading is such a powerful tool to help us be more curated in and like I'm a mood reader, I cannot set a TVR. I get very picky about that, but I can still be really intentional about what types of authors I'm reading, and, you know, borrowing from my Kindle Unlimited account, but libraries that is such a powerful tool. And I don't think I really realized the power of the library until I was a intern in New York City. Barely any money. It was like just needed entertainment, and had no money to go out and have fun and do stuff. And so we would, me and my roommate, we'd go to the local library, and we would borrow books, and we would borrow movies to watch on a very old laptop that I had. And like it was dorm ish living in New York City. And so that's where I was like, Oh man, the library is so awesome. And then having kids, and being like, wow, our library, especially homeschooling our kids, our library has so many resources for homeschooled kids, so many resources for little ones. And so we started going a lot more regularly, and just absolutely fell in love with all of the programs and all of the things they had available to them. And then realizing in the last year or so, I would say that wait, the library also has digital books that I can borrow. I had no idea before then, and so that opened up the idea of, oh, wow, okay, I can borrow books from the library, or I can borrow audio books from the library. That's really cool, too for me as someone who, even though behind me you can see hundreds of books really like to read on my Kindle app, it's a problem several hobbies, buying books, talking about books, and then reading books. So we're not going to get into that. Yes, absolutely. But Jillian, we'll go back to you. What was your first memory of the library, and when did it really become something that was really meaningful for you?
Jillian O'Keefe:Oh my gosh, I have so many memories of the library because when we were kids, we went there regularly, especially during the summer, we would go and they would have all sorts of activities. They had talent shows and story hours and all sorts of stuff. I've told Erin this story before. They had animals, guinea pigs and hamsters and little furry animals, rodents, essentially, which I would not want to touch. Now, as a as an adult, but as a child, it was amazing. I think my for one of my first memories, is probably the story hours going, and I can still remember the smell of the paste that we used to make whatever art project we were working on. I remember the story. Our teacher was Mrs. Jarvis, and she was so kind. She always wore, like, very dainty, delicate bracelets on her wrist. And like, I remember everything about her, and it was such a good time to go there. And of course, there was always books too, but it was always more about the social aspect. I like I mentioned the talent show going with my sister and we my cousin. I think it was we got up on stage and sang a song that we completely made up and was just, oh my gosh. I could go on and on about the library. I am truly a library kid, through and through.
Alesia Galati:I love that. What about you? Erin, yeah, I mean,
Erin:not dissimilar. I have really strong core memories of the small branch in my hometown. There was one big public library, and then there was a small neighborhood branch, and that was where my mom took us. I think it was like, I'm the oldest of five kids. I think it was. Because the footprint of that library was pretty small, and she could probably let us roam pretty safely without losing one of us in the larger branch. But really great, lovely children's section, amazing children's programming, and just like Jillian's Mrs. Jarvis, I also remember our librarian Sherry, and Sherry had, this was the 80s. She had beautiful, long hair, like down to her butt, and she wore long denim skirts. And I just thought she was, like, the most stylish person I could ever hope to be someday. And she worked with books, and she did the stamp stamp, you know, like not a lot of like digitized systems at this time, like a very analog, tactile experience at the library, teddy bear picnics and crafts and story time and all kinds of puppet performers and things that would come and like we had really amazing access to a lot of things that just make childhood fun and inspire creativity and inspire kids to use their imaginations and take risks. I as an early early reader, was obsessed with books on tape, and I'm sure that books on tape, in part, taught me how to read, because I love to play and follow along with the words and read those early readers. And then as my reading advanced and became more sophisticated, I just felt like the library was a place where I felt Rich, I didn't grow up as like a family of means. And it certainly wouldn't have been possible. We were a single family income, big family wouldn't have been possible for my mom to take me to, you know, Kohl's, which is the Canadian version of Barnes and Noble at the time, at least, and say, Hey, Erin, like whatever books tickle your fancy. Let's pick those up. But she could do that for us at the library. And once I really became a voracious reader around the age of 1011 maybe even a little bit younger 910, 11, I would take home stacks of Babysitters Club or Nancy Drew or Sweet Valley High, or goosebumps or whatever, and I would try to, just like, really load them up and come home to the point. At one point, I was so addicted to Babysitters Club from the library that my mom banned me for the summer, and she made me read Jane Eyre, and I wasn't allowed to take out any more Babysitters Club from the library until I finished Jane Eyre. And to this day, I remember the smell of that Jane Eyre book and the color of it from the library. And I was like, I can't wait to return this god awful book to the I think I was nine. I think I was I was in grade four, so it was the summer of grade four, so, so that just goes to show. I love teasing my mom about that story now, but yeah, so like, majorly significant influence in my life, not just as a reader of those bingeable contemporary kids books. But, you know, I got into the classics a little bit under duress. Talk about
Alesia Galati:duress. I cannot imagine, I have a 10 year old. I cannot imagine forcing him to read something like Jane Eyre or any of its counterparts at this age because he wouldn't stand it wait. Like that vocabulary is way over his head. Yeah? Oh, my goodness, yeah. Oh man. And I'm over here. I've got a really nice version of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, yeah? But my husband got me because I love Wuthering Heights, a huge fan. So yeah, it's
Erin:like the beginning of your romance. Your your love of romance. Can start with some of those Bronte sisters, for sure. Yeah, yeah,
Alesia Galati:that's so powerful, though. Like that you guys have those core memories, and you can place those people that were there in those moments. Now, both of you are moms. I'm curious how you integrate your love of the library, even now, in getting your kids to love the library as well. Has it worked? Has it not worked? What does that kind of feel like for you guys,
Jillian O'Keefe:we pretty much go to the library once a week more in the summer. We're more consistent come to school year week less than a bit. But it has definitely helped with emmett's reading. He would go and he would grab a stack, a huge stack of graphic novels and bring them home and read through them. Esther, we're still working on. She still doesn't have the love of reading. She still says she hates reading, but I think it's because she's still, you know, everything is new to her. She's in third grade, so she's still technically learning how to read and big words and everything. So it's a bit of a struggle with her, but she does love being read, too, and we do read. I do read to her every night. So we pick up books right now. We're really into, like, Sweet Valley High type books, but they're this generation's version of those. So it has helped. But we're it's a we're a work in progress.
Erin:I'm so lucky to live within walking distance to our local library branch, and I'm also lucky it's a very small footprint as well. So I also have that experience as a mom of just like, let's go to the library, run loose. I really don't care what you do so long. Is you're not being like, loud, disrespectful or dangerous, and I can keep a very close eye on my kids. Like the children's section is probably the same size as my living room, so it's, you know, very cozy, amazing children's programming. I also wish we were there more often. I do find that when we go it's this very sort of unstructured part of their own exploration. And sometimes when I go I'm like, being very specific. I'm picking up my holds, I'm returning books. I might peruse the shelves a little bit, but going to the library for me has become like, about efficiency, and going to the library for them is a lot about, like, exploration and play and fun. So I often do find I have to check myself and kind of temper the amount of time that I might have expected to spend there versus the amount of time that they might want to spend there. My youngest son, Beckett, is a reader, but he's kind of a reader on repeat. He likes the same book every night before bed. He loves those sort of anthologies of superheroes. So like, it's like, 10 stories about Spider Man, or 10 stories about Star Wars or what have you. And he likes to kind of pick out of the cup the Table of Contents. But those are really on repeat, and those are often the books that we own, and they're kind of, you know, the books that make you go cross eyed as a parent. You're like, I just can't read about Magneto one more time. I'm so bored of this but, but you do, and that's also part of like young children and their literacy is gaining comfort with words and cadence and the oral storytelling time and time again. They don't always want that exposure to novelty the way that I might want as an adult, my middle son Henry is really gotten into children's contemporary fiction, what I would consider middle grade fiction, so chapter books that take kids through a plot that probably has three acts, maybe altogether. He just recently finished the wild Robot series. He's moving on to the one and only Ivan series. Henry is who I would call my reader, but that's probably just because he reads in a way that I identify with, and so I also kind of like pay attention to that as a parent. Now, the other thing that we talked about the library as like a physical structure we've benefited from as a family. The other thing I've really benefited from as a mom is Libby and hoopla, which are two library apps. They're licensed library apps. It's usually Libby. There may be other programs that provide you licensed book content, digital content, online. And hoopla is another one. And my son, William, is a voracious reader. Again. He's like Beckett. He's got on repeat the Harry Potter audio book series, so he has probably read on audio the entire audio book series of Harry Potter at least four times through. And this also kind of drives me crazy, because I want him to experience that novelty. I would also love it if he would not be reading Harry Potter anymore and he could experience some more diverse reading. But I'm trying, as a mom, to meet him where he's at, and I also am carrying that experience of Jane Eyre and my mom telling me I had to stop reading Babysitters Club, so I'm also kind of, you know, trying to mediate that a little bit, but he wouldn't have access to those audiobooks without the library, because they're audiobooks that are accessible through those apps. And so yeah, that's kind of how the library is helping me raise readers as a parent. And I do find that it's sometimes a little bit less about, like, the physical structure of the library the way it was when I was a kid, and it is becoming more about my kids, accessibility to varieties of content, to varieties of authors and variety points of view as they get older.
Alesia Galati:So for me as a parent, I have found and my husband tends to take them during the week, since he homeschools them, but when we all go. The first thing they want to do is they want to go to the iPad station. Yeah, our library recently moved to a very large place, and so it is like huge. The whole bottom floor is the children's section. There are rooms off to the back where it's not like one Saturday a month, they have a service dog come in and you can read to the service dog, so you just book a 30 minute window, which I think is really cool and just very unique. For kids who love pets, they have a STEM program once a month. They have a Lego club once a month, there's so many different resources that I feel like when we go to the library, it's not even for books anymore, because we have so many books at our house. Like, when I think about the average person having 12 books in their house, I'm like, Nope, that's not even close to what we have. Between my own collection and then looking at the kids collection when they were very little, we joined the Why can't I think of what it's called the Dolly Parton railroad reading thing?
Jillian O'Keefe:Yeah, I know what you're talking about. I don't know what it's called
Alesia Galati:imagination something anyway. So that's fantastic if you're a new parent. Check that out. You get a free book every month for your kid up until there, I want to say age five, so highly recommend, if you're looking and there's a really diverse collection that you get, which I really loved a lot when we were doing that program. Now our kids have aged out of it, but we have all those books still that we can go back and read my youngest, who's seven, Joey, he is autistic. He is delayed with his reading. And so we do a lot of audio books or reading to him. We did listen to the wild robots book, the first one we're working on, the second one. We listened to the first one before we went to go see the movie, because I was like, the movie's coming out soon. We gotta listen to the book. And so being able to then have the conversation with the younger one about how did the book differ from the movie, and just being able to have access to that audio book via Libby was just really fantastic. And then there are so many resources, I think, too, for my husband as he homeschools our kids at the library. So if he knows, hey, this month we're going to be talking about this topic, then he can grab all the books, or even sometimes they'll have those, like, bins of collections, which are really cool for him, that have resources. And so I love it so much. And when I think back to, like, my memories of the library, I don't really think I ever went to the library a lot when I was little, but as I got older, just being able to have access to books, especially being in a fundamentalist Christian community that allowed me to have access to books outside of what was quote, unquote approved, and having that access, I think, really allowed me to be like, Oh, wow, there's a world outside of this cool that's really good to know, because that was obviously a problem. So, yeah, I think that libraries are just so powerful, and there's so many different things that we can use, like resources that they have. Erin, you mentioned the Libby app. What are some of those other resources that you are finding really work from the library like that?
Erin:Oh my gosh, yeah. So I toggle between physical print copies of books and my Libby app. I love to read snippets on my phone. So that is one of the ways I make my way through 100 books a year, is I just have the Libby app on my phone, and when I have like, a spare five minutes, I tap into my book and I'm reading, I'm trying to train myself to tap into my Libby app before I tap into Instagram, so that I have that, like, you know, that instinct to get into my book. So, and I read a fair number of books, actually just on my phone, on Libby. So you can get digital print copies of books. You can also sync those to your Kindle. Or here in Canada, I have a Kobo, which is a physical like e reader, digital reader. Or if you have an iPad, you would just use the Libby app the same way you would access it on your phone. Also through Libby, you can access audiobooks. The other thing that has been really key for me, that I learned during the pandemic is some libraries have what they call inter library like Libby, licensing, sharing. So my library card is for the city of Mississauga, where I live, but on Libby, my card allows me a limited number of books to borrow from libraries that surround my area and are actually within the province of Ontario. So my one library card actually allows me access to the catalog of six different libraries, which also helps me in the context of how long I'm waiting for a book on hold, whether I can get that book in different formats, like a audio book, for example, it allows me to tag books that are coming into the catalog. So sometimes you might see books upcoming two months from now, hop into the catalog, tag it, and then Libby will send you a notification when that book has actually been added to the catalog, so that you can go ahead and get an early jump on placing a hold on it. The other thing that I loved a lot I haven't been using it as much, is using Libby for magazines. So I don't know if, like, magazines are dead, but every now and then, I love to, just like, binge through a couple of magazines on the Libby app, and you can get access to so many niche magazines, you know, like, if you have, like, very sub specific quilting for cats, there's probably a quilting for cats magazine. You can just really drill down and find things that meet your interests where you're at. And then the other thing that I would say also is in terms of accessing more diverse books than what you might find printed in your physical library. So a lot of the books that might be printed from indie authors or books that are maybe going to come in small print batches and might not be available, or there might not be a lot of copies available in your library, you can. Find books like that. I read a really interesting translated book this year that I couldn't find in my physical library, but I found it on hoopla, so I was able to read a translated book on hoopla. Hoopla is similar to Libby. It allows you access to books within the hoopla licensed catalog. You can read them within the hoopla app, and you can also find many other things on hoopla, like movies, some digital courses. You can also find through hoopla and your library probably also has access to some other canopy is another one that has courses and movies within a limited library, but honestly, you can only watch one thing at a time. So, you know, I think, I think we, we sometimes see like, oh, what's on Netflix isn't here, or it didn't have this one specific thing that I wanted. I think it's more about being able to broaden your horizons and look for many things that might suit your interests, rather than that one super hot thing, you know, like, if I'm gonna go to Libby and I want the brand new Emily Henry book, I'm going to wait probably 12 weeks, right? But if I want to go and read something from the back catalog, from a book that I missed way back when, or that a book that didn't catch my eye, from a diverse author, I'm probably going to be able to get it in Libby today. That's the one thing that I just really, really love about Libby, specifically, overdrive is sort of the general software that drives that for libraries, and your library pays a fee to be able to access that catalog, and I think that it's really opened up reading for me in more than just physical print copies of books.
Alesia Galati:It makes it really accessible for people who are like, I know one woman who specifically cannot read physical or digital because of something with her eyes like she can see, but when it comes to focusing on words or focusing on a page, it's really difficult for her, and so Having access to audiobooks that you don't have to pay premium prices for Amazon, prices for us. Having access to that, I think, really allows us to broaden our horizons and see other things. Jillian, what about you? What are some of the resources? And you can tell you, tell us how you use Libby as well. I know that's like a big one that a lot of people use, or if you have any additional ones, I
Jillian O'Keefe:actually have to say that I don't use Libby a whole lot. I really prefer a physical book. But I will say that as my eyes worsen, I am enjoying e reader books better, because you can make the letter size whatever you want it to be. So I probably will start utilizing Libby a bit more than I have been but outside of that, we like to go to the library and use especially in the summer. Not so much during the school year, but during the summer, they have activities where you can, you know, take part in them. So we missed it. We there were too many people signed up, but they had one for Taylor Swift, where they had the kids come and they can make friendship bracelets and listen to Taylor Swift music. My daughter wanted to go so badly, and I Dilly dallyed and never made the appointment on time, so we they ran out of space. But we like to do those types of things, where we'll go and have paint classes and the story hours, although both of my kids have aged out of story hours now, but they still have the story hours. And every week, the library that we go to, the location we go to, has an arts or craft out on a table that the kids can color. You can take it home during the pandemic because kids weren't really coming in, or they weren't really letting people into the library, you could just come in and get a packet, and they had the whole arts and crafts thing packaged up for you that you could take and go, which my kids absolutely loved at the time. And then they have lots of other things that we don't really take advantage of, where you can borrow Wi Fi hotspots and Chromebooks and different board games and all sorts of things that we don't even take advantage of, that are all available to people there that maybe if we didn't have enough board games of our own, we would take advantage of. But we seem to have whatever comes out. We're like, Yeah, let's give it a try. But yeah, I think our favorite is definitely taking part in those activities that they put on in the summertime. Mainly, yeah,
Alesia Galati:I love the library for that. Ours recently started offering where you could borrow puzzles, and I thought that was such a unique thing that I don't think I've seen before. And they were asking for donations. And I was like, Man, if I didn't Mod Podge all of my puzzles that I do, then I would totally donate them, but they're stuck to walls. So too bad I love I just love sitting. And this is something that I was actually telling my husband this morning, something I wanted to do this weekend, to just recharge, reset, have a moment of doing. Something that I love to do, and I plan on listening to a Kennedy Ryan book while I do 1000 piece puzzle. Come bother me. It's fine. Sounds like heaven. But yes, libraries have so many resources that we can use, and I think that they really allow communities to come together in an impactful way as well, like I think about the summer bash that our library does every beginning of summer, where they start their summer programs, and they always so many people show up, and they're trying to get people involved and get people backed into reading, and also being able to, like, take my kids and say, Hey, I'm gonna work for an hour. You go ahead and play on the iPads or go look at the books and sit down in color or read, and giving them that space to be able to, like, get outside of the house and do something different and be around other people, I think, really helps. And then also giving that, like I said, sense of community, but then also being able to have diverse conversations and seeing other people rather than just seeing people that are in our circle and people that are part of our community. What are some of those lesser known resources that you have found that your library offers?
Jillian O'Keefe:I think the biggest one that I found recently is that they are now lending out Chromebooks and hotspots. And I know I just mentioned this, but that to me, if they had that, thankfully, during the pandemic, we had access to Wi Fi and Internet, and we were fine, but I know that a lot of people would have benefited from having that access during the pandemic, because with everybody in homeschool, not everybody had access to Wi Fi and or internet and were lost. You know at how to go through school. I know some libraries in our area do lend out tools as well, which is neat, but I don't think our location does, and I don't really venture into the other ones I could. I'm surrounded by three or four that are technically in my neighborhood, my, you know, immediate area. But I just like our I like the one we go to, so
Alesia Galati:I stick to it. What about you, Erin? What are some of those lesser known resources that you found?
Erin:Well, I mean, just for fun, to be able to answer this question, I subscribe to my library newsletter, which I would recommend to anybody listening. If you're like, not really sure if your library offers the things that we're talking about, subscribe to their newsletter, and you're going to probably get a bi weekly or a monthly newsletter that's like, hey, here are some things that we want our library patrons to understand is coming up and things that we know. So here's something I got this email yesterday. These are some of the things happening in my library. I do live in a pretty large urban city, but that being said, there is a Comic Expo that's going to be happening next weekend. There is an author Talk series. The author is talking about his novel, which is about history and examining history. So if you're into history and you want to hear an author, you could go there's programs for teens created by teens. So there's some teen programming by the teen advisory group. I didn't know the teen advisory group was a thing. I'm not a parent to teenagers yet, but maybe that is actually something I should know about as my kids get older, right? We talked about our kids aging out of the storybook programming. Turns out the library doesn't forget about you once you get too old for story time. There's also a library pop up. So they've created a library in a space that doesn't usually have a library, and I actually happen to know that this is an area of the city that has been affected by construction of another library, so they've created a pop up. So didn't you know, access? And then there's some other things about community and getting out of the house and maybe meeting some people who have a different lived experience than you, or who have a shared lived experience than you, and you don't have to feel so lonely about your lived experience, or you don't have to feel like you're navigating challenges alone. The library can be a huge hub for that. I know, after the events of this week, one of the calls to action I've heard time and time again in terms of the events this week, we're recording the week of the US election, but that being said, one of the calls to action has really been to get out there and get into your community. Your library can be the gateway for how you do that, and if you're like, I don't know how to get into my community. I don't know how to find spaces that feels scary and intimidating. Think about going to your library. My Library has a manga book club. Who knew my library also hosts a wellness series for newcomer women. Newcomer women to Canada. What an amazing thing for newcomer women and in my community, to have a wellness series provided by the library. So again, and that's just from one email update. And I'm sure there's more things that I'm not even aware of, and so I guess maybe in terms of the things that. Your library is doing, the sky is probably the limit, and borrowing books is the least you can do at the library, and the most you can do probably depends on what season of life you're in, what your needs are, and how willing you are to sort of let your library meet you where you're at. I
Jillian O'Keefe:actually had a reminder I was just looking at my library website, because I don't know if we have a library newsletter, so I'm trying to find out if we do. But I was reminded that we also can suggest a purchase. It's super simple, where you just go in and you give your library ID number and the title of the book, the author, the ISBN number and where you want to pick it up. Most of the time they approve them. I think our library does within three years. If the book is older than three years, they won't buy it. But if it's older than three years and they can't find it, you usually can do interlibrary loan then. So that was another one that I just reminded myself of another service. Yeah,
Alesia Galati:speaking of holds and loans and requesting books. Let's talk tips, tricks, things that are really working for you guys to be able to do that, because I know a lot of people might go to their website and think, What am I looking for? What am I doing? I've got the Libby app, but I want to be able to figure out more. Jillian first, what are some very quick and easy ways that you personally use the tools that you have to be able to manage your holds and borrow books and all that fun stuff.
Jillian O'Keefe:So my favorite tip that I learned from Instagram is that when you want a book, like a brand new book is coming out, and you're maybe three months out from it being published. You can go to your library, most libraries anyway, and you can request that book before it's even in their catalog. Like most books, or rather, most libraries will have a placeholder for that book that you can then request it ahead of time and bump shoot at the top of the line. You still may have a small weight, but you won't have have as much of a weight as if you wait until the book comes out and then you're putting your name in there. Now that is a wonderful thing, because then you get the new book, and you get that new book smell, and you don't have to deal with the smell of other people's hands all over the books, but at the same time Erin's laughing so hard, because this comes up in our podcast a lot, because I really cannot stand the smell of other people's hands on the books, which is like, Why do you love the library so much? Most of the time, if you get a book that has been used frequently, you run into this, but a lot of the books don't if they're not read regularly, then they just smell like the shelves anyway. This is a wonderful thing too, but it also can run into issues, because then if the book comes in at the same time as others, you find yourself with a whole stack of books coming in at the same time, and then you have to figure out which ones you're going to read before you return them. That is my absolute favorite trick, and I share it with everyone that I can, because not everybody knows about it, and it's saves you time, like in the long run, when you get that book to finally come in. Yeah,
Alesia Galati:so good. What about you, Erin? What's your favorite tip or trick that you use for the library that maybe people don't even realize?
Erin:Yeah, my favorite tip is a Libby tip. So Libby has not just a search, but they also have something they call the Deep Search. And you can use this again to find books that the library will probably buy, not that they've bought yet, not that they have a licensed digital copy of yet, but a copy that they will probably be adding in. And you can, if you use deep search, place a hold on a book well before its publication date. So for example, and I apologize, I really wanted to think of a diverse author, but the first book that came to my mind is Onyx storm by Rebecca yaros, which is the third book in the fourth wing trilogy. This is the third book. This book is people are going to go bananas for this book, who knows if it's going to be good or not. But I've been able to now put a hold on the audiobook copy using the deep search. When I used regular search, when I searched Onyx storm, regular search, I didn't find it. You do have to scroll down in your search function. Scroll down in your search results, tap deep search. It usually shows up at the bottom of your search. Sometimes it's not available in all libraries, but if your library has the deep search function, then you can use that, and you can really get what feels like first in line, premium access to some of those very, very hot off the shelves books. Yeah,
Alesia Galati:I don't think anybody like I've seen people mention deep search, but I've never had anyone Express actually how to get to it's like the dark web. No one knows how to get there unless you know how to get there. So I love that you gave us that tip, because that's really helpful for sure. Thank you so much. What about loaning books? I know you both go pick up books that you're like, nope. These are ones that I am going to borrow and put them on hold. How do you go about doing that? I'm guessing it's probably not through the Libby app. Is it through an app with your library, or through the website? Or what does that kind of look like?
Jillian O'Keefe:I do it through the library website. We don't have an app. I don't believe they obviously the Libya. We do have Libby and we have hoopla, but we don't have an app itself for the requesting of books, but it's it is mobile friendly. So I do use my phone a lot, and I just go in and search up the book that I want, and then on the side of the screen there is a little down arrow that pops up a different options. You can request the book. I think one is email it the details. And then there's one other option that I don't know. And so I just always tap on request book, and then it pops up a little screen, and it'll say, where do you want to pick this up? And mine auto fills with my location, my favorite library location. And then you just click okay, and you're good to go. And then you wait, depending on if it's a new release or an older book, you wait and see how long it's going to take to get to you. Most of the time, if it's a new release, you're going to have a long wait. And you can tell that how long your wait is by going into your account and into holds and then scrolling to where your book is, and it'll say on the side, it'll say it doesn't give a weeks at my library, it maybe it doesn't Libby, but physical books, it'll tell you what number you are in line. So I'm waiting on the wedding people, and I've been waiting on that one for a long time, and I'm like 95 now out of when I first signed up for it, I was like 170 somethings. It's slowly ticking down.
Erin:I feel really lucky. My Library recently released an app, and it feels similar to the browser, web browser experience, so I can't put any physical holds through Libby. Libby is exclusively my digital reading experience, and then I use my Library app, but it's very easy. It basically tells me I have, like, a little dashboard. It tells me how many books are overdue, how many are due soon. I like that because it helps me manage my TBR, if I know what's going to be due soon, then I bump it up in the reading list. It also tells me how many books are on hold that are waiting for me at the library and ready for pickup, and it also tells me if I have fees due. Now, my library is fine, free, but there are sometimes fees associated still with using the library. Maybe if I lost a book and I need to replace it, for example. The other thing that I love about my Library app is that you may have found yourself like in Barnes and Noble or a bookstore, an independent bookstore, and you're like, you know what? I think I'm going to look for that book at the library that looks really interesting, but I'm not going to buy it. You make a conscious decision not to pay for it. You want to find it in your library, My Library app. So normally, what I would do is take a picture of the cover, right? Take a picture of the cover and let it languish in your photo role until you never think about it again, and you're just trying to create space on your phone, and you delete it, and you never get to that book. So my Library app in the search has a search function, but it also has this little barcode. If I tap on the barcode, it opens up a camera that my camera app and my camera can scan the book barcode and search my library catalog for the book in real time. So like, if that's not a gateway drug, I don't know what is in terms of borrowing books at the library, but I am really, really proud and really excited about what our library is doing. I feel like this is a very contemporary library experience in this app. And I appreciate that.
Alesia Galati:Oh, that's so fun. I like that. Using the storygraph app for that when I'm at a at Barnes and Noble and I'm like, am I gonna this book? And then I can scan it, yeah, and see what the mood is of it. Is it something I'm gonna lag? And then they have the AI generated section where it'll tell you, Hey, you read similar books. If you like these, then you'll enjoy this book. Or you said you don't like informative books. People have said this is informative. So it might be something you're interested because of this, but you might be outside of the realm of something you want. And so I really like the story graph app for that. But now I want to check and see if my library has an app. Because they're they've got so many resources and things. I'm like, you gotta have an app now, guys, come on. Yeah, I think it would be so good. So before we say goodbye, tell us a bit about your podcast. Tell us how it started what people can expect from your guys' show.
Erin:Yeah, so medium lady reads is a spin off of my single one woman show podcast called medium lady talks. And I had a couple seasons of medium lady talks running, and I found that every quarter I had a really hefty amount of book content that I wanted. To share with the audience, and it just kind of became clear to me that I had enough to actually spin off and create a reading centric podcast within the medium lady universe. And I call myself medium lady because I'm not an old lady and I'm not a young lady, I'm smack in the middle. I'm a medium lady, and Jillian and I have been book besties for a long, time. And so I approached her and said, Listen, I'm thinking of doing this spin off podcast. I really need a co host, and I think you would be perfect. Would you please, please, please, please, please, consider doing it with me. And thankfully, Jillian said yes, and she was very excited. So, yeah, we're in our second season. We have over 30 episodes at this point when you're listening, listeners probably upwards of maybe 50 episodes for you to catch on to. And we love the library. We really emphasize reading as self care. We talk often about how we're using the library and what we're putting on hold and what we're returning, and it's often a big part of our conversation. We're consuming books 90% of the time through the library, and then we also love to dive into book conversations. So what are the hot takes out there in terms of book culture? You know, lot of hot takes right now about who should and shouldn't be reading, smut Alesia, a lot of hot takes on like, do we police what women read what women don't read? So yeah, we get into those kinds of topics over there. And it's a real joy for me, specifically to sit down every two weeks and just talk books. We both try to bring reviews to the show of what we've read recently. We try to make apt recommendations for why you might like it, why you might want to pass and yeah, we feel like the listener is the third person at the table when they listen to Jillian and I chat back and forth about books, we want you to feel like you're also you're also there with your tea and your books, and you're like, oh my gosh, yeah. Or no, never. Or as adding to my TBR immediately. You know, we often hear that from our listeners that they're chiming in as the third person on Mike, so, yeah, Jillian, I don't know what would you add? I
Jillian O'Keefe:will add that when Erin asked me if I would do the podcast with her, I was beyond excited, because I had been going back and forth in my head that maybe I wanted to start a podcast about books, but I wasn't really sure what direction to go in and I didn't know if I really wanted to do it myself, and it was absolutely perfect timing, so I was very excited to jump on the bandwagon and do this with her. Yes,
Alesia Galati:I love you guys' show. I love that I was able to be on to talk about our bipoc challenge. Are doing it again in 2025 as well. So that was so much fun. And I appreciate you guys for allowing me to be in your space where you guys haven't really had any guests, so appreciate that. No, so much. Yes, love it, and then I would definitely wanted to reciprocate, because you guys understand the point of this and the point of having these conversations, and how this can be a really valuable resource for other people who care about these things but maybe feel a little alienated, or are just there for the scroll on Instagram and don't really realize a lot of the conversations that those of us in the bookish space are having in the DMS, right? So I wanted to create space for that, and so I appreciate you guys for being on the show. Thank you so much, Jillian. Where can people find you? Get to know you, hang out with you.
Jillian O'Keefe:I am predominantly on Instagram, and my handle there is at Jillian finding happy if you want to join and follow the podcast that is at medium lady reads, and that's where we post all sorts of different funny reels. Erin is such a guru when it comes to posting these funny reels. She's so good at it. So we have a bunch of funny reels, but we also have things about the content and our episodes. And so you can follow us over there to hear more about the podcast. And
Alesia Galati:Erin, where can they connect with
Erin:you, yeah, so you can connect with me on Instagram. I'm at medium dot lady, and I do a little bit of book content there, but I do a lot of motherhood millennial content there, really trying to fight that upward climb, against burnout and live as mindfully as possible. So yeah, if you want to connect, we would love to know that you came from the show, so please hop in our DMS. Send us a message if you heard this episode. And Bucha friends are the best friends, so we're happy to meet more readers.
Unknown:Ya.
