readers advisory meets local studies in this Moby-Dick reading marathon

I have only just found out about this annual Moby-Dick reading marathon which is run by the New Bedford Whaling Museum.  This is a great way of connecting fiction and non-fiction. and that this has been going for 20 years shows a lot of interest.  There are local studies connections with this as New Bedford was a big whaling town and there were some technological changes to whaling which came out of this area.  You can read a lot more about it at the New Bedford Whaling Museum website.  I think it is very impressive work by this museum.  I was so interested in this that I did a storify.

I have not come across many marathon reads.  Ulysses by James Joyce seems to attract multiple reads a year, but there are many other location specific works which would be great for this (and if they could be streamed online that helps people who can't be there).  Last year there was a reading of the Illiad, which is still available for a few more months of listening.

There are, no doubt, a lot of other marathon reads out there, which I have not included, but think of it as a way to have people consider local history, and local stories.  The reading may be of works of fiction, such as Moby-Dick, or of non-fiction. It can be a way to connect people together.  Consider it as part of your library programming.

I can find find the history, local studies and readers advisory elements of interest but I am against any current whaling.

reading suggestions from staff in public libraries

Several libraries I visited had displays of staff reading (and I have see this is libraries in Australia too). There were different methods used, and they all looked good.  This is impressive passive reader's advisory work.

Sheridan Library, Arapahoe District Libraries



Southglenn Library, Arapahoe District Libraries
 Cambridge Public Library has descriptions of the kinds of reading and watching enjoyed by different staff with groups of selections, rather than individual ones.


An important thing to remember is to  please use suggestions not recommendations, makes it easier to try, but also less judgemental if you don't like it (and you want to go and talk to staff seeing suggestions for reading you make like).  It also does not imply you are a failure as a reading if you did not enjoy the suggestion, but it can feel a little harsher if you did not like something which was recommended.  We all like different things, and sometimes it is the timing which is wrong and other times the title.  It is not the reader who is wrong.

Douglas County Libraries in Highlands Ranch

This had some interesting on shelf readers advisory suggestions (which look like this)

and some helpful advice on public computers You can see more photographs here.

My review of The readers' advisory guide to genre blends by @megmcardle

The Readers' Advisory Guide to Genre Blends by Megan M. McArdle
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is another in the excellent ALA Reader's advisory series. This book highlights overlaps in genres, and how each genre can often have ties to another one bringing crime and science fiction, romance and science fiction, horror and science fiction, for example together. There is a very good breadth of coverage, and some great ideas and practical advice about readers advisory skills and techniques, including when to suggest genre blends to people.

This book shows a great depth and breadth of knowledge, and there are helpful resources. As well whole of collection advisory is included bringing film and graphic novels. There is a useful (and short) bibliography.

Collecting, display and promotion are also covered. This is an excellent readers' advisory publication, and is well worth reading. You will may find your 'to read' list grow as a result of reading it, plus you may find a large number of genre blends already in the mix

View all my reviews

RA for All: Keeping the Shelves In Order (reblogged with comment) via @raforall

RA for All: Keeping the Shelves In Order:   Every other week I volunteer at my daughter's elementary school library. Although I am often consulted on larger issues pertaining to ...



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I am reblogging this from a 2010 post from Becky Spratford because it raises ideas which people still need to think about, and take action on.  It highlights the importance of knowing the collection, presenting it well, and roving to provide services. These are all still really important.  Yes, you need to know the tools to use, whether for reference, reader's advisory or however you are helping the client (and Becky has done lots of great work in other blog posts to highlight some readers' advisory tools), but you need to be in your library space to help clients.

This also involves being in the online space - how do you offer assistance there?  Does your website have a pop up inviting clients to chat with you?

How can you provide the same depth and breadth of services online as in library (it is possible, but it requires thought and action). Enough of my rant, I encourage you to read Becky's post.

Inclusive reading, and inclusive readers advisory work.

Yesterday morning two very different kind of posts came through my Zite feed. One was headed 

No Boys Allowed: School visits as a woman writer. This is an excellent and depressing post by Shannon Hale. This is well worth reading as it has some very helpful points about readers advisory work and who/how you suggest titles and authors, and not being apologetic.

The other, I am not linking to, was called something like Key number of  [name of genre] books to read if you are a real [name of genre] fan.  Only books by men were included in this list.  The first post was about encouraging reading and encouraging a diversity in reading.  The other went down the unfortunate line of "real" fans which is problematic.  Each of us will read our own cluster of titles which have meaning to us, but whose grouping may leave others wondering.  That is good.  I can be a fan of the genre listed and not have read any of the titles suggested by this list.  I am troubled by the use of real in this context, perhaps I am an unreal fan of the genre as I have not read the entire list?  I can live with that.  It is not helpful to have lists (which is why I am being annoying and not linking to it) which say you can only be in the club for this genre if you have read/watched/played this exact set.  Where is the fun in that?  Where is the focus on the appeal characteristics for individual readers?   

I am sure that this list was meant to be encouraging, encouraging reading, encouraging a sense of accomplishment, encouraging a sense of belonging to a group.  

I was also concerned that the key titles were all written by men, that no woman was deemed good enough to write a key [genre name omitted] title.  There are many wonderful women and men who write in genre listed, so read across the spectrum, and enjoy.

Reading these two posts together highlighted the importance in readers advisory work of being deliberately inclusive so that people see and enjoy diversity in what they read.  

I realise that by writing this post that I am putting myself at risk of A Toxic Stew: Risks To Women Of Public Feminism, another post which came through Zite yesterday.  So be it.

Readers advisory unconference - at Darien Library

Thee following are the tweets from a seminar held earlier this year.  There are some interesting ideas here and it shows the value of Storify

Staff skills as the readers advisory promotion

Edmonton Public Library and Multnomah County Library both promote the skills of their staff in providing readers advisory services.  They have different approache which you can look at via the links in the library names.  I would prefer "suggestions" rather than "recommendations" were used, for a range of readers advisory reasons, but they are both impressive promotions.  They show staff skills being able to help clients in a range of ways.  It is a great leveraging of the key assets of any library.  I like the diversity of skills described, and the way you can obtain more information and reading suggestions.  These are key connections.

I also like the way Edmonton Public Library is making it easy to support them, by having this link in the same line as the social media sharing.

The book to art club

This project is part of the Library as incubator project work.  I have just joined the book to art club. I am not quite sure how it will work, hence joining.  I have borrowed the June book from my local library, but have yet to start to read it.

There are some groups who meet to do the art/craft together but there are also dispersed members.  I am trying it as a way to see how it fits with readers advisory work and makers (and I think it will).  I will write about it in a future post.  The June book is about graffiti so I will be interested to see what (legal) ideas come forth.  There is a back list of titles and a facilitators guide.

different reading styles

This article came through my Medium alerts feed - Agency or why we love Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings. I happen to enjoy both of these stories but not everyone does, and some of it comes back to the doorways mentioned by Nancy Pearl - character, language, setting, story (a description of this by Nancy Pearl is here), and there are a range of other factors as to why people may not enjoy these titles.

These books are interesting because they can be interpreted by readers as fitting in all of these doorways.  They both have strong story (even if we don't quite know where GoT is going).  There are many interesting characters, and we want know what happens to them (even if we only get to know then for a short time thanks to GoT).  The locations of both are important and described to add to our experience of reading them (and we can see that location can be an influence), and they have interesting use of language.  Depending on which of these is most important to you, will depend on how these books appeal to you (and there are a whole range of factors as to why they may not).

We all have a different mixture of the doorways in how we read, and there is not a ranking system, as they are all important to each of us in a slightly different mix.

This is obviously not language to be used with library clients,  but the ideas can really help when working with clients and helping them find something they want to read (without trying to give them something identical to what they read before - unless they really want this).

This article - Agency or why we love Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings - is also interesting because the description demonstrates the different doorways, without using the terminology.

I tweeted about this, but felt a longer explanation was needed.

As an aside Medium is a great source of a range of news stories appealing to different  reading styles.

tor.com rereading and rewatching

I follow Tor.com on twitter and their blog. They also have a range of short fiction and exerpts which is an excellent way to discover new writers.  Within their blog their have a collection of feature series which are detailed rereading and rewatching of series.  For example there has been a reread of the work of Patrick Rothfuss, a read of Ice and fire, and a re-watch of Star Trek Deep space nine.  As you can tell these are not short works being reread/rewatched.

I have looked at the rereading and rewatching in the past as I think it is an excellent resource for readers advisory staff, especially those who do not read science fiction, fantasy and some horror (as well as for for those who do).  These rereads and rewatching bring detailed analysis in a very readable format.  This material could help with suggestions for clients, as well as collection purchases.  They also allow you to work out the different appeal characteristics and doorways into a work without having to read it.  They also could be interesting tie ins for library services and programs, or even something keen readers are directed to as a referral point.

Until now I have not participated in a reread, mainly because I was often reading or watching things for the first time when the reread was happening.  As you can tell by this I am often a long way behind in my reading.

I have decided to change this pattern, by reading along in the Harry Potter reread.  I am enjoying it so far after one blog post and reading one chapter (and yes it is really a reread for me).

knitting and readers advisory

Recently I tweeted this link about a knitter who was looking for audio book suggestions. The usual readers advisory principles still apply. You still need to find something which will appeal to the read/listener/watcher. You still need to ask the questions about what the reader enjoys, or feels like listening too. Audio has the added area of is the narrator going work for the listener? Having someone read a book changes the experience, and the voice actors will appeal to different people. Make sure you take that into account. Pace is also important - maybe the listener is doing detailed work and they need a story (fiction or non-fiction) which is easy to pick up if you tune out for a short while, or perhaps a really detailed story is required. Have a talk to some of the knitters at your library (or other people who are doing things they could be listening or watching something else while they are doing).  Not all knitters will enjoy the same stories.

It is also not about knitters as there are many people who are looking for audio for while they are doing different things.  It is about the conversation with the reader/listener/watcher.

Where do you obtain your reading suggestions from?

I was thinking about this recently, because of the work I do with readers advisory people.  I decided to think about where my reading suggestions come from, to see what is in the mix.

The following list, not in any order, shows some of the places ideas for reading come from for me:

• public library - staff at my local library will sometimes (proactively) suggest something to read or watch based on my borrowing.  I like this.  It is active without being obtrusive, and is a nice way of demonstrating skills, so that if I want to ask I can.  It also lets people know that you can ask library staff of reading suggestions
• friends - although most of my friends read very differently to me, this is still an area where ideas come from
• specific blogs/tumblr I follow. Some of these will be written by authors, and some not. 
• people I follow on goodreads. There are some people I follow on Goodreads that I will probably not read anything they do, but it is still interesting seeing their reading. There are a few people I follow where I have found that if they give a book a high star rating/excellent review I am really likely to enjoy it. I have tried some titles I would not have thought of this way.
• twitter - this is different people I follow talking about what they have read, and some time authors tweeting links to free or low cost ebooks as a way of discovering content. I have had some lovely reads this way, as well as a few which I did not finish. I always receive ideas for new reading from the Read watch play twitter reading group as well. Have a look for #rwpchat.  Also have a looks at the different social media channels being used for this discussion - links available from here.
• Television - I don't watch a lot of television, but it can lead to reading for example I am reading a work by Brian Cox after watching Wonders of life. I am reading a history of the Vikings by Neil Oliver because I have watched some of his documentaries. 

I was thinking about this as I think these are tools to let library clients know about as well, as some may not be aware of how many ways to find out about reading suggestions, but also, some readers may be able to train library staff in some genre specific ways (so learning from the clients).

Does your library use a rang of online tools as part of the readers advisory service? Novelist can be very helpful, and has increasing Australian content, as well as connection with Goodreads.

There are a few libraries on Goodreads, like OCLS and Scottsdale. This could be an option to consider for your community. You may want to introduce it with providing sessions about it to your reading groups, as well as other groups of readers in your library. With anything you are doing online make sure you have day to find links on your website. Don't assume people will see the home page, include links on all pages, including the catalogue. Make sure you tell people about it in the library, and through the community as well. It might draw people into use these services, but you have to tell them about it in spaces they are already in.

Think about how you obtain reading suggestions. Are there ways to inform the readers in you community about some of them.  Are there genre specific options you could connect clients with? Don't forget you can learn from your clients as well. 

Patrick Rothfuss and The story board

Patrick Rothfuss, author of The wise man's fear and The name of the wind, has started a Geek and sundry series of videos called The story board.  In these videos Patrick Rothfuss talks with leading writers about some really interesting ideas.  These videos would be great for people to use for readers advisory professional development.

The authors are key writers in different (mostly fantasy based) genres, talking about writing. They also seem to be having a lot of fun. It is also a way of demonstrating what can be done with a Google hangout. Enjoy.