Reluctant Readers’ Advisors: Help Your Staff Help Readers – OPEN SHELF. While most staff, even those without professional training, are comfortable with performing reference tasks as part of their job, many become quite hesitant when they are encouraged to provide readers’ advisory to readers. It is common to hear phrases like these: “I don’t read that much” “I don’t read in that genre” “How will I know what to suggest?” Paradoxically, libraries need readers (lots of readers) but they do not always do the best job to support them beyond simply providing books on shelves. Learning about readers’ advisory is not required coursework for most graduate programs and most students are only vaguely familiar with the concept when they land their first job as a librarian.
The focus in schools, and libraries themselves, is to develop and improve reference training skills so it is not surprising that staff feel much more comfortable helping customers find information than finding their next great read. Training Strategies New Approaches Connecting with Users. Readers’ Advisory 101. By Mary K. Chelton A crash course in RA: common mistakes librarians make and how to avoid them For three years now, students in classes in readers’ advisory services for adults in the public library at Queens College, NY, have gone undercover to complete a surrogate user assignment. Each student picks a work of fiction he/she has read and liked and then goes to two local public libraries, tells a librarian at each about the book just finished, and asks for a suggestion for another book the student might like.
The goal is for MLS students to remember what it feels like to be a library user and to bring back examples for class critique. The service mistakes these student encounter, usually at the reference or information desk since typically few libraries here have separate readers’ advisory (RA) desks or departments, are so consistent that it is hard to believe that they are localized only to New York City metropolitan area public libraries. Beware OPAC dependence Know about appeal. REAL PUBLIC LIBRARIAN: Rewarding Reading - Reader Advisory Training. Just taking a few minutes to blog about the Reader Advisory training that our library team is doing at the moment. This much waited for event - the luxury of 3 days of dedicated, get away from it all training in this important area of library service - is being conducted for (nearly) our whole library team of 9 (4 of our number have had to maintain a skeleton crew to keep the libraries open, including calling in our semi-retired stand-by, and a staff member especially released from another department because she used to work in the library!)
By "Libraries Alive! " a two person library consultancy. For a course overview see their website. I might blog about this in more depth later, but at the 2 day point od the course these are the off the cuff insights I've gained so far: 1. 2. 3. 4. Anyway that's a start, I have to get ready for work now or else I'll miss the start of the next session... A new way of choosing what to read next. Australian readers advisory sites. Reader’s Advisory Training. ORE Module Two, Readers' Advisory, web based training for Reference Service from OLC. What is Readers’ Advisory? Finding the right book for the right person at the right time. Helping readers find the best, most enjoyable reading that matches their needs, interests, and reading level. Connecting readers and authors/writers. Readers’ Advisory Skills Willingness to read widely to become familiar with genres both fiction and non-fiction.
Goals of a Readers’ Advisor Help readers find books of interest to them. Readers’ advisory interview The readers’ advisory interview uses the same welcoming behaviors as the reference interview. The open question varies in the readers’ advisory interview from the reference interview. “Tell me about a book you read that you really enjoyed.” “Tell me the story of the last book you enjoyed.” These will elicit the information you need from the patron to appropriately suggest books that match their needs and interests.
Genre: Does the patron enjoy mysteries, biographies, or romance novels? Readers enjoy books for many reasons. Key Behaviors.