Wow! Something I know a bit about. I am an avid to addicted reader. I had not really started reading until my late twenties. Now you can't stop me; I have so many books they live in my office at work and at home and I still go to book stores! I say this to say that Reader Advisors are a large part of my life. The library that I work for; houses over one hundred thousand titles, therefor you don't just browse the collection. When I want a book I either search our online database or go to a Reader Advisor.
I was intrigued by the difference between recommending and suggesting titles. The difference being this is what I think you should read vs. this might be a good read. Reader Advisors have to walk this line. I also learned about cultural capital and asynchronous book clubs. As I mentioned I often find myself in bookstores and libraries other than the one I work for, this gives me a firm grasp on marketing techniques used to draw in readers (I get caught by them a lot). Here in Raleigh we have a wonderful privately owned bookstore that employs a lot of these marketing concepts. They host book clubs, author events, and online book lists. For this Blog entry I tried out http://www.nextreads.com/ and http://www.ebscohost.com/novelist/ I like the concept but I will have to try them out. I also have never seen a "read a like", now I am on a mission to find one! One of the other libraries that I go to often has e-notifications. I originally could not use them because of the format they came out in, until they changed to an email format and now I am a part of that service and enjoy not paying late fines. I am grateful for Reader Advisory services and think that they are valuable. I hope to never see technology take over such a personal touch. Those relationships are valuable to the very success of libraries.
Chelton, M. K. (2008). Readers Advisory Services: How to Help
Users Find a “Good Book”. In Haycock, K., & Sheldon B. E.
(Eds.) The Portable MLIS: Insights from the experts. (pp. 159-167).
Westport, Connecticut. Libraries Unlimited
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment