Barry Trott, Editor
Kaite Mediatore Stover, Guest Columnist
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Readers’ advisory (RA) services have always been about building a two-way line of communication between a reader and the readers’ advisor. The whole premise of contemporary RA practice rests on the idea that the advisor comes up with suggestions for a reader by listening carefully to how that reader experienced a book or author that they particularly enjoyed. Armed with that understanding, the advisor can then make reading suggestions that go beyond the basic matches of genre or subject. In this way, RA service has always been a “2.0” service. The Library 2.0 movement is centered on using technology to build a more user-focused library and to promote the development and expansion of communities into the virtual world. In the following article, Kaite Mediatore Stover explores some of the prominent book-focused social networking sites and begins the discussion of how these resources, being used by millions of readers, can be incorporated into our RA practice. Along the way, Stover examines the way that readers’ advisors can use reader tagging of titles to expand our vocabulary of appeal. Kaite Mediatore Stover is the head of Readers’ Services for Kansas City (Mo.) Public Library. She also is a columnist with Booklist, writes for the Booklist Online Book Group Buzz blog, and is a contributing writer for NoveList.—Editor
Just when readers’ advisors everywhere thought they’d assigned taxonomic ranks to libraries’ jungle of bookshelves holding books of every spot and stripe, along comes another new set of shelves needing taming. First, Melville Dewey gave library staff a system that separated all the reading material by subject area. Then Nancy Pearl and Joyce Saricks further separated the bibliophylums with genre definitions and other elements of appeals, making the species eminently more identifiable to the modern book watcher. Library staff were pleased. Our shelves, it seemed, were ordered, classified, separated, and manageable.
But, just as things seemed to be comfortable, librarians discovered a new online unit of shelves with critters that looked familiar, but were behaving in ways that librarians hadn’t quite seen before. The books had the same names, but they were being classed into subgenres, idiosyncratic lists, and cross-pollinated species that defied logic. They weren’t being organized by the professionals, but by the readers. Clearly, some form of order needed to be restored, but it would require keepers and visitors to work together to build a system both could use to the most benefit.
Few would argue that the Internet is one big jungle, and navigating it occasionally requires a machete, not a mouse. Conducting a successful readers’ advisory conversation with a reader can be akin to slashing one’s way through adjectival vines as tangled as “well written,” “good story,” and “not boring.” Yet the moment those brave new explorers of the social Web went searching for readers, librarians knew they had to follow curious Stanleys to even curiouser Livingstones.
Social Animals
Readers’ advisory (RA) is one of the most social services libraries offer. It’s no surprise that talking about books so easily made the leap to the Internet. This discussion is a natural extension of the readers’ advisory conversation. “The entire point of RA is to reach readers…. Library 2.0 tools play to the strengths of RA work and can deepen and broaden the interaction, introduce new ways of connecting books to other items, and enable librarians to enlist the entire community of readers in the collaborative creation of RA services for everyone.”1
Many library staff will tout the in-person RA interview as the best way to determine what a reader wants in the next book he or she wants to read. In a face-to-face interview, the advisor is privy to tones of voice, facial expressions, and some level of enthusiasm or disdain for a particular type of book. Still others swear by in-depth questioning through reader profile forms, either in print or online. The benefits to the form-based RA are numerous. Patrons can take their time answering the questions and staff can take time to evaluate the forms without worrying about a queue forming behind the reader. More specific information can be obtained, creating better reading matches.
Book-centered social networking sites are a combination of the above. Online readers are using all the descriptors available to express what they like about what they have been reading or what they want to read. They are in a relaxed environment, they are taking their time, they are enjoying looking for the right words, or even using creative terms to describe what they like. Ike Pulver, of Shaker Heights (Ohio) Public Library, notes how wonderful it would be if we “could classify books—fiction, especially—by ‘feeling’ rather than by subject, or adjectivally (big, fast, exciting, intricate, thought-provoking) instead of nominally (horse, houses, shops, satellites, cheese).” Pulver refers to appeal as a “feeling taxonomy.”2 The shared language of readers’ advisors and readers is changing and expanding when put to use on the Internet.
Expanding readers’ services online also creates larger communities of readers and readers’ advisors. “The library as a physical place must extend well into the virtual space—in social networking communities, across web sites of all kinds, on any form of digital device.”3 This is how librarians stay aware of how their patrons are using the Internet and which books are generating the most electronic conversations in these “unique environments for expanding baseline library services, for reaching new audiences and providing decidedly new services.”4
Not only are library staff reaching new and different patrons, but they are improving their own knowledge of books read, heard of, and glanced at, and it is all in one place. Library staff are equipped with easy-to-use tools that help them organize their own reading and evaluate their strengths and weaknesses in reading areas.
What is surprising—perhaps daunting—is the variety of venues available to readers who eagerly share their favorite books, current reads, and ever increasing to-be-read stacks with friends and strangers, both virtual and actual. The number of book-related social networking sites seems to be growing by the hour, but there are three that stand out among readers and library staff, GoodReads, LibraryThing, and Shelfari. Look for a list of others at the end of this article.
Best in Show
GoodReads, LibraryThing, and Shelfari are all social networking sites with a focus on gathering readers and the titles of what they are reading. They all offer similar basic services. Users register for free and begin adding books by title, author, or ISBN. Almost all of the titles appear with color covers and the option to add to one of three established shelves: Currently Reading, To Be Read, or Have Read. All sites give users the option of adding tags or reviews to the titles, participating in discussions or forums and “friending” other registered users or inviting friends to join the site.
Of the three, LibraryThing, based in Portland, Maine, launched first, in August 2005. Presently there are well over half a million users of LibraryThing, and those users have cataloged over 35 million books. LibraryThing allows application programming interfaces (APIs) for blogs and other websites and is moving into the business of library catalog enhancement with its LibraryThing for Libraries service. More than seventy libraries are using LibraryThing for Libraries, according to the LibraryThing website. The newly released Reviews for LibraryThing for Libraries has just fewer than twenty users.5
LibraryThing for Libraries allows libraries to pull in additional information on a title from the content-rich mine of LibraryThing’s user-added information. Examples include other editions and translations of the work, similar books, and tags. LibraryThing is quick to point out that all of the information added has been evaluated and vetted by LibraryThing staff for appropriateness and use. Only the five best matches are listed for “similar books.” Tags that are too vague or personal are removed. LibraryThing has devoted the same attention to the reviews that are now available for library catalogs. Each one has been read by LibraryThing’s staff (two librarians) and those reviews deemed too short, too long, or containing too many quotes, for example, have been culled. A subscribing library’s patrons may also contribute reviews to items in the catalog.
There are other entertaining reading-related activities on the LibraryThing website: The Zeitgeist page is full of fascinating statistics and lists for readers with a math bent. For library staff, perhaps one of the most useful lists is “Authors who LibraryThing.” This list can serve as a resource for libraries looking for authors to invite for a program or a fun promotional tool to encourage readers to “read what your favorite author is reading.” The only drawback to LibaryThing is the limit to the number of titles a user can catalog with a free account. With a free account, members are permitted up to two hundred books in their personal libraries. To add more titles, a user must either pay a $10 yearly membership or a $25 lifetime membership. Users who obtain a membership are permitted unlimited cataloging of titles.
The second book-related social network on the scene was Shelfari, located in Seattle. Shelfari debuted in October 2006, and the last confirmed report had their total users at one million, although that figure is probably higher by now.6 Like LibraryThing, Shelfari allows APIs for blogs and other websites as well as the import and export of book lists.
Shelfari has been in the news several times this past year and a half. In November 2007, the social website was accused of duping its new users by sending e-mailed invitations to join Shelfari to everyone in these users’ Yahoo!Mail And Gmail e-mail accounts. This “spam” was followed up by reminder e-mails to join Shelfari, and the website lost quite a bit of social capital in the blogosphere as users angrily cancelled accounts and accused Shelfari of “poaching” contact information.7 Shelfari has since corrected the usability of their sign-up page, and users must make concerted efforts to invite friends to join Shelfari.