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E-books are on the minds of publishers, authors, and readers these days. And they should be on the minds of librarians as well. As with any new format for materials, there are challenges and issues that libraries face in adding e-books to their collections. (more…)
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As noted in this column in RUSQ 48(2) (“Building on a Firm Foundation: Readers’ Advisory Over the Next Twenty Five Years”), one of the challenges facing readers’ advisors in the coming years will be format-based advisory. (more…)
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Sometimes we can get so caught up in the minutia of our daily work that we forget the passion that brought us to the library profession, and to readers’ advisory work in particular. In this issue’s column, Brad Hooper rekindles some of that passion as he looks at the connections that readers’ advisors can make between food writing and travel writing. (more…)
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With this issue, Reference & User Services Quarterly (RUSQ) begins its fiftieth year of publication. In November of 1960, the first copy of what was then known as RQ (sometimes referred to as “Reference Quarterly”) appeared “as an eight-page newsletter.”1 Since that time, the content and the presentation has expanded to its present format. Throughout its history as RQ, and later RUSQ, the journal has been essential to the forward progress of both the theory and the practice of reference librarianship, in the broadest sense of the phrase. (more…)
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More and more, librarians working with adult users are called on to talk to groups of readers about books and reading. Whether it is to a book discussion group seeking guidance in selecting new authors, a class on crime fiction, or a program through the library’s outreach services to seniors, booktalking is no longer solely the responsibility of children’s librarians. (more…)
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Most frequently, this column looks at potential new directions in readers’ advisory theory and practice, offering tools that readers’ advisors can use in their day to day work as well as expanding the theoretical foundations of that practice. (more…)
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Book groups, whether library-sponsored or privately hosted, continue to grow in popularity. Perhaps the opportunity to connect to others face-to-face in what is an increasingly virtual world motivates people to come together to talk about their reading. Or perhaps it is the food. (more…)
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In our daily practice as readers’ advisors, we generally focus on the immediate issue at hand—getting a book into the hands of a particular reader. This is as it should be, and we need to be facile at providing our readers with appropriate suggestions that are based on our discussion with them about what appeals to them about their reading. (more…)
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In her 2007 column “Academic Libraries and Extracurricular Reading Promotion” (RUSQ 46:3), Julie Elliott looked at the history of Readers’ Advisory (RA) and extracurricular reading in academic libraries, and made a cogent argument for the reintegration of readers’ services into academic libraries. (more…)
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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. (more…)
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For the past quarter century, we have seen a revitalization of readers’ advisory (RA) services in the public libraries in the United States. The 1980s saw three major events that re-established the value of working with readers: the publication of the first edition of Genreflecting under the editorship of Betty Rosenberg (1982); the establishment of the Chicago-area Adult Reading Roundtable (ARRT) (1984); and the publication of the first edition of Readers’ Advisory Service in the Public Library by Joyce Saricks and Nancy Brown (1989). (more…)
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Readers’ advisory (RA) services have a long history in United States public libraries. Since the late nineteenth century, there always has been a component of public library services that has focused on connecting readers with books. As RA services have developed, contemporary practices have generally built on the foundations established by previous generations of readers’ advisors. (more…)
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Since the publication of Joyce Saricks’s Readers’ Advisory Service in the Public Library (ALA, 1989, 1997, 2005), readers’ advisors have used the concept of appeal as a way to connect readers with books. Looking at the elements of a piece of writing–character, language, mood, setting, and story–and what the reader preferred in each area helps the readers’ advisor to make connections between works that the reader may not have considered and thus expands the possible choices for that reader. (more…)
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Since the publication of Readers’ Advisory Service in the Public Library (Joyce Saricks. ALA Editions: 1989, 1997, 2005) readers’ advisors have used the concept of appeal as a way to connect readers with books. Looking at the elements of a piece of writing–character, language, mood, setting, and story, and what the reader prefers in each area–helps the readers’ advisor to make connections between works that the reader may not have considered, and thus expands the possible choices for that reader. What has been less explored, though, is the concept of working with those elements of a book that the reader did not enjoy. (more…)
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It is clear to anyone in the library profession, and certainly to readers of this column, that readers’ advisory (RA) services have become an important part of libraries. While librarians have worked to connect readers and books throughout the history of libraries, the past eighteen years since the publication of Joyce Saricks’s Readers’ Advisory Service in the Public Library (ALA, 1989, 1997, 2005) have seen a blossoming of RA tools for thoughtful discussion of techniques for working with readers, (more…)
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In spring 2006, a spirited debate on the merits of separating out library fiction collections by genre was held on the Fiction_L discussion list (subscribe at www.webrary.org/rs/FLmenu.html). Interesting points were made on both sides of the issue, and while no firm conclusions were reached, the discussion exemplified the thought and passion that readers’ advisors bring to their work. This issue’s column features two articles that present each of the sides in the ongoing question of how to best present a collection that will best serve the reading interests of library users. (more…)
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The readers’ advisory world has seen a shift in the past several years from focusing exclusively on fiction reading to taking a broader view of recreational reading that includes nonfiction titles and audiobooks as well. (more…)