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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. Some libraries are already invested in the process, licensing e-book collections from vendors and even circulating preloaded e-book readers to users. Other institutions are waiting to see how the market shakes out and whether a platform neutral e-book format will make it possible for libraries to support any e-book user, regardless of whether they use a Kindle, a Nook, an iPad, a Sony Reader, or one of the other myriad readers out there. Beyond the collection and technological issues, e-book readers also offer readers’ advisors some new challenges in working with users. Any time a new format is introduced in libraries, we need to look at how that format affects the reader’s approach to the material. In the following piece, Katie Dunneback gives an overview of e-books and readers’ advisory that is a useful opening of the discussion of how we incorporate e-books into our practice as readers advisors. Dunneback is Consultant with East Central Library Services in Bettendorf, Iowa, where she is one of the lead providers of readers’ advisory continuing education. She has presented programs on e-books and RA/library issues for Library Journal’s E-book Summit, “eBooks: Libraries at the Tipping Point”; the 2011 Iowa Small Library Online Conference; and the 2011 Tools of Change Conference. Dunneback is coauthor of the Everything Romance chapter in Integrated Advisory Service: Breaking Through the Book Boundary to Better Serve Library Users. She is a member of the Iowa Center for the Book Advisory Board and was a member of the inaugural The Reading List Council in 2007.—Editor

From the first e-text keyed in to a computer file using plain vanilla ASCII by Michael Hart at the University of Illinois in 1971 (it was the Declaration of Independence ), the usage and development of e-books have grown by leaps and bounds.¹ As the speed of progress with regard to e-book technology is also ever increasing, this article will focus on an overview of considerations for technology, collection development and circulation issues, and providing advisory services for e-books in libraries. E-books have been freed from the Pandora’s box in the library world. We cannot stuff them back in and must figure out how to deal with the issues surrounding them.

Technical Issues

The first point of business to understand is that e-books do not enjoy the same sort of protections under copyright law as physical books do. The First Sale Doctrine is the exception to copyright law that allows for the transfer and disposal of a lawfully acquired and tangible copy of a work.² This is the section of copyright law that allows for libraries to operate in a lawful manner. In Complete Copyright, Carrie Russell notes that with the passage of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998, one of the unresolved issues was the “creation of a ‘digital first sale doctrine.’” Digital copies appear to still be subject to the First Sale Doctrine as long as they are tied to a tangible medium such as a CD or DVD.³

With intangible digital copies, you have lost the right to dispose of it as you wish (other than outright deleting it) and are in effect licensing access to a file. To control the access according to the license, publishers assign what is known as digital rights management (DRM) to files. DMCA essentially bars libraries from purchasing electronic copies of books themselves, setting up a file server, and distributing the files to their patrons as they see fit without the content creator’s explicit consent on each transaction. It could be done if your library wanted to set itself up as a direct distributor of a publisher’s titles rather than going through a vendor, but as you are still only licensing access, a library would have to invest significant money and manpower in developing a robust system that would appease content providers who insist on the presence of DRM. In this time of decreasing budgets and increased demand of library services, each institution must determine where they will get the most bang for their buck. Currently, I am unaware of any library dealing directly with publishers as direct distributor.

If you do decide to go with a commercial distributor or invest in the development of a distribution system of your own, file formats should be your number one consideration. Project Gutenberg continues to code their books as plain vanilla ASCII as “99% of the hardware and software a person is likely to run into can read and search these files.”⁴ In September 2007, the EPUB format was adopted by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) as the standard format for digital publications.⁵ Publishers and distributors use many other formats, some of which are proprietary in nature. Many publishers, as already mentioned, also use DRM to restrict unauthorized access to the files. DRM code exists separately from file format code, but they are sometimes used in conjunction with each other to control access to e-book files, such as with Amazon’s Kindle files. In order to access a file that has been encoded with DRM, users need to have access to the key to unlock it. As most publishers license Adobe’s DRM code, this means users will need to have an Adobe account tied to the device they are using to access the file. Anonymous authorization is available, but the file cannot then be transferred to another device. The same is true for Amazon’s proprietary DRM. It is possible for multiple copies of an e-book to have the same filetype (.epub) but different DRM schemes, thereby forcing a user to need access to multiple programs to unlock each copy of the file.⁶ If an EPUB format book is encoded with DRM, it is no longer considered the open version of the format.

And with that, we come to one of the cruxes of the discussion: e-book readers. You need to factor it into your readers’ advisory interview. If your library offers an e-book service, can the reader the patron will be using access those books? Almost any computerized device these days has the capability of being an e-book reader if it has the right software installed. Computers can be e-book readers and probably are the most versatile devices when it comes to file formats. The drawback is most people don’t want to do their leisure reading on a computer, especially if they spend most of their day working at a computer. E-ink technology devices like the Amazon Kindle, Sony Reader, and Barnes and Noble Nook, to name the three most popular as of this writing, provide the most book-like reading experience. However, the Amazon Kindle proprietary DRM code is not currently compatible with the systems of e-book providers for libraries. An additional concern about the e-ink technology available in the United States is that it currently only reproduces images and text in black and white. Illustrated content, like graphic novels, is less successful on e-ink readers. This is where LCD based systems like the iPad, iPod Touch, and nookColor excel. In November 2010, the New York Times reported on the announcement of color e-ink technology by a Chinese company, Hanvon.⁷ I would safely speculate on the arrival of color e-ink technology in the North American market in the next two years, which will broaden the appeal of e-ink e-book readers. As it is in 2010, we have seen the price threshold of $100 for a dedicated e-book reader broken—by $1, but broken nonetheless—with the Aluratek Libre. As the price barrier lowers, libraries will likely see an increasing number of e-book adopters. These will include tech-savvy younger users as well as those older users with sight issues who may appreciate the ability to resize text.

Collection Development and Circulation

Collection development of any sort is dependent upon awareness. If we are to develop effective and useful collections for our patrons, we must be aware what titles are out there. There are a number of ways to accomplish this in the e-book world. Many traditionally published popular titles are also being released as e-books these days, but it is important to be aware of any that may have a delayed digital release. Library Journal’s Barbara Hoffert has begun to include e-book ISBN’s in her Prepub Alerts.⁸ The USA Today best-seller list includes notations for e-books for those titles where the e-book format was the most-purchased format.⁹ On November 10, 2010, the New York Times announced it will be compiling a best-seller list for e-books.¹⁰ Obviously, e-books have become entrenched in the public consciousness. What about the books which may not make the best-seller lists? The “midlist” authors? For books where a print edition exists, we can turn to standard review outlets such as Publishers Weekly and Library Journal. But what about those which do not have a print edition? Library Journal is exploring the possibilities of expanding their reviews to include digital-first or digital-only titles.¹¹ Outside of the traditional broad coverage review outlets, librarians should also pay attention to genre-specific outlets like RT Book Reviews which include reviews of digital-first and digital-only titles. For previews of books, librarians are one of the target audiences for the NetGalley service where publishers make digital advance reader copies available for review. Book bloggers are another rising outlet for publisher publicity efforts, and these readers tend to read broadly in terms of both content as well as format.

In personal conversations with Library Journal’s Heather McCormack, we have discussed the issue of titles in digital format that are not available for library distribution. This is a significant concern. A number of rising star authors currently have some titles only available in a digital format and are not necessarily available for distribution to libraries. Examples of this are specialty and independent presses whose business model is that of digital-first/-only (DF/DO) publishing. This is a point where libraries need to become involved in conversations with publishers to work out mutually beneficial solutions. A number of DF/DO publishers are making their books available to libraries through third-party vendors. As the economy and the publishing market change, I believe we will be seeing more and more DF/DO publishers crop up and established publishers move to a DF/DO business model either fully themselves or by spinning off new divisions and imprints. One example of this is Carina Press, a division of Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd. Launched in June 2010, Carina Press has made a splash in the romance genre with authors already popular in the e-book market as well as authors with print publishing histories. They have recently begun republishing Jennifer Greene’s early titles, so if you are looking for replacement copies, you are going to have to go digital. A more prominent example of an author going digital is Stephen King with his short story, “UR,” currently only available through Amazon. With the proselytizing of the advantages of digital self-publishing by author J. A. Konrath, as well as similar ventures by popular marketing entrepreneur and public speaker Seth Godin, we may be seeing more and more popular authors bypassing traditional publishing ventures for some, if not all, of their future work.

Circulation of popular titles is always an issue. E-books are generally treated the same as physical copies of books when it comes to circulation. If the library owns one “copy” of the digital format, it can only be lent out to one person at a time under the model currently employed by most distributors. This is the scheme that DRM facilitates. There are multiple lending schemes libraries have employed to facilitate access to digital format titles. One of the more popular schemes is to engage a vendor like NetLibrary or Overdrive to provide content while the patrons provide the devices on which to read the content. Some libraries have chosen to provide devices onto which they load the titles. For libraries employing this scheme and using devices that can access a store, patron-driven acquisition is sometimes also deployed. Putting the power of acquisition in the hands of patrons can be at once empowering and also in need of careful management. There are a couple of drawbacks to the scheme of providing the devices themselves. The first is that the license for the operating software may prohibit usage by libraries. This is a concern to discuss with your institution’s legal counsel when considering this option. The other is how many devices the library will own in proportion to the number of titles. If all of the devices are out, that can make the entire digital collection unavailable to the remainder of your patrons even if the titles are not in use by the person currently in possession of the device. The benefit to the library lending out e-book readers is for the section of their population who do not have Internet access or a personal computer at home, let alone an e-book reader. Ultimately, there is no one perfect solution to this dilemma.

Advisory Services

Books are the brand of libraries. All formats of books. All. Formats. With the need of an intermediary technology on which to read the story, e-books present a fascinating area of advisory for librarians. We need to be able to be advisors of technology in addition to content. As we have seen with audiobooks, the format you use to access the story expands the appeal factors of the content. Library patrons come to us for help in figuring out the best possible reading experience. With audiobooks, as long as the patron had a device that played the physical format, it didn’t matter what the device was because the device itself contributed minimally to the reading experience. With e-book readers, this is not the case.

Display options are the most easily understood component in determining appeal factors in regards to e-book readers. Readers utilizing e-ink technology can achieve an immersive experience similar to reading a print book. Keep in mind that the quality of the resolution will vary from brand to brand and model to model as new generations are released. Also you need to be aware of any additional technology layers, such as touch screens, added to the viewing panel. While the addition of a touch screen will degrade resolution, it will allow for the user to move pages by using their fingers as opposed to buttons, which may aid in the immersive experience. The size and weight of the device are also important. Some readers prefer hardbacks to paperbacks and vice versa. The various devices can be correlated to holding a book of either size. This brings up another factor, as some people want to feel like they are still holding a book: what accessories, namely covers, are available for the devices? Library patrons’ physical restrictions contribute to a satisfactory reading experience that can be helped or hindered by the reading devices available. Does the patron need to have access to very large type or text-to-speech capability? What if the patron has arthritis and can’t hold a heavy device for an extended period of time? This convergence of readers’ advisory and consumer information reference requires excellence in the skill set common to reference services and readers’ advisory services.

As the device used to access the digital format contributes appeal factors to the reading experience, so does the digital format alter some appeal factors considered inherent to the book reading experience. The impact of digitization of books and stories on appeal factors is most prominently felt with pacing. In her discussion of appeal factors at the “eBooks: Libraries at the Tipping Point” online conference, Neal Wyatt noted the lack of physical indication as to how much left you have of the book to read. Some e-book reading devices and software programs are able to compensate with indications of page numbers; however, this is not the same as the sensation of less than fifty pages in your right hand and you must absolutely finish the book tonight even if it’s 2:00 a.m. and you must be up at 5:00 a.m. for a critical-to-your-career meeting. The reader will need to rely entirely on narrative drive to feel the pace of the story. Pacing is also affected by how much text is visible on the screen, so the larger the text, the less there is to indicate how quickly the story is moving. As the layout of the page changes, this can also affect the tone of the story. When you see large blocks of texts on the page, this can indicate a description rich story, possibly intended to be a leisurely read, or an indulgence of rich details. Short paragraphs with lots of dialogue can mean snappy or quick-witted characters. If the visual cues are not there, will the reader tire of the story more quickly? Richly detailed books may also not be the best type of book to read on an e-book reader, especially if the reader is one who likes to do what I call the fan and scan to check for previously revealed information. It is not easy to jump between points in the book if you do not know exactly where you are going. Re-readers, particularly if they only read certain parts of the book, may find this lack of ability frustrating. There is something to be said for the spine breaks occurring where the good parts of the book are.

The readers’ advisory interview must and will evolve as e-books become more and more entrenched in library collections. Readers’ advisory trainers should begin including discussions of the technology in continuing education sessions even if their library does not currently offer e-books as part of the collection. Culturally, the traditional printed codex has become the invisible technology with regard to reading. As future generations grow up with technology on which to read e-books, and conversely as that technology “grows up,” we may find other devices that are able to occupy the same invisible space as the codex. We may even find the art of storytelling evolving to adapt to the advantages provided by digital technology, kindred the branching off of printed storytelling from oral storytelling. This emerging arena is where I think we will truly see the next phase of readers’ advisory services develop.

Conclusion

With the entry into digital collections, a library must consider many implications. In some ways, libraries have already dealt with issues of interlibrary loan functions with the advent of online journal collections. We must take this a step further when dealing with leisure reading collection. A great majority of library patrons have been conditioned to the availability of most any book they are in want of through resource sharing efforts. With the cost of setting up a digital collection as well as the cost of the materials themselves, small- and medium-sized libraries may find it more cost effective to create or join a larger consortium to provide a wide range of digital content.

At the conclusion of my portion of the panel discussion on e-books and readers’ advisory at the “eBooks: Libraries at the Tipping Point” online conference, I included a slide titled “Ponderings” with two questions: “How do we serve our patrons on the ‘wrong’ side of the digital divide if the midlist goes digital and copyright/DRM does not change?” and “What are the implications of recommending titles we cannot provide as an institution?” I believe we need to address these questions as a profession as we move further into the world of e-books. A concrete solution to them isn’t likely, but knowing where we stand will allow us to move forward in conversations with publishers and content providers, and we need to have those conversations. We should invite publishing professionals to the conversations we have in our spaces and take the time to participate in the conversations happening in their spaces.

The opportunity to have an impact on the future of publishing is in our hands, and we cannot let it slip through our fingers. We are experts in connecting readers to books. Those skills will carry us into the future no matter the format. Adaptation is the hallmark of successful evolution. It’s not always easy, but with adaptation, we will be opening ourselves and our patrons to an expanded world of leisure reading opportunities.

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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. Our audience needs to expand beyond just the reader to include viewers and listeners, and we need to be alert to both the similarities and the differences between working with these users and working with those interested in print materials. In the following column, Tara Bannon Williamson begins the conversation, looking at how we can best work with the reader, viewer, and listener and listing some of the tools that are available to advisors. Williamson, librarian at the Schlessman Family Branch Library, the busiest of Denver Public Library’s branches, chaired the Colorado Association of Libraries readers’ advisory special interest group, founded Denver Public Library’s current readers’ advisory group, and is an adjunct professor at the University of Denver’s Library and Information Science Program, where she taught the readers’ advisory course offered spring quarter 2010. She also will be teaching this course summer 2011. Williamson also is a frequent contributor to NoveList.—Editor

The library continues to dynamically evolve into a thriving destination, alive with sound and rich in format. Steadily, the library world has seen and embraced new formats, from the original books on tape and VHS to the new formats of playaways and downloadable electronic media. Library customers drive this change with their eager acceptance of and hunger for these and other types of audiovisual material. As film rental stores suffer through bankruptcies, libraries must seize their opportunity. People seeking traditional brick-and-mortar video rental can enjoy our physical space, while Netflix and Amazon customers who expect recommendations while browsing also can have their needs met through readers’ advisory.

How then does a readers’ advisor adapt to the growing demand for nonprint materials? A new terminology is required. Rather than develop different skills and terms for viewers’ advisory, listeners’ advisory, and readers’ advisory, an all-encompassing term should be created to reflect the universal and modern nature of our skills. Materials matchmaking implies the level of personal preference that informs each interaction while keeping the result set broad and unlimited by format.

Without realizing it, many customers already expect a recommendation model not limited by format, much like that provided by Amazon. Those without expectation are educated on library scope when offered multiple formats when they simply provided a title. A customer interested in Marley and Me may be delighted to learn of the availability of not only the book by John Grogan, but also the film starring Owen Wilson, the audiobook narrated by Johnny Heller, or the kids’ books by various authors.

Offering multiformat materials advisory to library customers is not significantly different from offering traditional library services, it simply requires a broader filter when creating connections between customers and library materials. Ascertaining whether or not the customer is looking for a specific suggestion, an answer to a question, or requesting a barrage of possibilities is the first step.

Providing materials matchmaking for nonreaders will guarantee the sustainability of the library by showing relevance to all members of the community and by providing a possible bridge to more traditional library services, including requesting print material. Customers who start by requesting informational videos can be enriched by considering the print collection and vice versa. Pitman states, “In fact, there are all kinds of questions that we answer by automatically pointing patrons toward the book stacks that we could just as easily (if not better) handle with video format.”¹

When working with readers, we use the elements of appeal to make connections to new books and authors. Saricks writes that these same concepts of appeal, “pacing, characterization, story line, frame (physical setting and atmosphere), tone and mood, and style and language,”² will also help connect viewers and listeners with new materials. There are, however, some new facets to consider when applying these appeal factors across formats.

Applying Appeal Factors Across Formats

Film

Appeal factors can be applied when discussing audiovisual formats as well as print, although some translation is required and additional questions should be posed when mining information related to the viewer’s interests. In some ways, recommending DVDs can be simpler than working with books as there are more contributing entities. While a book typically has one author, a DVD can be seen to have many. While listening to your customer, pay attention to whether it is the overall film (director), dialogue (writer), characters (actors), or another element entirely, and that can lead you to a wealth of suggestions. Genre terms and definitions are directly transferable from print to film.

Setting, an important factor/element for readers, may be an even larger consideration for viewers. In many films, the setting is almost a character unto itself, with possible theme music, moods, and intent. While watching a film may be less of a time investment than reading a book, for many viewers films evoke a stronger immediate emotional bond and reaction by eliciting more of our senses. With high-definition films and televisions becoming more common, the setting is more than coming into focus; it is assuming a role on stage.

Cinematography in a film can be loosely equated to the use of language or tone in a book. Cinematography is the artistic unveiling of the film, the silent narrator, while the tone and language of a book play the same role. A customer requesting films that are dark and ominous may not only be referring to the plot or the setting of the film but to the pace and cinematography.

As with setting, customers may have a different tolerance level for cursing, sexual content, and violence when consuming books and movies. Hearing and seeing this sort of thing affect some people more potently, while for others, the imagining the violence or hearing the words in their mind affect them more deeply. Most films come with ratings, warnings, and content notes that can help the customer and the librarian make an informed decision about what they are taking home.

Music

For most librarians, music may be the most intimidating arena in which to make recommendations. In addition to musical tastes being intensely personal, listeners may struggle with how to talk about music. Music lovers often identify with a genre or subgenre or perhaps a few particular artists but often cannot articulate the elements that attract them to one musical group or artist over another. When working with listeners, using genre while applying additional searchable criteria such as imprint and date of publication can yield the most efficient and effective results.

In the world of independent music, the recording label is often congruent with the publishing company. Not only are they aligned with the tastes of their niche customers but also may represent a self-identified subgenre. When providing readers’ advisory, it is useful to know that the imprint Luna, a subset of Harlequin, concentrates on paranormal romance. Similarly in the music world, Brushfire Records, formed by Jack Johnson, and Righteous Babe Records, formed by Ani DiFranco, both feature artists whose styles are similar to these performers.

Although date of publication is not generally of import when making reading recommendations, it can be a portal for creating solid music recommendations. Musical influences, styles, and lyrics are heavily influenced by the era in which they were produced, reflecting not only the political and popular influences of the period but embodying the spirit of the day and evoking memories and emotions remembered by the listener.

The environment or activity in which the customer wishes to enjoy their music will also inform your recommendation. Customers requesting workout music will have different expectations than pregnant mothers seeking to nurture the tiny genius gestating within. Tempo, lyrical content, and genre will be factors to consider during materials matchmaking. During the interview, establishing a solid baseline regarding preferences and expected outcomes will guide your interaction and inform your suggestions.

Being aware of local radio stations, music venues, and trends can keep you abreast of recent releases and events that may be of interest to your customers and can improve your recommendations. During the materials matchmaking interview, inquiring about their favorite radio stations can inform your recommendation beyond asking what “kind” of music they like.

Audiobooks

Audiobooks are most easily approached using standard appeal terms because the content is identical to that of the print item, except in the case of abridged material. The added facets of narration, length of recording, intended listening arena, and format are important ingredients to also consider.

In addition to the concerns of story, setting, mood, language, and character, audiobook advisory requires a knowledge and sensitivity to things such as the narrative voice, reading style, where the auditor plans to listen to the recording, and what sort of media format the auditor needs and desires. These new ways of thinking about audiobooks also can apply to working with users interested in help finding music and films.³

Male voices are generally more popular for listeners and easier for older adults to hear due to the lower register.⁴ Multicast performances will appeal to fans of the old radio shows and those that struggle with distinguishing characters or are less experienced with audiobooks. Authors reading their own work appeal to many listeners because “the writer as narrator format lends authenticity and makes listening even more intimate.”⁵ When assisting a customer new to listening to books who does not know what they prefer in a narrator, it is wise to send them home with female, male, and multicast vocal selections so they may explore their preference, if any.

Becoming familiar with a varied selection of notable and award-winning narrators is a significant first step in creating a successful audiobook advisory experience. The Audie Awards, sponsored by the Audio Publishers Association, bestows accolades on multiple aspects of production and narration in more than thirty different categories. While the selections are a springboard, the breakdown of types offers valuable insight into appeal terms for this format.

Becoming a Recommendation Engine

A recommendation engine provides suggestions that are based on a customer’s tastes and usage. Until a library product is successfully created to exist within our OPACs or on top of our catalogs, library staff will need to become recommendation engines. Providing advisory services to our users fortifies the role of the library in its community by making connections between people and materials and building relationships with library users through conversation and overlapping interests. Iskold writes:

A great recommendation system can retain and attract users to the service. For example when a user returns a movie, he/she is recommended another movie they might like—which increases the likelihood of return business.⁶

Being able to successfully suggest a film, CD, or book increases our relevancy in our users’ lives and increases the likelihood of a return visit and word of mouth referral.

In addition to consuming as much media as you can muster, listening to those around you talk about what they like and why, and asking customers where they hear about their items and why they like them, there are several online and print tools that the materials matchmaker can use to insure a successful interaction. While no universal tool yet exists to answer any audiovisual reference or recommendation question, several excel at addressing specific common interactions.

Print Resources

Print resources can be effective during materials matchmaking depending on the currency of the publication date and the quality of the indexing. Leonard Maltin’s 2011 Movie Guide, The Time Out Film Guide 2011, and Halliwell’s Film Guide are excellent examples of film catalogues that contain reviews, indexes of performers, and lists of award winners. The magazine Video Librarian “is the video review magazine for public, school, academic, and special libraries, as well as video fans who are interested in a wider variety of titles than what’s found in the average video store” and is a great way to stay up-to-speed with new releases.⁷ While excellent for general review, browsing, or familiarizing yourself with names and titles, these resources are generally too static to be effective during material matchmaking.

Online Resources

IMDb (The Internet Movie Database)
IMDb, which turned twenty in October of 2010, is now an affiliate of Amazon. IMDb “started as a dream to make a tool that we, as movie fans, would find really useful and fun. Over the years, millions of other movie fans have found it useful and fun too.”⁸ Most effective when answering questions such as “which films were Kathryn Hepburn and Spencer Tracy costars?” and providing filmographies, movie summaries, and trivia, IMDb is one of the best and most popular of the freely available movie databases.⁹ For those screening by content, IMDb provides a Parent’s Guide field that provides in-depth content advisory on sex and nudity; violence and gore; profanity; alcohol, drugs, and smoking; and frightening and intense scenes on a scale of 1 to 10 with reasoning.

Rotten Tomatoes
Featuring box office information, release dates, reviews, and celebrity news, Rotten Tomatoes is unique in that it allows you to search by critic. Early in 2010, Rotten Tomatoes joined forces with Flixster to create a “database of more than 250,000 movies, 2.3 billion user reviews, 500,000 critic reviews, more than 20,000 trailers and videos,” plus local movie showtimes.¹⁰ Customers looking for the hottest titles with the most scandalous stars will enjoy recommendations plucked from this site.

Filmsite
“Filmsite—also known as Greatest Films—is a unique website containing interpretive, descriptive review commentary and historical background, and hundreds of colorful, vintage film posters for some of the best Hollywood and American classic films in the last century.”¹¹ While limited by publication date and country of origin, Filmsite is affiliated with American Movie Classics and provides extensive film lists that film buffs can accept as definitive. Customers looking for broad lists of “The Greatest Films” or “Controversial Films” or genre studies like film noir, chick flicks, and greatest disaster film scenes will enjoy this site.

TuneGlue
For those wishing to find more musical groups or artists similar to another, TuneGlue provides a visual map that creates a web of connections that stimulates discovery by providing an accurate and intriguing suggestion result set. Connections can be formed between multiple groups, strengthening the potency of the recommendation. Each search creates nodes, which you click to expand to reveal four to six suggestions that are related to the original query and are connected with an elastic line. Expanding several nodes reveals a web of connections between musical groups and artists. These connections, generated by LastFM and Amazon, are entirely user-driven.¹² Rather than being a tool to answer a specific question, this is an excellent resource for those seeking exploration and discovery of new artists in relation to beloved favorites.

Musicovery
Musicovery generates an online radio station based on searches, and most uniquely, mood. Arranged like compass points, the listener is presented with the selections of Energetic, Positive, Calm, and Dark. Further refining the search, the user can select decade and genres (rock, metal, blues, gospel, jazz, R&B, rap, electro, Latino, classical, soundtrack, world, reggae, soul, funk, disco, pop and vocal pop) to further home in on the desired results. In addition to mood radio, Musicovery offers dance radio searching with Tempo +, Dance +, Tempo -, and Dance -, at the compass points also further refined by decade and genre. Musicovery’s full benefits may not be recognized at the reference desk because audible streaming music may not be condoned at your location, or it may not be equipped to handle it.

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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. Reader interest in narrative nonfiction continues to grow, and Hooper offers here some excellent suggestions on how librarians can support and build on that interest. He reminds us that it is okay to be passionate about books and to communicate that passion to our readers.

Anthropologists have given us the list of the three basic necessities for human survival: food, shelter, and clothing. But these also can be pleasures, not just survival necessities. That is, not just food but good food, a nice dwelling rather than simply a cave to call home, and stylish or at least well-presented clothes as opposed to an animal skin.

To the list of good food, comfortable shelter, and stylish clothing, I would like to add travel. Avid travelers would insist that travel is, first, a survival necessity, and second, a primary source of pleasure in life.

At the risk of getting too complicated—but I believe you will soon see the method in my madness—let’s now cut our new list of four down to two, leaving only food and travel. My reason is one word: writing. People write columns, articles, and even books about clothing—fashion, specifically, but also costume history. And people write columns, articles, and books about shelter, from building a house by yourself to interior decoration. These materials are widely read and appreciated, but generally by a limited, topic-interested audience and not usually by people whose primary interest is enjoying good, evocative writing.

Food and travel, on other hand, tempt a far broader, more extensive, and less specific-focused readership. I believe that food and travel books easily attract all kinds of general readers that are interested only in good writing.

Food and Travel Literature

Why are books about food (food literature, not cookbooks) and books about travel (travel narratives, not travel guides) so attractive as reading material? It’s because both derive from sensual pleasure: the actual experience of consuming good food and of going to new or familiar places are both reacted to by our senses. The sweet taste of new potatoes, the color pattern of a salad composed of fresh-cut lettuce sprinkled with blue cheese and topped with sliced strawberries, and the nose-tingle of brewing coffee or a curried lamb stew cooking: we react to food with all the salivary anticipation of the rest of our mammalian brethren. The sight of the Duomo in Florence, the ironically claustrophobic yet comforting feeling of the vast Midwestern prairie, and the swaying palm trees backdropping a Maui beach are some of the indelible pictures by which place registers in our minds.

The two sensory stimulants food and travel are succinctly yet resonantly linked in this famous Ernest Hemingway quote written to a friend: “If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.”¹

The image of Paris sits so well with the image of a banquet. Paris and food are connected—easily mentioned, as the Hemingway quote indicates, in the same breath—just like travel writing and food writing, together representing twin passions. The passion generated by food and by travel is reflected in the passion found in food writing and travel writing.

Here is another quote suggesting the close affinity between place and food (as well as exemplifying what I believe is the inherent stylishness of food and travel literature), this one by the great British novelist and travel writer Lawrence Durrell, on this occasion writing about the Rhone River region in France: “All roads lead to Lyons, and no wise traveler will complain for this great city is also the axis of good eating—the very midriff of haute cuisine, as it were.”²

The point of interest in all this for the readers’ advisor is being aware that the joy of food and the delight of travel arise from the same impulse: the need to satiate a sensory desire. And then being aware that food and travel books are read to feed identical impulses: the appreciation of a writer’s passion for food or travel or both and the seemingly automatic articulateness of a writer when writing about food and travel.

Appeal Factors

Appeal factors remain, of course, the bread and butter of readers’ advisory. But readers’ advisors might, when it comes to suggesting food and travel books, step away from the appeal-factor system. In other words, don’t suggest food literature because it’s a “learning experience.” Don’t go “by the book”: the book in this instance being the affixing of some sort of ritualized, codified, reductive labels on books. The same thing applies to travel literature: don’t suggest it because of its “fast-paced narrative.” You’re attempting to share good books here, not selling appliances on the basis of the interchangeability of their parts. Books are your lifeblood. Your passion. When suggesting food and travel books, don’t speak of ordinary traits. Speak of love and passion. Don’t be afraid to say, “I have some books here that were written out of love, and that love will be the connection between you and those authors and their books.”

Occasionally—and food and travel books offer an impeccable occasion—readers’ advisors should give free reign to their heart, their passion, to transcend the appeal-factor checklist and define a book for the potential reader in terms of emotion. Don’t be afraid to extend both a personal and even vulnerable hand to library patrons by letting them see your emotions rather than your analytical mind.

Vicarious Response

I’m advocating a combined food and travel readers’ advisory program. I believe it is a legitimate, authentic, productive, and exciting pairing for both librarian and library patron. People who avidly turn to good books in the first place are willing to let a good storyteller tell a good story, especially when the story is about a good meal or an exciting trip.

Readers’ advisors are used to establishing bridges not only between books of the same ilk (books on Civil War history, for example, or good examples of domestic fiction) but also between different types of books altogether (for example, between fiction and nonfiction). Readers’ advisors are accustomed to building “reading maps” from one subject area to another.

But here I advise a variation: recommending two books for the reader to take home at the same time, to read one very closely upon finishing the other, or even for “intermingle reading” (reading a chapter or two of one, then a chapter or two of the other, and back in that fashion).

Of course, two books that a reader would enjoy reading so closely together would have to have much in common, and I submit food and travel literature for filling such a bill. They can, and should be, recommended in tandem for the reasons I’ve proposed: both food and travel arise from the same impulse—the need to satiate a sensory desire. And both food and travel books are read for the same reason: to share the writer’s passion for food or travel.

I present the pairings below as examples of how to construct a food–travel combo. The books I discuss are a mix of classic and contemporary. I offer them for selection purposes as well: each title remains in print.

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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. While looking ahead is an important part of our work, an anniversary like this also reminds us that we should occasionally look back at where we are coming from. It is crucial that we not lose the best of our past as we move, increasingly rapidly, into a future that at times seems quite uncertain for libraries and librarians. The first volume of RQ was published from the fall of 1960 through summer of 1961. It was at the end of that summer that the library profession lost one of its luminaries, whose commitment to books and reading are still a model for readers’ advisors today.

By the time of her death, Helen Haines had been forgotten by many in the field of librarianship, but her influence on libraries and on librarians remains an important one, and one that still speaks to the profession in the early twenty-first century. As readers’ advisors are facing challenges ranging from budget cuts to rapidly expanding format choices to censorship, Haines’s work in collection development and intellectual freedom offers insight into how we can make choices that support both our readers and our profession.

Haines began her work in the library profession in 1892, when she joined the staff at R.R. Bowker, working first as a secretary and then as assistant editor on a variety of publications, most importantly Library Journal. Initially working under the supervision of Charles Cutter, Haines became the journal’s managing editor in 1896. At the same time, she also assumed duties as recorder for the American Library Association (ALA), with the responsibility of preparing the proceedings of the ALA. Haines was then appointed to the ALA Council, and there she worked with both Cutter and with Melville Dewey. In 1906, Haines was elected second vice president of ALA, however, a bout of tuberculosis left Haines unable to continue at Bowker or ALA, and she resigned both positions.² At her resignation, Haines was awarded a yearly pension from Andrew Carnegie, in recognition of her “effective personal work done in the library field.”³

Following a period of recuperation, Haines moved to Southern California, where she had a sister who was working at the State Library of California.⁴ During her recovery, Haines read widely, laying the foundation for much of her later work. By 1910, she was sufficiently recovered to begin work as a book reviewer for the Pasadena News. In 1914, Haines began to teach at the Los Angeles Public Library (LAPL), offering training classes on book selection and other related topics. Between 1914 and 1931, Haines taught courses for LAPL, the School of Librarianship of the University of California, and the School of Library Service of Columbia University.⁵

Haines’s wide reading and work in collection development culminated in the 1935 publication of Living With Books: The Art of Book Selection, which became a standard text in library schools across the country. Many librarians welcomed Haines’s work for its focus on the literary aspects of librarianship and focus on the reader—two areas that were being challenged by the rising interest in information systems and new technological developments.

In the 1930s, Haines expanded her work on book selection to include a vigorous opposition to censorship of books in libraries and schools. In 1940, Haines was instrumental in the establishment of the California Library Association’s intellectual freedom committee, and served as the committee’s first chair.⁶ Haines’s strong advocacy of intellectual freedom and her openness to works considered by some to be controversial led to accusations of Haines being pro-Communist. When the revised edition of Living With Books (1950) included books discussing the USSR, Haines was “attacked in the January 1952 Freeman for alleged strong pro-Soviet bias.”⁷ Sadly, fear of being tarred as a “fellow traveler” meant that Haines found few defenders, and she spent the last decade of her life in retirement.

So, what does Helen Haines have to offer readers’ advisors in the twenty-first century? I would argue that there are a number of aspects of Haines’s work that prepared a fertile ground for the renaissance of RA in the 1980s. These include a commitment to books, reading, and readers; an understanding of the importance of story in the lives of readers; an appreciation for the importance of human contact between the librarian and the reader; a grasp of the connection between RA service and collection development; an interest in an ongoing development of professional skills among librarians; a strong understanding of professional ethics as they relate to daily practice; and a passion for intellectual freedom and the freedom to read.

Haines was an advocate for broad reading. In her 1924 article “Modern Fiction and the Public Library,” Haines notes that “librarians seldom contemplate modern fiction with serenity.”⁸ During the 1920s, the inclusion of fiction in public libraries was raising both eyebrows and calls for censorship, even from some librarians. Haines, however, encouraged librarians to “display more confidence in and enthusiasm for books, a wider personal acquaintance with and sympathy for literature. [Building collections] for readers of various tastes.”⁹ While Haines encourages librarians to look for the best in literature, she also reminds us not to scant new styles and trends. As more and more authors experiment with graphic novels, metafiction, cross-genre pollination, and the like, we do well to heed Haines’s admonition that “selection should be representative of types and tendencies in fiction—new methods in style, new experiments in themes and treatment.”¹⁰ Without an openness to all types of writing it will be impossible for a readers’ advisor to successfully work with the wide variety of readers with whom they come in contact. Haines was particularly an advocate of reading fiction in translation. Reading novels written in other countries, she wrote, allows the reader to “realize the kinship of the human family and see our own emotions and experiences repeated or interpreted in the emotions and experience of others.”¹¹ An openness to all sorts of writing both builds a stronger readers’ advisor as well as a stronger community.

Unlike many of her colleagues, Haines also understood that it is readers’ reactions to the book that are central to the reading experience. While Haines was clear that some books are better written than others, she also understood that selection of materials for libraries is based not only on the interests of the community but on “the reading tastes, capacities, needs, and habits of the individuals who form the public.”¹² As readers’ advisors we must constantly assert the importance of listening to our readers. They are the ones who know what they are looking for, whether they can verbalize it or not. If we ignore the reading tastes of our users, whether in collection building or in offering one-on-one service we are doing them and ourselves a disservice. In Living With Books, Haines outlines five tests to use when judging the “values of individual novels.”¹³ When looking at the test of the effect on the reader, Haines points out that this test “must be applied with understanding of the point of view of the reader to whom the book does appeal.”¹⁴ While the librarian or readers’ advisor certainly has, and should have, an opinion about the quality of the book in question, it is the reader’s opinion of the book that is most central to the encounter. We need to remember to listen to the reader as well as making our own value judgment about particular books.

Not only an advocate for readers, Haines also was a passionate proponent of the connection between books and the library. In the twenty-first century, when we hear almost daily reports about the demise of print (and the demise of the library), it can be reinvigorating to read Haines’s defense of the book and of the role of books in our lives. “Librarians need to realize more keenly the part that books must play in meeting the crucial problems of our immediate day.”¹⁵ Haines was keenly aware of the importance of story in the lives of the community. The above quote comes from an article written in 1945, just after the end of World War II. As six years of violence and terror were coming to a close, Haines reminded librarians, and reminds us today, of the power of books to “enlighten prejudices, to enlarge understanding of vital issues, to strengthen public acceptance and practice of cooperation and race tolerance.”¹⁶ There is no question that Haines felt that fiction reading was a crucial piece of this process. In 1928, she wrote that fiction is “the dominant creative literary art of our own day . . . drawn upon for copious transfusions of its lifeblood to vitalize anemic offspring of biography and history.”¹⁷ Haines recognized that it is through story that both individuals and communities pass on their values and discover “the better angels of our nature.” The role of the library and of readers’ advisors in this discovery should be clear to all. However, as technology and its attendant gadgets proceed at a rapid pace, it is sometimes easy to forget that story is a major brand of the library. When so many of our users think of the library as a place to find materials to read, view, or listen to, we should be strengthening the services that relate to working with these users rather than trying to change their perceptions of the library. RA service, both synchronous and asynchronous, reinforces the library’s role as a willing and able source of reading guidance and creates a sustainable connection between library staff and the library’s readers.

In an increasingly virtual world, Haines’s writing also serves to remind us that the library is a rare point of human contact for many of our users. Unlike so many businesses and institutions today, libraries still offer our users the opportunity to talk to a person and receive direct assistance (in person, on the phone, or even through online technology). While technology is an essential part of contemporary library services, we have to be careful not to be so bedazzled by the lure of the next technological tool or service that we forget that we are working with people. In her article “Technics or Humanization in Librarianship,” Haines argues for the inclusion of the human element in book selection. She warns that strict adherence to “technics,” what Haines describes as the “scientific-mathematical mechanization of library functions,” will result in libraries that are “impervious to universals of human experience and unaware of the richness and stimulus of creative art.”¹⁸ As readers’ advisors we bring to our practice the passion for reading and the broad understanding of literature that allow us to make connections between a reader’s current interests and possible future interests. Great strides are being made in RA technology. However, regardless of the quality of its algorithms and the depth of its data, a computer cannot make the same connections that a librarian can. The personal interaction between a reader and a librarian is one of the strongest arguments for the value of RA service in libraries today.

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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. The ability to articulately and succinctly present a program on books is an essential skill for all readers’ advisors. In the following piece, Jennifer Baker lays out some guidelines for librarians who are new to booktalking. She discusses choosing titles, preparing for the talk, and shaping the presentation to specific audiences. Baker is an adult services librarian in the fiction department at the Seattle Public Library and has worked as a readers’ advisor and reference librarian. She is currently a member of the Reading List Council, a RUSA committee that awards “best of” in eight genres each year. An alumnus of the University of Washington (UW) graduate library program, she has conducted workshops on booktalking for students in the UW iSchool and has provided training for book group facilitators in UW’s Common Book program. She is a NoveList contributor, reviews fiction for Booklist and was privileged to be mentored by Nancy Pearl.—Editor

Most library literature on the subject of book-talking is aimed at youth services librarians; naturally these librarians have a great deal of influence in the classroom talking to kids about books. Since youth services professionals are frequently asked to booktalk, it stands to reason that the library graduate programs provide guidance and opportunity to do booktalks and receive peer feedback. Adult services librarians are less frequently required to do formal adult booktalks—this area of public programming is largely neglected and should be included as an important element of readers’ advisory services. Marin Younker states that “questioning the value of booktalking to teens is like suggesting that it’s a waste of time to offer storytimes to kids.”¹ Story-rich programs and booktalks for adults provide the same kind of entertainment, mental stretching, and learning experience for adults, yet library literature and educational opportunities for adult services librarians–in-training is limited to nonexistent. Many adult services librarians never do a formal booktalk; most booktalking occurs in the stacks with individual patrons or online while suggesting appropriate titles on a specific topic. For the adult librarian invited to present a formal book talk in the community, the prospect can be daunting. This article provides a few practical pointers for readers’ advisors to ensure booktalking success in different settings and with a range of audiences. Some elements of booktalking, such as program planning and marketing, and the physical preparations for a formal booktalk, are not addressed in this piece, but are adeptly covered in Chapple Langemack’s The Booktalker’s Bible.²

Choosing the Right Books

When invited to give a formal booktalk, the first thing to ask is what the host expects: What kind of reading will interest the audience? A group often will contact the library with a request for a booktalk on a specific topic. The local art museum asked my library’s fiction department to provide a booktalk presenting nonfiction and fiction about art. Such specificity of topic can be an issue if the booktalker knows little about art and has only a short time to prepare. It’s helpful at the onset to glean as much information about your audience as you can: their common interests, what they might be expecting, and what kind of program they are hosting. It will quickly become obvious to you if you are not the right booktalker for them.

If your reading interests and background are congruent with the group and you accept their invitation, think about the books you have enjoyed recently and which would fit the parameters. Choose only books you have loved and have actually read. Talking about titles you disliked—or worse, you haven’t even read—sets the stage for failure. Enthusiasm is the key to success, and how can you be enthusiastic when you don’t like a book or know little about it? You can bet that someone in the audience will correct you if you get a fact wrong. They will also know if you don’t like a book. Why bother bringing it? Read and love what you booktalk.

Knowing what the group wants you to talk about and comparing that with what you enjoy reading can be tricky— it’s up to you to make what you’ve read match their interests as much as possible. Think about the books you normally choose. What commonly appeals most to you in a great read? Is it a complex and enthralling story, a great cast of well-developed characters, a historical or futuristic setting, or maybe just a style of writing that flows and entrances? Do you always read the same genre? Do you prefer fiction to nonfiction? Are you an avid graphic novel reader or an audiobook fan? Before you can choose the right booktalking titles, it’s essential to know your own tastes—it helps you steer away from potential monotony of appeal. If you don’t fully understand appeal characteristics, or “doorways,” as Nancy Pearl calls the characteristics that lead us into books we enjoy, take the time to read Joyce Saricks’s Readers’ Advisory Service in the Public Library, or any of a number of articles and books on readers’ advisory in library literature.³ Having knowledge of appeal in literature will not only help you identify your own reading habits and areas of weakness, but also will help you talk to readers individually and make informed title suggestions in your daily work.

Knowing what you’ve read and why you like it, do you have a broad selection of titles to talk about? Can you think of books you’ve enjoyed with a variety of appeals? Sometimes a book will contain more than one main appeal. It’s important when booktalking to address your entire audience, not just the ones who love what you love! Since plot is the appeal I enjoy most, I loved The Map of Love by Ahdaf Soueif for its wonderful parallel storylines, but for the sake of my audience I may choose to emphasize the wonderful insight the book gives into the Egyptian culture through the characters of the two male protagonists. Alternately I might talk about the effect of listening to the audio version of Terry Pratchett’s Wee Free Men because hearing wordplay is funnier and more immediate than reading it, even though the element that led me into this trilogy was the Discworld setting. Choosing a range of materials and appeals will keep your audience tracking— each person waiting to see if you will talk about “their” kind of book. (If you do not have a wide range of appeals, topics and media, make a personal reading plan and get reading!)

Put the titles you have chosen in some sort of order. For example, for a literary audience I have chosen to talk about these titles in this order because I can easily segue from one book to the next:

• The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean (easy for me to start with, Alzheimer’s and memory, WWII)
• A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell (WWII, upheaval, Jewish Diaspora, realism)
• The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly (WWII, grief, magic, folktales)
• The Painted Drum by Louise Erdrich (grief, magic, Native American culture)
• A Sudden Country by Karen Fisher (the West, Native Americans and white settlers, strong woman, landscape)
• A Beautiful Place to Die by Malla Nunn (politics, murder, foreign landscape)
• Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (politics, foreign setting, memoir)
• Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem (murder, first person narrative, Tourette’s syndrome)
• Look Me in the Eye by John Elder Robinson (Asperger’s syndrome, memoir, humor)
• The Rabbi’s Cat by Joann Sfar (humor, being different, change, uplifting end)

This list contains all literary works, mostly fiction, but includes two memoirs, two murder mysteries, a western, some magical realism, and two graphic books. These books will keep me talking for about thirty minutes. Two to three minutes per book should be long enough to whet an audience’s appetite without boring them.

Once you have several potential titles, imagine how you might tell a good friend about each book. You would probably gush a bit, maybe tailor your comments to your friend’s taste, perhaps even mimic a voice or comment more on why you loved the book than on the story itself. Think about how you might use similar approaches with an audience. Pretend the audience is simpatico: they almost always are, once you relax and have fun. What is the appeal you want to emphasize, and what is the best presentation to capture a reader’s attention and make them want to read the book? This simple exercise gives us clues about our own natural style when we talk about literature, the same style we should use in book-talking with readers.

Each book’s mini-talk has consistent elements, though the elements may be presented in a different order. Knowing these elements helps you stay on track as you speak. You will always have a leading statement or introduction to the book, a few plot details, the hook, and a closing statement. The leading statement is only a few words to help segue into the book. For instance, to segue from The Madonnas of Leningrad to A Thread of Grace, one might simply say, “Another book set in World War II, but in a totally different area …” From Motherless Brooklyn to Look Me in the Eye, a good segue could be, “And if you want to know what it’s like to have Asperger’s Syndrome, read the real-life story …” It’s good to memorize your first line so you always know where to start.

The second element when talking up a title is, of course, plot. To a certain extent, you have to say what the book is about. A good rule of thumb is to say as much about appeal as possible and as little about plot as you can get away with. Have you ever had someone tell you about a movie they loved and had them go on and on about every single detail— including the end? Readers don’t need the whole story; they want to know why they will like the story. Tell just enough to make them curious, emphasizing why you loved it. The plot description could be as little as, “It’s about what went right for the Jews in Italy during World War II” (A Thread of Grace). Or it can be a part of the book that moved you: “Faye is an estate agent and while cataloging the contents of a client’s home, she comes across an antique drum painted in the Ojibwe tradition. It seems to call to her. So she steals it—something she has never done and cannot explain even to herself” (The Painted Drum).

The “hook,” a term used by many youth services librarians, is a story delivery device: the action, prop or statement that best illustrates the book’s main attraction and hooks the audience into wanting to read it. A hook for The Book of Lost Things might be, “What would happen if you visited a Grimm’s fairy tale and it wasn’t how you remembered it?” or, for The Rabbi’s Cat, “The rabbi’s cat wants a bar mitzvah so he can be a proper Jew.” Perhaps for a book like Wee Free Men, you might use a Scottish accent to describe the “big wee hag” from the Feegles’ perspective. You might decide to tell a particularly suspenseful part of the story and then leave the audience hanging, or wear a witch’s hat to talk about Wicked. A word of caution, however: If you aren’t good at drama and props, steer clear of them. You should be comfortable with your hooks and try to vary them from one book to the next. The audience will remember your hooks (good and bad), so make it audience- and appeal-appropriate, attention-grabbing, and something you can pull off gracefully. Memorize and practice delivering the hook.

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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. This issue, we step back and take a broader view, looking at the challenges and opportunities that arise in making readers’ advisory services an integral part of library-school education. Connie Van Fleet is a professor at the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Oklahoma. One of her major fields of research is the “interaction of practitioners and educators in the library and information science professions.” She also has a strong interest in readers’ advisory work, and is coauthor of African-American Literature: A Guide to Reading Interests (Libraries Unlimited, 2004). In this column, Van Fleet makes a strong case for the importance of readers’ advisory studies in the curriculum of library and information studies programs, and suggests where both library educators and library practitioners can collaborate more actively to develop a strong foundation of readers’ advisory theory and practice.—Editor

No one who keeps abreast of current trends in libraries and information science can doubt that readers’ advisory is an important service area that is expanding its conceptual base and growing in practice. This is an area of education that is rich in the use of experiential learning pedagogies, critical analysis, and interdisciplinary foundations. Nevertheless, there are special challenges, as well as opportunities, in teaching readers’ advisory. Although individual programs may offer excellent courses of study that prepare librarians to meet the needs of readers, marginalization of this area in schools of library and information studies persists. But the trends of the past several years give rise to cautious optimism.

Two columns that appeared in the winter 2000 issue of RUSQ provide an excellent springboard for a discussion of current issues of education for readers’ advisory. “Time to Turn the Page: Library Education for Readers’ Advisory Services” by Dana Watson and the RUSA CODES Readers’ Advisory Committee examined the content and availability of readers’ advisory–related courses in ALA-accredited programs.¹ Duncan Smith contributed “Talking with Readers: A Competency Based Approach to Readers’ Advisory Service,” the first offering in the Readers’ Advisory column, which Danny P. Wallace and I created when we assumed editorship of RUSQ.²

Content and Methods of Readers’ Advisory Courses

The content of readers’ advisory services (and courses) has expanded as we (the readers’ advisory community) explored what actually happens in libraries and found out more about what people want to read. We have moved from offering only genre fiction guidance to offering guidance for leisure reading, including mainstream fiction and nonfiction titles. For teachers of readers’ advisory, life has never been so good. We have an expanded research base and a growing number of resources to support our work. We enjoy active and enthusiastic partnerships with intelligent, lively, and creative librarians.

As Burgin and Shearer point out, readers’ advisory courses that are considered integral to the curriculum are most often associated with individual faculty.³Perhaps this accounts for the enthusiasm for the course that is evident in most syllabi. In any event, these courses reflect the nature of education for a profession, combining a conceptual framework with practical applications. Almost all readers’ advisory courses in MLIS programs are designed to address three levels of learning: knowledge, basic skills and techniques, and attitude.

Faculty usually ground courses in interdisciplinary research, addressing such topics as motivations for and the impact of reading, the social nature of reading, and cultural contexts and implications of stories. Studies of various types of literature (genre, mainstream fiction, and nonfiction) extend beyond familiarity and appeal factors to analysis of underlying themes and literary criticism.

These underlying theories and analyses serve as the foundation for the basic readers’ advisory skill set. Duncan Smith, using a “practice audit” approach to model development in which librarians observed taped interviews of librarians and readers, identifies four areas of competencies: (1) background in fiction and nonfiction, (2) understanding people as readers and readers as people, (3) the appeal of books, and (4) the readers’ advisory transaction.⁴ These are congruent with the outlines of basic texts frequently used in readers’ advisory courses: Saricks’s classic Readers Advisory Service in the Public Library; Genreflecting, the book whose original publication in 1982 is often credited as the impetus for the readers’ advisory revolution, Saricks’s Readers’ Advisory Guide to Genre Fiction, and Burgin and Shearer’s The Readers’ Advisor’s Companion.⁵

Readers’ advisory courses in MLIS programs all address skills for professional practice. Typically, students read in a variety of genres (both fiction and nonfiction), identify appeal factors, and write annotations that demonstrate that ability. Courses, whether face to face or online, generally include opportunities for students to practice talking with colleagues about books. Students may present booktalks, give presentations, create readers’ advisory tools or develop awareness materials such as bookmarks, brochures, or Web sites. Most will learn to guide a book discussion.

Refl ecting the close association of readers’ advisory education with practice, most readers’ advisory courses include assignments that require students to interact directly with readers or readers’ advisors. These may include unobtrusive observations, in which students act as patrons and ask questions of librarians, or shadowing activities, in which students interview readers’ advisors or observe them in action. In some courses, students may interview readers to determine how they think about the reading experience. In my own courses, students conduct a readers’ advisory interview, select materials for the reader, and conduct a second interview to get the reader’s reaction to their selections. They then analyze the exchange to determine what was effective and what aspects of the process they would change.

The growing number of resources is another exciting element of readers’ advisory service. There are a number of fine print sources that are useful to readers’ advisors and enjoyable to readers. The Genreflecting Series, for instance, now includes entries devoted to mainstream and nonfiction materials, as well as those focused on special audiences. In addition to several excellent subscription databases (NoveList from EBSCO, The Online Readers’ Advisor from Libraries Unlimited, among others), there are myriad Web sites to support reading guidance. Despite this, the literature suggests that librarians tend to rely on personal knowledge rather than use readers’ advisory sources.⁶ Readers’ advisory courses require students to become familiar with a variety of sources, both print and online. Most require comparison and critical analysis of several sources, a practice that not only enhances the students’ working knowledge of the specific sources but also instills a critical approach that will serve them throughout their professional careers.

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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. In any case, reader interest in book discussions offers libraries a lot of opportunities to interact with their reading community and is a chance for libraries to reinforce their value to the community, a useful thing in unsettled economic times.

In 2008, the RUSA CODES Readers’ Advisory Committee surveyed book group participants across the country. Among the most interesting of the survey results was the discovery of a common set of problems that book groups seem to face no matter where they are or how long they have been meeting. Here, Megan McArdle explores these ongoing book group issues and offers suggestions that libraries can use when working with their local groups. These suggestions also will be useful for book group members seeking to improve the quality of their book group experience.

Megan McArdle is the Manager for Collection Development and Technical Services at the Berkeley (Calif.) Public Library. Active in ALA and the Public Library Association, she is the past chair of the RUSA’s Readers’ Advisory Committee and is on the Advisory Committee for H.W. Wilson’s Fiction Catalog.—Editor

At the far end of a dimly lit hallway, in a mostly unoccupied office building, there’s a plain, unassuming door with the words “Book Group Therapist” hand-lettered on the glass. As you gingerly open the door and enter the office, a cool-eyed blond with an authoritarian air gestures to the enormous couch that stretches across the far wall of the room. “Ah! You must be my ten o’clock clients. Come in and have a seat.” Your book group dutifully files into the office and jostles for position on the couch, while the therapist slowly looks you over. “In this room I require absolute honesty if we are to get at the root of your group’s dysfunctional issues.” She makes eye contact with each member, pausing over those members fussing with cell phones or furtively looking for the coffee. “Shall we begin? Let’s start by talking about your childhood reading …”

Oh, if only this kind of therapy was a reality for a troubled book group! Whether brand new or long-established, book groups can run into problems. These can range from the benign (a book falls flat) to the group-killing (unpleasant meetings filled with bickering that leave members intimidated and afraid to return). Learning what some of the most commonly occurring problems are with book groups, what some of the most successful books discussed in their groups are, and what members would most like to change about their groups are just some of the useful results that came out of a 2008 survey conducted by the RUSA CODES Readers’ Advisory Committee. A review of the survey findings should help all those working with book groups to get ideas on how to provide some therapy, or at least some therapeutically good reads.

In late 2007, the Readers’ Advisory Committee was planning for a program at the 2008 ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim, California, called “Book Group Therapy: How to Repair, Revamp, and Revitalize Your Book Group.” This program was intended to help librarians who host library book groups or work with community book groups. The committee members had all experienced and heard from our peers that there were some common issues that book groups run into, and we wanted to provide some strategies to help solve these problems. As research for the program we decided to conduct a survey of book groups to try and find out more about what makes them tick. We put together some questions that we found interesting, let it loose on the Web (via the wonderful SurveyMonkey application), told people we thought would be interested (through posts to blogs, discussion lists, and newsletters), and slowly watched the responses come in. We were hoping to learn more about who is in book groups, how they function, and what works well—and not so well—in their book groups. Starting in January 2008, the committee collected data from the survey. We received more than 1,400 responses from book groups all over the country. What we discovered was that a successful book group is like a successful relationship. It requires compromise, humor, and compatibility. Any group of more than two people has the added complication of group dynamics: alliances can be formed, struggles for dominance occur, and sometimes members end up looking around them wondering “what am I doing in a musty library basement with people I don’t know talking about books I don’t even want to read.” To help prevent that moment of terror, let’s look at some of the most commonly reported problems from the 750 respondents who answered the question, “If there was one thing that you would change about your book group, what would it be?”

1. I Wish We Could Discuss This Book!

People join a book discussion group to discuss books, don’t they? More than 10 percent of the people who answered this question complained that their group spent too little time talking about the book and too much time on other things. The other things varied from group to group: maybe it was one member who wants to show home movies of her trip to Italy (even though your book was set in depression-era Kansas), or another who wanted to show off how her pet ferret learned how to use a computer, or maybe it was most of the group who wanted to move on to the chocolate portion of the evening before they got past chapter 1. They key to this problem is that a five-minute book discussion followed by fifty-five minutes of home movies, pet tricks, or face-stuffing does not have to be a bad thing. If everyone in the group is happy with this arrangement, they will never end up on the book therapist’s couch. It is when you have stumbled into a group where you thought you would be sharing insights into themes and characters and you end up talking about recipes and daycare issues that you might need to find a new group. The key to this issue is having a common goal. When starting a new group, consider having a frank discussion about what you all want to get out of the experience. And when joining a group that has been around for awhile, don’t be afraid to bow out if it is not a good fit. If everyone else is looking for a retreat from their daily grind where they can gossip and share a cocktail, but you want an intellectually challenging Socratic debate about literature, they are not the problem—you are. Find a group that is more compatible with your own views of what a book group should be.

2. I Want Some Rules!

A related complaint that manifested itself in many different ways on the survey was that members wanted some established ground rules. We all know that there are people who prefer rules and procedures and get antsy when things are left too loose. It could be as simple a complaint as wanting to have a system for choosing titles or rotating the moderator duties. Or perhaps someone wants to have a rule to ensure that everyone speaks by going around in a circle. Do you need to set a limit to how long members have the floor? Does the moderator change every month? Is he or she responsible for choosing the next title? If not, does the group choose titles in advance? Do you use a nomination process? Do members vote? When groups are first formed, these are some of the crucial procedures to work out. Once ground rules are agreed upon, it also can be helpful to make sure everyone agrees on the format your discussion will take. Many survey respondents said that they wanted a more formal discussion: discussion of the author, themes, and written questions that members try to address. Luckily there are many tools to help facilitate this kind of discussion. Book group editions of popular titles often come with questions and background for those who want help with finding good discussion fodder. There also are many websites with resources for book groups, such as www.readinggroupchoices.com and www.readinggroupguides.com. Publisher websites are another great place to get author information and discussion ideas. Have the tools that can soothe the structure-loving soul. You can have a book group without using prepared questions, but these resources can lead readers to deeper levels of discussion than they might have gone to on their own. Only your group can decide how formal your discussion will be. Try to find a meeting format that meets the needs of all members.

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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. It is also important, though, to step back occasionally and to think about how readers, rather than an individual reader, respond to what they read. Here, Duncan Smith describes his experience in working with a reader over the past two decades in which he recorded her talking about her reading experience. Smith moves from the individual to the universal in suggesting that a better understanding of the reading experience will allow readers’ advisors to make more thoughtful suggestions to our readers. Smith is the creator and product manager of EBSCO Publishing’s electronic readers’ advisory resource NoveList. He inaugurated this column in the Winter 2000 issue of this journal, when Mary K. Chelton was its editor, with his article “Talking with Readers.”—Editor

Ruiz Zafon’s Shadow of the Wind opens with the ten-year-old main character Daniel, awakening from a dream—a nightmare really. The nature of Daniel’s bad dream is that he can no longer remember his mother’s face. Daniel’s mother had died six years earlier as a result of a cholera epidemic. Daniel’s father runs a bookshop, and that may explain his unusual solution for calming his son’s fears.

The father takes his son to a secret and magical place called the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. You enter the cemetery through a carved wooden door “blackened by time and humidity.”¹ To Daniel’s eyes, the cemetery appears to be “a carcass of a palace, a place of echoes and shadows.”

For Daniel’s father and his colleagues who attend the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, “books have souls—the soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it.” Books are brought to the cemetery when they are no longer remembered. There they “live forever waiting for the day when they will reach a new reader’s hands.”

It is a tradition at the Cemetery of Forgotten Books that whenever someone enters its rooms for the first time, they choose a book to adopt and make a lifelong promise to keep the book alive by reading it, ensuring that it will never be forgotten again.

Daniel’s path to the book he adopts is reminiscent of the way many readers find books in libraries. He roams through row after row of shelves until a title catches his eye. In his case, it is a “timid” volume sitting on the corner of a shelf bound in wine-colored leather with gold letters. Just like the readers who roam the stacks in our libraries, Daniel pulls the book off the shelf, flips through a few pages, tucks the book under his arm and heads home.

Back home, Daniel starts to read the book to which he has made a lifelong commitment. As he reads the opening lines, Daniel experiences what happens to all of us when we start reading not just a book but the right book. Once he starts reading, he cannot stop. He reads through the afternoon, through the evening. The world of the book becomes as real to him as the world of his room. He doesn’t stop until he is finished, and once he is done he remembers something that one of his father’s regular customers had said:

Few things leave a deeper mark on a reader than the first book that finds its way into his heart. Those first images, the echo of words we think we have left behind accompany us throughout our lives and sculpt a palace in our memory to which sooner or later no matter how many books we read, how many worlds we discover or how much we learn or forget—we will return.

For Daniel, the book he adopted from the Cemetery of Forgotten Books was the book that found its way into his heart. The book’s author was unknown to Daniel—Julian Carax. What happens over the course of Daniel’s story is that the lives of the characters of his chosen book and his own life begin to parallel and merge. It is unclear what the nature of this relationship is. Is Daniel’s life shaping the story that he reads, or is the story he reads shaping his life? It is one of the mysteries of this engaging novel.

And what is the title of this book by the unknown author, Julian Carax that has such a hold on Daniel? The title is The Shadow of the Wind.

The Palace of Memory

The image of reading that is put forth in the opening pages of Zafon’s novel is one in which a book that is loved exerts an influence on and shapes the reading of other titles. This image of reading is not limited to The Shadow of the Wind. It is present in the lives of our readers. We can see it operating in the life of a particular reader that I have studied over the past eighteen years. Starting in 1991, I began videotaping Joanne talking about books she has read and enjoyed. Each taping took place in her home and began with my asking the question that Joyce Saricks suggests we start all readers’ advisory conversations with: “Tell me about a book you read and enjoyed.”² In 1991, when I asked this question of Joanne, she described her experience of reading Pat Conroy’s The Prince of Tides:

I really liked the book The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy. I was really surprised that I liked it because about 80 percent of the books I read are by or about women, and I’m skeptical also about people who write about the South because I’m a Southerner, and I often feel that when people write about the South, they distort it. This book was recommended to me by a friend and I reluctantly read it, and when I did, I couldn’t put it down. It was like I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep—I just had to read this book.

It’s about, to use today’s lingo, a dysfunctional family, and it’s dysfunctional beyond anything you could imagine. There’s two brothers and a sister and a mother and a father and some grandparents who are just basically crazy. And it’s very, very funny; very, very, beautiful; and very, very tragic all at the same time. It’s just this strange mix of people and events set in the marshes that I just love.³

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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. In the following column, she expands on this concept, exploring some of the barriers that are faced in offering or expanding RA services in colleges and universities. As in her earlier article, Elliott surveys practitioners in academic institutions where RA is not currently practiced in any focused fashion. She outlines the issues surrounding establishment of leisure reading promotion and makes suggestions for ways to take advantage of existing collections as well as to work collaboratively to expand the opportunities for promoting and supporting extracurricular reading among college and university students.

Elliott organizes the One Book, One Campus events at Indiana University–South Bend as well as the library’s speaker series. She is an active participant in the promotion of RA services, and she serves on RUSA’s Collection Development and Evaluation Section (RUSA CODES) Readers’ Advisory Committee. Elliott also edits the “By the Book” column for Public Libraries and currently serves on ALA’s Notable Books Council.—Editor

While I noted in my earlier article, “Academic Libraries and Extracurricular Reading Promotion,” (RUSQ 46:3), that many colleges are finding ways to promote reading to their students, many students are not taking advantage of these services. A study by the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA) found that 65 percent of college freshmen spend less than an hour a week on leisure reading, and by the time they are seniors, one in three of them will do no leisure reading at all.¹ The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ 2007 American Time Use Survey found that, on weekends, people aged 15 to 19 spent approximately 16 minutes reading for pleasure. Adults aged 20 to 24 spend approximately 7 minutes on the weekend doing leisure reading.² This is a significant drop from the 2006 survey, where adults aged 20 to 24 were spending 14 minutes reading for pleasure during the weekends.³

With new technologies creating myriad ways for young adults to get their information, why should reading books outside of their curriculum matter at all? One reason is that literacy rates for college students are on the decline. A 2005 survey done by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) found that the average prose literacy scores for adults with bachelor’s degrees had dropped 11 points since 1992; adults with graduate degrees fared worse, dropping 13 points. Prose literacy is defined as “[t]he knowledge and skills needed to perform prose tasks (i.e., to search, comprehend, and use information from continuous texts).”⁴ The same survey found that only 31 percent of current college graduates could be considered “proficient” in reading prose, and only 41 percent of those with graduate degrees would be considered “proficient.”⁵ Being “proficient” in reading prose meant that a person could “compare viewpoints in two editorials.”⁶ Furthermore, 3 percent of college graduates in 2003 were considered to have “below basic” skills in prose literacy.⁷

Colleges should be concerned with declining literacy among their graduates because college graduates who are considered “proficient” in prose literacy are more likely to be employed than those who have only basic literacy skills.⁸ In addition, a study by the NEA found that active readers are more likely to vote and to volunteer in their community.⁹

Every college wants to graduate students who are proficiently literate, can successfully gain employment, and are civically engaged. It should be noted that there are barriers that can keep college libraries from adding extracurricular reading promotion to their already lengthy list of priorities. It should also be noted that students did not develop reading and literacy issues through coming to college, but because of problems throughout the U.S. K–12 education system. No college library director or dean is going to tell you that they want to graduate students who cannot compare and contrast two newspaper editorials, even if they do not believe that leisure reading promotion is the answer. Many academic library directors and deans interviewed in this article would like to promote leisure reading, but other realities intrude. This article will discuss the reasons academic library directors and deans are sometimes unable to promote extracurricular reading to their students, provide suggestions for ways that public libraries could reach out to their local college libraries, and examine potential future areas of research on the subject.

The Survey

A survey of ten questions was created on SurveyMonkey, and an invitation to library deans and directors whose libraries do not promote extracurricular reading was sent to the Collib-L and Libadmin-L discussion lists. Directors and deans of the 111 academic libraries belonging to the Association of Research Libraries received e-mails asking them to participate in the survey if their library did not promote extracurricular reading promotion. Thirty-eight people answered the survey, but not all answered every question. The survey was confidential, with certain questions allowing for further comment. If participants agreed to be contacted for further questions, they consented to be quoted (see appendix B, “Further Interview Questions to Deans and Directors”). See the full results of the survey. The text of the survey and study information can be found in appendix A.

There were some potential flaws with the survey and survey invitation. The fact that the title of the survey was “Barriers to Extracurricular Reading Promotion in Academic Libraries” turned away some potential respondents, who communicated to me that they would not take a survey that implied something negative. The fact that the survey questions asked why the libraries were not doing something also may have turned away many potential respondents, as sixty-seven people started the survey by answering question 1 (“Have you read the form and agree to take the survey?”), but thirty of those respondents did not go on to answer question 2. Rephrasing some survey questions could lead to a larger number of results. Question 2 included a definition of extracurricular reading promotion that may have led some potential respondents to abandon the survey if they found their libraries’ activities fit the definition. In future research, that definition will be included in the survey invitation. While starting with a smaller number of potential respondents than in my previous survey (Library Directors and Deans Who do not do Academic Reading Promotion in their Libraries Versus Any Academic Librarian), the number of respondents is disappointing—unless of course it means that more libraries are doing extracurricular reading promotion than in the past.

Barriers to Extracurricular Reading Promotion

The main reason cited for not doing extracurricular reading promotion was budget issues, with 70 percent responding that it was an issue and 31 percent noting that it was the number one issue impeding reading promotion. One survey respondent stated:

My library does not have sufficient funding to acquire everything we should to support teaching, learning, and research. I would not be a good manager of my budget if I used some of my insufficient funding to acquire materials that are available at the public library.

Staff issues were another reason cited, with 65 percent listing it as an issue, and 25 percent citing it as the main issue. From the anonymous comments, there appear to be two types of staff issues: a lack of staff and a lack of interest from staff. “All decreases in services and services never delivered [are] nearly always about staff downsizing, of which there appears no end,” one respondent replied. “I would be willing to support activities of this type, but nothing all that creative has been suggested by library faculty/staff,” wrote another respondent. One potential solution to both types of staffing problems is the use of volunteers, though there are challenges here as well. “It is hard to find staff time to put toward this with being understaffed already and we have tried unsuccessfully for years to find volunteers to do things such as this,” one respondent wrote.

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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.