This is one of a series of reports by attendees of the Public Library Association conference held in Minneapolis March 25-29, 2008.
RX for RA: Training Library Staff in Fiction and Nonfiction
by Jenne Bergstrom
This program highlighted readers’ advisory training methods, and explored ways to incorporate RA into all sizes and types of libraries. A main focus was including staff from all departments, including paraprofessionals and front-line staff.
It was good to see a variety of methods, but all of these seemed very elaborate, coming from a library with basically no formal RA training. I’m excited to try to bring something like this to my own library system, but I think we’ll have to start small and work our way up.
Small Library : Carmel Clay PL (1 branch)
They have a dedicated RA desk, and the person in charge of this will do a 2-week training with new staff.
They also have an ongoing genre study group.
In a library this size, flexibility is important, so the group needs to be big enough that if someone isn’t there they can still meet. They have about 6 people participating, from several departments.
They have “homework” where they practice writing appeal-based annotations which later are posted on the library website. They also do Reader Profiles, where each person chooses 3 books they loved and 3 they hated, and explains why. Then the other members try to make recommendations for them.
They share information, suggestions, and resources with other librarians at reference meetings.
Mid-size Library: St. Charles, Missouri (12 branches)
Ongoing genre study group, from about 6–14 participants, average 9 or 10.
Some participate by email.
Meetings are monthly.
They spend 2 months on each genre; the first month they all read the same book (a title representattive of the genre), then discuss it. The second, they each choose one from a list of representative titles, prefereably of different subgenres), then booktalk them to each other.
The focus is on recently published titles.
Every 5th meeting is a training session on “tips and tools”, e.g. resources and.or methods.
Large Library: Kansas City area libraries (several systems in a consortium)
In such a large system, it’s harder to have an ongoing group, so they do the training in smaller bites. Staff that complete 10 “credits” get a certificate of completion and a prize.
Ist 5 credits are earned by taking 5 courses:
–RA Basics “Facts about Fiction”
–RA Intermediate “More Facts About Fiction” –introduces main genres –United We Read (“City Reads”-type thing, I think) –A major genre workshop of their choice –A minor genre workshop of their choice
2nd 5 credits can be “electives”, e.g. specific genres like short stories, or how-tos like writing book reviews.
The focus is on having front-line staff attend, rather than just supervisors.
Trainings can come to the branch if needed. Trainers are often former students.
Questions to think about:
–How do we decide how much time to spend on each genre? Some libraries spend 2 years on SF, while others spend one day.
–How can understaffed libraries find the time to spend on RA training? How do we make it a priority for administration?
–How does literary fiction fit into a genre study? Some have it as its own genre, others mix it in with all genres.
–How can we include skills for actually talking to readers in the trainings?
–How should we classify NF genres?
Handouts for this and other PLA programs can be accessed here.
–Jenne Bergstrom
San Diego County Library
