by Rick Roche

“Readers’ advisory service in public libraries should not be the duty of only a few designated librarians, according to the consensus of attendees of the PLA conference table talk ‘Building a Readers’ Advisory Team.’ Thursday morning’s message was that involvement of as much of the library staff from shelvers to the administrator helps build strong publicly-recognized services.

Neil Hollands and Barry Trott, both from the Williamsburg Regional Library in Virginia, led the discussion with a larger than anticipated crowd. With many willing voices, they asked only two of the preprinted questions on the back of their handout, but most of the ten questions were addressed naturally in the lively forum on involving staff from across departments in either synchronous or asynchronous readers’ services. Opportunities abound and the culture of reading service is strengthened by the widespread participation.

Ideas that I thought worth keeping and apply include the following:

• The library may be branded a ’story place.’ Many of the items in the collection deliver stories, even self-help books and videos. Market that emotional appeal as we market services. Help clients write their own story.
• Repurpose every bit of work that is done for readers’ advisory. An annotation for a list can be reprinted on a card on a display and turned into a posting on a readers’ advisory blog. Never use anything just once.
• Online services, such as BookLetters and Good Reads, may be used to collect and distribute reading suggestions from across the staff.
• If possible, kick off an effort to involve staff from across departments at a staff development day. Use an outside speaker with experience in the field to persuade the reluctant.
• Let staff know up front that they will be lightly edited, emphasizing that it is assisting them with their message, not correcting them. Give them training and guidelines from the beginning.
• Suggest materials rather than recommend materials. Suggesting gives clients more involvement in a dialogue aimed at getting them materials they will enjoy. It is harder to decline a recommendation.
• Let staff communicate ‘what I am reading right now.’ It could be a little sign on a desk or even on a nametag. There could be a whiteboard with a current reading list.
• Some more involved staff could even have their own pages on the library reading blog. The blog should be tagged so readers can find reviews written by their favorite reviewers.
• Offer in-depth services, such as creating individual suggestion lists. Make creating a reading plan or just talking about books a specified option for Book-a-Librarian services.

There were plenty of great ideas shared in this lively meeting. The opportunities to broaden the service by involving other staff seem endless. Doing so does require much thought and effort, but it is a feasible expansion of service that requires no or little additional funding, making it appealing in these hard economic times.”

Rick Roche is a reference librarian at the Thomas Ford Memorial Library, Western Springs (IL). He is the author of the nonfiction readers’ guide Real Lives Revealed: A Guide to Reading Interests in Biography, and blogs at RickLibrarian.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 31st, 2010 at 12:17 pm and is filed under Conference Reports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.