Becky Spratford, who teaches RA classes at Dominican University, has a great new entry on her blog RA for All this week. It’s called “Patron Who Wanted ‘Captivating Books.’”

Don’t miss reading this behind-the-scenes look at how a veteran readers advisor handled one of those patrons who wants something that doesn’t fall neatly into any of the usual categories.

It’s a terrific story on its own, but I think it also illustrates some basic truths for anyone who aspires to be a topnotch readers advisor:

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By Diana Tixier Herald

Tip #4 Keep a reading log.

Keeping a log of what you read is extremely helpful. I’ve tried many different methods and learned a lot from my mistakes. I first decided to keep a reading log when I saw readers come into the library with theirs when looking for books. Usually it was mystery readers with little spiral bound notebooks. I had the strange notion that if I were to start a reading log it had to start on January 1st. This was a bad idea. First of all one is just getting past the holidays and New Year’s Day is in and of itself a holiday which makes it very difficult to remember to start a new project. Finally after several years of not starting my reading log because I hadn’t started on January 1st I decided to just go for it.

I set aside a section in the back of my day planner and wrote in the month at the top of a page. Then, as I read books I added the author, title, and an initial or two to indicate the genre. If I really liked a book I added a star. Each month I would start a new page with the name of the month at the top. It was pretty easy to rifle through the pages and find something that was vaguely remembered when I need to find the author and title for a reader. This worked really well but then I decided that it would be nice to add an annotation, publication date, and other miscellaneous information. It was a perfect use for a database. I soon discovered that when I was trying to be elaborate with my book log that I avoided entering my books. I didn’t go as far as not reading, but it looked like I had because if I didn’t feel like writing an annotation I wouldn’t put the book in my log. Not a good thing!

When I started using a PDA instead of a day planner I used a page in “memos� for each month. I eventually did go to a database because of my work with the Genreflecting series. I’m now using GoodReads online for my reading log. I’m never out of touch with the web site and even if I travel out of the country and leave my laptop at home I can log in from an internet café. Using GoodReads (or if you prefer LibraryThing or Shelfari – they all do similar things) I can enter the books I read. The program links to the bibliographic information which means less typing for me. It has space for a review, allows me to categorize by genre and intended reader, and lets me rate each book.

The important thing about keeping a reading log is that it helps cement details of books read and is handy to refer to when trying to remember a book for a reader.

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By Diana Tixier Herald

Tip #1 – Read

Read voraciously, or at least as much as you can. Take a book with you wherever you go. Listen to audio books when you can’t be reading.

Tip #2 –Read Outside Your Comfort Zone

When you stay with what you know you never learn anything new.

Tip #3– Follow a Reading Plan

My first paying public services library job was at Hadley Branch of the Denver Public Library. The branch manager, Loren Tabor, was an amazing librarian. She believed in reader’s advisory although I don’t remember her ever using the term, but everyone who worked the reference desk was expected to be able to help guide people to what they wanted to read. This was in the days before the great reader’s advisory tools we have now. In fact, I didn’t know of any reader’s advisory tools at all. Anyway, Loren thought it was important to read widely to learn how books were different. She composed a plan with me where I would read different genres and types of books. The reading plan looked something like this:

Mystery novel
Young Adult novel
Historical novel
Spy novel
Children’s book
Romance novel
Western
Start all over again
Mystery novel (if the last time through was an American writer this time I should choose a British writer)

I didn’t have science fiction or fantasy in my reading plan because those were my favorite genres and I was already reading them.

Following the reading plan, especially the second swipe at it, really revealed how useful this was. I was shocked by how different the Harlequin romance I read the first time through was from Shanna by Katheen Woodiwiss.

After I graduated from library school and went back to public services in public libraries, I decided to continue with my reading plan but by then I had a great tool to use – Betty Rosenberg’s first and second editions of Genreflecting. It made the reading plan very easy. I could just go through the chapters in order and select my next read from each different subgenre or type.

I try to read widely and informally, keeping a reading plan in mind. Every once in a while it is time to go back and do it in a more structured way. I think this time through I’ll use the Reader’s Advisor Online Genre Tree. One of the advantages is that I’ll really be building my skills with RA for nonfiction because the RAO Genre Tree includes the types of nonfiction readers read for pleasure.

Happy reading.

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