Week 3: The Readers’ Services Conversation

Neal Wyatt's article

I thought Wyatt made a lot of good points regarding the RA interview and how to approach and engage a customer.  He's right that it can intimidating to both the customer and the librarian to begin a conversation about RA.  I did like the point he made that it's a conversation and NOT a test.  It often feels like a test and librarians don't want to come across as not knowing enough about the genre, author, or title that the customer likes.  However, tools like NoveList do make RA a lot easier.  I also enjoyed the suggested exercises and was wondering if it is something we could do during a Librarians' Meeting at my branch (maybe just one of the exercises).


Nancy Pearl podcast

Listening to Nancy Pearl's podcast on NPR was interesting in that she describes her books with a mixture of plot points and personal insights and thoughts about how the book made her feel.  Of course, she has written books on RA, so you would hope that she is good at book talking.  I think that she does a fairly good job, but I also felt as if she was selling these books in a different way then I believe most librarians do.  By this I mean that she has an agenda other than just hooking up books and readers; she needs her listeners to buy (literally and figuratively) the ones she recommends because, it's at least in part, how she makes money.  Her model is a hybrid of librarians matching readers with what they might like and bookstore workers who need to push certain titles.  It's not meant as a negative criticism of her, but just an observation from someone who has worked in both fields.

Conversations

1.  This customer seems to be saying that she wants to find a title for her bookclub that is well-written, probably non-fiction with a similar feel to Eat, Pray, Love.  She likes books where there's a lot of substance and the writer is not self-obsessed, but she not opposed to going with a title that's popular similar to the ones in the Oprah book club.  Based on this criteria I would recommend either Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes or The Feast Nearby by Robin Mather

2.  What I'm hearing this customer saying is that she likes the vampire genre but not the Twilight franchise.  She is looking for a more mature vampire-themed book or series that steers away from the teen setting of Twilight.  I would ask some follow-up questions to this such as do you like well-developed characters or lots of action or gore?  Based on the answer, I would recommend the Vampire novels by Linda Howard or the Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris or NOS4A2 by Joe Hill.

3.  It sounds as if this customer enjoyed not just the mystery and action of this title, but also the fact that is was a true account of an historical event.  If this customer wants to read another book about Teddy Roosevelt, I would recommend The Big Burn by Timothy Egan or if he wanted a similar book with another historical figure, I would suggest Stealing Lincoln's Body by Thomas Craughwell which has many elements of the book the customer liked.