One of my coworkers and her husband run Gibson’s Bookstore, in Concord, NH. When hiring new employees, each applicant is given a knowledge of literature test to see how well they’ll do at reader’s advisory.
Their opinion is that bookstore staff are first and foremost reading advisers, and cashiers and stockers second. The test questions cover a broad scope of literature, just like the questions of customers (and library patrons):
2) Name five characters invented by William Shakespeare.
13) What is Ender Wiggin famous for?
14) James and the Giant ________ by Roald _______.
23) Why do some Sneetches feel superior to others?
To get hired, applicants must get at least half of the questions right. Perhaps libraries could implement something similar? Perhaps they already do.
I also have a list of reference questions and tasks I give to reference staff after they’ve been hired, to help with training. It is based on something my director found (can’t remember what or where), but I tailored it to get new staff familiar with the type of questions we get, our collection, our policies, basic tech support, and reference in general. They get it as a Word document, and work on it for their first few months.
Some people like tests and some don’t. But each in their own way, I think these tests are valuable to make sure that the people interacting with the public are really able to help the public.
Here are a couple reading suggestions website I came across recently that I liked:
The first is TheBookCalendar.com, which is simply a book-a-day online calendar. It shows the cover, a description (and sometimes author video), includes an Amazon link, and also has email and rss options. via lisnews.org
The second one might not be all that new, but I just learn about it a few weeks ago. ReadingTrails.com and provides a reading suggestions by linking related books into a chain.
Sound odd? I first heard of this form of readers advisory during an RA workshop in the SLIS program at Kent State University. The idea behind it is to identify one theme from the book that the reader likes, then find another book that contains the same theme. Next, pick something from that second book the reader likes and, based on that second criteria, link it to a third book that has that criteria, and on and on and on in a long chain of connected books.
An example: for someone who liked the magical aspect of the Narnia books, you might suggest they read Harry Potter. Then, since the Harry Potter series is based in England, you could link it to Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere.
Sort of like a six degrees of Kevin Bacon, but for books. It’s a neat idea, but tough to do mentally - which is why it’s a perfect task for a database. Or, in this case, “an innovative new social network for book lovers.” They say:
Reading Trails is a wonderful way to discover books to read, meet new people, and most importantly, to share your reading experiences with friends by creating trails. In particular, Reading Trails is a great tool for book clubs….
Because a book can appear on more than one trail, trails intersect. The result is a network of trails that can be browsed to find unexpected reading pleasures.
I checked out the site, and it seemed typical of new and innovative ideas - it’s a great idea, and I got some useful information from it, but the site doesn’t always work the way I expect.
It can be used without signing into an account, which is good. And you can search for books or themes, and from there scroll up and down the “reading trail” of that book to find other reading suggestions. Great.
Other good things:
Fairly easy to use, and the trails are visual and useful and pretty cool
Lets people write reviews of the books
Provides links to Amazon to buy the book and WorldCat to find the book at a library
Provides widget code to embed into your website, like this:
A few technical glitches I noticed:
On the search results page, each book had a little checkbox next to it, and I couldn’t figure out what that was for
Each book also had an odd little box under it, which only becomes useful when you are logged in (if it’s not useful, it shouldn’t be shown)
For the searches I ran, the bottom of the screen would say something like “Viewing 1-7 of 7 matches” and yet there would be twelve books displayed. None of the searches I performed displayed a number of books that matched what was listed on the bottom of the page
Some of the trail themes I searched for did not exist (Vietnam, Iraq, poverty, aliens) but most others did
There doesn’t seem to be a way to view details of any book - just see where it falls in various trails
They don’t seem to explain why books are linked in a chain - I’d be curious to see what theme connects them
Most of these cons are probably due to the newness of the website, and will likely be improved as the site grows.
I don’t think I’ll use these much on a personal level (unlike LibraryThing), but I will keep both in mind for readers advisory at the reference desk.
Liz’s comment on the post was a good one, and I thought it warranted a bit of research and a full post devoted to answering it. She said:
There are a few websites which allow you to enter some of your favorite bands and it pops out suggestions of similar bands you might like - wouldn’t it be awesome if they had a site like that for books?…
Here are some resources I found that let you search for a book/author you like, and then link from it to similar books:
reader2.com - search for a book to see recommendations; also shows tags associated with each book
AllReaders.com - search for a title or author, and similar books are listed at the end of each book description; also allows searching by plot, setting, or character
StoryCode.com - lets you search for a title or author and suggests similar stories (based on user data); also has other features
LibraryThing.com - offers book suggestions based on user-entered tags; you can also browse tags for books on a certain subject, or use their unsuggester to find books unlike a particular book
GoodReads.com - seems a lot like LibraryThing, but puts more emphasis on recommendations of people in your friends network rather than cumulative data
NoveList - the old standby, but you probably need to go through your local library for it
Amazon.com - it is Amazon, so it’s primary focus is to sell book, not recommend them, but it does offer suggestions based on what people purchase and search by topic (as it were)
There are lots of other sites devoted to book suggestions. A few others I found that didn’t fit above but that are also useful are:
Listal.com Books - search (hidden in upper right corner) for books and link to others via tags (seems to focus more on social connections)
FictionFinder from OCLC - offers Subject cloud (like tag cloud) to find similar books; also allows searching, and each book has links to see other books with the same subjects, genres, characters or setting
Find a Good Book from Hennepin County Library - search for an author to find recommended reading lists where that author’s books appear (plus links to other listings and resources)
Staff Recommendations from the Skokie Public Library - search for a subject to find books their staff has reviewed and recommends
And here’s a few resources that are list-based - you click the subject you like, and you browse the list of books in that subject:
If You Like… by the Christchurch City Libraries, New Zealand - read-a-likes lists by book, author, or subject
Oprah Read-A-Likes by the Wakefield Library - lists Oprah’s Picks books, and books similar to them
What do I read Next? by the Manchester Library - click on the topic or genre to see a list of books
Themed Booklists by Overbooked.com - has a short listing of books and authors with links to similar books, but also has many other resources in their booklists and readers advisory sections
StopYoureKillingMe.com - just mystery books, browse by author or category to find similar books
GenreFluent.com - lists of books by subject or genre (use links on the left)
I’m sure there are tons of others - even my library also has a readers advisory webpage. If I missed one of your favorites, please share it with a comment below.
Librarians either love of hate this question. I’ve talked aboutvariousreadersadvisorytools (and the old standard, NoveList), but I learned of a new one this week.
On Thursday, I went to the Massachusetts State House to attend the presentation of the 2008 Massachusetts Book Awards (photos).
Each year, the Massachusetts Center for the Book evaluates hundreds of entrants in the categories of fiction, non-fiction, poetry and childrens books, and selects a winner and two honorees in each category.
Part of the criteria is that the author is a Massachusetts resident or the work in some way is significant to Massachusetts. Their website has the list of this year’s winners as well as winners from past years, and I think this is a great resource for readers advisory. This year’s books included Nathaniel Philbrick (Mayflower), Noam Chomsky (Failed States), and Martín Espada (The Republic of Poetry), among others, so these aren’t local interest-only works.
What I also liked is that the Massachusetts Center for the Book is part of the Library of Congress‘ Center for the Book program. Which means, not only can I refer patrons to these few Massachusetts, but there are 49 other state programs, all evaluating and highlighting significant books.
I’ve used the Center for the Book for other things, but never the award winner lists for readers advisory. So not only was it a fun trip to Boston, but I learned something, too.
I was asked by a company called Chili Fresh to take a look at a new tool they’re creating. It is designed to allow book reviews written by patrons to display right in the catalog (similar to reviews on Amazon.com showing up right on the item details page).
I agreed, and have spent some time on this, because I really like the concept - integrating useful data right into the library catalog. One of the biggest problems with library resources is that they’re too complicated to use. The databases we subscribe to are great, but if using them requires patrons to jump through hoops, then the patrons are not going to use them.
As an example: NoveList is one of the best databases libraries can offer. Its readers advisory information is unmatched. But, because it’s a stand-alone tool (the proverbial “information silo”), it’s just that much more difficult for patrons to use.
Counter to this is LibraryThing for Libraries, which provides readers advisory information right in the catalog - you know, where our patrons already are. I don’t think the suggestions provided by LTfL are as good as NoveList (yet), but its ease of utility makes it a far more practical tool.
And this is what caught my eye with Chili Fresh. Patrons-created book information, right along side the library’s book information. That’s great. Just like comments on a weblog, getting patrons involved and interacting with the library is going to enrich both the tool and the experience.
I’ve spent a few hours this week playing with the Chili Fresh tool (my test page), and sending emails back and forth to the developers. They readily admit this tool is still in beta, and has a ways to go, but they are open to comments and have already incorporated a few of my suggestions. I encourage anyone interested to set up an account and play too, and let them know what you think. The more input provided by libraries, the more this will be shaped into a useful tool.
It seems a bit clunky right now, because the examples are all outside of a library catalog. But they’re definitely on the right track, and the idea is worth some attention. You can sign up on their website for a test account, or contact them Scott Johnson (jscott [at] chilifresh.com) for more information.
A note about their website: you’ll notice that many of the pages are blank. I asked about this and was told that, since the product is still in beta and is changing, they are limiting the amount of information available.
book review, book reviews, chili fresh, chilifresh, libraries, library, patron, public libraries, public library, readers advisory
One of my coworkers and her husband run Gibson’s Bookstore, in Concord, NH. When hiring new employees, each applicant is given a knowledge of literature test to see how well they’ll do at reader’s advisory. 
