So if you are not already reading The Reader's Advisor Online's weekly RA Run Down every Monday morning, you need to start now. Sarah and Cindy do a fantastic job providing, in one post, everything you need to know about what is going on in our very specific world of Adult RA in American Public Libraries. Seriously, everything in the column is useful to us and our work.
Case in point, this week I found my new favorite resource in the RA Run Down...The Genrify Blender!
What is the Genrify Blender? Well, we all know that one of the biggest trends in all fiction right now is that authors are blending genres in their novels. [Click here for my post on a longer discussion of this trend from ALA Annual 2013.] Now that this trend has been popular for a while, patrons are used to it, liking it, and asking for reading suggestions of more genre blended novels. [This is a big step forward from 2012 when they were complaining about authors not knowing what genre they were writing in]. However, while the patrons have caught on to the trend, the professional resources are not as up to date.
Enter the blog, Genrify: Where Genres Mix and Mingle a blog and resource to help identify genre blended books. It is simple, fun, and, most importantly, useful.
Click here and pick 2 or 3 genres, hit "Blend" and see what suggestions you get.
I have already used it for 6 or 7 patrons since finding out about it Monday [again, yay RA Run Down]. They all loved using the blender, and the results seemed promising. I do think the fun of using the resource itself predisposes people to liking the book, but I will have to wait for the patrons to return to see about that.
Try the genre blender yourself.
Thanks so much for the kind words, Becky! I'm really glad you found the blender and more that you found it useful. It's a work in progess but I love to think it's being used with actual library patrons.
ReplyDeleteCool! I'm thinking this might be fun to demonstrate to our book groups at my library. :)
ReplyDelete