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Monday, July 27, 2015

The Next Crime Fiction Genre Study Assignment and General Comments on Running a Genre Study

I am finding it hard to believe that the ARRT 2014-2015 Crime Fiction Genre Study is winding down.  As I mentioned here, I hosted our last fiction genre discussion on psychological suspense.

And in less than 2 weeks, we will all gather together to have Magan lead us through True Crime.  Click here for the details on location, time and assignment.

The imminent arrival of that meeting date meant I needed to get my butt in gear and make the assignment for our penultimate meeting in October when we will discuss Special Interests and Formats: Audio, Graphic Novels, Multicultural, and YA Crime. 

Phew that is a mouthful.  Here is the link with all of the details.

Which only leaves our wrap-up meeting in December left to go.

I know there are many people out there who have followed this genre study and many of the past ones ARRT has done, using them as a guide for their own forays into the world of genre study.  Our official position at ARRT is that you are free to use our assignments and even our notes [if you are a member yourself] as long as you give credit to ARRT as the creators of the material.

The work that goes into preparing the assignments and running each of our genre studies is truly the work of the entire ARRT Steering Committee. As a group, ARRT has been running successful, collaborative, and useful genre studies for over 2 decades. It takes planning and teamwork. We love to share our successes, but please don’t steal our stuff without acknowledging those of us who work so hard to make it happen. We may make it look easy to pull off, but it takes many people to make the genre study happen each year, let alone the number of people who have made it possible over decades!

And we are not kidding about wanting to share our success.  As mentioned in this post, ARRT is coming to the Illinois Library Association Conference in October to teach you much of what we know about running genre studies.  On Saturday morning, 10/24/15, I will be presenting the following program for ARRT:
Genre Study Success!: Working Together to Help Leisure Readers  
The Adult Reading Round Table [ARRT], the country’s oldest group dedicated to developing readers advisory skills and promoting leisure reading, has been using the genre study as a training program for more than twenty years. This year, ARRT wants to share their success. Genre studies are a great way for librarians at any library that serves leisure readers at any age level to work together to improve their skills. At their essence, genre studies are group-centered discussions about categories of popular reading. Participants engage in a shared reading experience, compare reactions, and discuss both the books they have read and how patrons interact with the genre. As the actual study itself can take many forms, ARRT will walk you through the process of crafting a genre study model that works best for your needs, sharing their time tested tips and tricks to insure success for you, your staff, and, most importantly, your readers.
This program will help workers from any library where there are leisure reading patrons-- public, school, and even some academic.

This is your chance to see what it takes to embark upon a genre study [from a single meeting to a multi-year study] and ask us questions.  Other members of the ARRT Steering Committee will be in the audience to help tackle those questions both during the presentation and after.

Click here for more details about the ILA Conference and here for more information about ARRT.

Of course, I am also willing to answer any questions you have.  Contact info here.

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