Goodbye and Thank You Reader's Advisor Online

A few weeks ago, one of my favorite resources, The Reader's Advisor Online announced that they were shutting their blog down.

I absolutely loved starting each week with the RA Rundown compiled and written by Sarah Statz Cords and Cindy Orr.  This weekly post is the only place you can go to find all the most important information for those of us who work with leisure readers, all in one place.  It was well organized into sections and had an easy to follow list structure.  I enjoyed that the information went from basic-- new and bestselling titles-- to more in depth-- essays and articles-- to training opportunities-- to author news and finally to some fun at the end.

The RA Rundown ran the gamut, but without being too long and cumbersome. It was only once a week, so it didn't have "breaking news" but that didn't matter. It was simply the perfect start to each week of helping leisure readers. It got me focused and kept me in the loop. I will miss it.

However, before the blog rides off into the sunset, they have two goodbye posts worth reading; posts that can serve as a resource going forward.

The first one ends with a list of blogs that they consulted each week. I am honored that my blog is on that list, but more importantly, you should all know about all of these blogs. Cindy and Sarah won't be checking them for you anymore. It's up to you. Here they are:

• Citizen Reader, http://www.citizenreader.com/

• Comic Book Resources, http://www.comicbookresources.com/ 

• Digital Book World, http://www.digitalbookworld.com/ 

• EarlyWord, http://www.earlyword.com/

• Fiction-L, a listserv for all librarians and readers’ advisors in particular,http://www.mgpl.org/read-listen-view/fl/flmenu/ 

• A Library Writer’s Blog, http://librarywriting.blogspot.com/ 

• Publishing Perspectives, http://publishingperspectives.com/ 

• RA for All, http://raforall.blogspot.com/ 

• Reading the Past, http://readingthepast.blogspot.com/ 

• Shelf Awareness, http://www.shelf-awareness.com/Teleread, http://www.teleread.com/

Speaking of it being up to you, they also had this excellent goodbye post about how and where they gathered their information for the Rundown each week. Entitled, "How We Compile the New, Noteworthy, and No-Brainer Lists," this post is exactly what it says it is, a detailed list with instructions of how they use a plethora of free resources to create the lists. But more importantly, they have also thrown down the gauntlet, challenging someone out there to step up in their place:

"These are all free sources, so if you want to keep a comprehensive list going of forthcoming titles, it’s largely a matter of checking those sources and dumping the titles into a blog, Word document, spreadsheet, or any other way you may want to keep track."

If you are a library worker looking to start a new blog or revamp and old one, take a look at this post. The RA world needs you.

There is one more RA Rundown coming on May15th. Thanks Cindy and Sarah. You will be missed.