In the latest issue of the RUSQ, the Reference and Users Services Association's quarterly publication, Neal Wyatt hosted a roundtable of RA practitioners from across the spectrum of service entitled, "Listening to Advisors: A Conversation about Readers' Advisory Services, Practice and Practicing."She included a wide range of voices from across the spectrum of RA Service.
I have posted the participants information and their "word of advice," and then immediately after that, I have copied the intro to the discussion. A link to continue reading is included at the end [and here]
I highly suggest taking 5 minutes to read this. I found it highly valuable for me. And thanks to Wyatt for doing the work to pull this together and to the contributors for sharing their vast knowledge.
The Conversationalists
Katharine Janeczek, Children’s and Young Adult Librarian, Forbes Library, Northampton (MA)
A word of advice: “It is important to give the process of RA time and space. I think it’s very beneficial to give the patron moments to express themselves, as well as evaluate and reevaluate what they’re looking for. It’s so easy to overfill silences in the moment, and those pauses might be useful for internal processing, or provide a gateway to a patron thinking out loud in a way that leads to a more favorable Reader’s Advisory fit.”
Lynn Lobash, Associate Director, Readers Services, New York Public Library
A word of advice: “Take a few minutes before the library opens and browse your collection. It is important to have a fresh picture of what is on your shelves every day. Maybe one of your favorites was returned and is ready for another reader, or maybe one of your go-tos is out and you need to identify an alternative. This is especially true when working with a floating collection.”
Catherine Sheldrick Ross, FRSC, Professor Emerita, Faculty of Information and Media Studies, University of Western Ontario
A word of advice: “Start with the reader and with what the reader says about the reading experience that is desired. The goal of readers’ advisory work is not to improve reading taste or to get more people reading the classics or to push people up the reading ladder. The purpose is to help connect readers with the materials that they will engage with and enjoy. When you start with the reader, you avoid the pitfall of thinking of the book as something existing apart from any reader that can be ranked on a hierarchy of quality from low to high.”
Joyce Saricks, retired readers’ advisor, author of Readers’ Advisory Service in the Public Library, and passionate fan of audiobooks.
A word of advice: “Understand how personal an interaction this is and how carefully, thoughtfully, we need to consider every interaction. RA isn’t just throwing out a stack of books and hoping something works. Listen to what readers say and explore with them the possible suggestions. It’s not what we love but what they want. This listening is a skill that helps in all our interactions—in the library and in life.”
Kim Tipton, Adult Services Librarian, Crystal Lake Public Library (IL)
A word of advice: “I used to think that RA was simply helping the patron find a book similar to one they’d already read. Now I know it encompasses so much more than that: the teacher who needs books on a topic to supplement her class materials; the parent who brings their child in and does all the talking for the child; putting up a book display and choosing (or not choosing) books for it; or addressing the parent who wants to censor what their child reads.”
David Wright, Reader Services Librarian, Seattle Public Library (WA)
A word of advice: “When it comes to RA, People First, Then Books. Your ability to relax, listen and enthuse with others is key. The rest can always be picked up later, and there are great tools to help you with connecting readers with books: Use Your Tools!”
Listening to Advisors: A Conversation About Readers’ Advisory Services, Practice, and Practicing
Interviews conducted and compiled by Neal Wyatt, contributing editor and readers’ advisory columnist for Library Journal.
As RA service has moved from its second-wave renaissance during the late twentieth century/early twenty-first century (with a steady stream of reference tools, conference programming, and think pieces) into an often underpromoted but bedrock mainstay of the public library, what do advisors continue to discuss among themselves and see as areas of need? If you could gather a handful of advisors together, over a cup of coffee one rainy morning before book group began, what would they talk about? What would they ask each other? What do they know to be foundational about the service? As important, what might they suggest we all re-think? This column invites you to eavesdrop on such a conversation. It was conducted over email between six advisors: two at the start of their careers, two helping to define the field, and two who have lead the way for librarians, for a combined eight decades. These advisors share research, hard-won and lived-in lessons, showcase the luminous nature of RA work as well as its difficulties, propose a change for RA education, and, of course, each suggests a book to read.
While the conversation (which has been condensed and edited) began with a set of prompt questions ranging from best practices to RA education, it quickly became clear that the subjects on the minds of everyone centered on four key topics: RA education, common challenges, building reader-useful displays, and the importance of RA in libraries and our reading lives.
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