Once a year, always in late March or early April, I give my Demystifying Genre presentation a huge overhaul. It is very time consuming but necessary. The results can be seen at this link.
Exactly what do I do?
I use all of the resources, articles, and stats from the 12 months before to assess each genre (for adults and teens), look at the trends, assess what books were the most popular (not are right now, but those that have staying power) and update my slides.
Year to year, there are smaller changes, but I have been doing this actively since the Fall of 2004 when I started teaching the RA class at the graduate school. I am always surprised by what I have seen over that 22 year time span.
Entire genres have changed (psychological suspense), some have gone out of fashion and come back to popularity (westerns and gentle reads), and some have stuck around, barely, and now are in the spotlight (horror). Subgenres and trends come and go. I have watched Romance covers not share anything about the heat level inside, then be great at projecting that, and now back to telling us nothing at all.
As you can probably tell, this is not an easy process but I love it.
I am committed to this program helping every single one of you. The slides are their own resource. I list the genre characteristics and current trends. I also have book covers for titles to get you started-- with a full text list of said titles in the notes for each slide. This list is NOT comprehensive, rather it is representative. It includes titles from NoveList's curated lists, genre awards, the RUSA CODES Reading List, and genre overviews from Booklist and LJ, among other things.
While I give this program live, I ask the attendees to add to that starter list for each genre as I talk about it.
But even if you don't have the live version of this program, I craft the slides so that each can be pulled up and used by you as you help readers. You can use what I write about the genre characteristics and current trends to help you have a conversation with a fan of that genre. You can also use the example titles to get a sense of books and authors they already enjoy. The slides are your conversation starter for helping a reader who enjoys that genre. Then use what you have learned to make the resources (full list of which are linked in the program) work for you.
Please note, this program is the genre as it stands TODAY. There are NO dead authors. There is no mention of the history of the genre. That matters, of course, but that is not what this program is. Demystifying Genre is about getting library workers up to speed on how to help readers right now. I send you to other resources where you can find those classic options.
This year, I have also increased the Nonfiction overlaps and given you specific guidance on how to help those readers.
This update will debut for the first time on April 13th for the State of Connecticut, but I will be giving it many more times this year still to come.
Please bookmark this link and use it to help your patrons for the next 12 months. Just remember, this is a starting point. I absolutely cannot include everything about every genre, nor can I include every title. This program is a tool for you to store in your toolbox of resources.
