Monday Discussion: Favorite Things About Conferences

Although I am not going to ALA Annual this year [long story involving a huge party being thrown in the honor to celebrate 4 decades since my birth], I will be following it online.

But ALA is not the only conference in town.  And you do not only need to go to conferences that involve getting on an airplane, finding childcare, or being away from home for a week. In fact, there are many conferences and full day meetings that happen in our field all of the time, all over the place.

Conferences are a great time for librarians to get together and collaborate, network, and learn from one and other. Even something like the programs we have for ARRT [like this free one coming up soon] can have more benefit for you to develop your skills and re-charge your batteries than you might realize.

For me, I love meeting people from different libraries. I like going to programs that discuss topics both those that are new to me AND those I feel like I have a good handle on.  In fact, programs on the topics I feel like I “know” are my favorite thing about conferences.  I like to see my areas of expertise through the eyes of others.  Often, this show me something I have never thought of before. Sometimes we get so caught up in how we do things [especially if they are working out well] that we forget to consider new ideas. I am always looking for new ideas and approaches to RA service.  And if I am, you should be too!

I feel like there is an energy when librarians get together in person. As a profession we may be introverts-- although I certainly am not-- but when we are all in the room together, and start talking about our work with leisure readers, a low murmur becomes a loud hum, turns into animated conversations, evolves into boisterous exchanges. I have seen it happen. That energy itself, along with the ideas, experiences and thoughts we share combine into a powerful force. It is an energy we carry back to our libraries and share with staff and patrons. And when that happens, everybody is a winner!

I am hoping all of you who read this will pledge to attend at least 1 meeting or conference in the coming months.  You need to feel this power, collect it for yourself, and then bring it back to your library. If you don’t think your supervisor will allow it, contact me and I can help you craft your argument.  Or feel free to simply pass this post on.

Here are some of my suggestions in my area.

If you live in Illinois, why not consider a trip to Peoria for the first event joint Illinois Library Association conference. Online registration opens on July 10th.  RA for All is a conference sponsor and I will be presenting for ARRT. [Details soon]

Or, save the date for December 9th when ARRT will have an all-day mini-library conference at the Naperville Public Library 95th Street Branch. [Details this Fall]

But I know not everyone who reads this blog lives in Illinois. So for today’s Monday Discussion, share some conferences or meetings, both big and small, that you plan on attending. But also tell me your favorite things about attending any meeting.  Basically, why do you make the effort to be there in person? What do you get out of it besides a day or more out of the office.

For past Monday Discussions, click here.

Monday Discussion: What Data Do You Want About Your Service to Readers?

In keeping with last week’s Monday Discussion when I asked what you wanted to know about your staff, today I want to know what you want to know about your service to your readers--from their perspective.

I don’t mean the obvious, as in you make a list of all the things you do for leisure readers at your library.  Rather what do you want to know about what your patrons, the readers you are serving, think about the services you provide to them?

As I prepare my new service of auditing libraries’ services to leisure readers, I am toying with the idea of capturing data about how patrons use these services, which they are aware of, and what they do NOT know you are trying to do for them.

For example, at my former employer I was very proud of the fact that we left out the return carts to encourage patrons to browse them.  Some did, but how many people didn’t know they were allowed to root through this treasure trove of reading suggestions.  Also, did people enjoy and use the annotated lists we prepared with our displays? Because if they did not either know about them or use them, that would be a problem. A lot of effort went into creating them. Could that time be better spent on a different service? One they actually would use?

If we want to improve our service to leisure readers, we have to understand what they want and need. We need to assess what we are doing that is working and what we are spending time on that is not succeeding.  RA service is VERY important as part of our libraries’ customer service and PR plan (more on this in future weeks), but it is also the easiest thing for library administrators to cut.

These are just a few examples.  Now it is your turn.

For today’s Monday Discussion let me know what data or information you want to know from your readers. If you could ask them what services they most want and/or already use, what would those questions look like.

For past Monday Discussions, click here.

Monday Discussion: What Do You Want To Know About Your Staff?

Today is the first day of the rest of my professional career and I am already eager to get started by describing one of the BRAND NEW services I will be offering to libraries come Fall.

I am creating a new service where I will come into your library and audit your services to leisure readers.  The idea behind this is that when people think of libraries, the first thing they think is books-- even people who never use the library for books.  As Duncan Smith from NoveList says:

"Books are our brand. But Books are not our business. Reading is our business." 

We need to leverage our librarian influence as the place people look to for leisure reading.  We need to make ourselves indispensable when it comes to reading. We need to be such a vital place in the community that when we face hard times and need the votes of our patrons, they will be there for us...no questions asked.

One of the easiest ways to improve our customer service and make a great first impression is to serve leisure readers in an exemplary fashion. But how? Ahh, leave that part to me; it is what I do better than most and a concrete service will be launched this Fall.

But right now, I am just beginning to develop and test out this service. I have gotten the go ahead from a library that is willing to be the guinea pig starting later this month, but I also need the help of you, the larger RA community.

Over the next few Mondays, I will be asking for your input on what information you want to take away from of my audit.  I will be conducting it as a SWOT analysis [Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats].

First up today is the topic of surveying staff knowledge.

My service will have a component where I ask staff about their personal reading preferences and have them conduct a self evaluation of their own skills as they have reader’s advisory conversations and transactions with patrons. [Please note, I will also be assessing Circulation staff along with the more traditional Adult and Teen desk staff in this process because they are often the first people to talk books with patrons, but more on that later.]

I have a good idea of what I would like to include on this self evaluation questionnaire, but I want to hear from all of you too.  Give me your input!

For today’s Monday Discussion: What do you want to know about your staff, their skills, their comfort level with RA transactions [both passive and active], and their perceived strengths? Having me ask in an anonymous, non-threatening way, will gather you a lot more data than you would get in a staff meeting, and it will give you a broader picture of your library’s strengths and weaknesses as a whole.

So, let me know. And stay tuned for when you can get your own library audit of services to leisure readers.

For past Monday Discussions, click here.

Monday Discussion: Beginnings

As I enter my final week at the Berwyn Public Library, I thought it would be a good time to have a post about beginnings (endings would be way to cliche and I will not go there).

But seriously, endings are always one of the best times to think about beginnings.  While we are beginning things we do not have time to contemplate their true meaning. Plus, as we approach an ending, a new beginning is just on the horizon.

So for today's Monday Discussion I would love it if people could share their first paid library job with me.  I think it is important for us to all assess where it all began in order to fully understand where we are today and where we need to go in the future.  Too often in our profession, we look forward only.

Not today.  I can't wait to see where it all began for people.

I'll go first.  In the summer of 1997 right after I graduated from college but before I started library school, I got a job as the ILL runner for the library inside a major Chicago law firm (they no longer exist as they were due to mergers). ILL runner meant what it sounds like. I was paid to literally run around Chicago to other law firms and libraries (like the Cook County Law Library and CPL among others) to do research and pick up materials.

Now it's your turn.  Humor me and share your first paid library job.  I am very interested in how our varied pasts combine and manifest themselves in how we serve leisure readers as a community of RA librarians today.

And one last note. While this is my last Monday Discussion as an employee of the Berwyn Public Library, it is not the last Monday Discussion on RA for All. They will continue.

For past Monday Discussions, click here.

Monday Discussion: What Are Your Summer Reading Plans?

Reminder: The Monday Discussion runs for the entire week. Comments are accepted until the next discussion begins.

Since this is the last Monday Discussion before Memorial Day, and the unofficial start of summer, I thought there was no better time than today to start talking about  summer reading plans.

Now I don't mean your Library's Summer Reading Program. No, we are all up to our eyeballs in getting that all rolled out.  I am thinking more calming thoughts.  What are your personal plans for reading this summer? After the blitz of SRP signups dies down in a few weeks.

Is there a particular book's release you are anticipating? Are you planning a vacation or some serious beach time and already thinking about what you will be reading then? Or, do you have a stressful summer coming up and need to find some calming books?

You know you are making reading plans. We cannot help but do it because we love reading and the first days of summer always elicit images of sitting outside with a tall drink reading.

I'll go first.  I always like to have a nice long, engrossing audiobook to listen to in the summer. It is great company as I am doing yardwork. Nothing makes weeding more pleasurable than listening to someone tell me a good story while I work. I have been saving Haruki Murakami's Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage to listen to over the summer. I love Murakami, but in particular I love his work on audio (click here for proof), and have simply been waiting for yard work season so I can devour this one in fewer sittings. Interestingly, in yesterday's New York Times Book Review, Daniel Handler had this essay/review on appreciating Murakami in audio.  It was as if he was reading my mind. Now I am even more excited.

This summer I will also be participating in an ARRT Literary Book Discussion on The Book of Unknown Americans by Cristina Henriquez featuring a visit from Ms. Henriquez. [I will have another post on this with details on how you can join us soon.] This is a book that has been on my to-read list for a long while, so I am excited to have such a great reason to read it.

Otherwise, I hope to read a lot of books. With the staff shortages here at the BPL since November and a busy 6 weeks wrapping everything up as I transition from working at the Library to full time training and consulting, I have had very little free time to read just for me. I am missing it greatly. So, this summer, since I am going to only be working 1-2 days a week, my hope is simply to read, read, and read.

Now it is your turn. For today's Monday Discussion, share your summer reading plans.

For past Monday Discussions, click here.

Monday Discussion: Books You’ve Faked Reading

Okay, time to get honest. In our line of work there are plenty of times when a book becomes HUGE and we are helping patrons to find readalikes while they wait in the holds queue, but we have not had a chance to read them ourselves. Titles that come to mind which serve as an example here are:

• DaVinci Code
• Fifty Shades of Grey
• any James Patterson title
• Game of Thrones
• The Walking Dead

Now, many times these books are too popular for us to get our hands on.  Other times we have no desire to read them despite their popularity.  But the good news on both these fronts is that these huge event books are written about and talked about so much that we can normally help patrons without ever reading the book.

Let me be clear however, I am not outright advocating for you to lie to a patron if he or she asks you if you have read the book in question.  Instead you can say, "The holds list is very long and I want patrons to read it first; besides, I have read a lot about it and have helped many happy patrons using what I know about the book and its appeal."  But, if they don't ask you, you can easily pretend that you have read the book.

So maybe the title of this post is misleading. I am not talking about "faking" that I have read a book, just not admitting that I have not read it and not correcting the perception that I have. Rather, I tend to encourage that perception because it makes the patron more comfortable.

My book is The Hunger Games. Back in 2012 I wrote a longer post about having never read it, but how I still helped many patrons who wanted readalikes. I even had a few people email me to express surprise.  I have written so much about the book, they had assumed that I had read it. But, as they noted, I never said anywhere that I had read it.  Click through to read that full  post.

Now it's your turn.  For today's Monday Discussion, what book(s) have you helped a lot of patrons with that you have never read for yourself.  We all have them.  Time to come clean.

For past Monday Discussions, click here.

Monday Discussion: What Do You Call Your Department?

So today, I would like to include everyone in on a topic I have been working on both on my own and informally with a few colleagues who are also working on the question.

It's an old issue that raises its head every few years or so.

Reader's Advisory is a clunky term; it always has been, but the community of librarians who help leisure readers have yet to have come up with something better.

I am working on a few new big projects (news coming to RA for All soon) and one of those is a re-definition of service to readers.

So for today's Monday Discussion, share with me any terms or titles you either use or wish you used.

Currently, I am gathering terms from other librarians and even a few patrons. I would love some more from all of you.

Here is what I have so far:

• Reader's Advisory [It's what we use at the BPL]
• Reader's Services
• Popular Materials
• Adult Services [which my non-library friends all think sounds dirty]
• Book Pusher [It's what a patron calls me, but it only gets at a small part of what we do]

Here is the one I am most excited about. It comes from a member of my book club who is also a friend and a retired educator. She gave me permission to start using it: Reader's Advocate.

That term is not perfect, but it gets more to the heart of what we do than Reader's Advisory or Reader's Services does.  We are there to advocate for the readers in our communities by creating dynamic collections for them, providing services that they want and need, helping them to discover great new reads with guidance or on their own, and promoting and defending leisure reading as a valuable pursuit at any age.

So what about you? In a perfect world, if you could ditch the clunky Reader's Advisory jargony term, what would you call what we do?

For past Monday Discussions, click here.

Monday Discussion: What's Your Favorite Free Resource?

I make no apologies that my first-line, go to resource for helping patrons find leisure reading options is NoveList. Yes, I have a contract to create content for the database, but it is only because I believe in what it can do. I am also very lucky to be a resident of Illinois, a state which provides a subside so that all public libraries can offer NoveList Plus to all card holders.

Coming up in 3 weeks, I will be providing an in-service program for 3 libraries in Michigan (more details about that soon), and we will be starting the day with my very fun and interactive RA for All program where I walk all staff through the very basics of helping leisure readers.

For this program I do not have a power point, rather I have a list of exercises we all do together, and the workshop is shaped by the staff who are participating in it. I do have one basic document that sits at the center of the presentation though, it is Becky's Ten Rules of Basic RA Service.

After the rules, I have a list of the 5 resources I cannot live without and NoveList is one of them; however, these three libraries do not have NoveList.  Of course, they have already alerted me to this so I can prepare and substitute.

It is really a very easy choice for me; the next best free option would be Fantastic Fiction.  It is not a perfect substitute, but it can be very helpful. But living in this Illinois, NoveList land of plenty got me thinking that I might be getting lazy, and maybe I am missing a much better options.

So that's where you all come in. Time to tell me what I am missing. \
For today's Monday Discussion let me know what your #1 go to free resource is.

I would prefer to hear about the resources that answer the widest range of questions, but if you have a favorite genre resource that you are dying to share, pass it on.

Who knows maybe it will end up in my presentation.

For past Monday Discussions, click here.

Monday Discussion: Halfway to Halloween

We are slowly creeping up on one of my favorite times of year...the point when the calendar tips in Halloween's favor. Yup, it's the unofficial Halfway to Halloween time.

For the second year in a row, I am celebrating publically in Neal Wyatt's Reader's Shelf column in Library Journal with a list of titles to remind you of how much fun it is to read horror books and how you shouldn't just do it in October!

For this year's list, I included backlist titles; books you should have available right now to put out on display. You can even print my list and put it next to it to make for an easy display.

But I was only allow 6 titles.  Let's start adding some more.  I am staying out of the suggesting beyond these 6 right now because you can just go to the horror blog for hundreds of more suggestions from me.

Today I want to hear from the rest of you. You always hear from me about horror reads.

What are some of your favorite horror titles? For today's Monday Discussion, let's make a list we can all use to promote HALFWAY TO HALLOWEEN at all of our libraries.

For past Monday Discussions, click here.

Monday Discussion: National Library Week Edition

Happy National Library Week, or as we here in the near West Chicago suburbs are calling it...conversion week! Yes, our consortia of "of 77 public, special, and academic libraries with a combined collection of 1.4 million unique titles and 7.9 million volumes that grows larger every day." is being converted as we speak. Right. This. Minute.

We are all very anxious and excited to get going tomorrow, but today, for the start of National Library Week, we are in more of a holding pattern.

So I thought it was a good day to make the Monday Discussion about the back list!

Since I knew today would be a day I could not place holds, I mentally prepared a list of backlist titles that I was pretty sure were going to be on the shelf; titles I could give out today to people so that they could go home with a good read in their hands.

Even though this is a one day thing, I thought I would use the opportunity to pick the collective RA brain for some of your favorite backlist titles.  I have done this as a Monday Discussion in the past and have gotten great suggestions, so...let's do it again!

For today's purposes, I am defining backlist as having no earlier than a 2013 publication date.

I'll go first.

In the forthcoming April 15, 2015 issue of Library Journal, I am the guest writer for Neal Wyatt's The Reader's Shelf column in honor of "Halfway to Halloween."  In that column I focused on all backlist horror titles.  Here is the list of titles I included. You will have to wait for the magazine for the annotations:

• The Keep by Jennifer Egan
• Castaways by Brian Keene
• Mayhem by Sarah Pinborough
• Rot and Ruin by Jonathan Maberry
• Locke and Key: Welcome to Lovecraft by Joe Hill, illustrated by Gabriel Rodriguez
• The Ruins by Scott Smith

Here are a few more backlist titles I have been hand selling to people recently. The links go to my initial reviews:

• Peony in Love by Lisa See
• Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
• Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger
• The Case of the Missing Servant by Tarquin Hall
• The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti
• City of Thieves by David Benioff
• The Reapers are the Angels by Alden Bell
• The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall

I could keep going, but that's not the point. It is not a lecture but a discussion. I want to add your voices to the list.

Please add your backlist favs in the comments.

For past Monday Discussions, click here.

Monday Discussion: Bait and Swtich

Today is March 23rd and here in the Chicago area we have gotten at least 5 inches of snow. That is a case of bait and switch if I ever heard of one. Spring? What spring?!?

Rather than wallow in the slush, I got to thinking about books that gave me the bait and switch. What do I mean by that? Well, a book that on paper, or in the review should have been a perfect read for me, but in reality, when I actually read it, I did not enjoy it.

I went back and looked at some of the high profile, well reviewed books that I was surprised not to enjoy. Click through to read the reviews where I do write about why the book was ultimately unsuccessful for me as a reader, but I have to say, I have given these books out to many a satisfied patron over the years.  There truly is a book for every reader, and for every a reader, a book.

Red Moon by Benjamin Percy
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
The City and the City by China Mieville

For today's Monday Discussion, share your bait and switch books.

For past Monday Discussions, click here.

Monday Discussion: Book That "Changed" Your Life

Okay, today we are getting a little metaphysical. Yesterday, I was being interviewed by a colleague who is working on an Independent Study to finish up her MLIS. Her topic is very interesting. She is trying to assess the current state of RA education in America (with a detailed look at its history). But in interviewing me, much of our conversation was about where I, as a RA educator, see the future of RA training.

I will have more on her findings to share with you in a few months, but the whole notion of looking at the broader picture, combined with the specific questions she was asking me, made me think back to why I decided to dedicate my career to helping leisure readers.

Until I took the RA class toward the end of library school, I was convinced I would work at an adult reference desk in a public library.  I knew that meant I would help leisure readers as well as answer many reference questions, but as we all know now, that changed.

I have dedicated my career to helping leisure readers and to training librarians to be better at providing this service to their patrons.  So how did this happen?  Well, in thinking about it a lot yesterday, I realized there is a book responsible for tipping the scales and making me seriously consider changing the focus of my entire career.

That book was not some serious tract on the philosophy of reading, nor was it a great classic. No, it was the critically acclaimed bestseller, Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier.

Why did this book change my professional life forever? The answer is actually quite simple. When I read this book for my RA class and was forced to figure out readalikes, I had an epiphany.  Cold Mountain was already a bestseller then. It had wide appeal. But when I was reading it with an eye to why people enjoyed it, I realized that there were so many different layers, reasons, and appeal factors that could lead someone in dozens of different directions for readalike options, and it all hit me.

Before that point I found RA interesting, and was excited to do it as part of my reference work, but after reading Cold Mountain, I realized there was enough "meat" to doing RA that I could be happy doing it for my entire career. And look at me now!

So I figured if there was a book that ended up changing the course of my life, there is probably a book for many of you that changed your life either professionally or personally. I mean you work in a library, so there is a probably book that is in some part responsible for this huge life choice.

For today's Monday Discussion, share that book that changed your life.

For past Monday Discussions click here.

Monday Discussion: Spring Ahead...The Book Version

With the return of Day Light Savings Time, we might be groggy this morning, but I thought it was a good time to spring ahead in the book world too.  Now that the first mostly freezing months of 2015 are behind us (I didn't wear a hat today...this is a huge deal), let's look at the "hot" books coming soon.

Here are a couple of my favorite places to find links to the biggest coming soon titles:

• PW's Most Anticipated Books of Spring
• The Millions Great 2015 Preview (it goes month by month for the entire year!)
• Publisher's Lunch Book Buzz titles for Spring/Summer
• The Early Word Coming Soon list (scroll down to find it in the right gutter )
• Reader's Advisor Online Coming Soon archive (lists are constantly added and it includes fiction, nonfiction, and all ages)

So there are your links, now on to today's discussion.  What books are you most excited for in the coming months?

I'll go first.

Of course, as a huge Kate Atkinson fan who also considered Life After Life the very best book of 2013, I am trembling with joy at the May release of the companion novel, A Life in Ruins. 

I am also very excited about Joyce Carol Oates' new novel Jack of Spades (May). From the book jacket:

From one of the most inimitable writers of our generation, Jack of Spadesis an exquisite, psychologically complex thriller about the opposing forces within the mind of one ambitious writer, and the line between genius and madness. 

Andrew J. Rush has achieved the kind of critical and commercial success most authors only dream about: his twenty-eight mystery novels have sold millions of copies in nearly thirty countries, and he has a top agent and publisher in New York. He also has a loving wife, three grown children, and is a well-regarded philanthropist in his small New Jersey town. But Rush is hiding a dark secret. Under the pseudonym “Jack of Spades,” he writes another string of novels—dark potboilers that are violent, lurid, even masochistic. These are novels that the refined, upstanding Andrew Rush wouldn’t be seen reading, let alone writing. Until one day, his daughter comes across a Jack of Spades novel that he has carelessly left out and begins to ask questions. Meanwhile, Rush receives a court summons in the mail explaining that a local woman has accused him of plagiarizing her own self-published fiction. Rush’s reputation, career, and family life all come under threat—and unbidden, in the back of his mind, the Jack of Spades starts thinking ever more evil thoughts.

On a less "literary" bent Ernest Cline's new SF novel Armada (July) is also piquing my interest.

Now it's your turn.  For today's Monday Discussion, which upcoming releases are you most anticipating.

For past Monday Discussions, click here.

Monday Discussion: Sure Bets to Booktalk in the Stacks

I am getting excited to debut my brand new booktalking program with Maine State Library tomorrow morning.  One of the topics I will be talking about at length is how to prepare yourself for booktalking in the stacks with patrons.

But I want to get the conversation kick-started a day early here on the Monday Discussion because one of my biggest tips for being ready when the opportunity for impromptu booktalks arises is to have a stable of sure bet titles in your head.

These would be books that:

1. you have found from experience appeal to a wide audience
2. you feel comfortable talking about concisely and enticingly
3. are at least a few years old (backlist titles), so that there is a higher probability that they are on the shelf.

So what are your current sure-bet favs to hand-sell to patrons as you encounter them in the stacks; patrons that you might not have time to properly enter a formal RA conversation with.

I'll go first. Here are my current favs that I am book talking to patrons regularly.  I have included my opening line, sound-bite, that I use to gauge their initial interest [if they look uninterested, I move on the the next book and sound bite quickly]. The titles here are also linked to my full review for the book.

• The Golem and the Jini by Helene Wecker-- This is a typical immigrant tale set at the turn of the 20th Century in NYC except for the fact that the protagonists are anything but typical. Both are from their home country's folklore: a Jewish Golem and a Arab/Christian Jinni (genie).
• The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa-- A housekeeper is hired to care for a mathematician whose memory, because of an accident years before, only lasts for 81 minutes. Now imagine these two people building a true and beautiful friendship under such trying conditions.
• Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones One man in Atlanta has 2 families, but he does not tell us his tale, rather it is through the eyes of his 2 teenage daughters, one who knows about the other family, and one who does not, that we experience the story.
• The Bees by Laline Paull-- Divergent meets Watership Down only with bees! (This is all you need to say on this one; either they will grab it from you or make a disgusted face; you will know immediately)
• The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt-- It is a cross between the movies O Brother, Where Art Thou and  No Country for Old Men. Two brothers with the last name Sisters are hit men for hire in Gold Rush CA.

Now it's your turn.  Feel free to use my sound bites and reviews to help you, but I would also love for you to contribute to the list. For today's Monday Discussion, give me a title or two, ones that are your go-to, hand-selling options when you encounter patrons looking for a good read. The more titles that we compile together, the better off we all are.

For past Monday Discussions, click here.

Monday Discussion: Do your Reading and Viewing Tastes Match Up?

As I wrote about a couple of times last week, I really get into the Oscars. But like everything in my life, I relate my flurry of movie viewing leading up to the big day to my reading habits.

I got to thinking about my personal movie preferences and how they match up with my reading choices. That led to me thinking about how others feel. Hence, a Monday Discussion is born.

I'll go first.  I am a huge fan of books that are slightly askew [click here for details on what I  mean] and I love a great psychological suspense story.  I also love books that play with narrative structure in interesting ways, ways that enhance the story, its characters, and the overall message/tone of the story.  Stories within a story also are a favorite of mine.

Looking at the 8 best picture nominees this year I found my 4 favorites embody everything I love about my favorite books.

• Grand Budapest Hotel: story, within a story, within a story...; slightly askew [all Anderson movies are and I love them all]
• Boyhood: interesting narrative structure that only enhanced the movie
• Whiplash: that was a good old fashioned psychological suspense story that made me tense for the entire movie [in a good way]
• Birdman: a story within a story [movie about a play], and definitely askew.

I was so surprised at how closely my reading tastes translated to these movies that I started thinking about all my favorite movies and TV shows. Without going into a long list here, I found this meshing of my tastes to be fairly universal across all of my leisure reading and viewing.

I also found my dislikes are equally as shared.  For example, I am not the world's biggest superhero fan.  I love comics and graphic novels, just not those that are superhero based.  Similarly, I don't have much patience for superhero movies.  It drives my family insane and they still can't believe I haven't seen The Avengers, but at least I am consistent. 

I think this topic is very important to think about as we help patrons.  I often tell librarians in my various training sessions that if they are struggling to get a patron to talk about what books they like to read, try switching gears and ask her about movies or TV shows he enjoys.

But, maybe that is not always going to work. I am interested to see if the rest of you are more like me [where the tastes are similar] or if watching a visual story leads you in a different direction than reading a printed one.

So, for today's Monday Discussion let me know if your reading and viewing tastes are complimentary or in direct opposition with each other.

For past Monday Discussions, click here.

Monday Discussion: Valentine's Day Reading

Love is in the air this time of year.  Today, I want to ask you all what your favorite Valentine's Day reading would include.

Some of you may choose a romance, while others want something as far away from a love story as possible. Others may prefer a great romantic movie. Or something complately different that I have not thought of.

But that's the point of this discussion, to bring different people together to pool their opinions, likes, and dislikes so that we all can benefit from the breadth of information. Besides, you hear only what I think every other day of the week.

So, in a perfect world, what story would you choose to enjoy as we approach Valentine's Day?

I'll go first.

I am not a huge romance fan personally; however, that does not mean I don't appreciate a good love story. My favorite "romance" is the film The Princess Bride.  I have been meaning to read Cary Elwes' well received memoir entitled, As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales From the Making of the Princess Bride.

I won't have time to read it before Valentine's Day, but the holiday has jogged my memory and I am adding it to my holds list right now.  I will pop the film in the DVD player at some point this weekend and gather the family around since we all like it. That sounds like a wonderful way to both enjoy a romantic story and my most precious loved ones.

Now it's your turn. Share some of your all time favorite romance books, movies, plays, etc... anything.

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Monday Discussion: Blizzard Reading

Here in Chicago, it is cloudy and appropriately cold, but my friends and family back in my homeland of the Boston-Philly corridor are hunkering down for a big blizzard.

So I thought now was a good time to talk about what you like to read when you are snow or cold bound. Do you like to read warm books on cold nights? Or do you prefer the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em mentality," and instead read books set in even colder places? Or are you someone who just wants to curl up with a tried and true, favorite author and enjoy long periods of uninterrupted reading by the fireside? Maybe you have another preferred type of winter read.

It's time to share so we can help our patrons find that perfect book for a cold, snowy day.

I'll go first.

I have to say, I am more of the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" crowd.  Here at the BPL, I think our patrons, many life long Chicago residents, fit in with that mentality too.  John currently is featuring "Frozen Solid" reads on one of our main displays, and the snowy set stories are moving fast.

I am particularly interested in Nordic Noir stories when it is cold here because it is always colder and darker there.

In his Harry Hole series, Jo Nesbo does an excellent job of describing the cold.  In particular, The Leopard has a fantastically descriptive avalanche scene.

I also have a small obsession with Iceland.  I have never been, but I really find it such an interesting country for so many reasons.  When it gets cold I like to read books set there, like Burial Rites, which I read in 2013.

Finally, my favorite snowy read is The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey. I hand this book out a lot in the winter.

But maybe you like hot reads for cold days. Or you have completely different suggestions.  Feel free to contribute and share so we get a wide range of opinions and ideas for all types of patrons.

Please stay safe, all my east coast friends and family. And those of you headed out my way for ALA Midwinter this weekend, I hope it is all cleared out by then.  I will see many of you there.

For past Monday Discussions, click here.

Monday Discussion: MLK Jr Day Diverse Books Edition

Over the last year, there has been a huge movement to to address the lack of diversity in children's literature.  The have organized into a campaign known as We Need Diverse Books.

From their official campaign mission statement:

We Need Diverse Books is a grassroots organization created to address the lack of diverse, non-majority narratives in children’s literature. We Need Diverse Books is committed to the ideal that embracing diversity will lead to acceptance, empathy, and ultimately equality. 

We recognize all diverse experiences, including (but not limited to) LGBTQIA, people of color, gender diversity, people with disabilities, and ethnic, cultural, and religious minorities. Our mission is to promote or amplify diversification efforts and increase visibility for diverse books and authors, with a goal of empowering a wide range of readers in the process. 

In order to accomplish our mission, we reach out to individuals and groups involved in many levels of children’s publishing—including (but not limited to) agents, publishers, authors, distributors, booksellers, librarians, educators, parents, and students.

 I have been following this campaign and been using some of their resources to educate myself, but since I do not work with children (not counting my own), I have not brought it up here on the blog.

But, today seems like a good excuse to start the conversation here, for an adult audience.

So, in honor of the federal Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr holiday, I would like to ask you, readers of this blog, to suggest some of your favorite "diverse" books here on the blog.  Notice diverse is in quotes. As the mission statement above claims, diverse can be anything that is simply not the dominant culture.

Also, please do not feel the need to list books from a million different diversity categories. Rather, let's crowdsource this question and pool together some good adult diverse books titles as a team.

I'll go first.  Here are some of my all time favorite diverse titles and/or authors, with links to my reviews where possible:

• The Known World by Edward P. Jones
• A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines
• Into the Beautiful North by Louis Alberto Urrea
• Anything by David Leavitt
• Anything by Lisa See
• Anything by Gene Luen Yang

Now help me by suggesting some of your favorite "diverse" titles for an adult audience.

For past Monday Discussions click here.

Monday Discussion: What 3 Books Would You Take to Prison?

A few months ago, Tara from BPL Teen Services passed on this great question she saw somewhere else online and thought it would be fun to do as a Monday Discussion here.

What books would you take to prison with you?

Now this is a tricky question on 2 fronts.  First, I am going to assume that the vast majority of my readers will never face "doing time;" so on this front you will have to suspend disbelief.

But the second interesting thing about this questions is it puts a twist on the popular "desert island" discussion because unlike a list of books to have on a desert island where you will never have access to more books, in prison you can still get books through the library and interlibrary loan.

Rather, to prison you would be picking books that say something about you and that you could use to pass on to others for a variety of reasons [to curry favor, the placate, to befriend, etc...].  This is what makes the question infinitely more interesting to answer and decidedly more difficult than the desert island question. You might be picking these books NOT because you would read them over and over again; in fact, you might never read them at all while locked up but rather to help you get through your incarceration.

So, those are today's parameters.  What 3 books would you take to prison?

I'll go first with my titles and reasons:

• American Gods by Neil Gaiman because it is a book I could give out to my fellow inmates. It stars an ex-con and it is a compelling and complex story.  I feel like this is as close as I would get to having a sure bet title that I could pass out to others to introduce a love of reading in them. Because seriously, I would still be me in prison, and being me means matching readers with books. Click here for more from me on American Gods.
• I feel like I would bring Dale Carnegie's How To Win Friends and Influence People, even though I have never read it, to show others that I was willing and trying to get along with everyone. It is an iconic book that signals I want to fit in, I am trying, give me the benefit of the doubt.
• And finally, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury because to me, this is as close to a perfect book as I have ever encountered. I feel that the book would bring me comfort both because I love it and it is a reminder that things could always be worse for me (No Books...GACK!). Click here for more from me on Fahrenheit 451.

So those are my 3 and my reasons.  Your turn.

For past Monday Discussions, click here.

Monday Discussion: 2015 Professional Resolutions

A new year brings the promise of so many new things.  In the coming weeks, I will have announcements about some new and exciting things coming from RA for All the site and me in terms of appearances, but today, I want to make things a bit more personal and let us all talk about our professional and reading resolutions for 2015.

First, a look back at my 2014's resolutions which had mixed results for me.  [Click here for the full post with detailed resolutions]:

• I did not read the 3 WWI related books that I wanted to, but I did read 1 and I did read quite a bit about WWI books.
• I was still terrible at getting my reviews done in a timely manner, but unlike in year's past when I just resolve to be better, I am going to make changes to how I review in order to make a real improvement (see below).
• I have increased my local involvement in training and have added remote consulting as a regular addition to my offerings. [I will have specifics on that coming soon.]

So that is a brief summary of how 2014 went, resolution-wise.  Here are my 2015 resolutions:

• Genre Resolution: Of course I am still reading heavily in Crime Fiction due to my second year leading the ARRT Genre Study, but I think I will also try again to read more WWI set books since the anniversaries of events for that war will continue into 2015.
• Blogging Resolutions: I am going to keep things going much as they have been here on RA for All.  I am always touched by those of you who reach out to me to let me know how much this site has helped you and your library.  That is why I do this, so I appreciate hearing that it helps you.  But that does not mean there is not room for improvement, so here are a few specific things I will try to do better:
• Reviews: I am going to try a new style of shorter reviews.  You may have noticed with the last few reviews that the style is changing a bit.  I will give even less plot, and really focus on the appeal and readalikes. I am going to try this out for a few months. If you have an opinion about it, either way, please let me know.
• Twitter: You may have noticed that in the second half of 2014 I added Twitter to my repertoire. I did not feel like the "RA Link Round-Up" posts I was doing were worthwhile, and in order to pass links on in a timely fashion, I had to post about them, even when I had something else planned.  So I started using Twitter to pass on those links.  I did not post about the change because I wanted to see how it worked. It worked well.  So, going forward, whether you use Twitter or not, you can find the things I have retweeted in the Twitter widget in the right gutter of the blog.  These are links and ideas that I feel should be passed on to a wider audience. So please always check the Twitter box (which has its own scroll bar) when you visit RA for All.
• General Blog Pieces: I will continue to highlight larger RA issues with essays, guest blogs, and some of my famous rants (which people seem to enjoy). Again, if you have ideas, pass them on.
• Professional Resolutions: I have two:
• I loved getting more involved with my state library association in 2014 and although I will not be as involved this year, I will continue to be way more involved than I was before 2014.  A big highlight in 2015 will be the introduction of ARRT's  RA Librarian of the Year award to be given out at the 2015 Annual Conference. 
• 2015 happens to also be the year I will turn 40, so as you can imagine, I am spending a lot of time thinking about the next phases of my career. To that end I am recommitting myself to my RA for All consulting and training business. I am almost done with my new logo and I will do a minor redesign and reorganization of this site soon.  But also, I am really working on my offerings and getting my message out. I am hitting a critical point at which I may have to decide between the consulting and the library desk work because doing both may no longer be sustainable without major changes.  But I am also realistic and know this cannot happen overnight. I am giving myself a year to figure it all out. There will be plenty of news and details here on RA for All. One things is for sure, RA for All is not going anywhere.

As always, if you have ideas or issues you want me to explore here on RA for All, please contact me and let me know.

But until then, it is your turn to go on the record with your professional resolutions.  They can be as simple as your reading resolutions or as detailed as mine.  Just pledge to do something here because when you put it down in writing, you have a better chance of actually doing it.

For past Monday Discussions, click here.