ARRT Original Bibliographies Now Live Courtesy of LibraryAware

Back in August at this program, ARRT announced that we were partnering with LibraryAware to make our booklists and bibliographies more accessible.

Well, we finally have gotten the hang of it and now we have a few bibliographies up on our website here.

We only have 4 now, but I promise, the list will grow. And quickly. So check back often.

While you are at it, don't forget Nancy Pearl is presenting for us next week.  Click here for details and to sign up.

But none of this would be possible without LibraryAware giving us a free subscription so that we can promote and model better RA Service for all of you out there. So thanks to them.

And I hope our crowd sourced lists help you to help a reader today, tomorrow, or some time in the future.

Book Discussion Report: Everything I Never Told You

Below are my notes from the most recent ARRT book discussion. Please go to the ARRT Literary Book Discussion and Leadership Training website for more information, previous discussion notes, and upcoming discussion information.  We are currently in the planning stages for our four 2017 discussions.

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On Tuesday, September 27, 2016 we met at Niles Public Library for a discussion of Everything I Never Told by by Celeste Ng led by Greta Ulrich.

Summary:

Lydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet.So begins this exquisite novel about a Chinese American family living in 1970s small-town Ohio. Lydia is the favorite child of Marilyn and James Lee, and her parents are determined that she will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue. But when Lydia’s body is found in the local lake, the delicate balancing act that has been keeping the Lee family together is destroyed, tumbling them into chaos. A profoundly moving story of family, secrets, and longing,Everything I Never Told You is both a gripping page-turner and a sensitive family portrait, uncovering the ways in which mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, and husbands and wives struggle, all their lives, to understand one another

CLICK HERE to access the notes on the discussion of the book.

As always, discussion of the book includes a nuts-and-bolts session devoted to sharing practical solutions to the problems and concerns of book discussion leaders.

The Leadership Training Discussion, led by Becky Spratford will directly address the We Need Diverse Books movement and how and why we should make sure the books we are offering our groups represent diverse voices. Please come prepared to share some titles and discussion experiences.

If you are interested in learning more about this topic ahead of time, Becky compiled the notes from the March 2016 RUSA CODES conversation on diversity here.

CLICK HERE to access the notes on the leadership topic.

Personalized RA Service

Yesterday, I spent the day with Polli Kenn, Readers' Services Coordinator for the Lawrence [KS] Public Library. She was one of the presenters at our Adult Reading Round Table  Becoming the Face of RA program. She did a wonderful job, but selfishly, I was also glad I got to spend the entire day "squiring" her around.

She was part of this wonderful program which I will quickly recap here. Because we partnered with Booklist and NoveList as a part of their Live Events series, this entire program was videotaped and will be sent out to subscribers to The Corner Shelf newsletter on Septemeber 12th [free if you click here] complete with links and slide access.

While you wait for the video and resource links here are a few links and a BIG ANNOUNCEMENT:

• We always use #arrtreads to live Tweet our programs.  You can click here [Twitter user or not] to access that conversation. It will serve as a preview for what you will get by watching the 2 hour video.
• Book Squad page for Lawrence Public Library.
• Downers Grove Public Library's Bookology page.
• Signup for NoveList's Book Squad emails here.

More on September 12th, but this should hold you over.

Oh wait....

I bet you thought I forgot about the BIG ANNOUNCEMENT.  I didn't, I am just building suspense. Also, if you clicked on the #arrtreads link above, you have already seen it:

You can see me make the announcement at the end of the video.

ARRT has been working on creating more lists from our collective brain of Northern Illinois RA library workers so that the titles we talk about in our meetings can be saved for future use as we work with readers. We have been gathering titles at every meeting and event.  We have also been revamping our newsletter to be more frequent and more useful to you as you help leisure readers. Basically, in 2016 we have focused on harnessing the energy and information from our programs and meetings so we can share them with as many people as possible.

One of the new things we tried is to use the LibraryAware account for the Naperville [IL] Public Library to create some lists in the notes for our genre study.  The more we were doing these LibraryAware lists, the more popular they became. We decided we should probably get an ARRT branded LibraryAware account.

So, I will be taking my personal LibraryAware account and turning it over to ARRT. We will work with the Library Aware team to create dynamic and helpful lists.  They will be available on our site and as part of our newsletter, which anyone can sign up for-- member or not. Just go here and enter you email address in the right gutter.

Then, look for ARRT LibraryAware materials to also appear on many NoveList platforms.  At ARRT we are "dedicated to developing readers’ advisory skills and promoting reading for pleasure through public libraries." So expect these lists to not only help you serve your patrons, but to also serve as a training tool for using Library Aware.

We will begin to have LibraryAware lists on our site in the next few weeks, but the partnership will begin in earnest in January. We are excited to begin this new venture, adding another way to help all of you help your readers.

Crime Book Talks and Announcement of the 2016-17 Genre Study

As I mentioned here, at the last Crime Fiction Genre Study we asked the participants to come prepared to book talk a crime book that we did not get to over the two years.  This was a way for the participants to drive the conversation by getting in a book or a series that they have had good luck suggesting to patrons AND allowed us to tackle genre blending. Click here for the detailed assignment for that meeting.

Well, people came prepared with their book talks and now we can share it with everyone. Click here for the Library Aware book list our fabulous and amazing notetaker Karen Toonen compiled using the Naperville Public Library’s account.  Thanks to Karen and Naperville for making us look even better.

From Karen’s intro to the list:

During 2015 and 2016, the Adult Reading Round Table's Genre Study focused on Crime Fiction.  Over the course of the study, we discussed many authors, titles, and series. (See the notes section for details of our discussions.) As part of our final wrap-up meeting, participants wrote 90 second book talks.  The only qualification was that neither the title nor author could have been discussed during the study.  Written for library staff, to be shared with library staff, the following shows the variation in how people formalize book talks. The wide variety of titles mirrors the interest of crime fans as well as those newer to crime and the broadness of crime fiction in general.  As said by crime writer Karin Slaughter, "The most enduring stories in literature generally have some kind of crime at their center, whether it's the blood butchery of Hamlet, the lecherous misanthropes of Dickens, or the lone gunman from The Great Gatsby."

Click through to see the full book list, and feel free to use it as long as you credit ARRT.  

This list is an example of what I always say about compound interest in my training sessions. Each person provided a single book talk, but when we put each talk together, we have a diverse and useful list that has many books and will help a lot of readers. I am so proud of everyone and feel honored to have been able to lead this amazing and dedicated group for the last 2 years.

With endings come new beginnings though, and only 6 days after finishing the genre study, our new team-- Annabelle from Skokie, Megan from Morton Grove, and me and Karen (mentioned above)-- met to plan the next genre study on.... SPECULATIVE FICTION-- Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror.

But what is so great about the new genre study is that we are not going to organize the meetings solely by genre because the nature of these three genres is that they blend. In order to more accurately get at the heart of why our patrons read them, we are going to organize the study more along the lines of appeal.

We have hammered out many of the details, but I am going to leave the specifics until Annabelle, the official head of the genre study, has finished putting the schedule together.

The four of us are extremely excited about the way it is all shaking out and cannot wait to start including our wonderful members in the conversation.

Which leads me to my final point. Remember, you must be a member of ARRT to participate in the genre study. The 2016 membership form is available now! But, you do not need to be a member to see our schedule and use it to lead your own speculative fiction genre study, all we ask is that you credit ARRT. I will let you know when all of those documents are ready.

In the meantime, you might want to start planning which speculative fiction books you are going to read next.

Library Aware Training

So today, I learned how to use my Library Aware account to help me train you on how to better promote books.

I am still playing around with it, but below is an example of 4 shelf talkers with 2 newer titles and 2 backlist options that I created in a matter of minutes.  If you use this link, you can pull the sheet up in its own tab. That will also allow you to click on the book covers or titles to link to my full reviews here on RA for All.

There are many things I will be able to do with this product going forward. And, if I am doing a training for you or your organization, I will show you how Library Aware can help you make slick marketing materials with just a few clicks (their annotations included)

Click here to see the sheet on its own page with links to full reviews