Make Plans to Attend the 2nd Annual RA Research and Trends Forum!

If you are heading the the ALA Conference later this month, you should check out the following:

The RUSA-CODES Readers’ Advisory Research and Trends Forum is one of the leading RA programs at ALA, a place to consider the cutting edge of readers’ advisory.

Don’t miss what Early Word calls an “amazing brainstorm.”

Saturday, June 26th 4:00-5:30 p.m. Washington Convention Center - Room 204 B/C

This year the theme is visual storytelling, addressing video games, graphic novels, and illuminated manuscripts.

Presenters include:

Gene Ambaum, one of the masterminds behind the library comic strip Unshelved.

Daniel De Simone, the Curator of the Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection of illuminated and illustrated books at the Library of Congress.

Nathan Altice, musician, digital artist, and expert in the cultural appeal of video games.

If You Like Sookie Stackhouse try...

 

In preparation for the return of True Blood (season 3) on HBO yesterday, and the publication of the newest book in Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse series last month, I prepared an extensive Sookie readalike list for the BPL separated out by some of the series' appeal factors. It is only available in the library right now, but I will cross post most of it here. Please excuse some of the formatting errors. I cut and pasted from a publisher document in pieces.

Charlaine Harris has captured the American imagination with her deadly supernatural novels featuring telepathic, Louisiana waitress, Sookie Stackhouse. In a world where vampires have come out of the closet and live among humans, Sookie and her supernatural friends try to keep the peace between the human and supernatural worlds, while finding romance along the way. With ten best-selling books and a hit T.V. show, True Blood, Sookie seems to everywhere these days.

Maybe you like the Sookie stories for the vampires, but  people love the show and the books for other reasons as well. Use the categories listed  to help you find other books you may also enjoy.

 

If You Like the Vampires try…

King, Stephen.  Salem’s Lot       Call# KIN

Stephen King imagines what would happen if vampires with evil intentions came to live in small town Maine.

Penzler, Otto, ed.  The Vampire Archives        Call# VAM

Otto Penzler has gathered the largest collection of vampire stories ever published. Read one or read them all.

Rice, Anne.  Interview With a Vampire  Call# RIC

Anne Rice changed the vampire novel forever with this novel -  the first vampire novel where vampires went from threatening villains to the romantic lead.

Sands, Lynsay.  The Argeneau Series  Call# SAN

Lynsay Sands writes light-hearted vampire romances that spoof the vampire genre. They are sensual, fun and fast paced.

Stoker, Bram.  Dracula  Call# STO

In 1897 Bram Stoker wrote the vampire novel that all others since have been compared to. Written in  journal entry and letter format, Dracula is still an interesting and suspenseful read over 100 years later.

Yarbro, Chelsea Quinn.  Saint-Germain Chronicles  Call# YAR

Chelsea Quinn Yarbro’s series follows one vampire through many different historical time periods. Each novel has suspense and romance and the series can be read in any order.

If You Like a Wide Range of Supernatural Creatures Try…

Armstrong, Kelley.  Women of the Otherworld Series  Call#  ARM

With this series, Kelley Armstrong has used her novels to explore love, friendship and mystery among groups of supernatural creatures, from werewolves to witches and everything in between.

Bretton, Brenda.  Chloe Hobbs Series   Call# BRE

Brenda Bretton’s series beginning with Casting Spells is part crafting cozy and part supernatural romance with a touch of mystery, set in idyllic Sugar Maple, Vermont, a town that serves as a safe haven for supernatural creatures of all kinds.

Butcher, Jim.  Dresden Files Series       Call# FSY BUT

Jim Butcher’s popular fantasy series follows Harry Dresden, a Chicago wizard who runs a paranormal investigations firm. Harry is a likable loser who has to root out the evilest of villains.

Laurie, Victoria.  Psychic Eye Series and Ghost Hunter Series  Call# M LAU

With both her mystery series, Victoria Laurie utilizes just about every supernatural creature and situation in these engaging novels which are light on the mystery and heavy on the fun.

If You Like the Steamy, Supernatural Romance Try…

Castle, Jayne.  Ghost Hunters Series         Call# CAS

Under the pseudonym Jayne Castle, Jayne Ann Krentz has written dozens of supernatural romances set on the planet Harmony.

Feehan, Christine.  Call# FEE

Christine Feehan has written many passionate and entertaining paranormal romances featuring just about any supernatural character you can think of.

Kenyon, Sherrilyn.  Call# KEN

Sherrilynn Kenyon is the reigning queen of the supernatural romance. Pick up any of her books and enter a world of steamy romance between all kinds of creatures.

Liu, Marjorie.  Call#  LIU

Marjorie Liu writes sensual paranormal romances set in exotic locales filled with intrigue, mystery, and love.

MacAlister, Katie.  The Dark Ones Series     Call# MAC

Katie MacAlister’s series follows Joy who, armed with a magical bag of stones, is thrust into a supernatural world of immortal beings and falls in love with a stranger with a dark secret.

Ward, J.R.  Black Dagger Brotherhood Series  Call#  WAR

In this series, J.R. Ward’s six vampire warriors are in a battle to protect their race while finding love and passion along the way.

If You Like the Dark Humor With a Supernatural Twist Try….

Brooks, Max.  World War Z  Call# BRO

In World War Z, Max Brooks has the survivors of a decades long zombie war recount what happened. This is political satire at its undead best.

Graham-Green, Sean .  Abraham Lincoln:  Vampire Killer  Call# GRA

Sean Graham Green became famous by adding zombies to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and he has continued the horrific fun by imagining Abraham Lincoln as a Vampire Hunter.

Kenner, Julie.  Demon Hunting Soccer Mom Series  Call# KEN

Kate Connor put her demon hunting career on hold to start a family, but, as Julie Kenner’s series recounts, Kate is forced back into the business when a murderous demon interrupts her dinner party.

Moore, Christopher.  Call# MOO

Christopher Moore has made a successful career out of skewering the horror genre by writing deadly funny novels about vampires, the angel of death, and sea monsters, to name just a few.

 

If You Just Like It All, Try….

Acosta, Marta.  Milagro de los Santos Series    Call# ACO

Milagro de los Santos is hip, funny, smart, and …possibly becoming a vampire! With a little bit of romance and mystery, Acosta’s fun series is a must read for Sookie fans.

Chance, Karen.  Cassandra Palmer Series        Call# CHA

Karen Chance’s series follows Cassandra, a gifted clairvoyant who was raised by vampires. Over the series she inherits more powers and encounters a host of magical creatures on her travels and adventures.

Davidson, MaryJanice.  Betsy Taylor Series       Call# DAV

Betsy Taylor is a 30-something, former model, who wakes up as a vampire after being “killed” in a car crash.  But, she is no ordinary vampire; for instance, she can be out in the sunlight.  Could she be the prophesied Vampire Queen?

Frost, Jeaniene. Night Huntress Series  Call# FRO

Jeaniene Frost’s series  has vampires, mystery, romance and a tough heroine with a secret and a difficult choice; to live in the human world or the vampire world?

Hamilton, Laurell K. Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Series  Call#  HAM

Laurell K. Hamilton’s best-selling series is edgy, sexy and violent. Anita investigates supernatural bad guys as she risks her life to keep the world safe. She manages to find herself in as many passionate situations as dangerous ones.

Harrison, Kim.  Rachel Morgan Series  Call# HAR

In this series, sexy witch and bounty hunter, Rachel Morgan protects the citizens of Cincinnati from a host of vampires and other evil supernatural creatures.

Wedding Season Reads

June is in full swing and for many that means it is wedding season. I kick off my busy summer of weddings with my baby sister's bridal shower today.

I thought I would share some reading lists for the wedding lovers and haters out there. Hey, I may be happily married and celebrating my last single sister's quickly approaching wedding day, but I am still the consummate readers' advisor and promise to hit all appeals here.

So for those who can't read enough novels featuring weddings, here are some ideas for you:

• The 10 best weddings in literature
• Wedding themed novels
• Link to the browsable index of the Smart Bitches, Trashy Books website. Their tag line, "All of the romance, none of the bullshit.
• Lists of romances featuring Weddings, Brides, and Babies.

And now, for those of you on the other side of the fence, click on through to these lists:

• Bad date novels
• This list of memoirs about divorce. I suggest Split  by  Suzanne Finnamore
• Bad beakup stories from real people in Glamour Magazine

These lists are even of what I always say, there is a book out there for every reader. And your local readers' advisor can help you to uncover it.

Vote for Your Favorite Thriller...on NPR?

Last summer, NPR asked its listeners to nominate their favorite beach reads. I posted about it here.

This year they are asking people to nominate their favorite thrillers. As I know from lecturing about thrillers, the are hard to define. From the story:

This process is bound to raise the question: What is a thriller? It's tricky, because the genre overlaps with so many others. There are medical thrillers, legal thrillers, political thrillers, crime thrillers, lots of spy and police thrillers — even sci-fi and historical thrillers. What distinguishes a thriller, say, from a mystery? One answer, as James Patterson once wrote, is that thrillers are defined by the "intensity of emotions they create ... of apprehension and exhilaration, of excitement and breathlessness. ... By definition, if a thriller doesn't thrill, it's not doing its job." As many people have observed, the classic mystery is about discovery. Thrillers are more visceral, more oriented towards action and suspense.

So head on over here to nominate your favorite thriller. Their only caveat, it needs to be an individual title, not an entire series.

This is going to be fun. I am still deciding what to nominate myself. I am leaning toward Patient Zero by Jonathan Maberry, Amazonia by James Rollins, or Relic by Preston and Child. What about you?

Report: ARRT Program on Virtual RA

Last week I mentioned here that I was going to the ARRT Going Viral: Becoming a Virtual Interactive Readers' Advisory Librarian program.  Today, I finally post my report on what I leanred there.

Let me begin by commending the three speakers all from the Skokie Public Library, Ricki Nordmeyer (recently retired Head of Popular Materials), Annabelle Mortensen (a RA librarian) and Toby Greenwalt (the guy responsible for the library's virtual services).  I do not have the luxury to attend many librarian training programs since I spend too much time presenting said programs, but I am glad I found the time to go to this one. I left Skokie energized. The presenters did a great job both explaining what they do at their library, and making what could be a daunting topic, seem conquerable by any librarian willing to give it a try. Not an easy feat guys.

On to the program itself. First, I should refer everyone to the Skokie Public Library's web site, specifically their "Reading" section since everything that was discussed at the program was based on the Skokie model.  Also, much of the technical talk of building virtual RA service was prefaced with this very important point: All of this technology is based on building an RA culture of helping leisure readers at your physical library first. If you like providing RA service, you can learn the necessary technology to provide this service in an online environment, no matter the level of your technical skills. This was great advice!

After a basic introduction by Ricki, Annabelle stepped up to the podium to show off some of the content Skokie is providing on their Reading pages. I will let you go over and surf the pages for yourself. Annabelle then got into the nitty gritty on how much of that content is created and cross-posted. This information was invaluable.

For example, the Skokie staff has compiled an impressive collection of reading lists here. Annabelle talked about how they work as a team to compile lists and use them for other projects such as displays, readalikes for popular authors, or summer reading.

But the best advice she gave on building these lists, and really for any of these virtual services, is to spend your time at the front end building a great template. Creation of these online lists is no more technical than filling in a form. As she said, "keep the technical stuff simple so you can focus on the advisory aspect." This is probably the most important thing I learned at the meeting. Technology is always going to be changing, but our RA skills are what drives our service, regardless of the technology. Sometimes it is important yo be reminded of the most basic facts, especially in the face of what could be daunting change.

Skokie also has an extensive collection of staff book reviews here. You can search them by author, title, genre, or reviewer.

These are very similar to what we at BPL do with the Browsers' Corner and on our Shelfari shelves, but it is in the next step that Skokie is setting a superior example. They have been able to cross post all of their lists and staff recommendations on their catalog! So, when a patron searches for "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett on their website, if it appears on any of their lists or in their reviews, you can access that information right in the record. (use this link to see what it looks like). This takes the Advisory part of RA right to the patron using the OPAC. Whether they are in the library or at home, the patron can access your professional RA services with one click.

Their catalog also allows patrons to comment on their opinion about a book. Again, go to this example record to see. I am familiar with this; it is not much different than the reader comments on Amazon, however, what made this useful was again Annabelle's commentary.

She introduced the group to the idea of "the third reader." Let me explain. The catalog record is number 1. When a patron reads the record and then comments on the book, s/he is reader 2. The patron who encounters the catalog record and the comment is "the third reader." This patron is using all of the conversation in the catalog record to influence his or her reading choices.

This idea of the third reader works anywhere there are comments on an original work. I am happy to know that Encore, the catalog BPL uses will soon allow for us to have the "third reader."

The discussion then moved on to how the Skokie staff manage their popular Book Match in which patrons answer a survey so that the RA staff can provide a hand picked list of books for them. I paid especially close attention  here as we are planning to offer this service at BPL in the future, but trust me, you don't need me to replicate my copious notes here.

After Annabelle came Toby who focused his talk on using social media to "create conversations" about the library in the community. The key, as Toby described it, is to keep it local and to be proactive. For example, he suggested setting a Twitter search for any query within 5 kms of your town that mentions book recommendations. He gets the Tweets as a RSS feed and then answers people's questions, reminding them that the library can help.

He has also used Facebook to create activities for the community to participate in. He currently has "Stump the Librarian" Wednesdays where patrons are encouraged to throw their hardest questions out to the staff. Also popular is "Friday Book Sharing."

He gave a few more examples, but the overall point he was trying to make is that you have to use social media to bring the patrons back to your core services. Also, they are a great tool to lift the veil of mystery over the people who work at the library and show the real people behind the desk.

If you want to contact Ricki, Annabelle, or Toby for more information, please contact me and I can pass your info along to them. Personally, I left inspired and ready to start improving the BPL's VIRAL RA services.

Student Annotations: Intellect Genres

New annotations are up from Joyce's Summer students today. Click here to see what they had to say about the literary fiction, science fiction, mystery, and psychological suspense they read for today.

Best Young Writers vs. Best Over 80

It is an age old story, now playing out on the literary list making scene. It is amusing, entertaining, and all about books.

What am I talking about? This week to much fanfare, The New Yorker published its list of the Top 20 Writers Under 40. It has been 10+ years since the last list which included Michael Chabon and Jhumpa Lahiri.

In response, Ward Six, a daily digest of book reviews, literary analysis, personal observations, anecdotes, and opinions, published this list of the Ten best Authors over 80.

Although the New Yorker has a great track record of identifying young authors who have what it takes, it is hard to argue with the Ward Six list which includes Elmore Leonard, Doris Lessing, and Beverley Cleary!

I am enjoying following this mini-feud. And, there are no losers here; only us readers as winners with more authors and books for us to add to our to-read lists.

Top 10 Gothic Novels of the 20th Century

In The Guardian this week, Carlos Ruiz Zafon, Spanish author of The Shadow of the Wind, listed his top 10 Gothic novels of the 20th Century. From the article:

"Mention the gothic and many readers will probably picture gloomy castles and an assortment of sinister Victoriana. However, the truth is that the gothic genre has continued to flourish and evolve since the days of Bram Stoker, producing some of its most interesting and accomplished examples in the 20th century – in literature, film and beyond. Ours is a time with a dark heart, ripe for the noir, the gothic and the baroque. A basic list of great 20th-century gothic novels could include at least 100 but, since space is limited, here are a few places to begin your explorations. As always, try to get out of your comfort zone and ignore conventional wisdom on what is good or bad. 'Free your mind, and the rest will follow ..."

Readers of this blog know I am a huge fan of this type of Gothic fiction as Zafon describes it. And, I was happy to see that we share the same favorite 20th Century Gothic novel, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House.

If you have never read The Haunting of Hill House, drag yourself to the library right now and check it out. You will be shocked by how much of what you love in more recent dark, psychological suspense and even horror books is directly related to the stories and novels Jackson wrote years ago.  Most libraries have a copy or two of The Haunting of Hill House on their shelves. It warms my heart to see others singing its praises.

While you are at it, check out a copy of the even better story, The Lottery.

LGBTQ Books News, Award Winners, and Reources

Last week, the Lambda Literary Foundation presented their 22nd annual awards to the best in gay, lesbian,bisexual, and transgendered literature.From their press release:

“The Lambda Literary Awards are the most prestigious queer literary prize in the world,” says Lambda Executive Director, Tony Valenzuela. “The Awards are important because they recognize the work of authors chronicling the LGBT experience and creating art out of our lives.”

Click here for the full list of winners in 23 categories. And, click here for a list of all of the finalists.

Also last week, the ALA's GLBT Round Table announced a new "Over the Rainbow Committee." From their press release:

The Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered Round Table of the American Library Association announces the establishment of the Over the Rainbow Committee. The committee is charged with creating an annual bibliography of titles of interest to adult readers that reflect lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer (LGBTQ) experiences. The first ALA Over the Rainbow Books list will be announced in January 2011.

This will become a great tool for collection development and for helping patrons. I can't wait to see the first list.

And, my favorite gay literary resource, as I had said before, and I will say again, is I'm Here. I'm Queer. What the Hell Do I Read? Check it out!

Going VIRAL With RA...TODAY!

 

Going V.I.R.A.L.
Virtual Interactive Readers’ Advisory Program    

Wednesday, June 2, 2010 
1:30 p.m.
Skokie Public Library
5215 Oakton Street; Skokie
More

That's right this program is today! Walk-ins are accepted. If you are anywhere near Skokie, IL, I would highly suggest stopping by. It only costs $15, and if you enjoy the program, consider joining ARRT for only a $10 annual membership fee. Click here for more information about ARRT. I will be attending along with our fearless leader, Kathy to help improve our virtual service at the BPL. Stop by and say hi if you see me there.