The Portable MLIS Chapter 14: "Readers Advisory Serives: How to Help Users Find a 'Good Book'"

When I go to the New Haven Free Public Library, I'm usually headed to the children's section on the second floor with my daughter. But every few visits I linger to look at the new books, which are on a row of shelves to the right of the central aisle to the elevators and the rest of the first floor, across from the circulation desk. New books are arranged by subject, and usually I check out history and politics, occasionally fiction and other sections. Unless I'm looking for something in particular, it's where I do all my browsing, and 90% of the books I check out are new books, most of which are impulse...not purchases, but checkouts. So from a merchandising standpoint, as Mary K. Chelton explores in her essay on RA services, my local library is doing a great job. (They use the ends of stacks, too!)

I don't think I've asked a librarian to recommend me a book based on my reading preferences since junior high or high school, and this is partly because I prefer to do my own research, partly because I have plenty of unread books to keep me occupied, partly because the process has become so automated and convenient in its automation that I find it a lot easier to play with Amazon's rating and recommendation system than to ask someone in person for a book recommendation. When I originally started purchasing from Amazon, its recommendations were (I believe) based merely on a keyword search of what other items were similar, so if I had enjoyed one edition of Hamlet, it recommended the Signet edition, the Arden edition, the Folger edition, and so on...rather frustrating and not particularly useful from my perspective, or, I suppose, Amazon's. As years have gone by, the recommendation system has become much more sophisticated, based on other customers' preferences and purchases as well as my own browsing and buying history.

It's hard to imagine one human being taking the place of all this, but as Chelton describes the role of the RA librarian, the librarian has resources Amazon doesn't, including tools like NoveList and the ability to provide in-person reading groups and book talks. And there is nothing like the sort of conversation all book lovers enjoy: "I just read The Sparrow and loved it! Jesuits and space aliens--how can you go wrong? Do you have any ideas for what I should read next?"

There are, as Chelton notes, online sources such as listservs and blogs that offer a similar experience remotely and asynchronously. It occurred to me while reading that the opportunities Chelton describes--listservs, blogs, wikis--are not really ideal for this sort of discussion. I've posted on various online special-interest forums (e.g. photography, wedding planning, parenting), and I think threaded discussions on open forums would be much preferable to all of the above--easier to read than a listserv (which even in the old days when there were few alternatives, I couldn't tolerate long because so much chat, much of it irrelevant to my interests, clogged up my inbox), more democratic than blogs, where discussion topics originate with one person or a small group of people, and more personal than wikis, which are not really discussions anyway. And, of course, they exist--I've never participated in an online book forum, but a quick Google search turned up a bunch.

Readers advisory is not an area of librarianship I've considered, and since I am probably headed the academic route, I'm not sure I would have the opportunity to do it anyway, but it does sound like fun and a great way to keep up with new books being published, as well as to revisit old favorites. So if I were to go into public librarianship instead--and who knows where I'll end up, anyway?--it's an option to consider.

Chelton, Mary K. "Readers Advisory Services: How to Help Users Find a 'Good Book.'" The Portable MLIS: Insights From the Experts, ed. Ken Haycock and Brooke E. Sheldon. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited, 2008, pp. 157-167.