The Readers' Advisor's Companion

The Readers’ Advisor’s Companion
This Page Intentionally Left Blank

Kenneth D. Shearer
and
Robert Burgin
Editors
2001
Libraries Unlimited
A Division of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.
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Copyright © 2001 Libraries Unlimited
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ISBN: 1-56308-880-0
Contents
Preface.........................................................................................................xi
Contributors .............................................................................................xvii
Part I: The Education of Advisors and the
Foundations for Professional Practice
Introduction to Part I ....................................................................................3
Chapter 1—Missing the Real Story: Where Library and Information
Science Fails the Library Profession (Wayne A. Wiegand) ....................7
The Act and Social Nature of Reading.........................................................8
How the Oversight Evolved .........................................................................9
References ..................................................................................................14
Chapter 2—Partly Out of Sight; Not Much in Mind: Master’s Level
Education for Adult Readers’ Advisory Services (Kenneth D. Shearer
and Robert Burgin) ................................................................................15
Background ................................................................................................15
The Study ...................................................................................................18
The Findings...............................................................................................19
Conclusions ................................................................................................23
Notes...........................................................................................................24
References ..................................................................................................24
Chapter 3—“Taught at the University on a Higher Plane Than Elsewhere”:
The Graduate Education of Readers’ Advisors (Bill Crowley) ..............27
Overview ....................................................................................................27
What Kinds of Students Study RA?...................................................28
A Few Words About the Chapter Author...........................................29
Adding Adult Readers’ Advisory Services to the Curriculum...................31
Planning the RA Course.....................................................................33
Conflicting Cultures ...................................................................................35
Understanding the Research and Publication Imperative ..................36
Further Obstacles to Creating RA Courses ........................................37
Technique and Theory in the University and RA ..............................37
Readers’ Advisory and the Faculty Rewards System ........................40
Tactics for Securing RA-Relevant Education ............................................40
A “Basic” Readers’ Advisory Syllabus......................................................42
v
vi Contents
Chapter 3 (cont.)
Conclusions ................................................................................................42
Notes...........................................................................................................42
References ..................................................................................................43
Attachment: “Core” RA Syllabus ..............................................................45
Chapter 4—Reinventing Readers’ Advisory (Duncan Smith).........................59
Research Findings ......................................................................................60
The Roles of the Readers’ Advisor ............................................................63
Best Practices .............................................................................................65
The Importance of Appeal..........................................................................67
Reinventing Readers’ Advisory .................................................................69
The Promise of Electronic Resources ........................................................70
Readers’ Advisory in Cyberspace ..............................................................73
Conclusions ................................................................................................74
References ..................................................................................................74
Chapter 5—What We Know from Readers About the Experience of Reading
(Catherine Sheldrick Ross) ......................................................................77
From Series Book to Genres of Fiction .....................................................80
Guilty Reading ...........................................................................................82
Value of Reading in Their Lives ................................................................83
Choosing Books .........................................................................................84
The “Perfect Book” ....................................................................................87
Pacing .................................................................................................90
Kind of Action Represented...............................................................90
Characters...........................................................................................91
The Nature of the World Represented................................................92
Emotional Impact on the Reader........................................................93
Demands Placed on the Reader..........................................................93
References ..................................................................................................94
Chapter 6—The Reader’s Altered State of Consciousness (Brian Sturm) ......97
The Experience of Story.............................................................................98
The Neurobiology of Trance ....................................................................100
The Experience of Trance ........................................................................106
The Induction of Trance...........................................................................111
Conclusions ..............................................................................................113
References ................................................................................................113
Contents vii
Part II: Advisory Services in Public and School

Libraries Today: The State of the Art
Introduction to Part II...............................................................................121
Chapter 7—Readers’ Advisory Service: Explorations of the Transaction
(Anne K. May) .....................................................................................123
Historical Backdrop..................................................................................124
Research Into the Readers’ Advisory Transaction...................................125
Nassau County Study ...............................................................................126
Methodology ....................................................................................126
Findings............................................................................................134
Conclusions ..............................................................................................145
References ................................................................................................146
Chapter 8—Advisory Services in the School Library Media Center
(Carol A. Doll) .....................................................................................149
Introduction ..............................................................................................149
Characteristics of Readers’ Advisory in Schools.....................................150
Readers’ Advisory Techniques ................................................................152
Reading Aloud..................................................................................152
Storytelling .......................................................................................153
Readers’ Theater ..............................................................................154
Booktalks..........................................................................................155
Author Visits ....................................................................................156
Book Clubs.......................................................................................157
Creating Bibliographies....................................................................158
Individual Guidance .........................................................................158
Identifying Specific Titles........................................................................159
General Bibliographies.....................................................................159
Specialized Bibliographies...............................................................160
Electronic Sources............................................................................161
Conclusions ..............................................................................................162
References ................................................................................................162
Chapter 9—The Best Tools for Advisors and How to Integrate
Them into Successful Transactions (Joyce G. Saricks) .......................165
What Are Readers’ Advisory Reference Resources?...............................166
Why Are Readers’ Advisory Tools Important? .......................................168
How Do We Use Tools in the Readers’ Advisory Interview? .................169
What Problems Do We Encounter Using Tools?.....................................173
What Strategies Easily Increase the Use of Tools?..................................174
What Are the Best Tools? ........................................................................175
Notes.........................................................................................................177
References ................................................................................................177
viii Contents
Chapter 10—“No, Thanks—I’d Rather Do It Myself”:

Indirect Advisory Services (Nora M. Armstrong) ...............................179
Booklists and Bookmarks.........................................................................182
Programs Centered on Books and Reading..............................................185
Challenges ................................................................................................188
References ................................................................................................189
Chapter 11—The Global Conversation About Books, Readers,
and Reading on the Internet (Roberta S. Johnson) ..............................191
Definitions and Differences .....................................................................193
Web Sites..........................................................................................193
Usenet Groups ..................................................................................193
Electronic Mailing Lists ...................................................................194
Treasure Hunts .................................................................................197
Authors .............................................................................................199
Publishers .........................................................................................200
Collection Development...........................................................................202
Reference Works ..............................................................................202
Bibliographies and Booklists ...........................................................203
Reviews ............................................................................................204
Goals for Reader’s Advisory Librarians ..................................................204
The Library’s Internet Presence ...............................................................205
References ................................................................................................206
Part III: Envisioning an Expanded Advisory

Services Role in Libraries
Introduction to Part III..............................................................................209
Chapter 12—Readers’ Advisory and Nonfiction (Robert Burgin) ................213
Introduction ..............................................................................................213
Recreational Nonfiction Readers .............................................................214
Readers’ Advisory: Fiction and Nonfiction .............................................215
Traditional Tools ......................................................................................219
Nontraditional Tools ................................................................................220
Lessons for Readers’ Advisory ................................................................222
References ................................................................................................226
Chapter 13—Viewers’ Advisory: Handling Audiovisual
Advisory Questions (Randy Pitman) ...................................................229
Web Resources.........................................................................................230
Audiovisual Resources and Reference.....................................................232
The Limitations of Audiovisual Resources..............................................233
Nontheatrical Video .................................................................................235
References ................................................................................................236
Contents ix
Chapter 14—Leading the Horse to Water: Keeping Young

People Reading in the Information Age (Angelina Benedetti)............237
Teen Readers ............................................................................................238
Reading for Readers’ Advisory................................................................239
Setting Up Your Collection......................................................................240
Reaching Out............................................................................................241
Talking With Teen Readers......................................................................242
The Virtual Library and the Virtual Librarian .........................................244
Conclusions ..............................................................................................246
Note ..........................................................................................................246
Selected Resources for Young Adult Readers’ Advisory ........................247
References ................................................................................................248
Chapter 15—The Future of Readers’ Advisory in a Multicultural Society
(Alma Dawson and Connie Van Fleet)................................................249
Introduction ..............................................................................................249
Defining Multicultural Literature.............................................................250
Trends in Multicultural Literature............................................................251
Impact of Social and Political Change .............................................251
Thematic Patterns.............................................................................252
Rewriting Genre ...............................................................................253
Publishing.................................................................................................256
Problems and Progress .....................................................................256
Good Business..................................................................................258
Advisory Sources .............................................................................259
Professional Response..............................................................................260
The Trajectory ..........................................................................................262
Conclusions ..............................................................................................264
References ................................................................................................264
Chapter 16—Conceptualizing a Center for the Reader (Glen Holt) ..............269
The Transformation of Reader Culture ....................................................269
The Changeable Book ......................................................................270
The Shifting Reader Culture ............................................................270
Books in Library Story Culture........................................................271
The Center for the Reader ........................................................................271
The Center for the Reader As a Place ..............................................272
Library Outreach ......................................................................................279
Partner with Those Who Promote Reading and Stories...................279
Readers’ Advisory Training .....................................................................280
Applied Research in the Center for the Reader........................................282
Conclusions ..............................................................................................284
References ................................................................................................285
x Contents
Conclusions: Readers’ Advisory Services Today and Tomorrow .................287

Renewed Emphasis on Reading for Pleasure...........................................287
Just Because Something Is Fun Doesn’t Mean It Isn’t Serious ...............289
Centering on the Client ............................................................................293
Note ..........................................................................................................295
References ................................................................................................296
Index.........................................................................................................297
PREFACE
I find television very educational. Every time

someone turns it on, I go in the other room and read
a book.
Groucho Marx
Writing is play in the same way that playing the

piano is “play” or putting on a theatrical “play” is
play. Just because something is fun doesn’t mean it
isn’t serious.
Margaret Atwood
What to Expect from This Book

• Identifies the aspects of readers’ advisory services that need more at-
tention: What gaps need to be filled? Where is weakness evident?
• Depicts the state of the art of readers’ advisory in school and public
libraries: How well developed is readers’ advisory today? What are
the best tools to use, including those on the Internet and those de-
signed for multicultural audiences? How does an advisor best put
them to use?
• Suggests where librarians may find appropriate educational founda-
tions: How can readers’ advisory take its rightful place in LIS educa-
tion? What is readers’ advisory practiced at a professional level? How
can readers’ advisory be taught at the graduate professional level?
• Presents rich insights from research findings: What do we know
about the way experienced readers perceive reading? What is the
trancelike state we enter when we are engrossed in a book or a story
that someone is reading to us?
xi
xii Preface
• Sets forth a vision of a future in which advisory services thrive and

achieve their potential: How do librarians integrate print nonfiction
and audio and visual story formats into an advisory service that is
broader than one that focuses almost exclusively on print fiction?
And what will a Center for the Reader look like (i.e., a library branch
location that exists solely to encourage quality recreation for a di-
verse population)?
• Endorses Margaret Atwood’s view that “[j]ust because something is
fun does not mean it isn’t serious.” Just because advising readers,
auditors, and viewers involves recreational materials and people en-
joying themselves does not imply that there is not much to learn and
master before one achieves a degree of professional skill.
Perspective
The Readers’ Advisor’s Companion assumes that public and school li-
brarians address a wide range of human needs: emotional, spiritual, intel-
lectual, physical, and work-related. Quality of life, the quest for meaning,
and the urge to find satisfying interpersonal relationships are major con-
cerns of all clients. They are therefore the business of the public and school
librarian. Just as we ought to pay attention to the reference and research re-
quirement of users, so ought we to pay attention to the formation of their
values, recreational interests, and social lives. This attention is expressed
indirectly through steps such as the development of collections responsive
to individuals’ interests and attractive displays. It is expressed directly by
discussing reading, listening, and viewing preferences with users and pro-
viding opportunities to explore the creative process and to discuss materials
with others in the community.
Novels and recreational materials are as important to people as facts
and knowledge (Smith 1998). The youngster who is finding a direction in
life is far more likely to find it in a novel or a biography than in a textbook,
research report, or Web site. A sensitive librarian can recognize and meet
that youngster’s need. Long before scientists, medical personnel, and entre-
preneurs undertake their useful work, they are youngsters choosing their
fields. Inspiration precedes perspiration; stories precede work. People find
role models in books and carry them in memory throughout their lives. The
work of Mother Teresa or even the little engine that could inspires an untold
number of people to keep on trying.
The right story at the right time can facilitate finding out how to deal
with challenges in interpersonal relations and how to find a productive place
in society. For many, the right book or film can ameliorate the trauma of se-
vere illness, divorce, or the death of a loved one. Integrating one’s sexual
Preface xiii
needs into a meaningful relationship may be approached in part by exploring

strategies that the characters in stories employ. Stories also offer us depic-
tions of successful parents, friends, and partners to guide our behavior
(Saricks 2001).
Entering the spell of a tale that grabs our attention is one of the great
satisfactions of life for most people and has always been so. Perhaps this
universal phenomenon explains why fiction accounts for more than 61 to
70 percent of circulation from the public libraries in Kentucky, New York,
and North Carolina. Unfortunately, these three states are the only ones
known to measure fiction versus nonfiction circulation in public libraries at
this time (Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives 2000, Lynch
2000, State Library of North Carolina 1999, Peters 2000). Oddly, there ap-
pears to be resistance to collecting these data. Although the effort to do so
for all fifty states would be considerable, it would provide important evi-
dence that fiction is a major reason for public library use, a fact that would
be valuable in monitoring library users’ interests. The failure to measure
the most common use of public libraries suggests that most state library
policymakers either have not considered collecting this information or are
avoiding compiling evidence because at some level they question the value
of circulating fiction. Readers’ advisory appears to be a core business even
though it is treated shabbily by great numbers of librarians and by most de-
signers of library and information science curricula. Borrowers have ex-
pressed their preference for fiction in all the figures I have seen since public
libraries began. In Chapter 1 of this book, historian Wayne Wiegand writes
with regard to public libraries, “And for decades now…fiction has consis-
tently accounted for 65 to 75% of the circulation.”
The Readers’ Advisor’s Companion assembles the work of many of
the field’s established leaders and pioneers as well as several new ones.
Contributors are drawn both from those in practice and those in graduate
professional education. This book should, as its title suggests, become a
companion and a handy reference for the school or public librarian who
deals with students and the general public. Although an anthology, it also
works as a single integrated text. Indeed, it can serve as a textbook for a
graduate course in readers’ advisory. It focuses on advisory services and
the needs of multidimensional people in a multicultural society.
One of the premises of this book is that most people who use school
and public libraries experience stress and are busy trying to live life as well
as they can. We believe that they will benefit from apt recommendations
and appropriate displays. We encourage a highly visible commitment to ad-
visory services both in the library building and at the library’s Web site. We
recommend a variety of discussion groups in every library and advisors
who know which tools are best, how best to use them, and how to handle
advisory transactions.
xiv Preface
The Readers’ Advisor’s Companion advocates full equality for read-

ers’ advisory and reference services. The efforts of a librarian spent on find-
ing a good book, an audiocassette, or a video to fill recreational time
enjoyably is at least as likely to add value to user experience as the effort to
find a fact, a Web site, or a commentary. I admire John Milton’s enduring
defense of the freedom to disseminate thought, Aeropagitica. However, on
rereading the famous passage, “A good book is the precious lifeblood of a
master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on a purpose to a life beyond
life,” I became aware that there is, in a normally censored corner of my
mind, a voice I cannot still. It suggests, “John, you need to get a life!” A few
classics deserve his accolade, to be sure. But we all know that many good
books are good fun; maybe they will not endure forever but they are very
good nonetheless. Good books can afford deeply satisfying recreation.
They can bring on a good night’s sleep. They can reward by offering diver-
sion. They can decorate one’s interior life in attractive colors and appealing
textures. The same is true of the spoken word and film. A good book for me
may not be a good book for you. A book just right for you now may have
been wrong for you earlier and may be boring at a time later in life. A
book’s “goodness” is not a property of the text but is rather a property of a
reader’s response to a text. A major goal of librarians must be to increase
the number of these positive responses to text.
Milton lived when books were expensive and rare. We live when
books are relatively affordable and plentiful. And all those books are sup-
plemented by stories in video and sound formats. The information explo-
sion and the entertainment glut are but two sides of the same coin.
Librarians’ advisory skills must match their reference skills in order to
serve the needs of students and the general public in the twenty-first cen-
tury. Librarians must successfully locate the right needle in the right hay-
stack. The needles can be publicly accepted truths or private stories with the
power to motivate. The haystacks can be reference books or Web sites; they
may be bookshelves or video collections.
Many librarians have allowed baggage from a time of book scarcity,
male denigration of women’s enjoyment of novels, and relentless puritani-
cal pursuit of “virtuous living” to lead them to anachronistic behavior with
regard to the recreational interests of clients (Shearer 2001). Many librari-
ans have, publicly at least, valued fact over fiction; reference over advice;
and computer technology over audiovisual and print technologies. State li-
braries have collected statistics on many aspects of public library use but
appear generally to avoid reporting the circulation of fiction. Many librari-
ans have deployed financial and professional resources in an unbalanced
way, a way that shortchanges the emotional, spiritual, and imaginative lives
of their clients. Many library educators neglect education for readers’ advi-
sory services.
Preface xv
The Readers’ Advisor’s Companion, along with offering outstanding

models of readers’ advisory practice and presentation of the tools of the
trade, challenges this state of affairs and sets forth an agenda for change in
library priorities.
—K.D.S.
References
Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives. 2000. Statistical Report
of Kentucky Public Libraries. Fiscal Year 1998–1999. Frankfurt, KY:
Department for Libraries and Archives.
See page 4 for figures. Adult fiction circulation is 60 percent of total
circulation; for children, the fiction circulation is 76 percent. The total is 70
percent of circulation accounted for by fiction.
Lynch, Mary Jo. 2000. Several personal e-mail messages sent during the fall.
I wish to thank Mary Jo Lynch, who e-mailed state librarians asking
them to help me determine the percentage of book circulation accounted for
by fiction versus nonfiction; she received replies from about half. Several
correspondents suggested ways that I might begin to answer the question,
but they had not gathered the data themselves. So far, only Kentucky, North
Carolina, and New York are known to collect statewide data. I have not yet
pursued the leads that might produce more evidence of the preponderance
of fiction over nonfiction circulation in public libraries in the United States.
But it may be of interest to note that the figures I have seen for other coun-
tries mimic those in the United States.
My colleague Robert Burgin points out that interested readers can
keep up to date on recent state statistics by checking the site “Public Library
Statistics on the Web” (URL: http://www.lrs.org/html/library_statistics_
on_the_ web.html [accessed January 26, 2001]).
Peters, Judy G., Education Program Assistant, New York State Public Li-
brary Data Coordinator. Personal correspondence dated October 10,
2000, and forwarded to me by Mary Jo Lynch.
Peters reports that the circulation statistics for New York state in 1998
were as follows:
Adult fiction: 28,389,692
Adult nonfiction: 22,116,997
Children’s fiction: 23,257,141
Children’s nonfiction: 11,126,991
These figures work out, after rounding off, to a fiction total of 61 per-
cent and a nonfiction total of 39 percent.
xvi Preface
Saricks, Joyce. 2001. Reading the Future of the Public Library. In Readers,
Reading and Librarians, ed. Bill Katz, 113–21. [Copublished as Ac-
quisitions Librarian no.25]
Shearer, Kenneth. 2001. The Book’s Remarkable Longevity in the Face of
New Communications Technologies—Past, Present, and Future. In
Readers, Reading and Librarians, ed. Bill Katz, 23–33. [Copublished
as Acquisitions Librarian no. 25]
Smith, Duncan. 1998. Valuing Fiction. Booklist 94, no. 13: 1094–95.
State Library of North Carolina. 1999. Statistics and Directory of North
Carolina Public Libraries, July 1, 1998–June 30, 1999. Raleigh: State
Library of North Carolina.
See tables on pp. 20–21. The figures are given in percentages. Fiction
totals 69 percent and nonfiction totals 31 percent.
CONTRIBUTORS
Nora Armstrong is the Information and Referral Supervisor at the

Cumberland County Public Library and Information Center in Fayetteville,
North Carolina, where she has worked for four years. After earning a BA
from Rosary College in 1980, she enlisted in the U.S. Army. She served in
the MP Corps for two years before marriage and children distracted her.
When her youngest child entered kindergarten, Armstrong enrolled in the
School of Information and Library Science at the University or North
Carolina at Chapel Hill, graduating in 1997 and receiving the Dean’s
Award for one of the two best Master’s papers presented that year. In her
first year as a librarian, she stumbled across Duncan Smith’s “Valuing Fic-
tion” (Booklist 94 [March 1, 1998]: 1094–95), which converted her to the
gospel of readers’ advisory. She has designed and conducted staff training
in readers’ advisory and genre fiction and has presented nationally on the
subject of adult summer reading programs.
Angelina Benedetti is a full-time Young Adult Librarian with the

King County Library System, located in the Puget Sound area of Washing-
ton State. In her job she works every day to bring teens and books together.
Her MLS is from the University of Washington’s Graduate School of Li-
brary and Information Science. She has served, and continues to serve, on
ALA committees in both ALSC and YALSA, and she presents programs on
the best in new young adult literature for a number of local professional
groups each year. She serves on the boards of both the Washington Library
Association and the Puget Sound Council, one of the largest book review
organizations of its kind.
Robert Burgin is Professor at North Carolina Central University’s

School of Library and Information Sciences. He holds a BA from Duke
University and a Masters and Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill. He worked in public libraries for ten years and taught for fif-
teen years at NCCU before serving as Assistant State Librarian for Infor-
mation Technology with the State Library of North Carolina for two years.
He recently returned to teaching at North Carolina Central University. His
xvii
xviii Contributors
publications include articles on readers’ advisory, management, and infor-

mation retrieval. He contributed two chapters to Guiding the Reader to the
Next Book (1996): “Readers’ Advisory in Public Libraries: An Overview
of Current Practice” and “Readers’ Advisory Resources for Adults on the
Internet.”
Bill Crowley worked for twenty-three years in New York, Alabama,

Indiana, and Ohio in many capacities. He earned a BA in history from
Hunter College of the City University of New York, an MA in English from
The Ohio State University with a thesis in occupational folklore, an MS in
library service from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in higher education
at Ohio University in Athens. Crowley has published in both the higher ed-
ucation and library and information science literatures, addressing diverse
topics, including the competition between “library” and “information” in
graduate education. He served as chair of the State Library Agency Section
of ALA’s Association of Specialized and Cooperative Library Agencies. In
1996 Crowley joined the faculty of Dominican University’s Graduate
School of Library and Information Science, where he is now an Associate
Professor.
Alma Dawson is an Assistant Professor in the School of Library and

Information Science at Louisiana State University, where she teaches
courses including collection management, library user instruction, and
foundations of library and information science. She also has worked in
school and academic libraries in Louisiana and Texas. She is an active
member of ALA, the Association for Library and Information Science Edu-
cation, and the Louisiana Library Association. A graduate of Grambling
State University, she received her MLS from the University of Michigan
and her Ph.D. from Texas Woman’s University. Dawson’s contributions to
the library and information science literature include two publications re-
lated to readers’ advisory services: African American Readers’ Advisory
(with Connie Van Fleet) and a special issue of Louisiana Libraries on “En-
hancing Information Literacy for Diverse Populations.”
Carol A. Doll is a Professor in the Library and Information Science

Program at Wayne State University, where she teaches courses on youth
services in both public libraries and school library media centers. She has
taught in library and information science education since earning her doc-
torate at the University of Illinois in 1980. She is a member of the American
Library Association, active primarily in the Association for Library Service
to Children and the American Association of School Libraries. She is the
author of many articles, including several dealing with school library media
collections. She is coauthor of several books, including Collection Analysis
Contributors xix
for the School Library Media Center: A Practical Approach (1991) and
Bibliotherapy with Young People: Librarians and Mental Health Profes-
sionals Working Together (1997).
Frank Exner, Little Bear, is a Squamish Indian from British Colum-

bia, Canada. With articles and book reviews in Journal of the American So-
ciety for Information Science and Bulletin of the American Society for
Information Science, he has indexed Guiding the Reader to the Next Book
and created a master index for twenty years of the State Library of North
Carolina’s summer reading program manuals. Exner, Little Bear, is cur-
rently a doctoral student at South Africa’s University of Pretoria Depart-
ment of Information Science by distance education, having received MIS
and MLS degrees from North Carolina Central University’s School of Li-
brary and Information Sciences. His current research focuses on the author-
ity control of Native American personal names. Exner, Little Bear,
completed the index for this publication.
Glen Holt is the Executive Director of the St. Louis Public Library
(SLPL) and holds Master’s and Doctorate degrees in history and urban
studies from the University of Chicago. Before coming to SLPL, he taught
at Washington University and directed the honors program in the College
of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota. At various times Holt has
served as a consultant to libraries, museums, historical societies, city gov-
ernments, and foundations. He publishes and speaks extensively and is the
author, coauthor, editor and coeditor of more than 100 reports and articles
and three books. He is a regular columnist on financial subjects for The Bot-
tom Line. In 2001 the Public Library Association awarded him the Charlie
Robinson Award for his creative contributions to the field. He is one of
twenty librarians from throughout the world who serves as an International
Networker in the Bertelsmann Foundation’s program to devise best prac-
tices and innovative models for public libraries.
Roberta S. Johnson was born and raised in Ohio. She received her
undergraduate degree in theater from Kent State University while working
in a bookstore and for Encyclopedia Britannica. She has worked at the
Skokie Public Library in circulation and at the Morton Grove Public Li-
brary as a readers’ service assistant. She earned her MLIS at Dominican
University (the Rosary College). While at Morton Grove, Johnson created
and maintained the readers’ services section of the library’s Web site (the
Webrary at http://www.webrary.org), as well as presented programs on us-
ing the Internet for readers’ advisory at ALA, PLA, and other conferences.
In 1998 Johnson joined the Des Plaines Public Library staff as a Reference
Librarian. In April 2000 she was made Readers’ Services Librarian and
xx Contributors
created a new department to serve the library’s popular materials floor: fic-
tion, audiovisual, large type, foreign language, and high school collections.
She currently reviews science fiction and fantasy for Booklist magazine and
continues to present readers’ advisory workshops around the country.
Anne K. May is a librarian in the Business, Science, and Technology

Division of Queens Central Library (Jamaica, New York), the research li-
brary of the Queens Borough Public Library System. She holds a BA in his-
tory from SUNY-Binghamton and a JD from New York University School
of Law. She is a recent graduate of the Graduate School of Library and In-
formation Studies of Queens College. May was a presenter at PLA 2000
Readers’ Advisory Preconference: “The State of Readers’ Advisory Ser-
vice.” She was lead author of “A Look at Reader’s Advisory Services” (Li-
brary Journal).
Randy Pitman is the editor of “Video Librarian,” the video review

guide for libraries. He is the author of The Video Librarian’s Guide to Col-
lection Development and Management (G. K. Hall), Video Movies: A Core
Collection for Libraries (ABC-CLIO), The Librarian’s Video Primer
(video, ALA), and numerous articles for various library publications. An
outspoken advocate for the use of video in libraries, he is also the past chair
of the Video Round Table of ALA.
Catherine Sheldrick Ross is Professor and Acting Dean of the Fac-

ulty of Information and Media Studies at The University of Western On-
tario. With a Ph.D. in English and an MLIS degree, she has long been
interested in the transactions between readers and texts. Her publications
include Communicating Professionally, written with Patricia Dewdney
(1998), A Double Life: A Biography of Alice Munro (1992), four nonfiction
books for children published by Kids Can Press, as well as numerous schol-
arly articles on the following topics: the reference transaction from the us-
ers’ perspective; the reference interview; and readers’ advisory. Her
longstanding research interest is reading for pleasure; drawing from this
work, she has given many workshops for library professionals on readers’
advisory.
Joyce G. Saricks has worked as Coordinator of the Literature and Au-

dio Services department at the Downers Grove (Illinois) Public Library
since 1983. She joined the library staff as a reference librarian after receiv-
ing her MA/MAT in library science from the University of Chicago, and
she has also worked as head of Technical Services at Downers Grove. She
has written two books on readers’ advisory—Readers’ Advisory Guide to
Genre Fiction (2001) and, with Nancy Brown, Readers’ Advisory Service
Contributors xxi
in the Public Library (1989, rev. 1997). She has written several articles on
readers’ advisory, presented workshops on that topic for public libraries
and library systems, and spoken at state, regional, and national library con-
ferences. In 1989 she won the Public Library Association’s Allie Beth Mar-
tin Award, and in 2000 she was named Librarian of the Year by the
Romance Writers of America.
Kenneth Shearer is a Professor at the School of Library and Informa-

tion Sciences at North Carolina Central University. An honors graduate of
Amherst College, he earned an MLS and a Ph.D. at Rutgers University. He
has worked in public libraries in New York and Michigan. His teaching ar-
eas are public librarianship, readers’ advisory, libraries in the political pro-
cess, and research methods. He was the editor of Public Libraries from
1978 to 1988; he has written approximately forty articles for the profes-
sional literature and has edited or coedited several books, including
Guiding the Reader to the Next Book (1996) and Politics and the Support of
Libraries (with E. J. Josey 1990). Long professionally active, he is cur-
rently the chair of the Committee on Research and Statistics for the Ameri-
can Library Association. One of his three sons, Timothy, is an academic
librarian who is concurrently working on a Ph.D. in LIS and has therefore
become his most successful recruitment effort.
Duncan Smith is the Creator and Product Manager of EBSCO Pub-

lishing’s electronic readers’ advisory resource NoveList. He is a nationally
recognized trainer in the area of readers’ advisory services. Smith is also
the author of several articles on readers’ advisory services, including two
chapters in Guiding the Reader to the Next Book (1996)—the first book to
focus on research in the area of readers’ advisory services. His most recent
publication is “Talking with Readers: A Competency Based Approach to
Readers’ Advisory Service,” Reference and User Services Quarterly. Prior
to joining EBSCO Publishing, Smith was the Coordinator of the North
Carolina Library Staff Development Program, a statewide continuing edu-
cation program for library staff in North Carolina. He has worked in public
libraries in North Carolina and Georgia. He holds an MSLS and a BA in
English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Smith is also
a past-president of the American Library Association’s Continuing Library
Education Network/Exchange (CLENE) Round Table. In 1997 he received
the Margaret E. Monroe Award for Library Adult Services from the Ameri-
can Library Association’s Reference and User Services Division.
Brian Sturm is Assistant Professor for the School of Information and

Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He ob-
tained an MLS (1991) and a Ph.D. in Library and Information Science
xxii Contributors
(1998) from Indiana University. His research interests focus on the entranc-
ing power of stories in both oral and written forms, and he has published ar-
ticles in The Journal of American Folklore, School Library Media Review,
and Storytelling Magazine. He is the coauthor (with Margaret Read Mac-
Donald) of an index of children’s folktale collections, The Storyteller’s
Sourcebook, 1983–1999. Sturm is also a freelance storyteller and has per-
formed for conferences, libraries, and schools around the nation. He is ac-
tive in several professional societies, including ALA, the Children’s
Literature Association, the Association for Library and Information Sci-
ence Education, and the National Storytelling Association.
Connie Van Fleet is an Associate Professor in the School of Library and
Information Studies, University of Oklahoma. She holds a BA in psychology
(University of Oklahoma), an MLIS (Louisiana State University), and a Ph.D.
in library and information science (Indiana University). She has been recog-
nized for “distinguished teaching at the university level” (Louisiana State Uni-
versity), “excellence in grant writing” (Kent State University), and “significant
contributions to library adult services” (ALA/ RUSA Margaret E. Monroe Li-
brary Adult Services Award). She has served on numerous local, state, and na-
tional committees and panels including the ALA Council, the Congress on
Professional Education Steering Committee, and the National Endowment for
the Humanities. She is coauthor (with Courtney Deines Jones) of Preparing
Staff to Serve Patrons with Disabilities (1995) and a series of articles, with
Erica Lilly, on accessibility of academic and public library home pages. Her
most recent book (coauthored with Danny P. Wallace) is Library Evaluation:
A Casebook and Can-Do Guide (2001). She is currently coeditor (with Danny
P. Wallace) of Reference and User Services Quarterly.
Wayne A. Wiegand is a Professor of Library and Information Studies
at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and codirector of the Center for the
History of Print Culture in Modern America (a joint program of the Univer-
sity and the State Historical Society of Wisconsin). He received his BA in
history from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh (1968), his MA in history
from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (1970), and his MLS from
Western Michigan University and Ph.D. in history from Southern Illinois
University in 1974. He is the author of fifty scholarly articles and a number of
books, including Politics of an Emerging Profession: The American Library
Association, 1876–1917 (1986), An Active Instrument for Propaganda:
American Public Libraries During World War I (1989), and Irrepressible
Reformer: A Biography of Melvil Dewey (1996), each of which received the
G. K. Hall Award for Outstanding Contribution to Library Literature given
by the American Library Association. In 1998 he coedited Print Culture in a
Diverse America with Jim Danky, which received the 1999 Carey
McWilliams Award for scholarly contribution to multicultural literature.
PART I
The Education of Advisors and
the Foundations for
Professional Practice
Introduction to Part I
Before librarians can practice readers’ advisory well, they must be taught
well. Before they can be properly taught, we must examine the context in
which readers’ advisory services take place. Consequently, the first part of this
book looks at the related topics of educating librarians to be readers’ advisors
and establishing the foundations of readers’ advisory services.
There is a clear need to prepare librarians to provide readers’ advisory
services well. The materials to build such a curriculum exist, but do the schools
of library and information science actually provide the educational opportuni-
ties needed to prepare librarians to deliver these important services?
No, they clearly do not, argues Wayne Wiegand in Chapter 1. Accord-
ing to Wiegand, schools of library and information science almost totally
ignore the literature on the social nature and act of reading, which would
help explain who reads the stories that represent the largest part of libraries’
business. In particular, Wiegand outlines how this neglect of the study of
reading came to be, how the stories the majority of users desire became
trivialized by the profession while information related to business and gov-
ernment achieved a privileged status. The chapter serves as a “wake up”
call to the profession to give more attention to the subject of reading.
In Chapter 2 Kenneth Shearer and Robert Burgin examine the extent
of the neglect of readers’ advisory in the Master’s programs at the ALA-ac-
credited schools of library and information science. Their findings bolster
Wiegand’s argument that these schools almost completely neglect research
on reading and readers. None of the eleven survey topics related to readers’
advisory services was covered in the core curricula of even 40 percent of
the responding schools, and although most respondents had some coverage
of the topics in elective courses, these electives tended to rely on the inter-
ests of individual faculty members. Most of the programs do not even ex-
pose students to the idea of building adult popular collections and
encouraging discretionary reading among the general public, activities that
constitute the most common use of the public library.
3
4 Part I: The Education of Advisors…
Bill Crowley shows in Chapter 3 how readers’ advisory is taught in a

professional program of library and information science. Using his own ex-
perience in developing a course in readers’ advisory services at Dominican
University, Crowley also examines the academic context in which such
curriculum development takes place and the reasons obstacles exist to the
development of readers’ advisory courses in schools of library and infor-
mation science. The chapter is instructive to those in the profession who
have not experienced the inner workings of academia and are unfamiliar
with the curious world in which faculty operate. Crowley goes on to sug-
gest a number of tactics for encouraging the development of readers’ advi-
sory instruction at the graduate level and even provides a syllabus from his
own course to show what a readers’ advisory course might encompass.
Professional education must, of course, be based on sound theory, and
so the second half of Part A consists of three chapters that examine the
foundations of readers’ advisory services in the context of libraries and in-
formation services.
Chapter 4, by NoveList creator Duncan Smith, places readers’ advi-
sory services in the wider context of professional practice by examining
both the similarities and differences between readers’ advisory and more
traditional reference services. Smith reminds us that readers’ advisory
questions are difficult because they ask us to explore unknown territory by
requiring that we not only know something about our books and resources
but also understand readers and the reading process. Smith maps several as-
pects of this unknown territory by examining the importance of staff inter-
action and personalized expert service, relating Kuhlthau’s roles for
information providers to readers’ advisory service, outlining training proto-
cols and models in this area, and affirming the importance of readers’ advi-
sory resources (both print and electronic).
Catherine Ross investigates the experience of reading in Chapter 5 by
examining interviews that she and her students conducted with almost 200
heavy readers. She explores the ways readers themselves view the meaning
of reading in their lives, the ways they choose books to read for pleasure,
and elements that are required for a book to be “satisfying” for them. Con-
sistent patterns emerge from the interviews:
• Heavy readers were read to as children
• Most were omnivorous readers as children
• They make time for reading
Importantly, Ross focuses on the relationship between the readers and
their books and not on the texts themselves, as have most scholars in this
area. This focus is consistent with Wiegand’s emphasis on our gaining an
Introduction 5
understanding of the act of reading and Smith’s emphasis on understanding

reading in the context of the reader’s life experiences.
In Chapter 6, Brian Sturm ends the first part of the book with a fasci-
nating examination of the physiology and psychology of reading. Sturm
asks what happens to us when we read. The answer is complex, and he ex-
amines the scientific literature on trance states, hemispheric dominance in
the brain, and brainwave activity to suggest that reading—like listening to a
story, being hypnotized, or meditating—may represent an altered state of
consciousness. Sturm’s suggested connections among the various research
communities represents a promising research agenda for those who agree
with Wiegand, Smith, and Ross that we need to understand more about the
act of reading in order to provide better advisory services to readers.
This richer understanding of the act of reading and the complex rela-
tionship between readers and what they read is essential in helping librari-
ans better serve their customers through readers’ advisory services. The
fact that few schools of library and information science choose to educate
their students and future librarians in this area is regrettable, but the fact that
the foundations for such education clearly exist is cause for hope.
—R.B.
CHAPTER 1
Missing the Real Story: Where

Library and Information Science
Fails the Library Profession
Wayne A. Wiegand
At the beginning of a course I teach titled “Information Agencies and
Their Environments,” which all first-semester University of Wiscon-
sin-Madison School of Library and Information Studies students must take,
I routinely run through a litany of statistics. The United States has more
public libraries than McDonald’s restaurants, I tell them; Americans make
3.5 billion visits to school, public, and college libraries every year—three
times more than visits to movies. School children visit their library media
centers 1.7 billion times during the school year—two times more than they
visit state and national parks (American Library Association, Public Infor-
mation Office 1998). As many children participate in summer reading pro-
grams as play Little League baseball. Generally, these statistics get their
attention, but I don’t quit there.
A revised version of this chapter was published in the October 27, 2000, Chronicle of
Higher Education as “Librarians Ignore the Value of Stories.”
7
College and university libraries lend 180 million items each year, the
vast majority of which are books and periodicals. Two-thirds of Americans
use a public library at least once per year, and of that number 80 percent
(that’s about 150 million people) go there to check out a book (“Poll
finds…” 1996). For decades now, among the books they check out, fiction
has consistently accounted for 65 to 75 percent of the circulation in these
ubiquitous civil institutions. These statistics, I tell students, amply demon-
strate that the millions of Americans of both genders, all ages, ethnicities,
races, creeds, classes, and sexual orientations who frequent the thousands
of libraries billions of times every year are coming primarily to fulfill needs
and interests satisfied largely by the act of reading, and what they read is
largely the stories (e.g., biographies, mysteries, Civil War battles,
Newbery-Caldecott winners, romances, and African-American diaspora
narratives) that contain cultural information they value.
Several weeks later I highlight the growing literature (now over a gen-
eration old) on the act and social nature of reading that helps explain who
reads the stories all types of American libraries disseminate and why. I be-
came interested in this literature twenty years ago as a library historian; its
richness convinced me in 1992 to join with Jim Danky to establish the Cen-
ter for the History of Print Culture in Modern America as a joint program at
the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the State Historical Society of
Wisconsin and to locate its university home in the School of Library and In-
formation Studies.
The Act and Social Nature of Reading

The literature on the act and social nature of reading divides into four
broad categories: (1) literacy studies, which demonstrate that understand-
ing the social and historical context in which literacy is practiced is essen-
tial to understanding why it is being promoted; (2) reader-response theory,
which shows that in the reading process the reader is an active agent who
exercises a great deal of creativity in making sense of texts; (3) an ethnogra-
phy of reading, which acknowledges that reading is often a communal ac-
tivity based in a social infrastructure grounded on shared interpretive
frameworks and practiced in shared institutions; and (4) a social history of
books and reading (or, post-Gutenberg, “print culture history”) , which
proves that the act of reading is and for centuries has been a multilayered,
highly complex process (see Wiegand 1997, endnotes 7 through 23). Print
culture history is my personal favorite and the one most relevant to my own
research. Through its literature I can easily see how all cultures—the domi-
nant and marginalized—have always used stories to validate their
existences, make sense of their worlds, and pass on to future generations
what they regard as their culture’s collective wisdom.
Chapter 1—Missing the Real Story 9
For students, however, I like to add cultural studies to this mix, in large
part because it broadens questions about the act of reading to also address
how people “read” nonprint cultural forms such as videos and compact
discs, both of which libraries also circulate. The field of cultural studies ar-
gues that people make their own culture out of the resources and commodi-
ties provided to them and, in interacting with these resources and commodi-
ties, people freely “appropriate,” “poach,” and even “construct” new mean-
ing from those resources and commodities in order to meet their own
unique group or individual information needs. Thus, by combining contem-
porary scholarship on literacy studies, reader-response theory, the ethnog-
raphy of reading, and print culture history with cultural studies, I hope that
my students begin to see the broad outlines of the multiple answers to what
is an essential question for anyone aspiring to positions in public, school,
and academic libraries: Who reads the stories that thousands of libraries
provide billions of times to millions of their patrons and why?
At the same time, however, I tell them that library and information sci-
ence programs across the country almost totally ignore the literature on the
social nature and act of reading that would help explain who reads these sto-
ries and why. I never have to work very hard to prove that statement. Four
months ago, for example, I downloaded the catalogs of the top five library
and information science programs listed in the U.S. News and World Report
survey: Illinois, North Carolina, Syracuse, Michigan, and Pittsburgh. As I
looked through the curricular offerings of these leading schools for refer-
ences to the words “read” or “reading” or to the phrases “act of reading” or
“social nature of reading,” I found almost none. In several courses Michigan
refers to “readers” or “readings” but only as required assignments for particu-
lar courses. Similarly, Syracuse talks about “key readings” in one course.
North Carolina fails even to use words such as “read,” “reading,” or “act of
reading” in any of its curricular offerings. Only in an “Advanced Problems in
Librarianship” course does Illinois say it provides “directed and supervised
investigation of selection problems in library resources, reference service, re-
search libraries, reading, public libraries, or school libraries.” And Pittsburgh
has a History of Books, Printing, and Publishing course that covers “manu-
script origins, the nature and development of the printing process, the reading
public, the book trade, binding, and book illustration.”
How the Oversight Evolved

As a library historian, I think I understand how this oversight evolved.
Michel Foucault (1977) argues that centuries ago the “new order” we now
call “modernity” separated the way people experienced daily life into
“work” and “leisure.” Business and government (and the sciences that
served their interests) assigned a very high value to the former and a very
low value to the latter. Except for the stories that the state regarded as so es-
sential to the social order that they had to be taught in institutions such as
schools, the communication of stories—no matter what their cultural
form—became categorized as “leisure” and thus trivialized by the domi-
nant culture. On the other hand, information that served the interests of
business and government became privileged. One of the earliest manifesta-
tions of this distinction in American library history occurred in 1732, when
Benjamin Franklin sent out the Library Company of Philadelphia’s first or-
der. It included dictionaries, grammars, an atlas, and books on science and
agriculture “suited to the tastes and purses of young tradesmen”—almost
entirely “useful knowledge” here, very few stories—and none of the reli-
gious kind that dominated the world around them (Harris 1978).
Three events in twentieth-century American library history reinforced
or deeply influenced these value distinctions between useful knowledge
and stories. First, with the help of a substantial grant from the Carnegie Cor-
poration, the University of Chicago opened a graduate library school in
1928 to offer the profession’s first doctoral program, which promised to
concentrate on research. At the time Chicago led the nation in efforts to
make the social sciences more “scientific.” The nomothetic positivism
practiced at Chicago effectively established the parameters of a profes-
sional discourse and quickly became the model that library and information
science research has emulated ever since. And although in the first decade
of its existence, the Chicago faculty (and especially Douglas Waples) fo-
cused much of their research on the “scientific” investigation of reading,
their scope betrayed a cultural bias. They ignored fiction (the stories most
library patrons wanted) and instead concentrated on (and thus favored) the
kinds of nonfiction information (i.e., useful knowledge) patrons were more
likely to look up at the library’s reference desk.
Second, in 1939 the American Library Association (ALA) adopted its
first version of the Library Bill of Rights, which not only made ALA (at
least rhetorically) a champion of intellectual freedom but also made ques-
tions of what patrons read, and why, irrelevant to the profession’s interests
beyond supply and demand. Henceforth patrons were looked upon more as
consumers whose transactions with the library ought to be kept confiden-
tial. Curiosity about—and investigation into—who reads the stories librar-
ies circulate and why came to seem like an invasion of privacy or a breech
of professional ethics.
Third, at midcentury the Carnegie Corporation funded a “Public Li-
brary Inquiry” to examine the public library’s purpose. Led by Robert D.
Leigh of Chicago’s political science department, project investigators (in-
cluding Bernard Berelson, Oliver Garceau, and Alice Bryan) concluded that
American public libraries ought to minimize their practice of supplying the
popular reading desired by nearly three-quarters of their users and instead
concentrate on a small but more influential combination of “serious” read-

ers, community leaders, and students of adult education who use public li-
braries to obtain useful knowledge. Like the research agenda at Chicago’s
Graduate Library School, however, the Public Library Inquiry’s research
scope was culturally biased. Because it favored useful knowledge over sto-
ries, the Inquiry overlooked entire patron groups (including children, who
accounted for nearly half the American public libraries’ user population)
whose needs and interests at the time were satisfied by the act of reading.
As a result of these developments, by 1975 library and information
science education had become convinced (along with most of the rest of the
library profession) that access to “useful” information—and especially the
kind that librarians thought people needed to become informed citizens and
intelligent consumers—constituted librarianship’s most important profes-
sional responsibility. At conferences and in the research literature, discus-
sions about the stories most patrons wanted were either marginalized or
ignored. Little wonder, then, that in the 1980s, when middle-class patrons
began using computers to obtain the kinds of information that Franklin,
Waples, and Leigh considered most valuable and that librarians thought
they were trained to supply, a substantial fraction of library and information
science education leaders (and especially those with business, computer
science, engineering, and science backgrounds, whose training taught them
to privilege information that business and government appreciated most)
began moving their curricula toward a definition of information that emerg-
ing technologies were largely driving. By the year 2000 library and infor-
mation science education had evolved a distinct professional discourse. If a
computer couldn’t handle it, many library and information science educa-
tors seemed to argue, then it wasn’t information. And any library and infor-
mation science education program that wanted to be considered “on the
cutting edge” didn’t even have to add the words “of technology.” It went
without saying.
This discourse proved so powerful that library and information sci-
ence educators took no notice of another cutting-edge body of emerging re-
search, this one taking place mostly in the humanities. While library and
information science education was shifting its definition of “information”
to one driven almost entirely by technology, increasing numbers of human-
ities scholars began shifting their focus from “culture as text” to “culture as
agency” and “culture as practice.” This new focus concentrated on how
people use the multiple cultural forms available to them to validate their
existences and make sense of their worlds. It also studied the cultural infor-
mation that author/creator passed to reader/listener/viewer. From this shift
the literature on the act of and social nature of reading itself emerged. And
like its parent body of research, it concentrated not on “culture as text” but
on “culture as agency” and “culture as practice.”
By analyzing what library and information science education does

with the literature on the act of reading, the controlling nature of its current
discursive formations becomes readily apparent. Foundation texts that li-
brary and information science students must read in core courses include lit-
tle or no coverage of literature on reading. With faculty advice and financial
aid, library and information science doctoral programs mostly recruit and en-
courage students to investigate information topics connected to newer tech-
nologies with traditional social science methodologies. Vacancy notices for
new library and information science faculty positions almost always empha-
size teaching skills and research expertise in information technologies and
never mention a need to develop an understanding of the information that
millions in America’s multicultural society find in the stories libraries collect
and circulate. And in some “schools of information,” story-centered courses
and teaching positions—such as children’s librarianship—have been elimi-
nated entirely. Even attempts at oppositional thinking can’t seem to venture
“outside the box.” For example, in its May 12, 2000, issue, the Chronicle of
Higher Education published nine letters to the editor that sought to debunk
and/or clarify an April 7 article titled “In Revamped Library Schools, Infor-
mation Trumps Books.” Not one of those letters cited the library’s primary
role as a reading institution. Instead, what united all correspondents was
agreement that “libraries are more than just books.”
The blindered thinking effected by professional discourse in which
technology drives the definition of information was made even more obvi-
ous when some library and information science educators who received a
Kellogg Foundation grant to redefine the library and information science
curriculum met in Washington, D.C., in 1996. Before them they had a
Benton Foundation report of a focus group of suburban public library users
who, in response to a number of questions, nonetheless collectively identi-
fied the following as their top two public library services: (1) “providing
reading hours and other programs for children” and (2) “purchasing new
books and other printed materials” (“Benton Study…” 1996, 112). Al-
though any well-informed students of the scholarship on reading would im-
mediately sense that focus group members are here bearing witness to the
value they place on the culturally informing potential of stories that reading
releases, the Benton Foundation seemed unable to tease out this possibility.
As a result, the Kellogg grantees seemed unable to fathom a potentially
broader significance of these priorities as they contemplated a curriculum
to fill the future needs of the profession.
Another example drawn from the same focus group activity speaks to
another failing. In oral remarks, one focus group participant criticized li-
braries for not stocking enough popular titles. “If you want to get the book
that everybody is reading right now, it is just not in,” the participant com-
plained. Although scholars of the act of reading—and especially its social
nature—would immediately recognize this as a plea for increased access to

a community-based information-sharing activity, such a possibility seems
never to have occurred to focus group organizers or Kellogg grantees, who
otherwise liked what the Benton Report said about the library’s need to up-
grade technology.
But this kind of blindered thinking about reading is not unique to li-
brary and information science discourse. With rare exceptions, English,
history, and education departments have also failed to look at libraries as
significant cultural, literary, intellectual, social, or even educational institu-
tions. Scholars in American, cultural, and area studies have been equally re-
miss. For example, in “Reading Groups Are Bridging Academic and
Popular Culture,” an article that the Chronicle of Higher Education pub-
lished in its December 19, 1997, issue, author Mary Cregan notes that
Americans spend more time reading than surfing the Internet or watching
movies. She quotes a Census Bureau study of mass-media use recently pub-
lished in the New York Times: “While people have been devoting less time
to reading newspapers and magazines over the last decade, they have actu-
ally increased the time they spend on books” to average over 100 hours per
year (Cregan 1997, B4–B5). She then summarizes the proliferation of read-
ing groups across the country as a manifestation of this increased activity
and argues that the groups have potential to serve as a bridge between aca-
demic and popular culture. “People are turning back to books,” she con-
cludes, “refusing to give up the opportunity for meditative insight, for
meaning, for the connection and community that reading—and discussing
what one reads with friends—can bring” (Cregan 1997, B5). In the article
Cregan never mentions the role that professionals in American public,
school, and academic libraries (who in my opinion are better placed institu-
tionally to function as the bridge) already play in this phenomenon.
Please let no one conclude from reading this chapter that I am
antitechnology. Not at all. Librarians—and the programs that educate
them—absolutely have to tap the potential of information technologies to
serve their patrons. But the contrast between the statistics cited in the first
two paragraphs and the near total absence of attention to reading in library
and information science programs at universities across the country pro-
vides ample evidence of the kind of cultural and intellectual blinders that
powerful academic discourses can unknowingly effect. I would argue that
rather than restricting the definition of information for library and informa-
tion science programs to what the technology provides, we should greatly
expand our focus to be more inclusive and less culturally biased by looking
at the act of reading that the library facilitates, whether it comes from the
printed page, the video monitor, or the computer screen. Only then can we
begin to explore entire information cultures and not just those fractions af-
fected by technologies. Expanding our focus in this way would allow us to
correct the major oversights committed by the Graduate Library School and
the Public Library Inquiry, which I see repeated in contemporary library
and information science education by encouraging us to take as seriously as
the millions of its readers do the stories that thousands of libraries circulate
to them as patrons billions of times every year.
In the next year, schools of “information” and “information and li-
brary science” will be graduating nearly five thousand students from
ALA-accredited programs into positions in public, school, and academic li-
braries, where reading stories that contain multicultural information contin-
ues to constitute the library’s major source of activity. Although a literature
now exists to enable these students to acquire some knowledge of who
reads these stories and why, the vast majority won’t have a clue. Worse yet,
they will have been schooled to think that an intellectual curiosity about
what millions of their patrons read, and why, is not only beyond the scope
of their practice as an information professional but actually none of their
professional business. What a shame.
References
American Library Association, Public Information Office. 1998. Quotable
Facts About America’s Libraries. Brochure.
Benton Study: Librarians Need to Work on Message to Public. 1996. Li-
brary Journal 121 (September 1): 112.
Cregan, Mary. 1997. Reading Groups Are Bridging Academic and Popular
Culture. Chronicle of Higher Education 44 (December 19): B4–B5.
Foucault, Michel. 1977. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison.
New York: Pantheon Books.
Harris, Michael H. 1978. Franklin, Benjamin (1706–1790). In Dictionary
of American Biography, ed. Bohdan Wynar, 186–87. Littleton, CO:
Libraries Unlimited.
Poll Finds Library Use on Rise. 1996. American Libraries 27 (February):
15.
Wiegand, Wayne A. 1997. Out of Sight and Out of Mind: Why Don’t We
Have Any Schools of Library and Reading Studies? Journal of Li-
brary and Information Science Education 38: 316–26.
CHAPTER 2
Partly Out of Sight; Not Much in

Mind: Masters Level Education
for Adult Readers Advisory
Services
Kenneth D. Shearer and Robert Burgin
Background
“Many library school administrators have decided that all public li-
brary patrons care about is computer technology, and the majority of
schools are supporting their belief with no course offerings in readers’ advi-
sory services. Library school graduates who choose a career in public li-
braries are not prepared to make recommendations to adult readers,” writes
Cathleen Towey in a recent issue of American Libraries, contrasting the ed-
ucation of adult services librarians to that of children’s librarians (Towey
1997, 31). She regrets that “[t]he readers’ advisory services that are so en-
thusiastically provided in the children’s room no longer exist when patrons
step up to the adult collection.”
15
Towey views the educational preparation of public librarians for work

with adult readers of popular materials as deficient. Many others in the field
of library and information science share her view. Likewise, on the Fic-
tion_L list, contributors reflect their concerns about the dearth of education
for adult readers’ advisory services. Georgine Olson reports that one con-
tributor wrote that “[p]eople coming out of library schools don’t have the
background in books that readers’ advisory calls for.” Another wanted to
“[m]ake it known to library schools that their graduates are unacceptable.”
A third contributor asked, “Has anyone ever written to ALA’s Committee
on Accreditation about this?” (Olson 1998)
A survey of over 100 professional and paraprofessional librarians who
attended a 1993 conference on readers’ advisory shows that paraprofessional
staff members handled more adult readers’ advisory questions than did pro-
fessionals (Burgin 1996). This is evidence of a lack of preparation in advi-
sory services among professionally trained librarians. It is not clear why
this was the case, but perhaps there was little difference in the performance
of the professionals and paraprofessionals, and so patrons opted for the
most conveniently located staff; perhaps the graduates of the Master’s pro-
grams were merely reflecting in their behavior the neglect of the topic in the
curricula of those programs. In any case, there is no evidence to suggest that
most library and information science programs are adequately preparing
their graduates for work in this area.
At a 2000 Public Library Association preconference on adult fiction
readers’ advisory, an attendee approached one of the authors after a session
and expressed concern about the quality of education for people planning to
serve adults in public libraries. She asked whether the program that she had
graduated from and a couple of others that she knew about were typical in
their lack of attention to public library services to adults. She said that peo-
ple who were planning to enter the field and work in public libraries often
ask her what school they should attend. In order to answer their questions,
she wanted to know which schools prepare students to serve adult readers
with advisory services. She did not know where to steer new candidates and
whether the deficiencies she had noted were common. The author she had
approached named some programs that offer strong electives in adult read-
ers’ advisory but did not have the information for all ALA-accredited
schools, the information the attendee desired. This chapter reports on a sur-
vey that begins to remedy that gap in our knowledge.
In the preceding chapter of this book and in other articles, Wayne
Wiegand makes the case that research on reading and readers, which he
views as an essential part of professional education, is almost completely
neglected in schools of library and information science, to the great detri-
ment of the profession (Wiegand 1997a, 1997b, 2000). In fact, Wiegand’s
presentation at the 1997 Association for Library and Information Science
Chapter 2—Partly Out of Sight; Not Much in Mind 17
Education conference, although very enthusiastically received by perhaps

half the audience, was seen as retrograde by a sizeable group of those in at-
tendance. Some attendees remarked, “Here we go again! Back to the
book!” and others felt that Wiegand’s points were anticomputer and anti-
information science.
What Wiegand urges, however, is not that the field halt its develop-
ment of services based on newer technologies. Instead, he argues that the
field should build carefully on its hard-won, preeminent position in reader
services. Indeed, the either/or approach to print sources and computer
sources is simplistic and, if used to guide curricula, does not allow the field
to mature appropriately or to best advantage. Whether a book is published
in a hardcover or paperback or an e-book format is not the issue. The issue
is readers and reading and the librarian’s ability to match them up skillfully.
Wiegand points out that there is much recent scholarship on reading that
lays the foundation for a renewed commitment to readers’ services, includ-
ing “(1) literacy studies; (2) a social history of books and reading…; (3)
reader-response theory; and (4) ethnography of reading,” along with genre
fiction research from cultural studies (Wiegand 1997b, 316).
However, for guidelines, scholarship, and research on advisory ser-
vices we may look not only to disciplines outside the field. Librarians and
educators within the field have been hard at work in recent years in the area
of advisory services. Joyce Saricks and Nancy Brown have written a text on
the subject (Saricks and Brown 1997). Kenneth Shearer’s Guiding the
Reader to the Next Book assembles research on the subject (Shearer 1996).
Anne May and colleagues, whose research is the focus of Chapter 7 in this
book, build on an earlier study of readers’ advisory transactions (Lackner,
May, Miltenberg, and Olesh 1998). Catherine Ross won a coveted Jesse H.
Shera Research Award for work that shows that reading series books, such
as Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys, enhances reading skills and is seen as an
important step in reading development among many heavy readers (Ross
1995). She has expanded upon her research into readers and reading in
Chapter 5 of this book and in other recently published work (Ross 2001).
Along with her many contributions to readers’ advisory and popular collec-
tion development, Sharon Baker has speculated on personality types (as re-
vealed in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) and their use in advising adult
readers (Baker 1994). The Adult Reading Round Table of Illinois (1999)
has produced a self-evaluative bibliography for fiction librarians. NoveList
has collaborated with the Library Development and Services department of
the Minnesota Department of Children, Families, and Learning and Minne-
sota library staff to prepare a workbook for readers’ advisory (Talking with
Readers 2000). Liang Yu and Ann O’Brien have recently provided a clear
and comprehensive overview of the professional literature on fiction provi-
sion in libraries (Yu and O’Brien 1996).
Although impressive, this list by no means exhausts recent contribu-

tions, and it does not begin to address the renaissance in print advisory
tools, such as Genreflecting, that have added to old standbys such as Fiction
Catalog, lists such as Fiction_L,1 or Web sites with extensive readers’ advi-
sory assistance such as Webrary (URL: http://www.webrary.org/ [accessed
December 26, 2000]). By examining the references in this book, the reader
will reap rewards. The literature, once negligible, is growing rapidly.
The Study
Keeping this background in mind, the authors surveyed the Master’s
programs at the ALA-accredited schools of library and information science
to learn whether the anecdotal evidence and the opinions of prominent pro-
fessionals—that readers’ advisory for adult users is neglected in library and
information science education—was mostly true or mostly false. The need
for preparation in advisory services for adult users is clear, and the materi-
als to build such a curriculum exist, but do the schools provide the educa-
tional opportunities needed to prepare professionals?
A copy of a questionnaire titled “Adult Readers’ Advisory in the Cur-
riculum” was sent to deans and directors of ALA-accredited programs in
1999; the cover letter asked the dean or director to complete the question-
naire or forward it to the faculty member best able to answer it. The instru-
ment asked whether eleven topics related to adult readers’ advisory were
offered in their programs during the 1998/1999 academic year and whether
the eleven topics were included in required and/or elective courses. The
topics ranged from the broad topic “Readers’ advisory in general” to the
narrower “Classification and arrangement of popular materials” to a topic
as specific as “Readers’ advisory tools: Electronic (NoveList, e.g.).”
The rate of response—only twenty replies—to the original mailing
was discouraging. We chose to follow up with a second mailing to the
twenty-nine schools that had not responded to the first one. This time the in-
strument was directed to the person on the faculty most likely to know and
care about the subject. We based our choice, when possible, on our personal
knowledge and, when not possible, on the subject interests of faculty as
provided in the 1998/1999 ALISE Membership Directory.
This strategy improved our coverage, and of the forty-nine ALA-ac-
credited programs, we eventually received thirty-four responses, or 69 per-
cent. Although we would prefer to be able to provide a census—because we
suspect that the findings are somewhat biased and more likely to include
data from the schools that pay some attention to readers’ advisory—more
than two thirds of the schools responded, and the information should have
considerable validity.
The Findings
Tables 2.1 and 2.2 report the results of the survey. Table 2.1 shows the
number of respondents who report that a topic is covered in either required
courses or electives. Table 2.2 breaks down the results further by showing
which schools report that a topic is covered in both required courses and
electives, in required courses only, and in electives only.
Table 2.1. Survey Responses from 33 ALA-Accredited Schools
of Library and Information Science in the United States
Yes, in Required Yes, in No N

Courses Electives
Readers’ advisory in general 12 26 2 33
(36%) (79%) ( 6%)
Theoretical foundations 8 20 5 31
(such as reading behavior, (26%) (65%) (16%)
reader-response theory, and
print collection history)
Classification and 10 17 5 30
arrangement of popular (33%) (57%) (17%)
materials
Popular materials (bestsellers, 3 26 4 32
genre fiction, etc.) ( 9%) (81%) (13%)
Promotion (e.g., 4 25 5 32
booktalks) (13%) (78%) (16%)
Readers’ advisory 3 24 6 32
interviews ( 9%) (75%) (19%)
Readers’ advisory 1 26 4 31
programming ( 3%) (84%) (13%)
Readers’ advisory tools:
a. Electronic (e.g., 2 26 5 33
NoveList) ( 6%) (79%) (15%)
b. Internet (e.g., 1 25 6 32
FICTION-L) ( 3%) (78%) (19%)
c. Print (e.g., 2 27 4 33
Genreflecting) ( 6%) (82%) (12%)
Review media for the 11 22 3 31
selection of adult popular (36%) (71%) (9%)
materials
Other 1 4 4 8
Table 2.2. Survey Responses from 33 ALA-Accredited Schools

of Library and Information Science in the United States
Yes, in Yes, in Yes, in No N

Both Required Electives
Required Courses Only
Courses Only
and
Electives
Readers’ advisory in 7 5 19 2 33
general (21%) (15%) (58%) ( 6%)
Theoretical foundations 2 6 18 5 31
(such as reading ( 6%) (19%) (58%) (16%)
behavior, reader-response
theory, and print
collection history)
Classification and 2 8 15 5 30
arrangement of popular ( 7%) (27%) (50%) (17%)
materials
Popular materials 1 2 25 4 32
(bestsellers, genre ( 3%) ( 6%) (78%) (13%)
fiction, etc.)
Promotion (e.g., 2 2 23 5 32
booktalks) ( 6%) ( 6%) (72%) (16%)
Readers’ advisory 1 2 23 6 32
interviews ( 3%) ( 6%) (72%) (19%)
Readers’ advisory 0 1 26 4 31
programming ( 0%) ( 3%) (84%) (13%)
Readers’ advisory
tools:
a. Electronic (e.g., 0 2 26 5 33
NoveList) ( 0%) ( 6%) (79%) (15%)
b. Internet (e.g., 0 1 25 6 32
FICTION-L) ( 0%) ( 3%) (78%) (19%)
80c. Print (e.g., 0 2 27 4 33
Genreflecting) ( 0%) ( 6%) (82%) (12%)
Review media for the 5 6 17 3 31
selection of adult (16%) (19%) (55%) (10%)
popular materials
Other 1 0 3 4 8
Table 2.1 reflects the attention paid to readers’ advisory in ALA-ac-

credited programs in required courses (hereafter referred to as the core).
The two most prevalent topics—“Readers’ advisory in general” and “Re-
view media for the selection of adult popular materials”—are included in
the 1998/1999 core curricula of 36 percent of the respondents’ programs.
These represent the topics that are most often common knowledge among
students graduating from ALA-accredited Master’s degree programs with
respect to readers’ advisory. In contrast, only one program (3 percent of
those responding) included the topic “Internet readers’ advisory tools (Fic-
tion_L, e.g.)” in its core, and only one program included the topic
“Readers’ advisory programming” in its core.
Given the fact that no topic was covered in the core curricula of even
40 percent of the responding schools, it seems safe to conclude that most
ALA-accredited programs did not pay any attention whatever to readers’
advisory in the core curriculum in the 1998/1999 academic year. Students
who are not exposed to the idea of readers’ advisory may not realize that
this is a potential area of professional interest.
Although this regrettable deficiency appears to be easily remedied
through Wiegand’s suggestion of incorporating research on readers and
reading in the curriculum, the topic that best represents that suggestion on
the questionnaire—“Theoretical foundations (such as reading behavior,
reader-response theory, and print collection history)”—is offered in the
core of unfortunately only one-fourth (26 percent) of the programs that re-
sponded to the survey.
Because many programs offer as few as six semester hours in the core,
one may well ask whether it is even fair to measure a school’s attention to
readers’ advisory by the inclusion of constituent topics in core courses. Af-
ter all, if potential special librarians, for example, are expected to find the
core relevant to their needs, perhaps it is unnecessary to include readers’
advisory in the core. Just as the school media or public library specialists in
core courses may not desire to learn about maintenance of archives or strat-
egies to contribute to corporate profitability, curriculum designers may
view readers’ advisory as elective material. (This approach presumes, of
course, that students have sufficient knowledge of major aspects of the pro-
fession to enable them to chose the best specialization for themselves with-
out an orientation to major aspects of professional practice.)
The next question, then, is whether the students who know they want
to practice in adult services have the opportunity to explore readers’ advi-
sory topics in all programs. To explore that question, one may look at the
column of Table 2.1 labeled “No.” This column provides information on
the number of responding programs that do not include readers’ advisory
topics for adults in either required or elective courses. Apparently two of
the responding programs (6 percent) do not deal anywhere in their curricula
with the topic “Readers’ advisory in general.” (We cannot help but wonder
whether those fifteen programs that failed to respond might disproportion-
ately include other library and information science curricula completely in-
attentive to readers’ advisory.) Three responses (9 percent) include nothing
in either their required or elective courses on “Review media for the selec-
tion of adult popular materials.” Their graduates will apparently be as inept
at building the adult collection of a public library as any college graduate
off the street, a deficiency that the ALA Committee on Accreditation
should certainly look into. Table 2.1 further shows that about one-fifth of
the responding programs had no inclusion of readers’ advisory interviews,
which differ so markedly from reference interviews, or any coverage of ad-
visory tools on the Internet, which increasingly offers an arena for advisors
to share their expertise and a “gold mine” of advice on reading.
On a more optimistic note, the findings do indicate that all eleven top-
ics from the questionnaire were included somewhere in the curricula of
four-fifths of the responding programs.
Table 2.2 explores the degree to which schools represent readers’ ad-
visory topics in both required and elective courses. Perhaps not surpris-
ingly, “Readers’ advisory in general” and “Review media for the selection
of adult popular materials” are most likely to appear in both required and
elective coursework. Inclusion of the first would ensure student familiarity
with the idea that librarians work creatively with adults to enjoy leisure
reading, and the latter would come up in general collection building
coursework and in more specialized discussions.
The column of Table 2.2 labeled “Yes, in Required Courses Only”
presents a somewhat startling bit of information: Programs that include
adult readers’ advisory topics only in required courses may have difficulty
preparing adult services librarians who have sufficient preparation for suc-
cessful practice. Some cores are eighteen semester hours long and include
both a course in collection building and a course in technical services. If
curriculum designers have decided that all the students who enter their pro-
grams should be able to build and arrange popular collections well and offer
adequate preparation for advisory service designed for adult leisure read-
ers, then they may be exceptions, at least with respect to these two skills.
However, if sufficient preparation is included in their cores to prepare for
adult readers’ advisory service in public libraries, the question becomes
whether these programs are shortchanging their school, academic, and spe-
cial library candidates, who presumably would be better served by an em-
phasis on other topics and skills.
The questionnaire had an open-ended question that allowed respon-
dents to indicate topics that they cover other than the eleven specifically
named. Several respondents provided this information, and the topics they
mentioned ranged over a wide territory, including “Competition to library

readers’ advisory in the for-profit sector” and background topics such as the
history of readers’ advisory, community analysis, and use and user studies,
along with a unit on reading and culture. Genre sources on the Internet and
large-print books were mentioned, and two respondents mentioned
audiobooks. One respondent wrote that videos based on books, especially
fiction and biography, were covered, and popular lifestyle magazines were
mentioned as well.
Finally, we deduced that there is an individual faculty member inter-
ested in readers’ advisory in certain schools. Where it is clear from the
questionnaire or other sources that the school includes an emphasis on adult
readers’ advisory topics in the curriculum, we have listed these instructors.
This list is a beginning, of course, and we do not claim that it is definitive.
SCHOOL FACULTY MEMBER

Alabama Anabel Stephens
Dominican Bill Crowley
Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Debra Johnson
North Carolina at Chapel Hill David Carr, Barbara Moran, Brian Sturm
North Carolina at Greensboro Julia Hersberger
North Carolina Central Pauletta Bracy, Robert Burgin, Kenneth Shearer
Queens College Mary K. Chelton
South Carolina Linda Lucas Walling
South Florida Kathleen de la Peña McCook
SUNY Albany Bill Katz
SUNY Buffalo Lorna Peterson
Western Ontario Catherine Sheldrick Ross
Wisconsin-Madison Wayne Wiegand
Conclusions
Wayne Wiegand characterized the attitude toward recent scholarship
on readers and reading in library and information science programs as “Out
of Sight, and Out of Mind.” We characterize the attitude toward adult read-
ers’ advisory services in library and information science programs as “Partly
Out of Sight; Not Much in Mind.” Most respondents had some inclusion of
the readers’ advisory topics listed on the questionnaire, and most of the
coverage was in electives, although these electives seemed to rely on the in-
terest of individual faculty members.
Perhaps our greatest concern on the basis of this survey is that most of
the programs accredited by the American Library Association do not even
expose students to the idea that they can develop a practice devoted to
building adult popular collections and encouraging rewarding reading
among the general public. In too many of these programs, even a basic
preparation is not provided in the electives to the candidates who come to
school knowing that this is the career they want. If it were not a fact that
popular collections and reader guidance constitute the most common use of
the public library, this might be excusable, but under the circumstances it is
not.
Notes
1. To subscribe to Fiction_L, send an e-mail message to re-
[email protected] with one of the following commands in
the subject or body of the message:
subscribe fiction_l (to subscribe to the regular list)
subscribe digest fiction_l (to subscribe to the digest)
Within an hour, you should receive the Fiction_L welcome mes-
sage. If you do not receive it or if you have any questions about the list,
please contact Natalya Fishman, Fiction_L Manager, at fladmin@
webrary.org.
References
Adult Reading Round Table of Illinois. 1999. The ARRT Genre Fiction
List: A Self-Evaluation Bibliography for Fiction Librarians. Illinois:
Adult Reading Round Table of Illinois.
Baker, Sharon L. 1994. What Patrons Read and Why: The Link Between
Personality and Reading. In Research Issues in Public Libraries:
Trends for the Future, ed. Joy M. Greiner, 131–17. Westport, CT:
Greenwood.
Burgin, Robert. 1996. Readers’ Advisory in Public Libraries: An Overview
of Current Practices. In Guiding the Reader to the Next Book, ed. Ken-
neth Shearer, 71–88. New York: Neal-Schuman.
Lackner, Catherine Patricia, Anne K. May, Anne Weidrich Miltenberg, and

Elizabeth Olesh. 1998. An Investigation of Readers’ Advisory Trans-
actions in Nassau County (NY) Public Libraries. Master’s thesis,
Queen’s College.
Olson, Georgine N. 1998. Fiction Acquisition/Fiction Management: Edu-
cation and Training. Acquisitions Librarian 19: 1–9.
Ross, Catherine Sheldrick. 1995. If They Read Nancy Drew, So What? Se-
ries Readers Talk Back. Library and Information Science Research
17: 210–35.
———. 2001. Making Choices: What Readers Say About Choosing Books
to Read for Pleasure. Acquisitions Librarian 25: 5–21.
Saricks, Joyce G., and Nancy Brown. 1997. Readers’ Advisory Service in
the Public Library, 2d ed. Chicago: American Library Association.
Shearer, Kenneth, ed. 1996. Guiding the Reader to the Next Book. New
York: Neal-Schuman.
Talking with Readers. 2000. Talking with Readers: A Workbook for
Readers’ Advisory. A Cooperative Project of NoveList, Library De-
velopment and Services, Minnesota Department of Children, Fam-
ilies, and Learning and Minnesota Library Staff.
Towey, Cathleen A. 1997. We Need to Recommit to Readers’ Advisory
Services. American Libraries 28: 31.
Wiegand, Wayne A. 1997a. MisReading Library Education. Library Jour-
nal 122: 36–38.
———. 1997b. Out of Sight, and Out of Mind: Why Don’t We Have Any
Schools of Library and Reading Studies? Journal of Library and In-
formation Science Education 38: 316–26.
———. 2000. Librarians Ignore the Value of Stories. Chronicle of Higher
Education 47 (October 27): B20.
Yu, Liang, and Ann O’Brien. 1996. Domain of Fiction Librarianship. Ad-
vances in Librarianship 20: 151–89.
CHAPTER 3
Taught at the University on a

Higher Plane Than Elsewhere:
The Graduate Education of
Readers Advisors
Bill Crowley
Overview
This chapter discusses the education of adult readers’ advisors in the
Chicago-area component of Dominican University’s Graduate School of
Library and Information Science (GSLIS). It does so in the context of a
general examination of the prospects for advancing readers’ advisory (RA)
services in graduate programs accredited by the American Library Associa-
tion. To this end, the chapter does the following:
• Describes the spectrum of RA students in the River Forest (Chicago
area) component of the Dominican University GSLIS program
• Provides information on the author and describes how he came to RA
• Reviews the process through which Dominican University’s GSLIS
planned, tested, and added LIS 763 Readers’ Advisory Services to
its curriculum
27
• Explores the critical differences among the various cultures of

higher education and the “off-campus worlds” of RA practitioners
• Considers the numerous obstacles to creating readers’ advisory
courses, including the difficulty of sustaining a research agenda in
RA due, in part, to misperceptions about the field and a lack of re-
wards for faculty
• Offers practical suggestions for inducing ALA-accredited programs
to offer courses in RA
• Provides a basic version of the author’s current RA syllabus
What Kinds of Students Study RA?

What kinds of students register for LIS 763 Readers’ Advisory Ser-
vices in the Chicago-area component of Dominican University’s GSLIS?
In a class of fifteen students, for example, thirteen or fourteen will be fe-
male, and nine or ten will already be working in public libraries. However,
if the course is offered at night or during the summer, it is likely that as
many as four or five students intend to be school library media specialists or
academic librarians. On occasion, because of a love of books and/or the
happenstance of course scheduling, a current or would-be information spe-
cialist or knowledge manager will also enroll. To be more specific, the av-
erage RA class includes the following:
• Public library RA enthusiasts who delight in talking about books
and exchanging ideas and suggestions with customers or patrons.
They may be full-time students or already employed with the title of
“librarian.” If the lack of a Master’s degree means that they must
work as a clerk or library associate, perhaps at a circulation or infor-
mation desk or even in the RA department, they take one or two
courses a semester while balancing employer and family demands.
Eventually, degree in hand, they apply for librarian positions in public
service. If lucky, they are appointed as RA librarians or readers’ ser-
vices specialists (titles tend to vary). If and when they become heads
of RA departments or public library directors, these same enthusi-
asts may plan to lead library book discussion groups and otherwise
attempt to keep in touch though occasional work at the RA desk.
• School library media specialists, present or future, who also love
books and encounter bright students with adult-level reading tastes
and who are increasingly frustrated in classes where instructors
“teach to the test.” If currently employed as classroom teachers,
these graduate students often find themselves talking about “the
story” with, for example, high school students who seem to know
Chapter 3—“Taught at the University on a Higher Plane...” 29
everything about science fiction or fantasy and want to share their

enthusiasm with an appreciative listener.
• Academic library staff who are working or plan to work in higher ed-
ucation institutions ranging from community colleges to research
universities. Although knowing that they will be hired as reference
or technical services librarians, they often plan to develop collec-
tions to support English department courses in science fiction, fan-
tasy, western, or mystery genres or the many subgenres of
inspirational or gay and lesbian literature. They may do the same for
cross-disciplinary courses in popular culture taught by members of
anthropology, sociology, or popular culture departments. These stu-
dents know the value of both fiction and nonfiction stories and are
likely to be the stalwarts of college or university book discussion
groups, where they will deepen their knowledge of the reading inter-
ests of teaching and research faculty.
• Writers who intend to support themselves as librarians while pursu-
ing their “other” calling.
• Miscellaneous students with corporate information and knowledge
management interests.1
Therefore, awareness of the importance of adult-level RA is not lim-
ited to present and potential members of the public library community. It is
a conviction that simply overflows the internal boundaries of the library
and information world, demonstrating great appeal to certain members of
the school library media, academic library, and other library communities.
In addition, if we can agree that RA deals with works offering what Robert
Coles (1989, 191) describes as a “compelling narrative”—however we
choose to define both “compelling” and “narrative”—it makes no sense to
overlook the stories that histories, biographies, self-help books, and other
forms of nonfiction provide. The vast area of what Kenneth D. Shearer
(1996, 182) rightly terms “discretionary reading” cannot be limited to fic-
tion alone. To attempt to do so is to evidence a “theory” of RA that ignores
the reality of RA “experience.” Joyce G. Saricks, whose fundamentally im-
portant Readers’ Advisory Service in the Public Library is a text in my
course, mentioned to the fall 1999 class that she now sees nonfiction as in-
cluded within RA.2
A Few Words About the Chapter Author

Unlike many faculty now being appointed to “new” American Library
Association-accredited programs of information science (IS) or the more tra-
ditional programs of library and information science (LIS), I am a product
of the “library” world. Prior to earning my doctorate, I spent twenty-three

years in public libraries, library cooperatives, and state library agencies in
New York, Alabama, Indiana, and Ohio. This experience includes employ-
ment as a reference librarian, public relations representative, consultant,
multitype cooperative head, administrator of public services in a public li-
brary, and deputy state librarian. In 1993 I realized that I could either con-
tinue to complain about the direction of professional education or try to do
something about it. Circumstances required that I remain in Ohio, a
first-rate state that lacks a Ph.D. program in LIS. In consequence, I resigned
the position as Ohio’s Deputy State Library Librarian for Library Services,
enrolled as a full-time student at Ohio University in Athens, earned a Ph.D.
in higher education in two years with a dissertation on the academic library,
and spent a third year as a researcher for the university’s president emeritus.
In retrospect, earning a doctorate in higher education was a net posi-
tive. It left me with fewer illusions regarding how the academic world
works. The setting aside of comforting misconceptions is important in any
useful discussion of how to advance the cause of RA within ALA-accred-
ited programs. We must understand the reasons for a “negative” RA cli-
mate in ALA-accredited programs before we can make further progress.
Although I started teaching Readers’ Advisory Services in 1997, this
is the first time I have written on RA. The reasons for this delay are impor-
tant only because they can provide “real world” practitioners with a greater
understanding of why the creation of RA courses is not more popular in ac-
ademic environments. It is worth noting that Dominican University re-
quires a teaching load for its library and information science faculty that is
higher than that of most ALA-accredited programs. With little time for re-
search while preparing for classes but knowing that Dominican University
expects evidence of scholarly productivity for faculty to be retained, I fol-
lowed the classic pattern of publication for first-year assistant professors. I
did not do new research on RA. Instead, I mined my doctoral dissertation
for publishable articles. My dissertation was on the academic library so I
wrote about academic libraries (Crowley 1996, 1997). Had I earned my
doctorate at a program where I was encouraged to do a dissertation on read-
ers’ advisory services, I would have written on RA. It’s often just as simple
as that—the articles and books that professors publish in their early years
are likely to be related to the topic of their doctoral research.
While publishing articles culled from my dissertation, I also found
myself on the unfashionable side of the library versus information dispute.
It is ironic that supporters of RA are asking for new library courses at the
same time the very concept of “library” is in retreat within ALA-accredited
programs. Several years ago, acting in part on the theory that one has to pre-
serve “library” in order to offer library-related RA courses, I put aside
thoughts of writing about RA to join the ranks of those researching and pub-
lishing articles asserting that it was intellectually questionable and often
misleading to argue that everything libraries do can be subsumed under the
rubric of “information” (Crowley 1998, 1999b; Crowley and Brace 1999).
Academics such as Sharon Baker, Mary K. Chelton, Kathleen de la Peña
McCook, Catherine Sheldrick Ross, Kenneth Shearer, and Wayne A.
Wiegand were already writing fundamentally important articles on RA.
However, Mary K. Chelton and Wayne A. Wiegand seemed to be shoulder-
ing the larger burden of defending libraries within ALA-accredited profes-
sional education. With my background, I felt obligated to help.
Here we are talking about fundamentals. If the American Library Asso-
ciation ceases to enforce the provision of “library” education within library
and information science or information science programs, most arguments
regarding courses devoted to readers’ advisory services—or even individual
class sessions on RA—will become moot. There will be simply be no place
in the curriculum for such instruction when separate offerings in public, aca-
demic, and school library administration/services are subsumed under ge-
neric classes dealing with the programs of “information organizations.” Such
an approach serves to free instructional time for the teaching of new informa-
tion courses that happen to be more valued by faculty without a continuing li-
brary connection. Among the many reasons why this approach represents
unproductive graduate education is the fact that it ignores what researchers
have learned about the context-related or tacit knowledge of expert practitio-
ners. Homogenized courses, classes that do not recognize the differences in
context among the various library and information organizations, inevitably
concentrate on “academic problems [that] are typically unrelated to an indi-
vidual’s ordinary experience” (Sternberg, Wagner, Williams, and Horvath
1995; Crowley 1999a). They are, in short, “unreal.”
Adding Adult Readers Advisory

Services to the Curriculum
How did the teaching of RA come to Dominican University? Again, if
this section presents an unusual number of details, it is only because I want
to help practitioners gain a greater understanding of the worlds in which li-
brary and information faculty must fashion their careers. These worlds
make certain demands on faculty, demands that we must understand—and
address—if the library community is to expand the opportunities for RA
education at the graduate level.
My “faculty” involvement with RA started on a spring day in 1997
when I was still a first-year assistant professor. I was walking by the GSLIS
administrative offices when I saw then-Dean Peggy Sullivan in intense dis-
cussion with Ann Carlson, our expert on youth services and literature.
Peggy appeared to be troubled. Looking past Ann, she caught my eye and
waved me into her office. Thirty minutes later, I was back at my desk. My
ongoing concerns about student advising, retention, publication, and work-
ing on my next class were now overshadowed by the question of where I was
going to find the time to design a new course in readers’ advisory service.
Years later, I am quite pleased to have been “drafted” into RA. In any
given semester LIS 763 Readers’ Advisory Services can be the most enjoy-
able—and the most intellectually challenging—of the courses I am teach-
ing. I also believe that it is a course in which I can make the greatest
difference on the future direction of the library profession. In the spring of
1997, however, RA seemed to represent only more work in an already
crowded schedule.
In retrospect, to mangle a traditional romance genre cliché, the stars
seemed to be aligned in precisely the right order to add a course in RA to the
curriculum of Dominican University’s GSLIS. First, the university has a
strong reputation for educating librarians to meet the reading needs of chil-
dren and young adults. It was known that we were interested in people and
reading. Second, Dean Peggy Sullivan, a renowned public librarian, aca-
demic leader, professional administrator, and storyteller, was completing
her last year of a two-year term as head of the GSLIS program. Fortunately,
Peggy’s support for “library” programs has been maintained and extended by
her successor, Dean Prudence Dalrymple. Third, the Dominican University
GSLIS affiliate program at the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, Minnesota,
for the first time was actually offering a trial course on readers’ advisory ser-
vices, cotaught by Colleen Coghlan and Geraldine B. King in its spring 1997
session. Fourth, I had been hired the previous summer to fill a traditional “pub-
lic library” faculty position. Despite the added work involved, I was already
philosophically inclined to agree when Peggy—because Ann already han-
dled children’s and YA literature—asked me to offer a trial version of the
adult readers’ advisory services course in the fall 1997 semester.
However, beneath a fairly placid surface a number of issues were in
play. Although the program offered by Dominican University GSLIS in the
Chicago-metropolitan area and the affiliated College of St. Catherine in St.
Paul, Minnesota—known locally as St. Kate’s—are technically the same, it
is one thing to start a class at an affiliate and quite another to address curric-
ulum issues at a program’s main campus. To put it bluntly, several Chi-
cago-area faculty had significant concerns about a course in RA. They had
read the literature, observed its apparent concentration on technique, and
wondered whether RA could support a respectable research agenda in an
information age. Although these arguments were delivered in one-to-one
and small-group discussions on the River Forest campus, I believe that they
reflect sentiments that will need to be addressed whenever RA practitioners
pressure any ALA-accredited program to offer a similar course.
Planning the RA Course

As with many LIS programs, Dominican University’s GSLIS does not
reduce faculty workloads when a professor is asked to create a new course.
Instead, our tradition is for professors to do the necessary work on top of their
regular duties. An undiminished course load and the necessity of teaching in
at least one of our two summer sessions because of the Chicago area’s cost of
living meant I had only a limited amount of time to design the RA class. That
effort also included putting in place the necessary infrastructure, including
print library resources and access to databases such as NoveList and What
Do I Read Next? In order to (a) alleviate the doubts of senior faculty regard-
ing the suitability of a course in RA and (b) address concerns about a trial
course developed in St. Paul, which the majority of the GSLIS Council (the
body ultimately responsible for adding courses to the GSLIS syllabus)
could not observe, I decided not to follow the St. Kate’s syllabus. Instead,
while borrowing useful ideas from St. Kate’s, I drew on a larger spectrum
and adapted, with permission, from the syllabi of the few related courses
that I could identify in other ALA-accredited programs.3 I also decided to
seek the advice of a planning group of RA professionals who were working
in public libraries in Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin.
Unfortunately, bringing practitioners into the development of the RA
course led to unexpected criticism from several colleagues whom I greatly
respect. As my fellow faculty reminded me, the right to develop our own
courses is cherished by all university faculty worthy of the name. Summed
up by the German word Lehrfreiheit, this freedom to teach and research al-
lows faculty to (1) pursue “investigations wherever they might lead,” (2)
draw from research “whatever conclusions were warranted,” and (3) dissem-
inate the results “through teaching or publication without hindrance or inter-
ference from external authorities” (Lucas 1994, 172). Such freedom in
dissemination clearly includes crafting the syllabus for a new course
(Crowley in press). Some of my colleagues stressed that, in bringing practi-
tioners so strongly into the course development process, I was raising issues
of academic freedom that potentially affected all GSLIS faculty members.
The meeting with practitioners, recruited through requests for volun-
teers placed on mailing lists such as Fiction_L and Libref_L and formalized
as the Readers’ Advisory Course Planning Committee, took place on
Thursday, June 12, 1997. Members of the committee who participated at
the meeting or who provided postmeeting follow-up included Tina Hubert,
Merle Jacob, Roberta S. Johnson, Leslie Kuizema, Gary Warren Niebuhr,
Ricki Nordmeyer, Lela Jones Olszewski, Anne Paradise, Joyce Saricks, and
Debra Walker. [Saricks and Johnson contributed Chapters 9 and 11, respec-
tively, to this book.] As readers will note, the membership of the committee
included national leaders in RA. Also present, lending both her expertise
and the support of her office, was Dean Peggy Sullivan.
As it developed, the meeting proved to be both a source of needed in-
formation and an opportunity for practitioners to reflect on the present sta-
tus of RA within their institutions, in nearly all cases public libraries. There
was general agreement that RA was still fighting for equal treatment with
reference services, and not always successfully. After the meeting one par-
ticipant communicated to me that she felt those present were clearly “very
demanding about what they thought were musts in the course.” Although
expressed with good humor, the “very demanding” observation is almost an
understatement. At several points it became necessary to gently point out to
the committee members that, despite their quite valuable input, course de-
velopment is a faculty-driven process. The final responsibility for design-
ing the course rested with the instructor. In this context, for example, I
insisted that the class would deal extensively with reading theory, as well as
the history of reading in American culture, and would include nonfiction,
specifically history, biography, self-help, and inspirational books within
the definition of RA.
Although Dominican University’s Crown Library changed its policy
in the year 2000, the RA course came into existence in 1997, a time when
the library could not allocate the resources necessary to support a new
course with potentially unlimited demands for resources. The library, how-
ever, would purchase or subscribe to the tools necessary to access genre and
other fiction. Tools for using nonfiction, such as the Illinois Online catalog,
were on hand. In general, since genre fiction and nonfiction are readily
available, students had easy access to materials required for the course.
However, it was also necessary for me to spend July and August of 1997
writing, telephoning, faxing, and e-mailing publishers to request the dona-
tion of a spectrum of fiction and nonfiction genres, as well as hard copy and
online reference material, even as I developed and refined the course sylla-
bus. (Note: A generic version of the LIS 763 Readers’ Advisory Services
syllabus, supplied for the assistance of those who might be planning or agi-
tating for RA courses, is appended to this chapter.) These donated materi-
als, accessed through the library Web page, added to the library collection,
or kept in cardboard boxes in my office, are heavily used by students in the
class. They also serve as useful examples for class discussions. However,
developing the support collections and refining the class syllabus required
months that I had originally planned to use writing articles for publication.
This sort of time allocation is often possible at a teaching university such as
Dominican. On the other hand, it may be impossible for an untenured fac-
ulty member trying to make a career in programs where research is the pri-
ority emphasis for decisions on retention and promotion.
Since 1997 I have asked my graduate assistants to write letters to pub-

lishers asking for donated copies of works in RA areas that I want to em-
phasize in succeeding years. In the past, on the recommendation of the
planning committee, securing materials for gay and lesbian literature was a
priority. Currently, inspirational literature, both fiction and nonfiction, has
become an area for development. Future plans include trying to build up re-
sources for the African-American and Latino genres. As noted earlier, in
the year 2000 Dominican University’s Crown Library changed its policies
and plans to establish a “Popular Materials Collection.” This change was
facilitated through a multipurpose grant to the GSLIS from the Illinois State
Library. The creation of this multigenre collection, combing both classics
and more recent materials, is expected to limit my own need to solicit do-
nated works from publishers.
Over the next year, both the Dominican University programs at St.
Kate’s and at River Forest offered Readers’ Advisory Services on an exper-
imental basis. In 1998, on behalf of Colleen Coghlan, Geraldine B. King,
and myself, I carried the course to the Dominican University GSLIS Cur-
riculum Committee. After receiving a favorable recommendation at the
committee level, the course was approved by the full GSLIS Council and
added to the curriculum. It has been offered in St. Paul and in the Chicago
area ever since.
Conflicting Cultures
In an April 1997 Fiction_L posting, Ricki Nordmeyer of the Skokie
Public Library recalled that the Chicago-area Adult Reading Roundtable
(ARRT) “sent a letter to all of the library schools in the country emphasiz-
ing the need for Reader’s Advisory coursework in their MLS programs and
offering to suggest names of those who could help them develop such a cur-
riculum.” According to Nordmeyer, ARRT “heard from only 3 or 4 of
them, most of which felt that they were already addressing that need”
(Nordmeyer 1997). There are a number of possible reasons for this lack of
response, and most will be discussed later in this chapter.
For now it is sufficient to stress that there are no longer “library
schools” in the United States and Canada. From the library perspective,
American Library Association-accredited programs are, at best, schools of
library and information science where “library,” “information,” and even
“archives” exist more or less as partners. At their worst, again from a library
perspective, the more extreme versions of information programs seem to
tolerate library education only because library students represent a reliable
source of tuition revenue. In state-assisted institutions, tuition dollars from
future librarians and other students are often matched by a state subsidy.
But tuition dollars and state subsidy funds based on library enrollment do
not have to be spent on library-related courses and increasingly are not. The
point cannot be stressed strongly enough. We now live in an “information”
world, and readers’ advisory services supporters seeking courses in
ALA-accredited institutions had better learn the insider rules if they want to
have any chance at all of securing RA-relevant education. (Recent evidence
of the dominance of “information” over “library” can be found in Associa-
tion for Library and Information Science Education [2000].)
Understanding the Research and

Publication Imperative
In a recent advertisement for a faculty search, the University of Wash-
ington stressed that it “continues to engage in a major transformation and
expansion of its Information School (formerly known as the School of Li-
brary and Information Science)” and asserted that it was “committed to cre-
ating one of the top information schools in the world.” To advance this
effort, the “Information School” was looking for candidates evidencing
“cutting-edge research and teaching excellence in one or more of the fol-
lowing areas”:
Computer networking, computer-supported cooperative work,

database management systems, data mining, distributed sys-
tems, embedded systems, human-computer interaction, infor-
mation retrieval, information visualization, markup languages,
metadata, multimedia, network information discovery and re-
trieval, participatory design, tangible user interfaces, telecommu-
nications, ubiquitous computing, user interface design, and
system design.
The University of Washington is not alone in its emphasis on concerns

that seem to be directed at a world entirely distinct from the working lives
of readers’ advisors. We could cite many other instances. For example, at
the same time the University of Washington posting appeared, the Univer-
sity of Wisconsin-Madison (UWM) School of Library and Information
Studies announced that it was also seeking new faculty. In its advertise-
ment, UWM revealed that it sought faculty interested in “information pol-
icy; transborder data flow; information economy; science communication;
intellectual property; electronic publishing; ‘underground’ use of technolo-
gies; effects of technology on ethnic cultures; the interaction between tech-
nology and both individuals and groups.”
In discussing the effect of the movement of ALA-accredited pro-
grams away from “library,” it is important to review the impact that this
transformation may have on the lives of individual faculty. First, new fac-
ulty are more likely to be recruited from other disciplines. Even if ap-
pointed from the new ALA-accredited information programs, such faculty
are increasingly unlikely to have been educated in areas relevant to RA. Sec-
ond, the scholarship and publications of such faculty, as revealed in their dis-
sertations and early publications, are not likely to address RA issues. Third,
when hired to teach and research course areas similar to those sought by
Washington and Wisconsin-Madison, new faculty members, even if inter-
ested, are unlikely to be able to fit RA into their teaching. This is because
many graduate faculty teach as few as two courses a semester. With such a
limited teaching load, these faculty simply cannot shoehorn RA into sched-
ules dominated by courses in information visualization and transborder
data flow.
At institutions with less of a research emphasis, such as Dominican
University, faculty teach three courses a semester. This provides a little
more flexibility for the teaching of RA. However, in order to remain com-
petitive and responsive to their markets, Dominican University and its
counterparts must also provide courses to meet the emerging needs of the
information and knowledge management communities.
Further Obstacles to Creating RA Courses

In addition to a diminished interest in traditional library issues by the
information culture, which is increasingly prioritized in ALA-accredited
programs, supporters of RA face two obstacles that serve to distance the
area even from faculty who might otherwise prize a library connection.
First, RA is perceived, albeit incorrectly, as an effective technique lacking
both educational and theoretical justification. Second, and more accurately,
RA lacks an adequate faculty rewards system.
Technique and Theory in the University and RA

For more than 130 years, American higher education has taught an in-
creasingly wider spectrum of courses and offered an expanding range of de-
grees largely on the basis of a fundamentally important assertion of Charles
W. Eliot, later to become a well-known president of Harvard University.
According to Eliot,
It cannot be said too loudly or too often, that no subject of human in-
quiry can be out of place in the programme of a real university. It is
only necessary that every subject should be taught at the university
on a higher plane than elsewhere. (1869, 215–16)
Although Eliot’s dictum lays a firm foundation for teaching RA

courses in ALA-accredited programs, its implementation encounters a
number of very practical limitations. Even if adequate faculty time is avail-
able, practitioners need to understand that contemporary professors consid-
ering teaching and researching RA are likely to translate Eliot’s
nineteenth-century “taught at the university on a higher plane than elsewhere”
into a number of twenty-first-century questions. These questions are likely
to include “Is RA capable of sustaining a research program with adequate
funding and appropriate recognition?” and “Will teaching RA help me
achieve promotion and tenure?”
Both time constraints and previous research commitments prevented
me from contacting ALA-accredited programs to ask why RA is or is not
taught. [See Chapter 2 for a survey of RA education in ALA-accredited
programs.] However, as indicated by Ricki Nordmeyer’s discussion of the
unfruitful ARRT survey of library schools (earlier in this chapter), it seems
unlikely that the effort would have produced many useful data (Nordmeyer
1997). Few ALA-accredited programs will openly admit that they slight li-
brary issues in their information environments. Additionally, no one below
the rank of dean or director can force a faculty member to complete a survey
questionnaire. If the faculty member is a full professor with tenure, such
pressure may even be counterproductive. In lieu of the data such a survey
may or may not supply, I first analyze an in-print assertion from a practitio-
ner-turned-vendor-representative and trainer who maintains a leadership
position within RA. The quotation addresses the historic dilemma of
whether to judge the quality of works customers or patrons read. Then I ap-
ply “internal” understandings of how higher education works to demon-
strate why the view he asserts is (a) problematic in light of the known
practice of RA and (b) off-putting to potential RA educators.
Writing in North Carolina Libraries, Duncan Smith observed:
It is both difficult and dangerous to speculate about which texts meet

the highest need or which serve the highest purpose. To do so would
involve judging not only the value of the texts, but also the worth of
the individuals who read them. Both types of judgment are inappro-
priate for a democratic society and for a profession with democratic
ideals. (1992, 205)
From my experience in discussing RA with numerous current and fu-

ture practitioners, I can feel fairly safe in asserting that Smith’s comments
are representative of the views of many in the field. However, they do not cap-
ture crucial aspects of a reality where RA practitioners make and often fol-
low judgments regarding book quality on a daily basis. For example, Diana
Tixier Herald’s Genreflecting, another class text, discusses “awards”

throughout its chapters (Herald 2000). Awards, by definition, represent
some judgment of quality, however defined. Additionally, mailing lists
such as Fiction_L bring RA recommendations, often involving assertions
of quality, on a near-daily basis. Finally, to address the most fundamental
issue Smith mentioned, informed judgments regarding the value of texts
and the worth of people are fully compatible with both democratic ideals
and experience. The pragmatic philosopher and educational theorist John
Dewey, whose commitment to popular sovereignty was second to none,
stressed that the future of democracy itself is dependent “upon freeing and
perfecting the processes of inquiry and of dissemination of their conclu-
sions” (Dewey 1984, 365). For Dewey and other pragmatists, effective
public decisions are informed decisions. To declare areas of RA inappropri-
ate for faculty and practitioner investigations is to impoverish the quality of
the very discussions necessary to advance readers’ advisory programs in a
representative democracy.
The seeming reality that RA practitioners can both scorn and embrace
determinations of quality is not evidence of professional duplicity. Rather,
it may simply be yet another example of seemingly predictable divergence
in what Chris Argyris has termed “theories of action.” According to
Argyris, human beings hold two such theories: “There is the one that they
espouse, which is usually expressed in the form of stated beliefs and values.
Then there is the theory they actually use; this can only be inferred from ob-
serving their actions, that is, their actual behavior” (Argyris 1999, 126). At
a minimum, the real possibility that RA “as professed” is often different
from RA “as delivered” represents an interesting research topic in itself. So
does determining whether, when, and how books of certain types affect the
lives of their readers.
It is possible to make the case for teaching and researching RA and for
demonstrating why practitioners should be offered instruction in how to de-
velop, manage, and further a vital library program. However, the funda-
mental condition for offering RA courses in a university environment is
likely to be controversial for some within the practitioner communities. It
requires accepting the real possibility that readers’ advisory service is, in
part, an educational program and that, for example, an adult book discus-
sion can represent a particularly intense form of self- and group education
disguised as a recreational activity. Once practitioners accept the prospect
that RA can be an essential component of the educational mission of the
public library, school library media center, and academic library, the neces-
sary conditions for a graduate course start falling into place.4 Ignore the ed-
ucational component of RA and it becomes a matter of technique that is best
taught in a workshop environment.
The equation is quite simple. To the same degree that RA substitutes

ideology for inquiry and to the extent that it denies the right of scholars
and practitioners to analyze and judge both the quality of reading materi-
als and the effects of reading on readers, it is distanced from the sphere of
the university.
Readers’ Advisory and the Faculty Rewards System

Writing in the October 27, 2000, issue of the Chronicle of Higher Edu-
cation, Wayne A. Wiegand discusses the “shame” of five thousand or so
new graduates of American Library Association-accredited programs who
are unable to understand the needs of readers when they take jobs in “pub-
lic, school, and academic libraries whose patrons use them chiefly to get
reading material.” [See Chapter 1 for Wiegand’s discussion of this issue.]
For Wiegand, these professional limitations seem to be directly related to a
commitment by such programs to hiring professors with interests in “teach-
ing skills and research expertise in information technologies” (Wiegand
2000, B20). Although I agree with Wiegand, I am also aware that the move
away from both libraries and reading is the result of a spectrum of causes,
including the lure of an “information economy,” the striving of nonlibrary
professors in ALA-accredited programs to remake their schools in the im-
age of their home disciplines, and the historic efforts of faculty to escape
the control of practitioners (Crowley 1999b). The world of ALA education
has changed, and it is not going back. The problem now becomes how to
maximize library concerns—including RA—in ALA-accredited programs
that privilege “information.” In this effort we can follow, with profit, the re-
minder of the Ohio Board of Regents, published in its Report of the Re-
gents’ Advisory Committee on Faculty Workload Standards and Guidelines:
February 18, 1994, that faculty gravitate “toward those activities that…[are]
more highly valued and rewarded” (Ohio Board of Regents 1994). Re-
stated, supporters of RA must ensure that faculty in ALA-accredited pro-
grams find it to their advantage—in terms of their academic careers—to
teach and research in the area of readers’ advisory services. This is not go-
ing to be an easy task. And there are no guarantees regarding the likelihood
of success.
Tactics for Securing RA-Relevant Education

I must stress that pleas for creating RA courses based on shared values
and common histories are unlikely to elicit much response from today’s
ALA-accredited programs. For such programs, the “library” world has di-
minished to a subset of the information universe. Increasingly, faculty who
are educating future librarians have little or no library experience, and
many even lack library-related degrees. More university funding and out-
side grants than ever before are becoming available to ALA-programs be-
cause of their new information emphasis. University administrators
interested in their share of a trillion-dollar information economy are approv-
ing new faculty positions. In this somewhat negative library context, I sug-
gest the following tactics, listed in a roughly increasing order of difficulty.
1. State associations can provide seed money for an in-state ALA-
accredited program to develop a course in RA. Such support could
enable a full-time faculty member—who might otherwise have to
teach in a summer session for financial reasons—to create the new
course. Even if an adjunct or part-time instructor then does the actual
teaching of RA, a full-time professor will have had the responsibility
for developing it. In the academic context, a course is usually deemed
more valuable if taught, or at least developed, by a full-time professor.
2. State associations might negotiate with their in-state ALA-accredited
program to arrange for an out-of-state program with one or more RA-
related courses to educate local students through telecommunicated
or Web-based technology.
3. Relevant divisions within ALA and state library associations might
allocate their own funds or secure outside support for grants to Ph.D.
students willing to do a dissertation in the area of readers’ advisory
services. At least in their early years as professors, such students are
likely to draw on their dissertations for scholarly and other RA arti-
cles. In addition, they might volunteer to teach RA—or support the
teaching of a course by a part-time instructor—when appointed to po-
sitions in ALA-accredited programs.
4. Practitioners could work with ALA-accredited programs to secure
funding to create endowed chairs that are dedicated to studying the
complex interactions among, for example, publishers, libraries, li-
brarians, books, booksellers, and the many reading publics.
5. RA practitioners might join forces with other librarians to force
changes in the standards for accrediting ALA programs to require the
teaching of certain library courses, including RA. Because ALA-ac-
creditation has value for numerous students through either state laws
or library traditions, this might actually work. However, there is likely
to be a price. Some universities might give up accreditation if it re-
quires the diversion of faculty time and other resources from more
profitable “information” to less lucrative “library” concerns.
6. Readers’ advisors and other library practitioners could work with lo-
cal universities to create new ALA-accredited programs with a
greater library emphasis. However, unless ALA accreditation re-
quirements are also changed in a more “library” direction, such new
programs will also face the temptation of minimizing library while
educating for the wealth-producing information environment.
A Basic Readers Advisory Syllabus

A basic version of my LIS 763 Readers’ Advisory Services syllabus is
provided as an attachment to this chapter. Although RA, as it is practiced in
public, school, and academic libraries is highly context-specific, certain
principles regarding reading, culture, the fluid nature of genres, and the uni-
fying role of story across fiction and nonfiction boundaries seem to have a
remarkable resilience.
Conclusions
This chapter, written by a librarian turned academic, recounts a pro-
cess that happened through a combination of luck, professional experience,
personal interest, and the enthusiasm and cooperation of many RA practi-
tioners. The result was LIS 763 Readers’ Advisory Services, a course taken
by students in both the Chicago-area and St. Paul components of Domini-
can University’s GSLIS since 1997. Throughout, I have stressed the point
that awareness of differences, in effect a realistic knowledge of the bridge-
able gulf that separates the demands of the academic world and the require-
ments of off-campus contexts, is absolutely essential for those seeking to
establish RA-appropriate education at ALA-accredited institutions. This
consciousness needs to be combined with an understanding that the di-
minishing power of the historic library ties between professors and practi-
tioners cannot compete with either changing academic demands or the
pull of an information world. When we combine such realism with the
Ohio Board of Regents’ reminder that faculty respond best when activities
are “highly valued and rewarded,” we can make real progress in achieving
RA education.
Notes
1. These categories were from index cards filled out by students and in-
formation obtained from in-class and other discussions held since
1997.
2. Saricks’s now repudiated remarks limiting adult RA in the public li-

brary to fiction are found in Saricks and Brown (1997, 1). During her
last appearance as a guest lecturer in my class, Saricks gave me per-
mission to share with others her change of mind on RA and nonfic-
tion. [See Chapter 12, in which Burgin explores nonfiction RA.]
3. Syllabi and other assistance were received from Lorna Peterson
(SUNY Buffalo) and, through her, Helen Huguenor Lyman and
Linda Lucas Walling (University of South Carolina) and Bill Summers
(Florida State University). In addition, because she was in the Chicago
area meeting with a coauthor, I was able to spend a Sunday brunch
picking the mind of Sharon (Shay) Baker of the University of Iowa.
4. The laws of the State of Illinois, for example, allow for the creation of
public libraries as “local public institutions of general education for
citizens” (Illinois Library Association, Illinois Library Laws in Ef-
fect, January 1997 (1997), 75 ILCS: 16/1–10).
References
Argyris, Chris. 1999. Tacit Knowledge and Management. In Tacit Knowl-
edge in Professional Practice, ed. Robert J. Sternberg and Joseph A.
Horvath, 123–40. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE).
2000. Educating Library and Information Science Professionals for a
New Century: The KALIPER Report- Executive Summary. Reston,
VA: ALISE. (KALIPER stands for the Kellogg-ALISE Information
Professions and Education Renewal project.)
Coles, Robert. 1989. The Call of Stories. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Crowley, Bill. 1996. Redefining the Status of the Librarian in Higher Edu-
cation. College and Research Libraries 57: 113–21.
———. 1997. The Dilemma of the Librarian in Canadian Higher Educa-
tion. Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science 22: 1–18.
———. 1998. Dumping the “Library.” Library Journal 120 (July): 48–49.
———. 1999a. Building Useful Theory: Tacit Knowledge, Practitioner
Reports, and Culture of LIS Inquiry. Journal of Education for Library
and Information Science 40: 282–95.
———. 1999b. The Control and Direction of Professional Education.
Journal of the American Society for Information Science 50: 1127–35.
———. In press. Building Useful Theory: Enhancing the Research Effec-
tiveness of Faculty, Consultants, and Practitioners. Metuchen, NJ:
Scarecrow Press.
Crowley, Bill, and Bill Brace. 1999. A Choice of Futures: Is It Libraries

Versus Information? American Libraries 30 (April): 76–77, 79.
Dewey, John. 1984. The Public and Its Problems. In John Dewey: The
Later Works, 1925–1953, Volume 2: 1925–1927, ed. Jo Ann
Boydston, 235–372. Carbondale and Edwardsville, IL: Southern Illi-
nois University Press.
Eliot, Charles W. 1869. The New Education: Its Organization (Part 1). At-
lantic Monthly 23 (February): 215–16.
Herald, Diana Tixier. 2000. Genreflecting, 5th ed. Englewood, CO: Li-
braries Unlimited.
Lucas, Christopher J. 1994. American Higher Education: A History. New
York: St. Martin’s Press.
Nordmeyer, Ricki. 1997. RE: Fiction in Libraries. Posting to Fiction_L.
Monday, April 7, 1997, 09:16:58–0500 (CDT).
Ohio Board of Regents. 1994. Report of the Regents’ Advisory Committee
on Faculty Workload Standards and Guidelines: February 18, 1994.
(URL: http://summit.bor.ohio.gov.plandocs.workload.html [accessed
March 24, 1999])
Shearer, Kenneth. 1996. Reflections on the Findings and Implications for
Practice. In Guiding the Reader to the Next Book, ed. Kenneth
Shearer, 169–83. New York: Neal-Schuman.
Smith, Duncan. 1992. All Readers Their Books: Providing Access to Popu-
lar Fiction. North Carolina Libraries 50 (Winter): 204–7.
Sternberg, Robert J., Richard K. Wagner, Wendy M. Williams, and Joseph
A. Horvath. 1995. Teaching Common Sense. American Psychologist
50: 914.
Wiegand, Wayne A. 2000. Librarians Ignore the Value of Stories. Chroni-
cle of Higher Education 47 (October 27): B20.
Attachment: Core RA Syllabus

LIS 763-04-01 Readers Advisory Services
Dominican University Graduate School of Library
and Information Science (GSLIS)
River Forest, Illinois
Sample Syllabus [circa 2001]
Instructor: Bill Crowley, Associate Professor, GSLIS
Overview: Dominican University offers a basic readers advisory

course titled LIS 763-04-01 Readers Advisory Services. Due to a sense that
the term is evolving, a decision was made in 1997 by the then dean and
present instructor to eliminate the apostrophe in “Readers” and ignore any
complaints from those who believe it is too soon to make such a change.
TEXTS
Abbott, Lee K. 1995. “Twenty Things Good Stories Have in Common.”
Impromptu: A Newsletter 12, no. 2 (Autumn): 1–5 (Syllabus—Appen-
dix E).
Adult Reading Round Table Steering Committee (Illinois). ARRT Genre
Fiction List: A Self-Evaluation Bibliography for Fiction Librarians.
Balcom, Ted. 1992. Book Discussions for Adults: A Leader’s Guide. Chi-
cago: American Library Association.
Crowley, Bill. 1999. “Building Useful Theory: Tacit Knowledge, Practitio-
ner Reports, and the Culture of LIS Inquiry.” Journal of Education for
Library and Information Science 40 (Fall): 282–95.
Discussion book (selected by the book discussion leader each semester)
Herald, Diana Tixier. Genreflecting: A Guide to Reading Interests in Genre
Fiction (Latest edition).
[Payn, James]. 1864. “The Blessedness of Books.” Chambers’s Journal of
Popular Literature, Science, and Art, September 10: 577–79.
Saricks, Joyce G., and Brown, Nancy. Readers’ Advisory Service in the
Public Library (Latest edition).
Sources of Reading Theory

In addressing reading theory, the course draws on a number of
sources, including A. J. Appleyard, SJ, Becoming a Reader: The Experi-
ence of Fiction from Childhood to Adulthood (New York: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 1990); R. Patton Howell, ed., Beyond Literary: The Second
Gutenberg Revolution (San Francisco: Saybrook, 1989); and Victor Nell,

Lost in a Book: The Psychology of Reading for Pleasure (New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press, 1988). Numerous other works on reading in general
and reading in the genres also provide sources of insight for various class
discussions.
Writing Guide
Kate L. Turabian’s Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and
Dissertations (Latest edition). Useful for both citations and English gram-
mar. A brief, electronic interpretation of Turabian’s Manual is available at
the University Libraries of the University of Southern Mississippi. How-
ever, this electronic resource cannot help with issues involving English
grammar. http://www.lib.usm.edu/~instruct/guides/turabian.html
Overview
LIS 763 Readers Advisory Services is a graduate course offered by a
professional school. By design, the content is set at a higher level than nor-
mally found in library, information, and media workshops or community
college offerings. In combining practical instruction in techniques and tools
with equally relevant research and theory, Readers Advisory Services tries
to live up to the spirit of the following:
The Intrinsic Value of Reading
I had hundreds of books under my skin already. Not selected read-

ing, all of it. Some of it could be called trashy. I had been through
Nick Carter, Horatio Alger, Bertha M. Clay, and the whole slew of
dime novelists in addition to some really constructive reading. It was
help, because acquiring the reading habit early is the important thing.
Taste and natural development will take care of the rest later on. (Zora
Neale Hurston, Dust Tracks on a Road, Lippincott 1942; reprint,
New York: Harper, 1996, 125. Citation refers to the reprint edition.)
Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960) was a famed African-American

novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist. Her fictional and factual work in-
cludes Their Eyes Were Watching God, Jonah’s Gourd Vine, Tell My
Horse, and Mules and Men.
On the Relevance of Theory

to the Real World
Efficient practice precedes the theory of it; methodologies presup-

pose the application of the methods, of the critical investigation of
which they are the products. It was because Aristotle found himself
and others reasoning now intelligently and now stupidly and it was
because Izaak Walton [The Compleat Angler] found himself and
others angling sometimes effectively and sometimes ineffectively
that both were able to give to their pupils the maxims and prescrip-
tions of their arts. (Gilbert Ryle, The Concept of Mind, London:
Hutchinson, 1949/1958, 30)
Gilbert Ryle (1900–1976) of the University of Oxford was a leader in

“ordinary language philosophy,” which holds that many profound philo-
sophical problems can be solved by returning to the meaning of language as
it is spoken in everyday life.
Computer Accounts
Information is provided on securing a Dominican University e-mail
account.
Basic Electronic Resources

Fiction_L (instructions on subscribing and unsubscribing)
Home page of Genreflecting author Diana Tixier Herald:
http://www.Genreflecting.com/
NoveList (instructions on the use of the university’s subscription)
What Do I Read Next? is on the Web at (information supplied)
The Reader’s Advisor
Fiction Catalog (latest hard copy and electronic edition)
Needle in a Cyberstack, in particular the following pages
“Popular Fiction” http://members.home.net/albeej/pages/
PopularFiction.html
“Books and Book Reviews” http://members.home.net/
albeej/pages/Books.html
What’s Next? from the Kent District Library (Michigan) helps you search
adult fiction in a series. http://www.kentlibrary.lib.mi.us/whats_next.htm
Course Description
A course on adult fiction and nonfiction reading. Includes the relation-
ships of readers advisory (RA) with reference and other library services, re-
search on adult reading and learning, and the roles of popular reading in an
information society. Students will also gain experience in adult book dis-
cussion. Sessions on fiction genres (mystery, science fiction, romance,
Western, etc.), nonfiction (self-help, biography, and history), and links
among the fiction and nonfiction categories.
Goal of the Course

LIS 763 is designed to blend theory and practice to enhance student
expertise in meeting the fiction and nonfiction reading needs of adult li-
brary users. To this end, it aims to strengthen students’ written and verbal
communication effectiveness. Course activities have been devised to en-
courage the student to develop a philosophy of RA service grounded in an
understanding of the roles of reading in past and contemporary cultures, as
well as a commitment to effective, customer-centered service.
Course Objectives
LIS 763 Readers Advisory Services has several overlapping objectives:
• To introduce students to the theory and practice of meeting adult
reading needs through adult readers advisory services (RA)
• To explore adult RA as a critical aspect of the educational roles of
public, high school, and academic libraries
• To introduce students to basic reference tools for adult RA
• To explore the historical development of adult American reading
tastes
• To explore evaluating, selecting, and utilizing RA reference materi-
als and other methods of facilitating access to fiction and nonfiction
works sought by library customers
• To identify ongoing issues in delivering RA services
• To explore RA’s place in a hierarchy privileging information and
other educational programs
• To demonstrate the value of nonfiction in RA service

• To provide basic training in leading a book discussion group
• To explore such ethical issues as requiring staff to read on personal
time
• To discern internal and external relationships among RA librarians
and other library staff
• To understand factors that affect planning and budgeting for RA
services
• To explore use of the Web for enhancing effective RA service
• To investigate marketing and other approaches for increasing the
perceived value of RA services to potential customers within and
without the library
Assignments and Grading

Writing and Analysis Assignment:
Three Typed Pages (Minimum)
The first assignment will involve a close reading of “The Blessedness
of Books” contained in the December 10, 1864 issue of Chambers’s Jour-
nal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art. Drawing on Saricks and
Brown, Readers’ Advisory Service in the Public Library, 2d ed., students
will describe how they will serve any, many, or all of the people described
in “The Blessedness of Books.” (Article to be distributed.)
Percentage of grade: 10%
Book Annotations and Class “Book Talks”

In addition to the class texts, students will read six (6) books. Five
books will be read in the genres and four of these five will be “book talked.”
A sixth work, will be selected by the guest book discussion leader and will
be read by the class for the book discussion. Because students tend to be
less familiar with the inspirational and gay and lesbian genres, all students
will read a work in both areas and present a book talk on one. For the most
part, students can read and book talk works in areas they select, provided
there is a rough proportionality in the number of class reports. (A) Students
are urged to read in unfamiliar genres. (B) Book talks should take about ten
(10) minutes.
Books Eligible for Book Talks

Eligible books for these assignments include (1) works listed in
Genreflecting, (2) newer titles by authors discussed in Genreflecting, (3)
works listed in NoveList or What Do I Read Next? (4) works listed in the
Fiction Catalog, (5) works on best-seller or award lists, (6) works provided
by the instructor, or (7) works otherwise approved by the instructor.
Annotations, which are to be single spaced but no more than one page
in length, will follow a slightly amended version of the outline presented on
page 88 of Saricks and Brown’s Readers’ Advisory Service in the Public Li-
brary. The addition consists of including “Relevant Nonfiction Works and
Authors” or “Relevant Fiction Works and Authors” as the last category in
the outline (Appendix A). Students may use their annotations as a prompt
during their class presentations.
Percentage of grade: 25% (5% each)
Topic Papers: Ten Typed Pages Each (Minimum)

Students will complete two topic papers. One paper will serve as the
class midterm; the other will serve as the class final. However, students will
decide for themselves which of the topic areas to write in to meet the dead-
lines for the midterm and final. All students must do a paper in Topic Area 1
(“Visit”) for either the midterm or the final. The other paper may be in
Topic Area 2 or Topic Area 3.
Topic Area 1: RA Site Visit (Required)

Students will “visit”—in person, by telephone, via e-mail, and/or
fax—one or more public, academic, high school, or other libraries offering
RA service and will write a report on these visits. The report should ad-
dress: planning for RA service, budgeting, staffing, in-service training,
hours of service, collection development, electronic (including Web sites)
or hard copy resources available, reading lists (electronic or hard copy), ex-
pectation for staff reading after official work hours, tacit knowledge of the
RA staff (see Crowley article), nature of customer base, and so on. Students
may visit as part of a group and report as a group or individually.
• Group visits must involve an actual trip to the library.
• Group reports will be marked on a group basis.
• All papers must be individual papers and will be marked on an indi-
vidual basis.
• Students are expected to make their own contacts for the inter-
view(s). However, a listing of RA librarians who have volunteered
to be interviewed is provided in Appendix B.
• Simply visiting the Web pages of one or more libraries is not suffi-
cient to meet the visit requirement. Students must communicate
electronically and/or in person with one or more real human beings!
Topic Area 2: The Social History of a Book (Bor-

rowed with Permission from Dr. Linda Walling of
the University of South Carolina)
In this option a student will seek the approval of the instructor for a
“book that had an impact.” Afterward the student will do the following:
• Read the book and evaluate it. (For example, was it as you expected
from just hearing about it or seeing the movie? If not, how was it dif-
ferent from what you expected? Who is the book’s audience? What
is its appeal?)
• Locate and read reviews of the book at the time it was written. How
was it received when it first appeared? How long did it take the book
to have an impact?
• Research the era in which the book was written (historical events,
social attitudes and values, economic situation, etc.)
• Determine what the book’s history has been since it was written. Has
it stayed in print? Is it included in literary histories and/or books on
the history of the genre? How does it compare to other books by the
author? How has it influenced other books on the subject or in the
genre?
• Discuss the impact of the book with today’s readers. What about its
possible future impact?
Topic Area 3: Is the Author Using a Formula? Is He

or She Using It Effectively?
In this option, the student will write a paper exploring how princi-
ples set forth by any author in any genre are (or are not) applied in the au-
thor’s own work or the work of another writer in the same genre. For
example, Raymond Chandler’s “The Simple Art of Murder,” published in The
Art of the Mystery Story (on reserve), describes his standards for realistic
mystery fiction. It is thus possible for a student to determine whether Chan-
dler put his own theories to work in The Big Sleep and/or The Long Goodbye.
Alternatively, a student might examine whether Chandler’s rules are of use

in understanding, for example, Sue Grafton’s K Is for Killer.
Regardless of the topic areas selected, the student will be expected to
write full ten-page papers. Any attachments and bibliographies are not
counted in the basic ten pages.
Percentage of grade: Per paper 20% (Total 40%)
Attendance and Class Participation

Quality class participation counts. Your grade may be affected if you
miss more than two sessions. However, additional absences resulting from
“acts of God”(e.g., prolonged illness, similar illness of spouse or
spousal-equivalent, child, etc., can be addressed, for example, through an
incomplete grade and makeup work).
Class Reports for Midterm or Final

Students will deliver a report, ten to fifteen minutes long, on either
their midterm or final paper. “Appendix C: Effective Public Presentations”
is the bible you should follow for the talks.
Grading Summary
Writing and analysis assignment 10%
Book annotations/class book talks 25%
Midterm topic paper 20%
Final topic paper 20%
Attendance/class participation 15%
Midterm or final presentation 10%
Total 100%
Additional Resources
Note: Appendix D provides a bibliography of works dealing with
genre fiction, book publishing, history of the book, and so on.
Class Calendar
1. This calendar is flexible, but the instructor will provide reasons for
changes. Class times, subject to negotiation over breaks, may vary.
2. At appropriate times throughout the semester the instructor will lec-
ture and lead class discussions on the history of American popular
reading since colonial times.
Class 1: Culture, Reading, Libraries,

and RA Services
Introduction and Overview
• Distribution of inspirational, frontier/western, mystery works by
instructor
• If feasible, please use Fiction Catalog (first choice for inspirational )
or NoveList (second choice) or What Do I Read Next? (third choice)
to find similar authors and related works. For locating relevant non-
fiction works, students can use any public library catalog or What
Do I Read Next?
Class 2: RA Tools and Reading Theory

Reading
Abbott, Lee K. “Twenty Things Good Stories Have in Common” (Syl-
labus—Appendix E)
Assignment
Secure an e-mail account.
Return “(1) Annotations, (2) Book Talks, (3) Midterm/Final” Form to
Instructor.
Class 3: (A) The Blessedness of Books

(B) Saricks and Brown
(C) Tacit Knowledge as Useful Theory
Reading
James Payn, “The Blessedness of Books.”
Saricks and Brown’s Readers’ Advisory Service in the Public Library.
Crowley, Bill. “Building Useful Theory: Tacit Knowledge, Practitio-
ner Reports, and the Culture of LIS Inquiry,” Journal of Education for
Library and Information Science 40 (Fall 1999): 282–95.
Assignment
Three-page paper describing, per Saricks and Brown’s Readers’ Advi-
sory Service, how you would serve any, many, or all of the people de-
scribed in “The Blessedness of Books.”
Class 4: Inspirational Literature

Reading
Inspirational book
Relevant pages in Genreflecting (Hint: not many)
Assignment
Appropriate students read book and complete a one-page annotation.
Class 5: Frontier/Western
Reading
All students read Chapter 2 (Western) in Genreflecting.
Relevant students read frontier/Western book
If it is your assignment, read frontier/Western book and complete an
annotation.
Assignment
Class 6: Mystery/Suspense/Adventure
Reading
All students read Chapter 3 (Crime) and Chapter 4 (Adventure) in
Genreflecting.
Assignment
Relevant students read book and complete a one-page annotation:
• Distribution of science fiction/fantasy/horror, romance, and nonfic-
tion/history/biography books. If possible, use NoveList (first choice
for nonfiction) or What Do I Read Next? (second choice), or Fiction
Catalog (third choice) to find similar authors and related works. For
locating relevant nonfiction works, students can use What Do I Read
Next? or any public library catalog.
Class 7: Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror Genres

Reading
All students read Chapters 6 (Science Fiction), 7 (Fantasy), and 8
(Horror) in Genreflecting.
Assignment
Class 8: Midterm Exam and Midterm

Presentations
Class 9: Romance
Reading
All students read Chapter 5 (Romance) in Genreflecting
Assignment
Class 10: Managing the RA Program

(Practitioner as Guest Instructor)
Class 11: Nonfiction/History/Biography
Reading
You can see how “history” is interwoven with the genres in
Genreflecting.
Assignment
Appropriate students read book and complete a one-page annotation:
• Distribution of gay/lesbian books. Students may use any preferred
electronic or hard copy tools.
Class 12: Gay/Lesbian

Reading
The limited material on gays and lesbians listed under the terms in
Genreflecting.
Assignment
Class 13: Leading a Book Discussion and Book

Discussion (Guest Instructor)
Class 14: Final Exam and Final Presentations
Observations by instructor.
Chapter 3—“Taught at the Universiy on a Higher Plane...” 57
Notes on the Selection of Genres

The course is predicated on the view that the boundaries among genres
are permeable, unstable, and subject to redefinition. Throughout the semes-
ter, students are encouraged to develop genres appropriate to their “local”
contexts. Depending on the instructor’s understanding of current practitioner
needs in the tristate Chicago metropolitan area, African-American, Hispanic,
small press, or other traditional or instructor-generated genres may be substi-
tuted for either the inspirational or gay/lesbian genres. Due to time limita-
tions, it is often necessary to discuss two or more genres in a given class.
Appendix A:
Required Format for Book Annotations
In the class syllabus the format for the annotations follows a slightly
amended version of the outline presented on page 88 of Saricks and
Brown’s Readers’ Advisory Service in the Public Library. The addition
consists of including “Relevant Nonfiction Works and Authors” or “Rele-
vant Fiction Works and Authors” as the last category in the outline. Follow-
ing the custom in public libraries the annotations are single spaced but no
more than one page in length.
Appendix B:
RA Personnel Who Volunteered to Be Interviewed
This appendix presents the names, addresses, e-mail listings, and voice
and fax numbers of librarians willing to be interviewed by students on RA. The
list, accumulated through periodic requests posted on Fiction_L, includes “lo-
cal” Illinois, Indiana, and Minnesota librarians, as well as volunteers from such
states as Kansas, North Carolina, New York, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and
Virginia. Additionally, the list includes RA librarians from Australia and Can-
ada. However, students are not limited to interviewing list members but may
interview personnel with RA responsibilities in a public library, academic li-
brary, or school library media center.
Students are asked to address the following areas in their interviews, oral
reports, and papers dealing with actual RA programs: planning for RA ser-
vice, budgeting, staffing, in-service training, hours of service, collection
development, available electronic (including Web sites) or hard copy re-
sources, reading lists (electronic or hard copy), expectation for staff reading
after official work hours, tacit knowledge of the RA staff (see Crowley arti-
cle), nature of customer base, and so on. Students may visit and report as a
group or individually.
Appendix C:
Effective Public Presentations
This appendix provides standard guidance on delivering public
presentations.
Appendix D:
Selected Readers Advisory Reference
Works
This appendix includes a substantial number of articles, books, and
Web sites related to RA, adult reading, and related topics.
Appendix E:
Twenty Things Good Stories Have in
Common
“Twenty Things Good Stories Have in Common” is reprinted as Ap-
pendix E with permission of its author. It appeared in the article “Lee K.
Abbott,” Impromptu 12, no. 2 (Autumn1995): 1–5 (published by the De-
partment of English, College of Humanities, Ohio State University). Lee K.
Abbott is professor of English and director of the Creative Writing Program
at Ohio State University.
CHAPTER 4
Reinventing Readers Advisory

Duncan Smith
Imagine witnessing the following scenario: A young man approaches
the library reference desk and says, “I’ve just learned that my brother has
diabetes. I’d like to learn more about it and find out what I can do to support
him. What do you suggest?” To this the librarian responds, “Oh, that’s too
bad. I’ve never had diabetes, so I don’t know anything about it.”
Most of us would be appalled if we witnessed this transaction. If we
were this librarian’s manager, we would sit her down and discuss her per-
formance. We would probably point out that it is inappropriate and against
our profession’s standards of practice to depend exclusively on our per-
sonal experiences to respond to requests for information. We might even
threaten to “write her up” and put this incident in her file. After all, we
know that the librarian should conduct an interview to learn more about the
type of information the user needed and what would be most useful in re-
sponding to the situation. Then the librarian could employ the standard
search strategies as appropriate.
As library professionals, we have models that tell us how to respond to
reference questions. We even have tools in place that help us respond to re-
quests for information. We have been trained in how to use reference
sources, how to conduct reference interviews, and how to provide reference
service. We have also learned that personal beliefs and biases have no place
in professional practice. But repeated studies reveal that readers’ advisory
falls far short of the ideals and best practices we are taught in graduate
school, just as the transaction in the earlier scenario falls short of the ideal.
59
When the question relates to helping someone find a good book to

read, the resource we most frequently use is our personal reading (Burgin
1996). This strategy frequently results in service similar in quality to that
provided in the opening scenario. For readers’ advisory service, the profes-
sion lacks the structures that have professionalized librarianship’s ap-
proach to reference work. How to answer a request for a good book to read
is not often taught in the library science curriculum. [See Chapter 2 of this
book for a survey of readers’ advisory in library science curricula.] When
we lack models, techniques, or resources or when we are unaware of their
availability, we fall back on the only model we have—our personal conver-
sations with family and friends about books. Personal recommendations
work when we have established a relationship and sufficient rapport with
the reader, but a different context exists for book-related conversations in
the library. There we rarely have the luxury of serving someone we know.
Most of our interactions are with strangers. We usually don’t know where
they grew up, their marital status, their line of work, their hopes, or their
dreams. Our ignorance is not restricted to their life stories. We rarely know
about the stories that support and nurture them. In these episodic, anony-
mous, and brief encounters, we are not likely to dispel our ignorance.
Typically, readers’ advisory interactions take place in environments
that are busy, crowded, and very public. It is difficult for patrons to share
personal reading experiences at a reference or circulation desk. In this envi-
ronment it is also difficult for staff, who are deeply engaged in the mental
gymnastics of reference work, to shift their thinking to someone who is
seeking help in finding a good book to read. Research has shown that within
the typical library environment, readers’ advisory services have failed to
fully meet readers’ needs.
Research Findings
Two unobtrusive studies support this assessment of the state of read-
ers’ advisory service in the library. Kenneth Shearer’s groundbreaking
study of readers’ advisory service in selected North Carolina libraries in-
volved students enrolled in a public library administration course at North
Carolina Central University’s School of Library and Information Sciences
entering several North Carolina public libraries with a readers’ advisory re-
quest (Shearer 1996). These students entered a library and made the follow-
ing statement: “I enjoyed Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird and would
like something like it. Can you help me?” In at least 50 percent of the cases,
the “patrons” received no assistance when they sought help in finding a
good book to read. Another 30 percent of the students were told by the li-
brarian to read book X, book Y, or book Z. One staff member recom-
mended Knowles’s A Separate Peace because she was currently reading
Chapter 4—Reinventing Readers’ Advisory 61
this book and it reminded her of Lee’s Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel. In

only 20 percent of the cases did a staff member attempt to discover some-
thing about the reader’s experience of To Kill a Mockingbird.
After they left the library, the surrogate patrons completed a question-
naire that assisted them in recording and analyzing their experience. They rated
the overall quality of their experience and considered whether they would re-
turn with a similar request to the staff person who had served them. The 50 per-
cent of the cases in which students received no service require no comment, but
an interesting finding emerges from the remaining cases. The students tended
to give high marks to those staff members who sought to find out something
about their experience of To Kill a Mockingbird. In almost every case, these
students stated that they would go back to these staff members with a similar
request, even in cases where the staff member was unable to guide the reader to
another author or title. An interesting corollary to this finding is that these stu-
dents tended to give lower marks to staff who simply directed them to titles of
no interest (A Separate Peace, for example), and they also tended to say that
they would not return to these staff members. This was true even in cases
where the students admitted that the staffs’ suggestions were appropriate.
Discussions of readers’ advisory service have tended to assume that,
like reference, the product of the service is an answer. In the case of readers’
advisory service, the answer is frequently a specific suggestion or a list of
authors and titles. One of the interesting implications of Shearer’s work is
that it suggests that this view is too narrow. Readers apparently want an op-
portunity to share their personal reading experiences. This sharing seems as
important as a reading suggestion, if not more so. Shearer’s study seems to
indicate that readers may value the conversations they have with staff as
much as the reading suggestions themselves.
Another important study documents the value that patrons place on in-
teraction with staff. In a cost-benefit analysis, a telephone survey sampled
library cardholders of the St. Louis Public Library. Registered borrowers
were asked to indicate which services they valued and to place dollar values
on them. This study found the following:
Survey respondents placed the highest value on staff assistance, a cate-

gory that accounted for nearly 40 percent of total direct user benefits,
followed by adult books (29 percent), children’s books (13 percent),
and electronic materials (12 percent).
The staff help that is so highly prized by library users is not the
perky, minimally trained, minimum-wage variety often found in shop-
ping-mall bookstores. Instead, users favor reference and reader’s advi-
sory: the ability of well-trained staff to provide accurate answers and
recommendations as to “the next best book.” (Holt and Elliott 1998)
The personalized expert service that patrons value in Holt’s study was
not found in the majority of cases in Shearer’s study of the readers’ advi-
sory service provided in North Carolina. Likewise, Anne May and col-
leagues studied readers’ advisory service in public libraries in Nassau
County on Long Island in New York (May et al. 2000). This study corrobo-
rates and expands on Shearer’s earlier work. [See Chapter 7 of this book for
more on May’s work.] May and her fellow researchers summed up their ex-
perience with the following:
Our study did not reveal any formal institutionalized RA protocol.

Rather, our findings under-scored that a non-methodical, informal,
and serendipitous response was the norm to a patron’s request for a
“good read.” This is an approach that at times serves patrons bril-
liantly but more often offers unprofessional and unsatisfactory ser-
vice. We can and must do better. (May et al. 2000, 43)
May points out that readers’ advisory resources were infrequently

consulted and that staff relied heavily on their personal reading. In cases
where the reading interests of the staff member and the user were similar,
the patron tended to receive good service. In cases where the staff mem-
ber’s personal reading did not correspond with the reader’s interest, how-
ever, the result was frequently extremely poor service.
These studies show that a gap exists between the service readers value
and the service that many librarians provide. The gap is not restricted to
readers’ advisory service. Reference exhibits a similar gap.
Both Shearer (1996) and May et al. (2000) use a methodology that was
first employed to study reference services. Crowley (1968) and Childers
(1970) found that reference librarians answered reference questions accu-
rately only 55 percent of the time. In 1985 Gers and Seward published a
study that identified six core behaviors that lead to providing accurate an-
swers to reference questions. These behaviors include (a) using open-ended
questions, (b) rephrasing or restating the patron’s responses to ensure that
the staff member understands the patron’s request, and (c) asking a fol-
low-up question such as “Does this completely answer your question?” It is
interesting to note that the behaviors Gers and Seward (ibid.) identify are all
interpersonal communication skills, skills that one would use to establish a
relationship with a user.
In order to improve reference service in the state of Maryland, where
Gers and Seward originally conducted their study, a series of workshops
was used to train public library staff in the use of these six behaviors. A fol-
low-up study found that as a result of these workshops, library staff in
Maryland began using these behaviors and reference accuracy improved
(Stephan 1988). Additional studies in Maryland and elsewhere, however,

have indicated that in order to apply these behaviors consistently, staff need
continuous and ongoing reinforcement. A recent review of this topic con-
cludes that professional performance in this area still needs improvement
(Baker and Field 2000).
The Gers and Seward study was published in Library Journal, one of
the profession’s most widely circulated professional journals, but studies
continue to appear that indicate we are still answering reference questions ac-
curately only 55 percent of the time. Attempts to remedy this have continued to
focus on (1) the need to recruit a different type of person to the profession, (2)
staff training, and (3) incorporating the behaviors into staff performance evalu-
ations. The effectiveness of these strategies is questionable because subsequent
studies point to a continuing 55 percent accuracy rate.
May’s study is filled with numerous insights into the current state of
readers’ advisory practice. She uses many quotes from the experiences of
the students involved in this study to explain the study’s findings. Two of
the more interesting statements reflect librarians’ dislike of readers’ advi-
sory transactions: “You know this is the query the reference desk dreads”
and, muttered under a librarian’s breath, “I hate this question.” Why do
readers’ advisory questions generate more dread and hatred than other
questions? The answer lies in the fact that these questions require us to
move into unknown territory.
The Roles of the Readers Advisor

Classification of reference queries is usually based on the level of ef-
fort they require and the definitiveness of the anticipated answer. Reference
departments often keep track of questions by grouping them into ready ref-
erence or research. Ready reference questions are answered quickly and
have a fairly specific answer. Librarians can answer these questions by con-
sulting a standard reference source (an almanac, for example) or directing
the patron to a particular section of the library’s collection. Research questions
require more staff time, and solutions are less defined. Examples include the
following: “I need to write a paper on Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea. Can
you help me get started?” or “I just learned that my wife has breast cancer. I
would like to learn more about it and what I can do to support her. What do you
suggest?” These questions require the staff member to probe for more informa-
tion, and the resolution of these questions may require consulting several
reference resources and referring the user to many different types of materi-
als. The solution to these questions may also involve referring users to or-
ganizations or services outside of the library itself.
Readers’ advisory service has the equivalents of ready reference and

research questions. Examples of the ready readers’ advisory would be
“Who won the Nobel Prize for literature this year?” and “Do you have any
mysteries that take place in Seattle?” One can resolve these questions by
consulting standard resources. The research readers’ advisory takes the
form of “I just read X and I am looking for something like it. Can you help
me?” (where X is a book the patron has read and enjoyed)—or in its most
open-ended form, “I need a good book to read. What do you suggest?” To
effectively respond to this question, a librarian must not only know some-
thing about books, collections, and resources but also has to understand the
reader and something about the reading process itself. Although this level
of knowledge about users and their experiences in seeking information
might be desirable, it has not received much attention in reference work. It
has not been part of the model for this service.
Regardless of whether a question is a reference question or a readers’
advisory question and regardless of whether it is a ready reference or re-
search question, librarians generally respond to it in the same way. They
tend to view their role and responsibility as that of information provider.
Not all questions are equal, however. They require different responses and
different approaches. The role that staff plays in responding to ready refer-
ence questions and research questions is different. The role that staff plays
in responding to reference questions and readers’ advisory questions is also
different. These varying types of questions may require a service stance and
a service model that are different from the reference-based, information
provider approach that dominates the profession.
In Seeking Meaning: A Process Approach to Library and Information
Services, Carol Collier Kuhlthau has identified roles for information pro-
viders who support students who are writing research papers (Kuhlthau
1993). Kuhlthau identified five different roles in her work. In the organizer
role, the staff organizes a collection for use but does not interact with the us-
ers of that collection. In the locator role, staff directs users to a specific
source or provides the answer to a specific question (ready reference). The
identifier role has staff involved in an interview process with the reader and
consulting sources in no particular order. Kuhlthau’s fourth role is advisor.
For her, advisors have a sequence in mind as they respond to a question.
There is no variance in response to the question. The focus is on having a
patterned response to a frequently asked question and on guiding the reader
through that sequence. For example, all readers who have placed John
Grisham’s most recent book on hold and want something like it to read
while they are waiting would be given the results of a search on legal thrill-
ers in standard readers’ advisory resources. These readers might also be
given a handout on how to search either the library’s catalog or a variety of
readers’ advisory resources for themselves.
The counselor is Kuhlthau’s final role. This is closest to the role re-
quired to respond to patrons’ requests for a good book to read. This role in-
volves interacting with readers about their personal experiences or needs.
In this role, the staff member is working with the users to define the nature
of their needs and then to develop strategies or solutions to meet those
needs. Continuing with the example of the John Grisham reader, the staff
member might ask the reader about the last John Grisham novel read. The
staff member would then ask the reader about the aspects of their reading
experience that were most important. These might include the fact that the
story’s pattern conforms to that of a legal thriller, that the hero is a male
lawyer, or that the story moves at a rapid pace with a focus on plot. Staff
members would then use this information to establish links to similar titles
or to authors who write legal thrillers and specifically address the reader’s
needs. They would also explain to the reader the connections that exist be-
tween the books they are suggesting and the reader’s interests. As part of
this process, staff members might explore the reader’s past reading experi-
ences so that the reader becomes more aware of what interests him about
the books that he is reading. Staff members would also explain how they
identified suggested titles and the use of any resources they consulted.
In writing about the models of readers’ advisory service that exist in
the literature, May et al. (2000) are referring to models that support some-
thing like Kuhlthau’s counselor role. This role is much more complex than
the information provider role that reference work most often exercises. The
counselor role is one that only the most dedicated, adept, and passionate
readers’ advisors employ. It is a role that few have been educated to assume
and that many may not choose to accept. It is a role that may also be very
difficult to consistently employ in today’s library context.
Best Practices
Reference service provides us with a model to use to begin to educate
ourselves to become readers’ advisors. The studies already mentioned by
Crowley, Childers, and Gers and Stephan identified not only the 55 percent
accuracy rate but also the behaviors that lead to providing accurate an-
swers. These studies also describe the development of a training protocol to
instill these behaviors in library staff and a mechanism for supporting the
ongoing use of these behaviors in the provision of reference service. A sim-
ilar process is developing for readers’ advisory service.
Smith and Mahmoodi (2000) describe the development of a compe-
tency-based readers’ advisory manual in Minnesota. This manual was
modeled after the self-assessment guides that the Minnesota Division of
Library Development and Service has been using since the late 1970s. To
develop this manual, a group of participants/observers, including practicing
librarians, library managers, library educators, and members of the general

public who were fiction readers analyzed videotapes of librarians providing
readers’ advisory service. After viewing each transaction, the group evalu-
ated the overall quality of each transaction and suggested ways to improve
it. They were asked to determine what the librarian would need to know in
order to do a better job of meeting the reader’s needs. The result of this pro-
cess was the identification of more than 130 competencies in four broad
knowledge areas. This process also illuminated some of the reasons why
performing this function in today’s library context is so challenging.
An examination of the four broad areas illustrates this point. The areas
are as follows:
• An understanding of the reader
• An understanding of the appeal of books
• A background in fiction
• An understanding of the readers’ advisory transaction
In order to meet the needs of fiction readers, library staff providing
readers’ advisory service need to understand readers. Children’s librarians
frequently learn about the developmental stages of children and how they
learn to read. Library staff working with adults have rarely received a simi-
lar education in adult development and adult reading behavior. In fact,
Wayne A. Wiegand has written that reading and the reader have virtually
disappeared from library education programs (Wiegand 1997). [See Chap-
ters 1, 2, and 3 in which Wiegand, Shearer, and Burgin and Crowley ex-
pand on this point.] The absence of this topic from library school curricula
is not exclusively the fault of the faculty or the school’s curriculum devel-
opment committee. Research on adult reading behavior has been extremely
limited. Very little information about the behavior of adult fiction readers is
available.
A notable exception is the work of Catherine Sheldrick Ross (Ross
2001). Her analysis of 194 open-ended interviews provides much interest-
ing information about how readers act and how they choose books. One sig-
nificant finding is that experienced readers may use several factors when
making a book choice. A hierarchy exists among the factors, and one factor
usually receives precedence over another. Ross gives an example of a
reader who is looking for a mystery story but also wants one with a female
detective. In this case, the factor of genre (mystery story) is given prece-
dence over the gender of the protagonist (female detective). The fact that
several factors determine reading choice makes meeting the needs of a spe-
cific reader even more challenging in the library context where an interac-
tion—if it occurs—is usually brief. The multivariate nature of reader choice
is further complicated by the fact that many readers are browsers. [See
Chapter 5 for more of Ross’s findings.] As Baker has also pointed out, the
operant definition of “browsing” is looking for something without a clear
idea of what one is looking for (Baker 1986). This means that many readers
are open to suggestion and that they may find it difficult to articulate exactly
what they are looking for. When library staff adopt the information-provider/
locator or identifier roles described by Kuhlthau, the typical role stance for
reference service, they depend on the users to clearly articulate what they are
seeking. In the case of readers’ advisory service, this may be extremely diffi-
cult for many readers unless the staff member has a framework for under-
standing readers and asks the correct open-ended questions.
The Importance of Appeal

Understanding the appeal of books is another essential element to pro-
viding effective readers’ advisory service. Joyce Saricks and Nancy Brown
have extensively developed the concept of appeal (Saricks and Brown
1997). This concept embodies thinking about the language that readers use
to describe what attracts them to books. It then applies this language to spe-
cific books to establish links that group books by the factors that draw read-
ers to them. Many readers are drawn to books of a particular genre or
subject. For example, a reader may be interested in reading novels about the
experiences of women in distant countries (Memoirs of a Geisha would be
an example of this kind of book). Saricks and Brown, however, have ex-
panded the concept of appeal beyond categories that are traditionally cov-
ered by subject headings (genre, location, time period, character, and
theme/topic) and include elements such as pacing (fast vs. slow), character-
ization (characters developed over time vs. stereotypes that we recognize
immediately), and storyline (psychological vs. action oriented).
The framework that Saricks and Brown developed is beginning to ap-
pear in some published resources: Nancy Pearl’s mainstream fiction re-
source Now Read This! uses character, language, story, and setting to group
a set of mainstream fiction titles (Pearl 1999). Saricks has continued to ex-
pand her conceptualization of the concept of appeal. In a forthcoming book,
she moves from the consideration of individual titles to the appeal elements
that dominate a genre.
The appeal factors of books and the way they relate to the effective pro-
vision of readers’ advisory service are knowledge that most staff must pick
up on their own on the job. Library education programs have paid scant atten-
tion to the study of adult fiction and its appeal. Although several schools in-
clude a course in the study of genre fiction, these courses are electives, not a
requirement. The number of library staff who have had an opportunity for the
formal, structured study of popular adult fiction is very limited. [See Chapter
2 for a survey of readers’ advisory service in library education.]
Without an understanding of readers and their motivations or an un-

derstanding of what draws readers to particular books, library staff lack a
framework for supporting readers as they navigate through their many
choices of books to read. And without these underpinnings, staff members
tend to rely on knowledge acquired through their own experience. They do
not often consider using resources as part of responding to requests for good
books to read, partly because a question posed in a manner that solicits a per-
sonal response makes it awkward for the librarian to consult outside sources.
Furthermore, the librarian may not be very familiar with the readers’ advi-
sory resources and tools at hand or may not know their capabilities, and the
tools may not employ the vocabulary that matches the reader’s request.
The readers’ advisory questions posed in Shearer’s and May’s studies
were the most complicated level of query entertained in most library prac-
tice. These studies involved readers who had enjoyed a book and wanted
something like it. The vehicle for successfully responding to this query is a
form of the reference interview known as the readers’ advisory transac-
tion. This terminology reinforces the conversational nature of the interac-
tion rather than the one-way interrogation evoked by the term interview.
The flow of this transaction and understanding its nuances are important
parts of providing quality readers’ advisory service. A successful reader’s
advisory transaction would be one that established an open and welcoming
climate, the staff member verified what the reader said, the staff member
exhibited enthusiasm for the reader’s interests, and the staff member made
reading suggestions in a nonjudgmental way.
Without formal education in the four areas mentioned earlier—under-
standing readers, understanding the appeal of books, a background in fic-
tion, and understanding the readers’ advisory transaction—staff are left to
learn on their own. In a busy public service environment, where the focus is
on the provision of service and not how to do the service differently or more
effectively, staff respond to requests for readers’ advisory service using the
methods that they have used in the past. As Shearer (1996) and May et al.
(2000) show, this approach often results in poor service.
Readers’ advisory questions require engaging patrons in a more amor-
phous way—to understand more of a user’s psyche than we normally do in
reference. They require more knowledge about the suggested materials
than customary in traditional reference. They require operating in an arena
where, until recently, tools were limited and training in their use was even
scarcer. They have required us to learn about dealing with questions largely
on our own because the formal educational system has tended not to ad-
dress this category of service adequately.
Reinventing Readers Advisory

In recent years, readers’ advisory service has undergone a renaissance.
Public libraries have begun to acknowledge the importance of serving fic-
tion readers (who account for at least 60 percent of total public library cir-
culation). These institutions have begun to assess their current level of
readers’ advisory service and to design and implement readers’ advisory
service programs. The St. Louis Public Library is one major urban library
that is engaged in this process through the creation of its Center for the
Reader. [See Chapter 16 for an expansion of this topic.] In response to this
resurgence of interest, publishers have begun to develop new print and
electronic tools specifically geared to the readers’ advisor’s needs. Journals
have also begun to address the needs of readers’ advisors—with special
columns devoted to genre fiction, for example, or with references to
“read-alikes.”
Many library professionals have begun to develop readers’ advisory
service as the focus of their practice and to develop their skills in this area.
In Minnesota, the acknowledgment that readers’ advisory service is a re-
spected and worthwhile area of concentration for public librarians is reflected
in the addition of readers’ advisory service as an area of specialization in the
state’s Career Renewal Program for public library personnel. In addition to
people who have chosen readers’ advisory service as the focus of their prac-
tice, many people are also aware of the need to improve their ability to ad-
dress these questions.
Earlier in this chapter I stated that library staff tend to treat unequal
questions as equal. Some questions are more complex than others and re-
quire a different stance or service response. Another assumption that librar-
ians tend to make is that all staff are equal. They are not. Different staff
members have different levels of expertise in certain topic areas. They also
have different interpersonal gifts and varying professional interests and
goals. The profession has tended to promulgate a model that implies that all
librarians should be able to respond to all questions equally well. The re-
quirement placed on staff is that patrons will get the same level and quality
of service regardless of which staff member is serving them. Although li-
braries should not deviate from this service goal, we need to acknowledge
and deal with the fact that each staff member will need different resources
and support structures if we are to achieve this goal. This is especially true
in the area of readers’ advisory service.
In the area of reference, we have been educated to use resources as our
primary vehicle for addressing service requests from users. In the area of
readers’ advisory service, this has not been the case. Library staff members
have worked in an environment where the central message is as follows: “In
order to provide excellent readers’ advisory service you must read, read,
read. In cases where you are not able to meet a patron’s request for assis-
tance in this area, you should read in that area so you can respond to pa-
trons’ requests in the future. If you are unable to help science fiction
readers, you should read science fiction so that you will be able to respond
to these questions in the future.” This is a strategy used by many of those
who are focusing on readers’ advisory service. In Readers’ Advisory Ser-
vice in the Public Library, Saricks and Brown outline how to conduct a for-
mal genre study (Saricks and Brown 1997). Even this dedicated group,
however, admits that staff can never read enough and depend on resources
to support them in their work.
The integration of resources into readers’ advisory work is a strategy
that all three of the groups mentioned earlier can use. Introducing resources
into conversations with readers changes the nature of readers’ advisory ser-
vice in several ways. Resources help staff to cope with gaps in book knowl-
edge by serving as added memory. When staff are able to depend on
resources for potential suggestions or information about books, they are
free to focus on the reader. This focus enables the staff member to use
open-ended questions to gather information about the reader’s previous
reading experiences and learn what kind of book the reader is seeking.
Through the use of resources, we can reduce the complexity of performing
readers’ advisory work. Resources can anchor the readers’ advisory trans-
action itself.
The successful integration of resources into the flow of a readers’ ad-
visory transaction requires staff to talk about why they are consulting the
resource and how they are going to use it to find books that will interest the
reader. This linking of the consulted resource to the patron’s need is the
equivalent of linking suggested titles to the book the reader has read.
Catherine Sheldrick Ross and Patricia Dewdney (1994) do an excellent job
of discussing the necessity of this approach.
The Promise of Electronic Resources

Many new options are opening up for today’s readers’ advisor. We
have access to more resources than ever—from books and electronic tools
to educational and training opportunities. We may also find more financial
and management support for readers’ advisory services and activities. But
in spite of all of these increased opportunities, I believe there are still oppor-
tunities for improvement.
One option that is beginning to be explored in the literature is the pos-
sibility of redesigning reference work itself. The profession’s 55-percent
accuracy rate may not be the “fault” of personnel. It may be the result of the
way we have designed the service. If reengineering is a possibility for ad-
dressing the 55-percent accuracy rate, it should certainly be an issue that we
examine given the low satisfaction rate indicated for readers’ advisory ser-
vice in studies such as Shearer’s (1996). Let’s examine some of the possible
solutions to our dilemma that electronic resources offer.
As we learn more and more about readers and the types of conversa-
tions they require, we can use these models to introduce prompts into elec-
tronic resources that staff use when working with readers. The prompts
could be run in a staff-only mode so that only staff would see them, or they
could be designed for use in conjunction with a reader. Prompts could help
guide inexperienced or overwhelmed staff through the readers’ advisory
transaction, who then use it as part of their conversation with the reader.
One prompt in such a resource might say “Ask the reader to describe a book
read and enjoyed.” The next prompt might include sample elements to lis-
ten for: “Did the reader identify a genre, a location, a topic or theme?” “Did
the patron use words such as ‘fast-paced’ or give detailed descriptions of
characters?” In this case, the resource would be guiding the staff member
through the process of the readers’ advisory transaction. It is extending the
concept of added memory from book knowledge to understanding the
reader. The benefit to the staff member is the same. Rather than trying to re-
member what questions to ask or what to listen for, the resource would pro-
vide the structure and free the staff member to focus on the reader. As staff
become more experienced or comfortable with the process of the readers’
advisory transaction, they can turn this feature off in the same way those
who use Microsoft products turn off the assistant “Clippy” when it is not
needed or desired.
Another area in which electronic resources can support people who
are serving fiction readers is in the identification of suggested titles. Ross
indicates that the selection of a particular book by a reader involves several
hierarchical variables (Ross 2001). The choice of a particular book is
multivariate. It is difficult to understand the nuances of this hierarchy in a
brief interaction with a reader. This requires interacting with a reader over
time. “One Reader Reading” explores the presence of one reader’s hierar-
chy (Smith 1996a). Future electronic resources will be able to allow readers
to track their reading through time. These reader logs will indicate which
books a specific reader has read and may even allow the reader to rate them
according to a predetermined scale. With the reader’s permission, library
staff could access this information and deduce what interests the reader and
which of these interests are most important.
The role of the advisor in this case would be to work with the reader to
interpret and refine the hierarchy before searching for suggested titles. For
example, an electronic resource might identify the fact that a reader enjoys
both biographies about women and mainstream novels that have women
characters who are making unusual life choices. The resource’s filter would
provide that information to the advisor, who would then use it as part of a
conversation with the reader. For example, “I see from looking at your his-
tory that you like both biographies and novels about women. What are you
in the mood for today?” The resource in this case would support the staff
member in formulating a search strategy.
Electronic resources can also bring together a wide variety of informa-
tion about a particular book. This information goes beyond subject head-
ings and narrative descriptions of the titles. As more and more advisors
identify appeal factors for specific titles, this information will begin to ap-
pear as another element in the description of a book. As more and more
readers develop reading histories and become willing to share them, we
will be able to use Bayesian and other models to establish links between
books that we have not been able to see firsthand. In “The Science of the
Sleeper,” Malcolm Gladwell explores how resources based on Bayesian
models mirror the expertise of a skilled independent bookstore owner
(Gladwell 1999).
In reader response theory, the concept of interpretative communities is
a popular one (Tompkins 1981). This concept indicates that different read-
ers read books in different ways. Like questions and staff, readers are not
unique. They are individuals, but they are not unique in their reading behav-
ior. They tend to form interpretative communities, reading similar groups
of books in similar ways. Electronic resources using Bayesian and other
models will allow us to identify these communities and to use this informa-
tion to provide another set of possible titles for a reader. One current use of
this type of resource is Amazon.com’s “Readers who bought this book also
bought book X, book Y, and book Z.” Resources that have access to reader
logs or reader histories could make a similar feature available.
These last two features can form part of a framework that would allow
librarians to consider and weigh a reader’s hierarchy when they conduct
searches of the resource’s database. Ross informs us that readers have hier-
archies (Ross 2001). We also know that some readers are content driven.
They like a particular genre and even within that genre a particular type of
main character (mystery stories with women detectives—the works of Ne-
vada Barr, perhaps). What these new resources could also do is point us to
authors and titles that other readers of Nevada Barr’s titles have read and
enjoyed. These suggestions may take us to genres and themes that other
readers have discovered. Linkages that are known in this interpretative
community have eluded us in the past because we did not have the data or a
mechanism for locating them.
The creation of these resources could help move readers’ advisory ser-
vice out of the realm of Kuhlthau’s counselor model (Kuhlthau 1993), a realm
that is uncomfortable for many of us, into the more familiar standard reference
intervention of the identifier role, the role that we have been educated to
perform in providing reference service. The advent of these resources
should result in a more standardized approach to providing readers’ advi-

sory service without sacrificing the depth of this service. These resources
may enable us to engage all readers in productive conversations regardless
of our personal knowledge of books or our knowledge of the reader we are
serving and the books that reader enjoys.
Readers Advisory in Cyberspace

The development of electronic resources will become even more criti-
cal as a trip to the library becomes something that readers do by logging
onto the Internet instead of going to a physical facility. May and her col-
leagues also noted the absence of a readers’ advisory presence on the Web
pages of the libraries they visited (May et al. 2000, 42). This is not surpris-
ing because most library buildings lack signage or other visual clues that in-
dicate the availability and location of services for fiction readers. A
disadvantage for readers who are visiting the library’s Web site, however,
is that they do not have access to a knowledgeable staff member. They can-
not engage in a conversation with a staff member because they are not phys-
ically in the library. Fiction readers visiting the library’s Web page are also
at a disadvantage because they cannot resort to their most common strat-
egy—browsing the library’s book collection. They are unable to do this be-
cause they are not physically in the library and because a lack of subject
access to fiction prevents them from searching for unknown items. If I am
looking for résumé books and I don’t know an author or title, a subject search
of the library’s catalog via its Web site or dial-up connection will allow me to
locate books on this topic. Because many libraries lack detailed subject ac-
cess to fiction, readers accessing this same catalog or Web site cannot locate
coming-of-age stories that deal with racism such as To Kill a Mockingbird.
This two-tiered service model may send the message to fiction readers that
they are not as important as users who are interested in nonfiction topics. It
may lead fiction readers to take their business elsewhere.
In the Web world, holding onto customers is about understanding their
needs and creating sites that engage them. As we learn more and more
about readers and how they search for and experience books, we should de-
velop resources and sites that engage them. This may mean reconfiguring
the ways in which we describe and present information about books. For
example, rather than presenting a traditional author/title list of bio-thrillers
(an emerging subgenre in adventure/suspense), Michael Gannon created a
quiz on Ebsco’s online service NoveList that asks readers to “Guess That
Biotoxin!” (Gannon 2000). In this quiz Gannon provides an author, a book
title, and a partial spelling of the toxin the book deals with. The reader must
then guess the toxin by supplying the missing letters from the partial spell-
ing (e.g., A_TH_A_= ANTHRAX). This activity and similar ones not only
add a level of interactivity and engagement to a library’s Web site; they also
communicate what we know. By doing so, we show readers that we under-
stand them and that they can trust us to provide suggestions that are likely to
be appropriate and interesting. Ross has identified the importance of trust to
readers who are seeking readers’ advisory service (2001).
Conclusions
The effective provision of readers’ advisory service requires that we
move into a new and unmapped region. It is terrain that many library staff
have chosen to explore and map for themselves. We have trusted that com-
municating this map to the profession through publication, education, and
training programs would result in improved service to fiction readers.
Reading the literature and participating in staff development programs
have and will continue to lead to improved practice for some. The profes-
sion’s history, however, indicates that unless these activities occur in a con-
text that provides ongoing support, the changes that they engender will be
neither significant nor sustained.
Many librarians are exemplary readers’ advisors. Their knowledge
has informed much of the literature on this topic, and many are gifted teach-
ers. We do them and ourselves a great disservice, however, when we do not
work to capture their expertise and incorporate it into resources that all staff
members can use. Librarianship is a tool-focused profession. Rather than
seeking to change that focus or to make us all expert readers’ advisors, the
profession should seek to create and use the resources that capture and gen-
eralize our combined expertise.
This does not mean that readers’ advisory conversations will cease to
occur in libraries. This does not mean that librarians should not continue to
expand their book knowledge or to practice and develop their interpersonal
skills. It does mean, however, that the combined knowledge and expertise
of the profession can become a networked and shared resource. It promises
an added strategy to ensure that all readers receive the best service possible.
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Changed over the Past Ten Years? Public Libraries 39, no. 1: 23–30.
Baker, Sharon L. 1986. Overload, Browsers and Selections. Library and In-
formation Science Research 8 (October): 315–29.
Burgin, Robert. 1996. Readers’ Advisory in Public Libraries: An Overview
of Current Practice. In Guiding the Reader to the Next Book, ed. Ken-
Chelton, Mary K. 1993. Read Any Good Books Lately?: Helping Patrons
Find What They Want. Library Journal 118, no. 8: 33–37.
Childers, Thomas A. 1970. Telephone Information Service in Public Li-
braries: Comparison of Performance and the Descriptive Statistics
Collected by the State of New Jersey. Ph.D. diss., Rutgers University.
Crowley, Terrence. 1968. The Effectiveness of Information Service in Me-
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able only through subscribing libraries.
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mance: Results of a Statewide Study. Library Journal 110, no. 18:
32–33.
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Test Case. Library Journal 123, no. 18: 42–45.
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brary Journal 125, no. 15: 40–43.
Pearl, Nancy. 1999. Now Read This: A Guide to Mainstream Fiction,
1978–1998. Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited.
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tions. Reference Quarterly 30, no. 4 (Summer): 503–18.
to Read for Pleasure. The Acquisitions Librarian 25: 5–22.
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Analysis of the Best (and Worst) in Fifty-Two Public Library Refer-
ence Transactions. Public Libraries 33 (September/October 1994):
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Smith, Duncan. 1993. Reconstructing the Reader: Educating Readers’ Ad-

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———. 1996a. One Reader Reading. In Guiding the Reader to the Next
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———. 1996b. Librarians’ Abilities to Recognize Reading Tastes. In
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112, no. 11: 36–39.
CHAPTER 5
What We Know from Readers

About the Experience of Reading
Catherine Sheldrick Ross
This research was supported by a research grant from the Social Sci-
ences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
In Italo Calvino’s wonderful book about reading, If on a Winter’s
Night a Traveller, various characters describe the quality of reading experi-
ence that they are looking for:
• “I prefer novels…that bring me immediately into a world where ev-
erything is precise, concrete, specific” (1981, 30).
• “The novel I would most like to read at this moment…should have
as its driving force only the desire to narrate, to pile stories upon sto-
ries, without trying to impose a philosophy of life on you” (92).
• “The novels that I prefer…are those that make you feel uneasy from
the very first page” (126).
• “I like books…where all the mysteries and the anguish pass through
a precise and cold mind, without shadows, like the mind of a chess
player” (157).
• “The novels that attract me most…are those that create an illusion of
transparency around a knot of human relationships as obscure, cruel,
and perverse as possible” (192).
77
In that they are on the lookout for books that deliver the reading expe-
riences that satisfy their innermost desires, these imagined readers in
Calvino’s fiction resemble the real readers that librarians encounter in li-
braries. Calvino’s readers are perhaps unusual in being able to succinctly
describe what they most want in leisure reading—concrete images, a piling
up of stories, an atmosphere of apprehension, a central narrative conscious-
ness, or whatever. Nevertheless, ordinary readers can tell us a great deal
about what they look for in their reading experiences. For more than a de-
cade, my research has focused on talking to readers and on what Stephen
Krashen (1993) has called “free voluntary reading”—the reading that peo-
ple do for pleasure.
To find out about the reading experience of avid readers, I have inter-
viewed 25 readers, and Master of Library and Information Science students
interviewed 169 additional readers in successive offerings of my Genres of
Fiction and Reading course at the University of Western Ontario. These
194 interviews, which were qualitative and open-ended, were designed to
find out how readers themselves experience reading. I wanted to know
what readers think reading means to them, how they choose books to read
for pleasure, and what elements they look for in satisfying books. This
chapter is a summary of findings from this research, some of which has
been published elsewhere (Ross 1991, 1995, 1999, 2001; Ross and Chelton
2001).
We know less about the experience of avid readers than we would like
to because, until recently, leisure reading has seemed too frivolous to war-
rant serious academic inquiry. For example, a respected sociological study
titled Maturity in Reading used a Freudian model to distinguish between
two types of reading: “mature reading” was for information and deferred
pleasure, whereas “immature reading” was done for immediate pleasure
(Gray and Rogers 1964). Lately we have been looking more critically at
these socially constructed values that people have taken for granted—val-
ues that give priority to reading nonfiction over fiction and to productive
reading over reading for pleasure. Readers themselves are familiar with
these values even when they reject them. When required to justify to
nonreaders the time they spend on reading, avid readers can mobilize these
socially approved values in defense of reading. They will say that reading
increases their vocabulary, factual knowledge of the world, and literacy
skills, all of which are socially valuable because weak literacy skills ex-
clude people from good jobs and full participation in economic, political,
and social life. These answers are true (Statistics Canada 1996; Krahn and
Lowe 1998; Shalla and Schellenberg 1998) but don’t tell the whole story.
When probed more deeply, many committed readers interviewed for this
study say that reading is a passion that goes beyond skills-training or job
Chapter 5—What We Know from Readers About the Experience of Reading 79
preparation. They say that reading is part of their identities; that they are
horrified by the prospect of a future in which they couldn’t read; and that if
they didn’t read they wouldn’t be the people they are:
I hate to say that reading is everything, but I think sometimes it’s

more important than people, and that scares me. It is; it’s everything.
If I don’t have a book, I’m bare. I feel like there’s something lacking
in my life. I cannot be without something to read. And if it’s not a
book—if I don’t have access to a book (which is fairly rare)—then
I’ll buy a good magazine. But I have to have something. If I have
three or four at one time, that’s all the better….[Reading] is part of
me. (Jean, age 44, teacher librarian; throughout the chapter the
names of interviewees have been changed for anonymity.)
Evidence about the experience of reading for pleasure comes from the
transcribed set of interviews conducted with the 194 readers described ear-
lier. The interviewed subjects were not randomly chosen but were deliber-
ately selected as people who read a lot and read by choice. Interviewers
were instructed to interview the person of their acquaintance who was most
committed to reading for pleasure. Before they conducted and transcribed
their interview, the student interviewers were trained in using open-ended
questions and follow-up probes and received a set of interview questions to
use as a guide for the interview. Using a chronological approach that started
with the first thing the reader remembered reading as a child and worked
forward to the present, the interviews explored, from the reader’s perspec-
tive, the whole experience of reading for pleasure, including the following:
reading in childhood; ways in which a particular book has made a differ-
ence in the reader’s life; ways in which the reader chooses or rejects a book;
and the reader’s idea of the perfect book.
Because the study deliberately focused on committed readers, most of
the interviewees studied fell within the 10 percent of the North American
population who show up in national reading surveys as “heavy read-
ers”—those who read upward of a book a week (Cole and Gold 1979, 63;
Book Industry Study Group 1984, 84). Unlike nonbook readers who read
primarily for information, heavy readers tend to say they read for pleasure
(Cole and Gold 1979, 61–62). The demographic profile of the interviewees
in my study resembled that of “heavy readers,” as consistently described in
reports of reading surveys based on large-scale national samples. Previous
studies conducted in Canada and the United States have found that heavy
readers are more likely to be female than male; to be younger rather than
older; and to have achieved a higher educational level than the population at
large (Book Industry Study Group 1984; Cole and Gold 1979; Gallup Orga-
nization 1978; Watson et al. 1980). Of the 194 people interviewed, 65 per-
cent were female and 35 percent were male. Interviewees ranged in age
from 16 to 80, distributed as follows: age 16–20 (3.6 percent); age 21–30
(44.8 percent); age 31–40 (18 percent); age 41–50 (14 percent); age 51–60
(11.3 percent); and age 60–80 (8.2 percent). The level of education was
generally high.
From Series Book to Genres of Fiction

A fairly consistent pattern emerged in the childhoods of people who
later became committed readers. Over and over again these experienced
readers mentioned that their parents, siblings, or grandparents read to them
as children; that there were many books in their homes; that they received
books as gifts; that they went to libraries as children; and that in many cases
they had learned to read before starting school. The interviewees generally
described a childhood environment that supported reading, making state-
ments such as, “Our family didn’t have much money, but I was encouraged
to use the library and my parents used the library” or “Both my parents en-
couraged us to own books and to read” or “There were always plenty of
books around the house and someone always willing to read one or two to
you or listen while you read one. My life as a child was filled with books” or
“We were a reading family” or finally “I came from a reading house-
hold…there were always books around….I was praised for being a good
reader.” The pattern varies from reader to reader, but the key thing is that
something in their childhood experiences helped these committed readers
come to know that reading can be a source of pleasure that one can experi-
ence in no other way.
The most avid childhood readers described themselves as omnivo-
rous. They did not in childhood distinguish classics from trash or worthy
books from time-wasters but valued books for their ability to give pleasure.
They wanted to read without restriction, like Elizabeth, who said, “My
reading was always indiscriminate. I just read what I laid my hands on” or
Dorothy, who said, “I really was an omnivore. I read almost everything that
was available. And I read a lot, so I exhausted the supply of books around
me quite quickly.” When invited to talk about their childhood reading, more
than 60 percent of the interviewed readers spontaneously mentioned having
read series books as children (Ross 1995). When libraries refused to stock the
series books they wanted to read (series books were considered dangerously
seductive—too interesting, too escapist, likely to spoil readers for more solid
reading, and so on), these readers simply bypassed libraries. They bought
them, borrowed them from friends, or asked for them as presents. As readers
outgrew one series, they moved on to other series with older protagonists—
from the Bobbsey Twins to Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys—and then, as
reading skill and speed improved, to less formulaic books. Readers frequently
mentioned series books, together with books that had previously been read
aloud, as the first chapter books that they had succeeded in reading on their
own. Reading series books turned out to have been an important stage in the
transition to independent reading. Not unexpectedly, for many adult read-
ers, genre books provided the same advantage of familiarity that series
books had provided for them as children.
Because genre reading makes up such a large component of pleasure
reading, we need to know a lot more about the reading preferences of genre
readers. We need to know what they look for in a successful work within a
specific genre and how they sort books into different categories. Unfortu-
nately, most of the published research dealing with genres of fiction has fo-
cused on the texts and not on the readers of the texts (an honorable
exception is Janice Radway’s widely praised Reading the Romance.) A
consideration of genre entered into my study when readers answered ques-
tions about what they were currently reading, whether they had favorite
genres, and what types of books they did not enjoy and would not read.
There was of course a significant minority of readers who said that they
never read genre books because they considered them to be repetitive and
interchangeable. Whereas a nonreader of a particular genre was likely to
say that romances (or Westerns, detective stories, or fantasies) were all the
same and indistinguishable, veteran genre readers said that they found an
enormous range in the quality of books within a specific genre. These expe-
rienced readers were able to make numerous discriminations among books
of the same genre, differentiating closely among books by noting an indi-
vidual author’s particular handling of elements such as tone, pacing, writ-
ing style, character development, and plot elements.
With accumulated knowledge derived from wide reading within a
genre, experienced genre readers are able to provide expert evaluations as
in David’s critique of speculative fiction: “Part of the problem with a lot of
science fiction or fantasy is they spend so much time designing the world
that there is no time for the characters, or they have one neat idea for the
characters and don’t know what to do with them after that happens” (age
26, student). Jimmy said that he had come to appreciate Charles de Lint’s
ability to create “believable female characters, because, especially in hor-
ror, I’ve grown up with a lot of novels where the women have just been
around as your blond bimbo stereotype—just there to scream and get vic-
timized. Well, I didn’t mind it at first, but…” (age 24, student). Genre read-
ers, like wine aficionados, often become increasingly exacting as their
breadth of experience with a genre increases. Horror-reader Terry says that

“I look to see if the author can scare me. Not that many authors can” (age
26, student).
Genre readers say they know exactly what reading experience they
want at any given time and are often prepared to go to some considerable
work to seek out the books they know will provide that experience. Literary
critics, who focus on texts rather than on the relationship between book and
reader, tend to rank genre books more highly the more unpredictable they
are and the more they overturn expected formulaic features of the genre. In
contrast, the interviewed readers varied considerably in their desire for a
predictable experience versus something unconventional and unexpected.
At times predictable is good, as Diane points out, and at other times readers
prefer something more challenging and demanding:
It depends on what I’m looking for. Sometimes I want nothing but

escape and then I like a big romance like The Far Pavilions. Other
times I want something that offers a little intellectual stimulation.
Right now I’m reading The White Hotel by D. M. Thomas. It’s inter-
esting; it’s stimulating; it’s different…[With The Far Pavilions] it’s
just fun to sit back and let the great romance wash over you and sus-
pend disbelief. And if I’m really tired, I read mystery stories like
Agatha Christie. Agatha Christie’s for when I’m so tired I can hardly
see. (Diane, age 37, social worker.)
Guilty Reading
Readers were keenly aware that some people view pleasure reading as
a waste of time or worse. In interviews they sometimes referred to covert
reading. Said one member of a book club, “I would read over [doing] any-
thing else. If you went to my house during the day and I wasn’t doing any-
thing, I’d be sitting there reading. You feel like you’re being caught.
[laughter] ‘Oh, no, I wasn’t on the couch reading. I was really vacuum-
ing!’ ” In response, another book club reader agreed but said that being in
the book club had made all the difference: “You feel guilty. But now I can
say to my boyfriend, ‘I have to read this book for my book club.’ ” These
readers are conscious of external norms that judge the act of daytime read-
ing as doubly reprehensible: It is nonproductive because reading displaces
some other more productive activity such as housework, and it is threaten-
ing and antisocial because the reader is enjoying an invisible pleasure that
can’t be shared. Time spent reading is time taken away from socializing.
The reader sometimes wonders whether the claims of the nonbook reader
are true: that reading is a barrier to keep the world at bay, a defense, a form
of retreat, an escape hatch from the demands of real relationships. (These

same criticisms have recently been redirected toward avid Internet users
and computer-game players.) Interestingly, studies have consistently found
that book readers as a group are far more likely than nonbook readers to par-
ticipate more in almost every activity except sleeping (Madden 1979).
Findings from the Book Industry Study Group study (1984, 71) lead to the
conclusion that “Far from being introverted or social outcasts, book readers
emerge as well-rounded individuals active in a wide range of social and cul-
tural activities….Book readers are far more likely to socialize (59%) than
nonbook readers (41%) or nonreaders (33%).” Despite these research find-
ings, misgivings persist. Debbie noted that “people who don’t take as much
pleasure as I do from reading can’t understand that you would choose to
read rather than converse or watch television or listen to the radio”:
Having grown up in a family of readers, I find it perfectly acceptable

for people to sit in a room together and to have quiet and everyone to
be reading something. Whereas I find people who don’t read, they
find it upsetting in some way if you’re not chatting or watching tele-
vision or doing some communal activity. And instead you’re just
choosing to be quiet and read by yourself. They think there must be
something wrong….I don’t think of [reading] as selfish, but I think it
can be something that sets up barriers between people. (Debbie, age
29, copyeditor/journalism student)
Value of Reading in Their Lives

In the interviews, we asked readers, “What would it be like if for one
reason or another you couldn’t read?” Given the selection criteria for inter-
viewees’ participation in the study, we expected them to claim that not being
able to read would be experienced as a loss, but the typical response was un-
expectedly intense. The majority of committed readers in the study said that
being unable to read was unthinkable: “It’s a passion. I can’t deny it”; “It’s a
physical need with me to have to read”; “If I were stuck on a desert island
without books, I would go crazy”; “My freedom to read is absolutely sacred.”
Reading for pleasure was so much a part of the reader’s identity that, as one
reader, Jane, put it, “I wouldn’t be me. I wouldn’t be the person I am if I
didn’t read or wasn’t able to read. It frightens me to think that something
like reading can create you or at least influence who you are so much.”
Unlike nonreaders who claim they lack the time to read, the readers in
my study said that they make time and built opportunities for reading into
their daily routines. Although readers set aside certain times and places for
reading, a favorite being in bed before going to sleep, many committed
readers said that they can and do read anywhere: “I can tuck a book on top
of the microwave and hold the pages open with a mixing spoon and read in
the kitchen. I can read any place”; “I carry books with me….Reading is for
every place—books in the bathroom, books in the bedroom, books by the
television, and always in my bag.” Daniel, a 49-year-old plant mechanic
said, “I take books with me—when I go to a doctor’s appointment I take a
book with me…or when I take kids to hockey practice or whatever, I have
to take a book with me because I know I’m going to have a little spare time
to read it.”
Readers found it natural and easy to turn to texts as a favored source of
information. They used their own life experiences to make sense of texts
and conversely used texts to make sense of life in a wide variety of situa-
tions. Indeed a defining characteristic of these readers was that reading
about a topic, rather than or in addition to asking somebody about it, was a
preferred way of learning things. Hence Stella said, “If I find something
happening in my life, a high point or particularly low point, my first trip is
generally to the library to see if I can read something about it….And if I
wanted to learn to do embroidery I’d probably first find a book about it as
opposed to asking somebody how to do it.” At the time of the interview,
Stella was reading gardening books because she was planting a garden; for
the two years after returning to the church, she read “lots of books about
theology,” and when she’s “really depressed,” she rereads L. M. Montgom-
ery’s The Blue Castle to cheer herself up. Similarly Diane said:
I always turn to books for any questions, and I always have. [If a
doctor said I had a mysterious disease], I’d go and get a book on
it….Part of how I would accept it would be to read everything there
was on it….I’d do that with anything that I’d see as a problem. I’d
start reading everything I can get on it. I’ll start reading a bunch of
books around the area and I don’t stop reading until I’ve somehow
been reassured….I think it must have something to do with mastery.
Until I’ve got hold of all the information possible, I feel out of con-
trol. (Diane, age 37, social worker)
Choosing Books
For avid readers, the process of finding books to read for pleasure en-
compasses much more than the notion of browsing book stock or searching
a catalogue usually evokes. Previous studies of choosing books to read for
pleasure, usually based on surveys with preestablished categories of re-
sponse, tell us how often certain selection strategies occur but not what
these strategies mean for the people who perform them. For example,
summarizing the results of a survey of 500 fiction borrowers in four differ-

ent British libraries who were asked how they usually choose novels, David
Spiller reported the following responses: author only—11 percent; au-
thors/some browsing—22 percent; equal authors/browsing—36 percent;
browsing/some authors—20 percent; browsing only—11 percent (Spiller
1980, 245).
Because library catalogues and indexing systems are currently ill
adapted to the task of helping readers find books for pleasure reading
(Baker 1986), the experienced readers in my study had to devise their own
methods. These methods, we may suppose, are extensions and adaptations
of everyday practices that they typically find useful in information seeking.
When asked how they go about choosing books to read for pleasure, inter-
viewees typically launched into elaborate descriptions, involving many in-
terrelated considerations. They often started with their own moods at the
time of reading and went on to describe how they find new authors or what
clues they look for about the books themselves. Notably the systems they
described usually depended on considerable previous experience and
metaknowledge of authors, publishers, cover art, and conventions for pro-
moting books and sometimes depended on a social network of family or
friends who recommended and lent books. Readers drew upon their accu-
mulated knowledge of authors, titles, and genres; memories of what re-
viewers, friends, or family members have said; clues provided by the book
cover and the blurb on the back; and information from sampling the book
by reading the opening paragraph or dipping into a few paragraphs at ran-
dom. Goneril, a 43-year-old service representative, reported, “I look at a
book cover and read the little intro, then I usually turn to the middle of the
book and read a page, and if it doesn’t do anything for me it goes back on
the shelf.”
In order to be alerted to the existence of new books that will provide
the desired reading experience they want, committed readers typically scan
their everyday environments for clues. They tuck away in memory or on
lists for future use the names of books and authors the read about in maga-
zine and newspaper reviews; books given currency because they have been
made into films or television productions; and authors and titles that come
up in conversation. Recommendations are important but only from a trusted
source with tastes they consider compatible, such as certain reviewers, fam-
ily members, “friends that know my taste,” selected bookstore staff and li-
brarians, and more recently Internet acquaintances. A Stephen King fan,
Terry sought out and read a number of the books on Steven King’s list of
100 favorite books in Danse Macabre. Diane explained how she would typ-
ically choose a book by a new author: “It might be by reputation—I’ve
heard about it; it was famous; it was a bestseller….Usually I’ll pick up
names that I recognize. It’s rare that I’ll read a book by someone I’ve never
heard of at all.” Often readers make lists of books they have heard or read
about and, like Diane, “carry these lists in my purse for months at a time
looking for books.”
The bedrock for choice in pleasure reading is the reader’s mood.
When asked how he would decide from among his usual reading fare of
horror, science fiction, fantasy, detective fiction, or mainstream novels,
Terry answered, “The mood I was in. It might depend on what I’d been
reading lately. It might depend on the time of day and on whether I’d like to
get into something really heavy or something really light.” Lorraine, a
27-year-old elementary school teacher speculated, “Maybe that’s why I
read two or three books at a time. I have to be in a certain mood to read a
certain book.” Mood was more critical for choosing fiction than for nonfic-
tion. Fiction readers reported that their mood for reading often depended on
what else was going on in their lives. When readers are busy or under stress,
they often want safety, reassurance, and confirmation and will reread old
favorites or read new books by known authors that they can trust. At other
times when life is less stressful, they can afford to take more risks in their
reading. At such times they may want to be amazed by something unpre-
dictable, and then they might pick books on impulse to introduce novelty
into their reading and discover new authors or genres.
The single most important strategy for book selection was to choose a
book by a known and trusted author. Said a Salman Rushdie fan, “It’s like
finding a gold mine and following the vein when you find a good author
like that.” Nathan said, “I like to read authors. It takes a long time for an au-
thor to disappoint me.” Second to choosing by author, the next most popu-
lar strategy was to use genre to identify the kind of experience a book
promised. Readers often used genre in conjunction with author. Typically,
a single factor took precedence, and other factors came into play as second-
ary considerations. A reader might be looking for a mystery story, but the
choice of which mystery story might depend on the presence of additional
elements such as a smart female detective, love interest, a regional setting,
or the inclusion of specialty information. Laurie, a 34-year-old student, said
that she really enjoyed Barbara Vine’s King Solomon’s Carpet, which was
“basically about this guy’s fascination with the subway system in London”
and allowed her to learn “a lot about different subway systems around the
world. I really enjoyed that.” For other readers the size of the book is a key
factor: “And the third thing I look at [after author and the description on the
back cover] is the thickness. I will reject a book even if it’s a book by an au-
thor that I know if it’s a small, little book.” In narrowing down choices,
readers are strongly guided by what they don’t want, so that they can
quickly rule out whole categories (“nothing too long”) and entire genres
(“the psychological thriller”) .
Once a reader starts to browse within a range of books, then the cover
and the clues provided on the book itself become important. Titles are also
important—readers said they were drawn both to an unusual, catchy title
(in the case of an unfamiliar book) and to a familiar title that they had heard
about before. One science-fiction reader, Charles, said, “When you’re as
genre-specific as I am and read as voraciously as I do, you’re looking for
some quick identifiers on what’s a good book. It’ll take me ten minutes to
go in [to the science fiction section], get five books, and leave because I’m
just so familiar with the genre in general.” The most frequently mentioned
“quick identifiers” were the cover, the blurb on the back, and the sample
page. The sample paragraph or page was often a final test, used as an indica-
tor of the writing style and the level of literary competence the book de-
manded: “You see a title of a book that sounds interesting, open it up and
scan random pages, just to make sure that the writing is at a fairly decent
level.” The readers we interviewed were emphatic about what they don’t
like in a book and used cues on the book itself as a warning. A feature that
strongly attracted one reader equally strongly put another off, but in each
case the information was helpful in matching book and reader.
The final factor in book selection involves the reader’s calculation of
the degree of work the book required. We can regard the likelihood of a
reader’s choosing a particular book as a ratio of the degree of pleasure the
reader expects from the book divided by the degree of effort the reader must
expend, physically and mentally, in reading it. Some readers said that they
often read “books lying around” or they would “read what’s around me” or
“books I find at home.” Conversely, readers reported being willing to put
themselves on waiting lists, special order, or pay hardcover prices to read a
book that they expected to yield a high degree of pleasure, such as the latest
book by Alice Munro.
The Perfect Book

At the end of the interview, we asked readers, “If you could get an au-
thor to write the ‘Perfect Book’ for you, what would it be like? What ele-
ments should it include?” Of course, some said that there was no such thing
as a perfect book, that the “perfect book” was a stupid concept, or that for
them the perfect book was the one they had just read or the one they would
like to write themselves. Others pointed out, as David did, that they had dif-
ferent requirements for a perfect book depending on their mood: “There is
reading to go with the moment, for entertainment, to get the blood pumping
with a good story. And there is reading that you want to reflect on and think
about while you are reading it or after you have read it.” Siobhan (age 53, li-
brarian) talked about timeliness and receptivity: “Books speak to us at a
time and place in our life, in our journey, and what may be the perfect book
this year may not be the perfect book next year. I think it depends [on]
where we are and what we need in our own lives at that time.”
That said, many interviewees, such as Italo Calvino’s imagined read-
ers, were actually able to answer the question in considerable detail. Matt’s
perfect book would “have to have something supernatural in it” and be able
to pull him in “in the way nobody but Stephen King has ever pulled me in.”
He explained, “I’m after the effect rather than the means to the effect. Any
way you can scare me is good.” Nathan, a 50-year-old English professor
said, “I read books to get a certain kind of epiphanal feeling from
them—just to get this incredible charge, this energy out of them.” Some
readers described their idea of the quintessential experience of reading
pleasure in terms of a book they had been searching for all their lives, as in
this example:
I know there is a book out there just waiting to be found that would
change my life—that would totally change my relationship to my
own senses. That’s happened to me with some books, where sud-
denly as a result of this experience you feel things differently. You
literally feel, touch things differently, or see things differently.
(Mark, age 42, music educator and composer)
For Paul, a 42-year old librarian, the book that comes closest to perfec-
tion is Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, which he had read seventeen
times. As a child, he had voraciously read fairy tales. As an adult, he said he
was “always looking for something that would give me the same experi-
ence that I had had as a child—the sense of magic, the sense of wonder, the
sense of being out of control, of being sucked into the book whether I
wanted to be or not.” He was able to recover that sense of magic in
Bulgakov’s book: “To me, it’s more than just a book; it’s an entire experi-
ence….It’s not just a book about magic; it is a magical experience.”
Taken together, the interviewees’ responses provided overwhelming
support for the claim made in Joyce G. Saricks and Nancy Brown’s classic
Readers’ Advisory Service in the Public Library: “We have found that most
[fiction] readers are usually not looking for a book on a certain subject.
They want a book with a particular ‘feel’ ” (1997, 35). To convey the sort of
“feel” they wanted, many readers used the shorthand of saying the perfect
book would be similar to a specific title:
• “I think A Winter’s Tale is a perfect book for me.”
• “It would be like A Man Called Intrepid, which is about William
Stevenson.”
• “The Bone People is a good example of an absolutely brilliant

book.”
• “It would be like Rosemund Pilcher’s Shell Seekers.”
• “French Lieutenant’s Woman came closest to the perfect book other
than Jane Eyre.”
• “It would be like Out of Africa.”
Along similar lines, many said that their perfect book would be a new
book written by a favorite author such as Robert Ludlum, Tom Clancy,
John Grisham, Stephen King, or Danielle Steel:
• “First of all, I’d probably ask Taylor Caldwell to write it for me.”
• “I’d have it based on Poul Anderson.”
• “It would be something like Umberto Eco’s books.”
Sometimes their perfect book would require a whole team of authors:
• “I would have a book written as a collaboration between Mercedes
Lackey and Nancy Springer, or even Charles de Lint. Because
Nancy Springer has a very poetic way of writing, Charles de Lint
makes even the mundane seem magical, and Mercedes Lackey could
make a stone cry.”
When asked about the elements that the perfect book would include,
the readers collectively mentioned many dimensions that they considered
important, with different readers having very different requirements. There
is an evident similarity between the elements the readers in my study men-
tioned and Saricks and Brown’s “appeal factors,” which they identify as
pacing, characterization, storyline, and frame (1997, 35–55). From this ex-
amination of what readers say they look for in a perfect book, it appears that
the ideal index for fiction should retrieve books not on the basis of their
subject but on the basis of the appeal factors itemized in the following sec-
tion. A reader who agrees with statements ALOS is clearly looking for a
very different book from the reader who agrees with statements EJNT and
so on. The following list is intended to capture a range of response, though
clearly not every category is of importance to each reader. As noted earlier,
readers’ preferences vary depending on their mood and what else is going
on in their lives. But at any given time, an individual reader might be able to
describe reading preferences by matching three or four of these statements.
Pacing
Action packed vs. leisurely development

A I like a book that I can pick up and I just don’t want to put down…For
me to be really interested in a book it has to engage me by the very
first chapter (Sylvia, age 34, credit collections manager).
B It doesn’t seem to be that plot is all that important; where the story is
going isn’t as important as how it is told or how it gets there (Aldous,
age 26, undergraduate student).
Hearing dialogue vs. picturing images

C I often like books with a lot of conversation in them and less descrip-
tion. I’m interested in the way people talk and in hearing different
voices (Aldous, age 26, undergraduate student).
D I like really strong images in the books. If I’m reading a book and it
actually works—if it’s a picture in my head, then that’s a big plus for
me (Jody, age 18, student).
Kind of Action Represented
Interior vs. exterior action

E I think the characters would be dealing more with a personal conflict
than with any outside conflict. Like, they wouldn’t be in a war or
something like that; they would be deciding what they wanted for
themselves. The conflict [would be] within them (Helen, age 21, stu-
dent).
Weight given to the exploration of ideas and concepts

F I like to see authors explore new ideas in their books. That’s one of the
reasons why I read science fiction, because they often have different
sociological type situations, where society is slightly different. What
would it be like if man was on the moon or whatever—that sort of
“what if” quite interests me (Evan, age 31, network manager).
Treatment of sexuality
G I enjoy love and sex in a book (Beverly, age 22, dietitian).
H If a book has violence or a lot of sex, I won’t read it. I don’t want a
book to upset me or to excite me—other than a quiet excitement. I
don’t want graphic descriptions. For example, I read The Color Pur-
ple and I hated it; it was so upsetting. I don’t need to read that (Joan,
age 31, elementary school teacher).
Characters
Relative importance of characters and plot

I I think character, usually but not always, is more important than plots.
I can stand a book that has a bad plot and good characters better than I
can stand a book that has a good plot but lousy characters (Truus, age
40, librarian).
Reader’s sense of emotional closeness to, or distance

from, the main character(s)
J I want you to write a novel that makes me feel emotionally close to the
main character (Theresa, age 27, MLIS student).
Idealized characters vs. characters that are mixtures

of strengths and weaknesses
K I look for characters that are realistic—not perfect, beautiful, im-
mensely talented and rich people, but sort of realistic characters with
human foibles. Growth and development of characters is a good thing,
too (Laurie, age 34, student).
Single character vs. complex interrelationships

L I usually like to see the perfect book have one central character, but I
will read books that have multiple-focused characters. I prefer a sin-
gle character (Evan, age 31, network manager).
M Well, it would probably have to be definitely centred on relationships
between people. And events that would shape their lives and continu-
ity. More than just the one person—maybe two or three generations of
people (Mabel, age 64, retired teacher).
The Nature of the World Represented
Realization of the setting

N I look for a really detailed setting. I don’t like just a book that is
straight action and no background. I like a book where you can be
taken into a different world when you are reading it. It doesn’t have to
be on another planet; it can be Ottawa. But I want to think that I am in
Ottawa when I am reading it (Carol, age 25, archaeologist).
O In 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, you know how Jules Verne begins
many of the chapters with great long descriptions of what it was like
under the water, the colours of the fish, and all that kind of stuff. I
didn’t even bother reading it. I was interested in what they were doing
[in the submarine] as opposed to the descriptions….I’m interested in
the story (Maurice, age 57, professional engineer).
Similarity of the imagined setting to the reader’s own

world
P Because of their setting, I can’t relate to science fiction books as
much. They are off on some strange planet somewhere and I can’t re-
late them to my position. Whereas the books I do read, which take
place now or in the last century, I can relate to because I can imagine
myself being in that situation and doing these things (Henry, age 35,
architect).
Q I want a completely different world where nothing is the same as our
world. But if the author was good enough to make it feasible and un-
derstandable, then it would be a perfect book (Cliff, age 24, auto me-
chanic).
Kinds of resolutions and endings

R That’s why I can’t read a lot of modern novels because the endings are
always sad. Maybe that’s why I like Westerns, too, because they al-
ways have happy endings….I won’t read a book without a happy end-
ing. I’ve got enough drama in my own life, without any of that (Tom,
age 55, professor).
S The ending doesn’t have to be sunshine and butterflies, but it has to be
at least resolved. And if I don’t feel that it has been resolved at the end
or if the book ends unjustly, then I feel cheated (Kelly, age 24, stu-
dent/artist).
T I don’t like predictable books. I know about a lot of people who look
for a predictable format and get comfort from that. But that doesn’t
appeal to me at all. I want books that are lifelike in presenting
the…unpredictability is the wrong word. Life isn’t formulaic (Sally,
age 40, library assistant).
Sense of felt life

U There are certain things I demand from a writer. I really like to know
that the author is telling me the truth. Not that what they are telling me
actually happened, but that it’s a true story in the sense that Alice
Munro or Edna O’Brien or Eudora Welty or even The Plague Dogs
are true stories. That the author isn’t holding out on me. That the au-
thor really feels what he or she is writing about is true (Nadia, age 29,
librarian).
Emotional Impact on the Reader

V I like to read hard-hitting books and I enjoy them, although they may
leave me temporarily depressed. I don’t want the hero always to win
the girl in the end—I can accept the fact that this doesn’t happen in
real life. I’d rather have it more realistic (Frank, age 54, owner of a
moving company).
W I like a sense of humour and a sense of hope. I really do not like books
that are cynical and full of despair and that say, “Why bother? Life
sucks and then you die.” I don’t like that. The ending has to have some
sort of upbeat hope to it (Truus, age 40, librarian).
X A lot of books have those ironic endings, where everything looks like
it’s going along fine and then there’s a turn, and you’ve been fooled.
I’m made very uncomfortable by those sorts of books, and I don’t read
them. In If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller, the Other Reader says she
likes books that made her feel “uncomfortable from the very first
page.” I don’t like feeling uncomfortable from the very first page
(Andrea, age 38, librarian).
Demands Placed on the Reader

Y I was into the classics at one time….But I can’t do that much any more
because you have to concentrate a lot, and I can’t concentrate read af-
ter read after read. I don’t like having to force myself. If the book
doesn’t flow easily and interest me, I can’t read it. You get a book 300
to 400 pages long and I just can’t concentrate or keep up my interest

for that long (Daniel, age 49, plant mechanic).
Z I like a book that doesn’t give me all of the information up front, a
book that makes me work a bit to read it (Giles, age 44, business de-
velopment manager).
A fiction classification or a fiction search engine ought to use these
twenty-six appeal factors as an intellectual foundation. The subject ap-
proach that works to access nonfiction fails to meet fiction readers’ needs.
References
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Information Science Research 8: 315–29.
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dustry Study Group.
Calvino, Italo. 1981. If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller. Trans. William
Weaver. Toronto: Lester and Orpen Dennys.
Cole, John Y., and Carol S. Gold, eds. 1979. Reading in America: Selected
Findings of the Book Industry Study Group’s 1978 Study. Washing-
ton, D.C.: Library of Congress.
Gallup Organization. 1978. Book Reading and Library Usage: A Study of
Habits and Perceptions. Conducted for the American Library Associ-
ation. Princeton: Gallup Organization.
Gray, W., and B. Rogers. 1964. Maturity in Reading, Its Nature and Ap-
praisal. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
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eracy Utilization in Canadian Workplaces. Ottawa: Statistics Canada.
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monoe.htm (accessed December 26, 2000).
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Madden, Michael. 1979. Lifestyles of Library Users and Nonusers. Occa-
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———. 1995. “If They Read Nancy Drew, So What?”: Series Book
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———. 1999. Finding Without Seeking: The Information Encounter in the
Context of Reading for Pleasure. Information Processing and Man-
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to Read for Pleasure. The Acquisitions Librarian 25: 5–21.
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Readers Choose a Book for Pleasure. Library Journal. Forthcoming.
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(accessed December 26, 2000).
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ter of Industry.
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Leisure Reading Habits of Canadian Adults with Some International
Comparisons. Ottawa: Infoscan.
CHAPTER 6
The Readers Altered State of

Consciousness
Brian Sturm
You get the feeling you’re not reading any
more, you’re not reading sentences, it’s as if you are
completely living inside the situation.
Nell (1988b, 42)
When I get really involved in reading, I’m not

aware of what is going on around me. I concentrate
on the people in the book or the movie and react the
way they react. The intense concentration is the
same in a book or a movie or in imagination as it is
in hypnosis. Reading a book can hypnotize you.
Hilgard (1970, 24)
What happens to us when we read? How is it that we can be “living in-

side the situation” while our bodies remain slumped in a chair or tucked into
bed and our eyes continue to travel across the printed page? The experience
is familiar to all readers: the sense of being lost in a book, caught up in the
world of the story, taken to another place by the artifice of a narrative. As
these phrases suggest, a journey of sorts seems to occur; we are transported
to the story world, and for a time, if we are lucky, we are alive within that
97
world. It unfolds for us with a vividness that resembles reality, and when we
emerge, we discover ourselves changed, awakened to new possibilities,
seeing ourselves and the world with an altered and often refreshed vision.
My purpose here is suggestive and descriptive rather than prescriptive.
Although the experience of entranced reading is commonplace, the re-
search on it is scarce and, to some, suspect. Relying, as much of it does, on
introspective and subjective accounts—a data source considered unreliable
by some behavioral psychologists because it is a private and unobservable
experiential event rather than a public and observable behavioral one
(Kimble and Garmezy 1968; Skinner et al. 1984; Watson 1913)—the read-
ing trance remains somewhat shrouded in mystery. Perhaps it should re-
main so because the magician whose secrets are known becomes a mere
purveyor of tricks, however masterfully performed, while the one whose
secrets remain holds the key to mystery and enchantment. Although explo-
ration can build understanding and a deeper appreciation of an experience,
it can also breed cynicism and disbelief. With that in mind, I will tread
gently, for I have no wish to reduce the power of the reading experience; it
must remain a uniquely personal journey, different each time as the book,
the reader, or the context changes.
The Experience of Story

Roman Jakobsen (1987) describes six factors that verbal communica-
tion involves: an addresser sends a message to an addressee. The message
requires a context, is transmitted through a contact or medium, and is for-
mulated in a certain code that both communicating parties understand. Ap-
plying the first part of this schema to literary theory yields this concept: An
author writes a text for a reader. Literary theorists have explored all three
of these factors: “Romantic-humanist theories emphasize the writer’s life and
mind as expressed in his or her work; ‘reader’ theories (phenomenological crit-
icism) [center] themselves on the reader’s, or ‘affective,’ experience;
formalist theories concentrate on the nature of the writing itself” (Selden,
Widdowson, and Brooker 1997, 5).
This chapter focuses on the affective approach to literature, which
makes the reader’s interaction or transaction with the text the subject of at-
tention. Although the text certainly plays an important role in the reading
trance and the author’s life may add to the reader’s understanding of—and
hence involvement in—the text, I concentrate on readers’ encounters with
the printed page and their reactions to those encounters. Louise Rosenblatt
(1978, 12) draws a useful distinction between a “text” and a “poem,” claim-
ing that the text is what the author creates, whereas the true poem is what
the reader creates, using the text as the foundation and adding to it one’s
Chapter 6—The Reader’s Altered State of Consciousness 99
personal associations, experiences, images, memories, expectations, per-

ceptions, and the like. “The poem [is] the experience shaped by the reader
under the guidance of the text” (ibid.).
Judith Langer (1990, 813) has explored the meaning-making process
that readers undergo when encountering a text. She found that readers
adopted four “stances” or relations to the text:
• Being out and stepping in
• Being in and moving through
• Being in and stepping out
• Stepping out and objectifying the experience
“These stances,” she explains, “are not linear, have the potential to re-
cur at any point in the reading, and are a function of varying interactions be-
tween the reader and the text.” In the first stance, readers make initial
contact with the plot, the characters, and the setting and begin to form a
sense of how they interrelate to form a cohesive story. In the second, “read-
ers are immersed in the text world, using both text knowledge and back-
ground knowledge to develop meaning.” In the third, readers “use their text
knowledge to reflect on personal knowledge. They use what they read in
the text to reflect on their own lives.” In the fourth stance, readers “distance
themselves from the text world, reflecting on and reacting to both the con-
tent and the experience” (ibid.).
This four-part process is remarkably similar to what listeners experi-
ence at oral storytelling events. In another work (Sturm n.d.), I have pro-
posed a model of the storylistening experience that also occurs in four
stages, although not necessarily linearly. The listener in a storytelling con-
text moves from the realm of conversation (in which a story is introduced
and the dialogic mode of conversation becomes the monologic mode of sto-
rytelling) to the Storyrealm (borrowing Young’s [1987] word to refer to the
time during which listeners begin to actively engage in the unfolding story
and the tale begins to “come to life”) . The third stage, similar to Langer’s
second one, is the experience of being immersed in the story; at this point
the Taleworld (again using Young’s word) is all-consuming, attention is fo-
cused on the characters and the unfolding drama, and knowledge of the
quotidian world is minimal. In the fourth stage, the listener emerges from
this Taleworld back into a similar, though qualitatively different, Storyrealm,
and the story takes on the status of a past experience that the listener and sto-
ryteller can consider, talk about, and explore as they reenter the realm of
conversation.
99
Perhaps the best illustration of this experience is the movie The Prin-
cess Bride (1987), in which a young boy unwillingly agrees to listen to his
grandfather read him a story. The cinematography follows the progressive
immersion of the listener/reader to perfection. At first, one sees the grand-
father and the boy on the screen talking of the boy’s illness, until the grand-
father opens his book and begins to read. After the first few sentences, the
camera shows the world of the story, with a young woman riding on horse-
back across a verdant field, but the sound of the movie is still of the grandfa-
ther reading to the boy. As the story begins to unfold in earnest, the
characters begin to speak and interact, and the grandfather and the boy dis-
appear entirely. After several minutes of the story coming to life in this
way, the boy’s voice interrupts the story’s flow, and the camera shows the
boy and his grandfather once again. This is a momentary break as the child
asks a question about the story; and then the grandfather once again begins
reading, the camera shows the story, and the characters speak. Throughout
the movie, the story is occasionally broken by interruptions by both charac-
ters, and in the end, the grandfather closes his book and departs, promising
to return the next day to read it again. In a stroke of genius, his parting
words mimic one of the character’s favorite phrases, and one is left wonder-
ing whether the grandfather was the story character when he was younger.
All three of these narrative experiences describe moments during
which the encounter with the story becomes completely engrossing; the tale
seems to absorb all of our conscious attention, and we are caught within the
world that is being created for us and by us. Although there is much to ex-
plore concerning this entire experience, I wish to focus on those specific
moments of utter involvement in the story, when it seems to circumvent the
reality of everyday experience and replace it with the unfolding drama of
the story. How do we experience these moments, and what kinds of influ-
ences augment the experience?
The Neurobiology of Trance

If describing the magic of reading is difficult, describing conscious-
ness is more so. There are as many perceptions of consciousness as there
are theorists. The “behaviorists” (Boring 1963; Watson 1913) believe that
consciousness must be linked to physiological manifestations, and they ex-
plore brain waves, heart rates, galvanic skin responses, and other physio-
logical evidence as indicators of consciousness. “Structuralists” (Battista
1978; Marsh 1977) attempt to categorize aspects of consciousness, trying to
map its attributes in the psyche, whereas “functionalists” (Stephen 1979)
ponder the utility of consciousness and its value in identity formation and
social interaction. “Constructivists” (Goodman 1984) value the independ-

ent and uniquely personal nature of consciousness and believe that each
person creates or assembles his or her consciousness from the myriad influ-
ences and stimuli with which a person comes into contact. Some theorists
believe that we can separate consciousness into discrete states that are
quantitatively or qualitatively different from others (Tart 1975), whereas
others concentrate more on the ever-changing nature of consciousness and
try to describe its “flow” (Csikszentmihalyi 1990).
The behaviorist approach to consciousness offers fascinating opportu-
nities for exploring the reading trance, by examining the neurobiology of
people while in this trance state, in a way similar to other explorations of
trance. Nell (1988b) conducted just such an experiment. He attached elec-
trodes to the forehead, the corners of the mouth, and the platysma (the mus-
cle between the chin and the larynx) of each subject in order to measure the
movement of these muscles during reading; he also measured respiration,
skin potential, heart rate, and heart period (the interval between heartbeats).
Each participant underwent a nine-part experience: five minutes of relax-
ation with eyes shut; ten minutes and a subsequent fifteen minutes of mild
sensory deprivation (translucent goggles and white noise); thirty minutes of
ludic, or pleasure, reading followed by five minutes of eyes-closed relax-
ation; and finally four cognitive tasks to see whether other mental activities
would imitate the reading responses. He found that during reading, all of
the measures increased over the baseline resting measure with the excep-
tion of heart period, which decreased. Although readers claimed that read-
ing was a relaxed and rather passive experience, Nell found that they were
actually in a physiologically aroused state. There was also a marked drop in
arousal immediately following reading when subjects closed their eyes, and
Nell claims that the “delights of bedtime reading may in part be attributed to
this precipitous fall in arousal, not only in skeletal muscle but also in skin
potential, controlled by the autonomic nervous system” (Nell 1988b,
36–38).
Increased arousal is typical of many trance states. Ritual trance is of-
ten induced by rhythmic drumming or prolonged dancing. Roland Fischer
(1978) has developed a “cartography” of the conscious states based on the
level of arousal associated with each: the hyperaroused (ergotropic) states
ending in ecstatic, mystical rapture occupy one-half of a circular contin-
uum, while the hypoaroused (trophotropic) states associated with medita-
tion occupy the other. Interestingly, the two extremes abut, leading to the
supposition that the state of consciousness one experiences is similar to
whether one arrives there through excitation or tranquility.
Since the late-nineteenth century there has been a growing body of re-
search concerning the two main lobes of the brain (i.e., brain laterality) and
the differences in their functioning. The human brain exhibits lateral asym-
metry, with the left hemisphere controlling the right side of the body, and
the right hemisphere, the left side. Although both hemispheres interact (pri-
marily across the corpus callosum) in stimulus processing, each hemi-
sphere has certain specializations (the neurons in that area of the brain tend
to fire more frequently under certain conditions). Richard Restak states:
To summarize a great deal of research: Things are perceived and an-

alyzed as a whole by the right hemisphere, whereas the left hemi-
sphere breaks things down into their components. The right
hemisphere excels at reading maps, working out jigsaw puzzles,
copying designs, distinguishing and remembering musical tones,
recognizing faces, analyzing other people’s emotions via the inter-
pretation of their tones of voice or facial expression (essentially the
“reading of body language”) , visualizing in three-dimensional
space, and other activities involving perceptual-spatial relations. In
addition to language, the left hemisphere is involved in all other ac-
tivities that involve analysis or sequential processing. (1995, 97–98)
Sandra Witelson describes this functional asymmetry in the following

way:
Tasks involving speech production; phonemic discrimination; com-

prehension of oral and written language; the ability to write; perfor-
mance of voluntary finger, limb, and oral movements; and the
perception of sequences of stimuli are more dependent on left- than
right-hemisphere functioning in most people. In contrast, tasks in-
volving the perception of two- and three-dimensional visual and tac-
tual shapes, spatial position and orientation of stimuli, the
perception of faces and colors, mental rotation of three-dimensional
shapes, the ability to direct attention to both lateral sensory fields,
the perception of musical chords and melodies, aspects of the per-
ception of emotional stimuli and prosodic features of speech, and the
abilities to dress oneself and construct block models are more de-
pendent on the right hemisphere. (1995, 61)
Barbara Lex explores this specialization in relation to ritual trance

states. She, too, explains that the left cerebral hemisphere “functions in the
production of speech, as well as in linear, analytic thought and…pro-
cess[es] things sequentially. In contrast, the specializations of the right
hemisphere comprise spatial and tonal perception, recognition of pat-
terns…and holistic, synthetic thought” (Lex 1979, 125). She claims that
during certain tribal rituals, the dancing and drumming “drive” or overstim-
ulate the autonomic nervous system (an ergotropic or arousal mechanism),
and the repetitive nature of the stimuli impairs left-hemisphere functioning
enabling the right hemisphere to dominate “resulting in a gestalt, timeless,
nonverbal experience” of total engagement or trance (ibid., 146). The result
of this intense arousal is exhaustion, or trophotropic rebound, leading to
deep relaxation. Returning to Nell (1988b), although he was not dealing
with intense arousal states and exhaustion, he did find that reading involves
increased arousal followed by a period of deep relaxation. Perhaps the
trance-inducing process of reading mimics that of ritual (the act of reading,
after all, is ritualistic and in many ways repetitive and rhythmic) by com-
bining periods of arousal and rest.
Lex’s belief that the trance state is characterized by right-hemispheric
dominance may also have implications for reading. Waldie and Mosley
(2000) mention many studies that implicate the right hemisphere in the
reading process. Their own study examined children ages 5–15 and tested
them on two tasks: a dual task (how well they could tap a finger of their left
or right hand while reading) and a lexical-decision task (how well they dis-
tinguished words from nonwords when presented to right or left visual
fields). The results of the dual task show more interference with right-fin-
ger tapping when the subjects were reading, suggesting that the left hemi-
sphere (which is responsible for the right-hand side of the body) was
“needed” for the reading process and therefore disrupted the motor coordi-
nation of the right hand; the right hemisphere was not as involved in the
reading process, and so the left hand was not as affected. The results for the
lexical reading task, however, suggest that for children under ten years of
age, word recognition is primarily a right-hemisphere experience but that
the left hemisphere predominates for older children. The authors suggest
that this age difference may be due to the changing way readers process
words as they gain ability: Beginning readers tend to rely on “visual
wholes” for pattern recognition (a right-hemisphere strength), whereas
more adept readers may switch to “phonological/sequential strategies” that
are mediated primarily by the left hemisphere.
This study is suggestive on several fronts: Does the process of reading
change when one goes into the reading trance, causing one to recognize
words visually (as young children do) and to activate the right hemisphere?
Is the gestalt that seems to accompany the reading trance and the ritual
trance reminiscent of a particularly childlike way of interpreting the world?

Finally, whereas the process of reading may be associated with the left
hemisphere, could the pleasure of reading be associated with the right?
Further research will eventually shed light on these issues.
Roberts and Kraft (1989, 326) measured the electroencephalograph
(EEG) alpha patterns of boys (ages 6–8 and 10–12) while they read and
then discussed their reading. They found that the left hemisphere was most
active in younger children as they struggled with the phonetic and syntactic
analysis of early reading. The older and more experienced readers, how-
ever, showed more bilateral processing (both brain hemispheres): “[A]
more advanced stage of reading acquisition is likely to involve increasing
use of right-hemispheric processing in collaboration with left-hemispheric
processing, rather than a decreasing use of the left hemisphere’s linguistic
and sequential processing.” Ornstein et al. (1979, 401) evaluated the EEG
alpha waves of twelve males between the ages of eighteen and forty-five
while they read stories and technical reports; their results show a higher ac-
tivation of the right hemisphere while reading stories than while reading
technical reports. They conclude: “[W]hile it is still largely accurate that
language is primarily a left hemisphere function, there may be certain as-
pects of the process of reading that differentially involve the right hemi-
sphere.” Finally, Kraft et al. (1980) studied the EEG traces of nine boys and
nine girls, ages six to eight, to determine their brain activity during reading
and while answering questions about what they had read. The results indi-
cate that the right hemisphere was dominant during the encoding of infor-
mation (reading) whereas the left hemisphere was dominant during
verbal/logical expression (talking about their reading).
Gruzelier (1988) proposes a multistaged process of the brain during
hypnosis. At first there is a period of focused attention involving primarily
the left hemisphere. There is then a “letting go” period during which the left
hemisphere is gradually inhibited, followed by a period of increased
right-hemispheric activity. Further stages depend on the nature of the hyp-
notic induction.
If trance is primarily a right-hemisphere phenomenon and if adult
reading is primarily a left-hemisphere phenomenon, then there may be evi-
dence that reading that facilitates trance is a whole-brain activity. Roberts
and Kraft’s (1989) work seems to suggest this bilateral involvement, and
Gruzelier (1988) proposes a sequential activation of the hemispheres. The
age changes in hemispheric activity evident in both Waldie and Mosley
(2000) and in Roberts and Kraft (1989), although seemingly contradictory,
point to research that will shed light on the reading process as it relates to
age and reading expertise. The possibilities for further discovery are truly
exciting.
A second avenue of inquiry, which no one has pursued to my knowl-

edge with regard to reading and trance, is the measuring of alpha, beta, and
theta brainwave activity during altered states of consciousness. Hughes and
Melville provide a brief overview of this topic:
Beta (13–30 Hertz) occurs with strong, excited emotions such as

fear, rage, or anxiety, as well as with alert attentiveness, selective at-
tention, concentration, or anticipation (Lindsley, 1952). Brown
(1977) has described beta as being correlated with alert behavior,
concentrated mental activity such as solving math problems, anxiety
and apprehension. Alpha (8–13 Hertz) is associated with a relaxed
wakefulness, routine reactions and creative thought where attention
may wander and free association is favored (Lindsley, 1952). Brown
(1977) has described alpha as being correlated with a generally tran-
quil, pleasant, almost floating feeling. Theta (4–8 Hertz) occurs with
drowsiness, borderline or partial awareness, imagery, reverie and
“dream-like states” (Lindsley, 1952). (1990, 180)
Several EEG studies of the brainwave activity of people during medi-

tation and trance have shown marked changes in brainwave patterns.
Kasamatsu and Hirai (1969) studied Zen priests and disciples during medi-
tation. They found four stages of brainwave activity: appearance of alpha
waves, increase of alpha wave amplitude, decrease in alpha wave fre-
quency, and finally the occasional appearance of rhythmic theta waves.
Anand, Chhina, and Singh (1961) studied yogis engaged in samadhi (medi-
tation) and found a preponderance of alpha activity and an increase in am-
plitude even when the yogis appeared relaxed and in a sleeplike state. Das
and Gastaut (1955) studied Kriya yogis and noted mainly alpha activity but
also a decrease in amplitude of the waves. Banquet (1973) studied practitio-
ners of transcendental meditation and found an increased alpha amplitude
and a decreased frequency with occasional bursts of theta waves, much like
the findings of Kasamatsu and Hirai (1969). Not all researchers, however,
have found a change in brainwave activity during meditation (Bagchi and
Wenger 1957; Tebecis 1975). As Schuman (1980, 341) states, “These inves-
tigators found no consistent or significant difference between meditation
and nonmeditation, despite a trend toward increased theta and decreased
beta” (emphasis in original).
Hughes and Melville (1990) studied trance channels (people who
serve as mediums) and found that during their altered state of conscious-
ness, alpha, beta, and theta waves increased dramatically. Sabourin et al.
(1990) took EEG measurements of people during hypnosis and found a
marked increase of alpha and theta waves but a decrease in beta waves.
An EEG study of readers of this nature would shed light on the brain-
wave activity during reading. Is the experience similar to hypnotic trance
with a rise in both alpha and theta (a combined tranquility and imagery)
with a decrease in beta (alertness and concentration), or does it mimic the
trance channel’s experience of heightened brain activity in all three wave
patterns? Is it similar to meditation with a concomitant rise in alpha waves?
A sense of tranquility and imagery is certainly associated with reading, but
evidence of selective attention and anticipation also exists. EEG studies of
readers would help categorize the neurologic component of the reading
trance phenomenon.
The Experience of Trance

The personal experience of trance, regardless of the induction tech-
niques employed, seems to be fairly constant in general terms; individual
differences are, of course, evident, but the self-reports of the trance experi-
ence show remarkable consistency. What are the characteristics of the
trance experience in its many forms, and how does the experience of read-
ers relate?
In other work (Sturm 2000) I have described some of the characteris-
tics of the storylistening trance. Six were evident in that study: realism, lack
of awareness of surroundings or other mental processes, engaged receptive
channels, control, “placeness,” and time distortion. Realism relates to the
sense that the characters or the environment of the story is real or alive. Peo-
ple described this experience as “stories come alive and touch you” or “it’s
the actual living of the images.” Some listeners claimed merely to watch the
story unfold around them (“it’s like I’m standing here watching, I’m not re-
ally part of it”) , whereas others were active participants in the story world
(“I’m no longer sitting in a tent listening to someone tell a story…I was in
those woods, I saw those animals, they were real”) . Hilgard (1970, 26) ex-
plains that it is “useful to distinguish character identification and empathic
identification. By the first we mean a kind of participation in the action and
feeling as though one were indeed one of the characters; by the second we
mean participation in the feeling of the story even though the separation of
the self from the character is maintained.”
The study participants mentioned a distinct lack of awareness of their
surroundings. Three different perceptions were evident. For some, the sur-
roundings remained constant and the listener “forgot” to attend to them,
simply “didn’t notice” them, or consciously “tuned them out.” For others,
the sense was that the surroundings “disappeared,” whereas the third group
of listeners felt as though they had left the surroundings and gone some-
where. There was also a full engagement of the listeners’ receptive chan-
nels. The visual channel was engaged on two levels: the physical visual
level, in which listeners watched the storyteller perform, and the mental vi-
sual level (visualization), in which they watched the story world unfold.
Two aural channels were likewise active: the physical one of listening to
the storyteller and the mental one of the Taleworld. Kinesthetic responses
to the story were common, from laughing and crying to the subtler frisson
of suspense or fear. The emotional channel was also fully engaged as the
kinesthetic reactions indicate. These emotions were influenced by the story
telling, by the story, by the story characters, by the listener’s memories, and
by the storylistening experience as a whole. Some participants also men-
tioned an emotional connection with the storyteller.
Listeners mentioned a lack or loss of control of the story experience.
Although a few mentioned that they actively made an effort to get involved
in the story (“I put myself into the story”) , most felt they either relinquished
control or that control was taken from them. “He made you feel like you
were really there” and “I’m kind of taken there or transported there into the
story” are examples of this attitude. One participant made a fascinating jux-
taposition between willful control and willful lack of control: “I know that I
consciously let myself fall into the story.” Although the “let myself” im-
plies control, the resulting “fall” implies its lack. Some listeners seem to
need to make an effort to reach the point at which the story (or the telling)
takes control and carries the listener along, as though one must consciously
enter the river before it can carry one away. This may coincide with the
left-hemispheric “effort” of the beginning reader and the subsequent
right-hemispheric, gestalt experience of the more experienced reader. It
also recalls the “willingness” in Coleridge’s (1975) “willing suspension of
disbelief.”
There was also a “placeness” to the story. People constantly referred
to being “in” the story. They made claims such as “I feel I’m inside the
story; I’m sitting there totally in the story” and “it captivates you into the
story.” Others described it as “there.” “You just kind of get lost there” and
“I was just there” are representative expressions. Perhaps it is a feature of
the English language, a figure of speech, but the story seems to have a spa-
tial reference for many people; it is somewhere other than their real world,
and one often takes a “journey” of some sort (at least metaphorically) to
reach the world of the story. This journey could be a metaphor for the in-
duction process of trance, and the spatial quality is certainly consonant with
Tolkien’s concept of the secondary world.
Finally, listeners mentioned that their sense of time was changed while
engrossed in a story. For some, the story seemed to pass faster than chrono-
logical time (“time goes pretty quickly when you’re in a story; you get into
it, and then it’s over”) , whereas others felt that time passed more slowly
(one participant felt that an eleven-minute story had lasted about an hour
and a half). There was a further layer added by another listener who claimed
that the storyteller’s “story seemed very long to me, partly because he went
on such a long journey.” This idea that the characters’ story time influences
the listener’s perception of time (i.e., the story characters experience fifteen
days, and the story feels long, whereas if they experience only one day, the
story feels short) bears further exploration. Another intriguing quotation
was that “my sense of the passage of time, my subjective sense, was really
different; I had kind of an objective sense there too, side by side.” If one ac-
cepts the listener’s feelings of the intense reality of the Taleworld, their
multichannel involvement, their perception of being “in” the story, and
their lack of awareness of their surroundings, it seems logical that an objec-
tive sense of the passage of time would be lacking while they were involved
in the story. For at least one of the listeners, there was a dual temporal
awareness that seems simultaneous. One could explain this as a sensed si-
multaneity while in fact the clock time awareness was a moment of
noninvolvment in the tale. It could also relate to Hilgard’s (1975) claim that
hypnotic subjects never fully relinquish conscious awareness; they have a
“hidden observer” that does not get involved and that monitors, and per-
haps even controls, the various realities they experience. Is there an unfail-
ingly vigilant awareness within us that monitors our experiences like a third
eye and draws us back from the Taleworld into quotidian reality?
Many of these same feelings are evident in the literature on reading.
W. H. Auden (1967, 84) in his afterword to George MacDonald’s The
Golden Key mentions that “History, actual or feigned, demands that the
reader be at one and the same time inside the story, sharing in the feelings
and events narrated, and outside it, checking these against his own experi-
ences. A fairy tale like The Golden Key, on the other hand, demands of the
reader total surrender; so long as he is in its world, there must for him be no
other.” The dual awareness (“inside and outside”), the lack of control (“sur-
render”) , and the “placeness” of trance (“in its world”) are implicated.
Tolkien describes it similarly:
Children are capable, of course, of literary belief, when the

story-maker’s art is good enough to produce it. That state of mind
has been called “willing suspension of disbelief.” But this does not
seem to me a good description of what happens. What really hap-
pens is that the story-maker proves a successful “sub-creator.” He
makes a Secondary World which your mind can enter. Inside it,
what he relates is “true”: it accords with the laws of that world. You
therefore believe it, while you are, as it were, inside. The moment
disbelief arises, the spell is broken; the magic, or rather art, has
failed. You are then out in the Primary World again, looking at the
little abortive Secondary World from outside. (1947, 60)
Michael Benton has pursued Tolkien’s idea and developed a three-di-

mensional model of this Secondary World. The three axes in this model are
“psychic distance” (the variable degree of involvement in or detachment
from the story), “psychic process” (the variable degree of retrospection or
anticipation one experiences when reading), and “psychic level” (the vari-
able degree of conscious or unconscious activity) (Benton 1983, 72). These
three axes intersect in space to form the experience of reading, and that
point of intersection is constantly shifting as the reader interacts with the
text. “The dimensions of the secondary world depend upon shifts that occur
upon these planes” (ibid.).
Silverstein mentions the reading experience of his elementary school
students (Silverstein 1978, 602). One eight-year-old girl, while reading
aloud, suddenly stopped and began turning her head as though watching
something. When questioned, she exclaimed that she was watching the
ducks, about which she had been reading, waddle across her desk. “On
questioning Susan further on whether or not this kind of occurrence both-
ered her often when she read, she said, ‘No. It doesn’t bother me much, only
when I read slowly. Then the pictures come out and I see them on the book.
When I read faster, the pictures don’t have time to come out, but instead I
see them in my head—and then it doesn’t bother me at all” (ibid.). He also
found that for many of his students, the words would become blurry and
then disappear from the page until a blink would bring them back. This phe-
nomenon seemed to precede a growing intensity of visualization, some-
times to the point of hallucination as just mentioned. “When I read a story
book, I can see the events in my mind, just as if I were watching it as a
movie,” claimed one child, while another said, “[W]hen I read I can actu-
ally see in my mind what is going on. It’s like a long movie that stops when
you stop reading and starts again when you continue on with the story. But
this only happens to me with story books, and not with books like reference
books” (Silverstein 1978, 604–5).
Erickson (1976) mentions that during hypnosis, the vision can get
foggy or blurry or become tunnel vision and that a patient might experience
alterations in the color of the background or the size and shape of things. He
also mentions the sense of “drifting” that is common in hypnotic induction.
Perhaps these experiences are similar to the ones Silverstein’s students de-
scribed.
Gerrig (1993, 10–11) describes the encounter with a “narrative world”
as a six-stage process in which the reader is transported into that world:
1. Someone (“the traveler”) is transported
2. by some means of transportation
3. as a result of performing certain actions.
4. The traveler goes some distance from his or her world of origin
5. which makes some aspects of the world of origin inaccessible.
6. The traveler returns to the world of origin, somewhat changed by the
journey.
Throughout his book, Gerrig explores issues that are reminiscent of the
storylistening trance. He mentions that the use of the word transported “pro-
jects an aura of passivity…[that] accurately encodes readers’ descriptions of
their experience. The disparity between the passivity of the metaphor and the
active complexity of the processes that make the experience of narratives pos-
sible suggests that an adequate theory of this domain must concern itself with
the illusion of effortlessness” (13). He quotes Iser (1989, 244) on the way in
which readers must let their reality fade to be replaced by the fictional reality:
“To imagine what has been stimulated by aesthetic semblance entails placing
our thoughts and feelings at the disposal of an unreality, bestowing on it a sem-
blance of reality in proportion to a reducing of our own reality. For the duration
of the performance we are both ourselves and someone else.” Appleyard reiter-
ates this dual sense when he states, “The reader can surrender to the fantasy
knowing that it is only a story and that however vivid the sense of involvement
is, the listener is always spectator as well as participant and remains in control
of the level of involvement” (1990, 40). Although I disagree that, when en-
tranced by a story, one has a sense of control over the process, I also believe
that there is a “flicker effect” to being immersed in a story; one “pops in and
out” of it quite quickly, and the duration of the trance is rather evanescent. Thus
we feel in control because we often emerge from the trance, but while in it, we
seem to lose control of the process and are swept along.
Shor maintains that “the reader’s fantasy world is an encapsulated unit
and it seems totally real….The reader is completely oblivious at the con-
scious level to the true reality about him” (1970, 92–93). Hilgard argues
that what actually happens is that the reader’s ego breaks down, decreasing
the ability to distinguish between the subjective and the objective, and lead-
ing to total immersion in the experience and the feeling of being “trans-
formed or transported by what he reads…swept emotionally into the
experience described by the author” (1970, 23). This is similar to the “com-
plete absorption” that is part of Maslow’s (1962) understanding of peak ex-
periences. Perhaps the most complete exploration of the reading trance is
Victor Nell’s work, Lost in a Book (1988a). Here he draws together much of
the research on imaginative involvement, reading ability, absorption, and
dreaming to form a motivational model of the experience of reading (see
Figure 12.1). Nell first sets the reading trance in a social context and then
explores the component processes of pleasure reading. He then relates read-
ing to dreaming, hypnotic trance, and other consciousness-changing activi-
ties, resulting in his motivational model.
The Induction of Trance

Many influences on the ordinary state of consciousness can lead to an
altered state. These influences often take the form of rhythmic stimuli that
“drive” or “entrain” the conscious mind so that the unconscious rises to the
surface and becomes dominant. Events in normal life, such as the passing
white lines of the highway, can drop people into a trance (often called
“highway hypnosis”) quite quickly. Rhythmic flashes of light, such as from
a strobe, can induce an altered state, as can rhythmic dancing or drumming
(Adrian and Matthews 1934; d’Aquili 1983; Neher 1962). Hypnotic verbal
and visual inductions use repetition, rhythm, and a deep sense of trust be-
tween hypnotist and patient to ease people into a trance. Distractions or
other “startle” phenomena can just as quickly reinstate the normal con-
scious state. As Fischer (1978) mentions, both activity and passivity can
lead to trance.
Milton Erickson (1976, 8), a renowned hypnotherapist, mentions sev-
eral induction techniques. He claims that truisms (statements that listeners
can’t or won’t refute) help build the trust between the hypnotist and the pa-
tient. He feels that internal images are “much more effective [than external
ones] in holding attention” and that showing the patient evidence of his en-
tranced state helps deepen the trance (i.e., hand immobility or seemingly au-
tomatic movement). He also feels that downplaying distractions and making
them seem unimportant helps keep patients in a trance and that helping pa-
tients relax and making no demands of them facilitate trance induction.
The hypnotist tries to decrease stimulus input and thereby focus atten-
tion on the hypnotist’s voice. Hilgard (1970, 255) mentions the work of
Kubie and Margolin (1944) and claims that “having described the reduction
of sensory input in the usual induction (through immobilization and monot-
ony) they propose that this reduction in sensorimotor channels blurs the ego
boundaries of the subject, so that there is a psychological fusion between sub-
ject and hypnotist; as this stage is reached the hypnotist’s words are confused
with the subject’s own thoughts.” Reading, too, is in many ways a reduced
sensory experience. The body is usually still, nearly eliminating its input, and
the attention is focused on a small area of the book. The blurring of the hyp-
notist’s voice and the patient’s thoughts is reminiscent of the blurring of the
author’s words and the reader’s images. The children who saw the words on
their pages disappear and the one who watched ducks cross her desk are per-
haps experiencing just this kind of merging of words and experience.
The influences on one’s state of consciousness during storylistening
are myriad. My work with listeners (Sturm 2000) shows at least sixteen dif-
ferent possible influences that help draw listeners into the Taleworld. One
of the most often mentioned influences is the activation of listeners’ memo-
ries by the story. If the story is similar to past experiences or helped recall
memories, listeners find themselves more deeply involved in the story that
is being told. Other influences include listeners’ expectations (precon-
ceived notions of what to expect from the event), personal preferences (ad-
venture stories told to one who loves them, for example), physical comfort
(environments that were too cold, too hot, too noisy, etc., made it difficult
to become engrossed in the story), emotional comfort (one has to be willing
to trust the storyteller and put the worries of the day to one side), and the
storyteller’s ability (the preconception that the storyteller is superb facili-
tated the altered state). Some listeners find that novelty (stories they hadn’t
heard before) helped them become engaged, whereas others found that fa-
miliarity with the told story did. Several participants mentioned rhythm, al-
though the exact rhythm they found entrancing was not discernible.
Occupation or training is an influence in the sense that a nurse claimed to be
unable to “get lost in a story” because she was trained to be vigilant of her
surroundings, whereas a participant who was studying shamanic journey-
ing found her entry into the altered state made easier by her training. The
storyteller’s involvement in the story was mentioned as an influence; the
teller’s involvement seems to be contagious, and a lack of involvement a
definite hindrance. Storytelling style makes a difference, usually in terms of
whether a teller’s style matches a listener’s expectations or preferences.
The story content certainly plays a role in bringing listeners into a trance
state, as does the development of a sense of rapport between the listener
and the teller. Two other influences that were mentioned, though infre-
quently, were recency (the most recent story was reported to be the most en-
trancing) and humor (some people found the funny stories the most
engaging).
Many of these influences are also plausible influences on the reading
trance. Physical discomfort would certainly decrease the likelihood of in-
volvement in the story, as would emotional discomfort and a conflict between
the listener’s expectations of the book and the actual experience. Novelty and
familiarity could exert a similar influence on the reader, as the anticipation of
reading a new book or rereading an old favorite should help involve the reader.
The content of the book and the reader’s expectations would have an impact on
the reading experience similar to the storytelling one, and the rhythm in the
text (while certainly different from that of speech or drumming), if identifi-
able, might influence a reader as much as a listener.
Other influences at work in reading can certainly help a reader enter an
altered state of consciousness. Fletcher, Hummel, and Marsolek suggest
that the “causal structure of a narrative controls the allocation of attention
as it is read” (1990, 239). This causality within the text seems to give coher-
ence to the story events, thereby leading to greater comprehension. Gerrig
(1993) mentions the following “participatory responses” of readers as they
interact with a text: hopes and preferences (for the direction of the plot and
the results of characters’ actions), suspense (this occurs when a reader lacks
knowledge about the outcome of an event that has significant conse-
quences), and replotting (the reader plays with multiple possible out-
comes). All of these strategies, while focused on the reader’s responses, are
potential influences on one’s state of consciousness. Brewer and
Lichtenstein (1982, 480) draw on the work of Berlyne (1971) and suggest
that “enjoyment is produced by moderate increases in arousal (‘arousal
boost’) or by a temporary sharp rise in general arousal followed by reduc-
tion of the arousal (‘arousal jag’), and if both processes operate together en-
joyment is produced by both the rise and the subsequent drop in arousal
(‘arousal-boost-jag’).” This is reminiscent of the drop in brainwave activity
immediately following reading, and it may be part of the reason for the
pleasure people associate with reading and the abandon with which they en-
gage in it.
Conclusions
Hypnosis, storylistening, and reading, even though they surely differ
in terms of the forms of induction and the methods of precipitating trance,
may be similar experiences of altered states of consciousness. Many of the
characteristics of these altered states are qualitatively similar, and the influ-
ences that help alter one’s state of consciousness seem comparable. Al-
though I have suggested possible connections, detailed research is needed
to explore the phenomena associated with this reading trance. Behaviorists
will continue to explore the physiological correlates of reading, and as the
data grow, we may be able to find more relationships among these various
trancelike experiences. Structuralists will help map the boundaries of these
secondary worlds, and constructivists will further our understanding of the
reader’s role in creating the reading experience. In the meantime, readers
will continue to curl up with a good book, and regardless of whether science
advances their understanding of the experience, they will still revel in “the
ease with which we sink through books quite out of sight, [and] pass clam-
orous pages into soundless dreams” (Gass 1970, 27).
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PART II
Advisory Services in Public
and School Libraries Today:
The State of the Art
Introduction to Part II
The second part of this book examines the state of the art in advisory
services in public and school libraries. An understanding of the present
level of service is helpful in identifying both areas of strength and areas that
need further improvement. The section begins with an examination of advi-
sory services in the two most familiar environments—public and school li-
braries—and then looks at the resources that readers’ advisors employ in
their service to customers, from the more traditional print resources to indi-
rect resources to Internet resources.
In Chapter 7 Anne May reports on research that she and colleagues at
the Queens College Graduate School of Library and Information Studies
conducted. They used the nonintrusive methodology that Shearer and oth-
ers employed to explore how readers’ advisory transactions were carried
out in a public library system in New York. May examines the role of the
readers’ advisor in the interaction with library patrons, the extent to which
comprehensive readers’ advisory interviews were conducted, and the tools
used by readers’ advisory staff. Unfortunately, May finds that many librari-
ans seemed uncomfortable with the requests for advice. She reports that
comprehensive readers’ advisory interviews rarely took place, that staff al-
most never asked questions regarding the appeal of specific titles, and that
the advisors often seemed reluctant to use readers’ advisory tools to satisfy
patrons’ queries. Just as other researchers in this area, May finds much need
for improvement in the readers’ advisory transactions that she and her col-
leagues experienced.
Chapter 8 by Carol Doll focuses on advisory services in school library
media centers. Doll reminds us that the school media center functions within
the school community and that advisory is part of the curriculum support role
media specialists play. Doll finds many opportunities to work with teachers
and students to suggest specific titles appropriate for the curriculum or for
121
122 Part II: Advisory Services in Public and School Libraries Today
enjoyment. She outlines a wide range of advisory techniques, including sto-

rytelling, booktalks, reading aloud, creating bibliographies, and providing
individual guidance, and she also identifies a number of resources to sup-
port these activities, from general and specialized bibliographies to elec-
tronic resources.
The focus of Chapter 9, by readers’ advisory guru Joyce Saricks, is on
the types of advisory tools available to librarians and the ways in which
staff members can incorporate those tools in the provision of readers’ advi-
sory services. Saricks also goes beyond the tools to suggest how librarians
can learn to use interviewing skills, in addition to reference resources, to
create what she calls “truly satisfying conversations about books with read-
ers.” The emphasis, as with many other authors in the book, is on under-
standing the relationship between readers and their books and building on
that relationship to strengthen the services that librarians provide.
The readers’ advisory resources and services that public librarian
Nora Armstrong discusses in Chapter 10 are indirect, or what Armstrong
calls “nonmediated.” Like Doll, Saricks, and Johnson, Armstrong outlines
a rich array of resources and services that librarians can use to enrich the ex-
periences of their customers, including displays, booklists, bookmarks, and
library programs that emphasize books and reading. Even though these
methods of promotion exist, Armstrong is also aware of the challenges and
discusses these as well.
Finally, in Chapter 11, Roberta Johnson looks at Internet resources of
interest to readers’ advisors. As Johnson points out, the last four years have
seen the Internet become a very useful tool for practicing readers’ advisory,
and she provides a tour of resources that answer patron requests, provide in-
formation on authors and their works, and assist with collection develop-
ment. Johnson’s wide-ranging tour includes Usenet news groups, electronic
mailing lists, and a host of Web sites. Johnson focuses not only on the re-
sources but also on how library staff might use them to meet the specific
readers’ advisory goals of the library.
As with Part I of the book, Part II presents both cause for concern—the
evidence May finds that many readers’ advisory interactions are less than
satisfactory—as well as cause for hope—the rich array of resources and
services that Doll, Saricks, Armstrong, and Johnson outline and the ways in
which these can help librarians enrich the relationships with their customers.
—R.B.
CHAPTER 7
Readers Advisory Service:

Explorations of the Transaction
Anne K. May
The majority of library users turn to their libraries in search of recre-
ational reading materials (Berry 1993; Fialkoff 1997). However, these pa-
trons are not always treated well. Although many libraries claim to provide
adult readers’ advisory, in actuality, such reading guidance is often elusive.
In fact, many users do not realize that it is even proper or realistic to elicit
reading suggestions from staff. Moreover, libraries oftentimes do not make
users aware that such a service is available.
The landscape of the public library is changing. With the Internet and
other electronic sources becoming ubiquitous in the home and office, it is
likely that more and more patrons will fulfill their information needs with-
out ever setting foot on library premises. In fact, one commentator has al-
ready noted that the circulation of nonfiction books is declining nationwide
(Smith 2000b). Because leisure pursuits are still the most common rationale
for public library visits in this information-centric age, it makes sense for li-
braries to court their most important constituency—recreational readers.
One way to fulfill this mission would to be to renew the emphasis on pro-
viding readers’ advisory services.
123
Historical Backdrop
Readers’ advisory programs have vacillated in popularity over the
years. The service traces its origins to the late nineteenth century and
reached its zenith in the 1920s and 1930s. In its beginnings, it was an all-en-
compassing adult education plan. Advisees met with specially designated
librarians who prescribed works aimed at morally uplifting the participants.
Pleasure reading was not within its scope—in fact, fiction works were
widely derogated and treated as suspect. Instead, the general goal of early
readers’ advisory services was the self-improvement of patrons. During
World War II and its aftermath, there was no longer an impetus for readers’
advisory services. A full work force with little leisure time may have led to
the service’s decline, and library directors adopted the stance that every li-
brarian should be capable of performing this function, not just the desig-
nated advisors.
In recent years a resurgence of interest in reading guidance has oc-
curred. However, the contemporary incarnation of readers’ advisory no
longer has the same didactic emphasis. Instead, its aim is to facilitate read-
ers in fiction selection—matching readers with books to read for pleasure.
Library staff usually do not attempt to reform patrons’ reading choices. The
lynchpin of modern reading advisory practice is that readers need not apol-
ogize for their literary tastes (Herald 2000).
This readers’ advisory renaissance has a practical “ how-to” bent with
the aim of improving the skills of those providing advice. Much of the liter-
ature concerns itself with the tools they might employ, the methods of con-
ducting the readers’ advisory interview, staff training, and the promotion of
the service to public library patrons (American Library Association,
Readers’ Advisory Committee 1997; Chelton 1993; Saricks and Brown
1997). But simply because instructional resources are accessible does not
necessarily mean that staff members are effectively implementing reading
guidance. Despite the availability of professional materials, many librari-
ans still regard the readers’ advisory interchange as a daunting undertaking.
Research has found that seldom is the experts’ advice on how to conduct a
readers’ advisory transaction fully realized. A recent editorial lamented the
woebegone state of this particular library service and asked, “Why are we
so bad at reader’s advisory?” (Fialkoff 2000) The writer used pejorative
terms such as “mediocre” and “abysmal” to report on the current state of the
art. The profession must take the printed models and move them beyond the
page and into actual practice. At a Public Library Association preconference
in 2000, Duncan Smith, organizer of the preconference, urged public librar-
ians to dedicate themselves anew to becoming readers’ advisors and of-
fered a twelve-step program for those taking the pledge (Smith 2000b).
Chapter 7—Readers’ Advisory Service: Explorations of the Transaction 125
Research Into the Readers

Advisory Transaction
The need to reinvigorate readers’ advisory services is uncontestable.
Change must begin with the way that library personnel approach the inter-
change between staff member and patron. There has been a paucity of re-
search illuminating the reader’s advisory transaction from the adult user’s
point of view. Indeed, reading guidance has been perceived as a self-evident
task, one that is easy to perform. Such a misconception has crippled inquiry:
“Research on the subject of assisting readers to find what they want has been
rare, even while questions abound and the consequences are important to the
field” (Shearer 1996b, 182). Although there have been trailblazing studies on
the reference transaction interchange, few have focused on its readers’ advi-
sory corollary. Exceptions include Shearer’s study “The Nature of the
Readers’ Advisory Transaction in Adult Reading” (Shearer 1996a) and a
master’s project titled “An Investigation of Readers’ Advisory Transactions
in Nassau County (NY) Public Libraries” (Lackner, May, Miltenberg, and
Olesh 1998; May, Olesh, Miltenberg, and Lackner 2000). Both endeavors
were informed by the qualitative studies of reference encounters (Crowley
1985; Durrance 1989; Dewdney and Ross 1994; Gers and Seward 1985).
In his work Shearer takes pains to differentiate the readers’ advisory
interchange from that of its reference counterpart. He defines the readers’
advisory transaction as “an exchange of information between two people
with the purpose of one person’s suggesting text for the other’s later read-
ing interest to one of them….The text suggested in the transaction is ex-
pected to meet a recreational, emotional, psychological, or educational
need” (Shearer 1996a, 3). Readers’ advisory is distinguishable from refer-
ence in that the successful conclusion of the former neither results in the
provision of a fact or missing data nor attempts to fill a known gap in an oth-
erwise complete knowledge framework. “The success of a readers’ advi-
sory transaction is reflected in a reader discovering a book…which is
enjoyable, entertaining, stimulating, mind stretching, and eye-opening; it is
in the realm of the subjective” (ibid.).
Shearer’s research took place between 1992 and 1994, at which time a
group of North Carolina Central University graduate students visited vari-
ous county, independent municipal, and multicounty (regional system)
public library settings predominately in North Carolina and posed as read-
ers’ advisees. The student researchers completed questionnaires in which
they described the resulting transactions and rated the staff members on the
basis of their knowledge, professionalism, and attention to the patrons’ re-
quests. In his narrative report of the best and worst encounters, Shearer ad-
dressed issues such as the educational qualifications of the advisors and the
congeniality of the various interactions.
In Shearer’s study, the librarians rarely referred to professional tools.

Although staff members mentioned the catalog in passing, they made no con-
certed or systematic effort to consult professional materials or employ elec-
tronic finding aids, according to the narratives. In large measure, staff
members made off-the-cuff suggestions. Although much advice was predi-
cated on the personal knowledge of a particular staff member, consultations
among colleagues did occur. An advisor who did not read black fiction
sought out a fellow staff member to ascertain African-American authors. In
another episode, three people gave input on a follow-up to The Color Purple.
Despite the acknowledged differences between readers’ advisory and
reference interactions, the findings of Shearer’s work mirror many of the
concerns of researchers in the reference arena. The following aspects were
problematic in many of the encounters:
• The lack of identifying cues by which patrons could identify profes-
sional librarians
• The choice of a majority of staff members to accept the user’s initial
question at face value and omit a reference interview
• Search failure following unmonitored referrals
• The omission of follow-up questions in the majority of transactions
(Shearer 1996a)
Nassau County Study

Shearer’s explorations served as the inspiration for a Master’s project
conducted by four graduate students of the Queens College Graduate
School of Library and Information Studies: Catherine Patricia Lackner,
Anne K. May, Elizabeth Olesh, and Anne Weinlich Miltenberg. Our study,
titled “An Investigation of Readers’ Advisory Transactions in Nassau
County (NY) Public Libraries,” investigated whether actual practice in
public libraries replicated the terms of engagement for model readers’ advi-
sory encounters set forth by the experts. To this end, each of the fifty-four
independent community libraries or library districts of Nassau County
(which abuts New York City and has a population of approximately 1.3
million) was visited by one of the researchers posing as a readers’ advisee.
Methodology
The study encompassed the following research questions:
• What was the role of the readers’ advisor in his or her interaction
with library patrons?
• To what extent did the designated library personnel conduct a com-
prehensive readers’ advisory?
• What professional tools did readers’ advisory personnel utilized?

• Would the advisor query the advisee about her personal domains of reading?
• Would the advisor ask the advisee about a book she had read and re-
ally enjoyed?
• Would the readers’ advisor elicit the elements of appeal of a particu-
lar book or genre?
(Another research question involved the manner and extent of passive read-
ers’ advisory service. For a report on these findings, see May, Olesh,
Miltenberg, and Lackner 2000.)
Each researcher was provided with a script for the library visit (Figure
7.1) and an extensive worksheet to fill out at the completion of each readers’
advisory encounter (Figure 7.2). These materials were carefully designed to
elicit qualitative research findings in answer to the research questions.
Upon entering each library, each researcher positioned herself in the
fiction stacks and waited to see whether a librarian or other staff member
would approach offering assistance. Saricks and Brown (1997) called for li-
braries to be proactive and station personnel in the fiction area to aid pa-
trons. In only one instance did a staff member approach a researcher; at all
other times, the researcher had to initiate contact with a librarian to ask for
reading guidance. The advisee sought out the point of service closest to the
library’s main entrance and asked, “Is there a librarian who can help me
find a good book?” After being directed to the appropriate staff member,
the investigator restated the purpose of her visit. She then observed and
evaluated the quality of service using the criteria of experts such as Mary K.
Chelton (1993), Catherine Sheldrick Ross (1991), Joyce G. Saricks (1997),
Kenneth Shearer (1996a, 1996b), and Duncan Smith (1993).
Script for Library Visit

i. Enter library and proceed to fiction stacks. Roam about for 5
minutes. Are you approached by staff member offering assis-
tance? Pose the inquiry described in step iii.
ii. If not approached by the staff member in step i, proceed to point
of service nearest main entrance to library. Ask at desk if there
is a librarian who can recommend a good book
iii. Ask staff member in fiction or individual to whom you are di-
rected in step ii if s/he knows of a good book. Does s/he conduct
a readers’ advisory interview? Does s/he ask you what you last
read and enjoyed? If so, offer up Memoirs of a Geisha. If not,
Continued on next page
keep track of what this individual asks and try to interject the
aforementioned title. Does s/he dismiss you and point you to-
ward the stacks?
If asked why you liked Geisha, here are suggested answers:
(a) it was well written and absorbing
(b) it was historical and informative
(c) it gave insight and knowledge into a world off limits and
not well known
(d) it was escapist fare but more substantial than junk reading
(e) the characters were well developed
(f) it was a good story mainly populated by women
iv. If asked what you read and like, say you read eclectically—fiction,
historical fiction, biographies, and mysteries. You just want to be
entertained but do not read garbage.
v. Take note of advisor’s attitude. Is s/he inconvenienced by query,
impatient, etc., or is s/he generally happy to be of assistance?
Does s/he get sidetracked and attempt to help other patrons
while attending to you?
vi. Does advisor utilize readers’ advisory tools? Does s/he instruct
you in their use?
vii. Does s/he consult with other colleagues?
viii. Does s/he proffer booklists or bookmarks for your use?
ix. Does s/he suggest or recommend?
x. What titles does s/he enumerate? Does s/he booktalk or summa-
rize the works?
xi. Does s/he come with you to the stacks for retrieval?
xii. Think about your general satisfaction with the transaction. Rate
advisor on attitude, attentiveness, and nature of his or her response.
Figure 7.1: Script for Library Visit

Sample Library Worksheet
Area of Study Finding Description or Comments

General Information
Date and time of visit 11/9/98
1:20 pm
Size of library (small, small
medium, large)
Size of population served small
Activity level of library slow
during visit
Fiction Stacks
Was a staff member no Library is so small that the reference
stationed in the stacks? desk is situated close to the fiction
stacks.
Did s/he approach you? no
What was the method of
approach?
Readers’ Advisory
What locational point of circulation
service did you approach
to ask for a “good book”?
What was the attitude of friendly
the respondent?
Where were you reference
directed?
Continued on next page.

Did the staff member no Reference desk attendant wore a tag
conduct a formal readers’ identifying her as a librarian. She asked
advisory interview? what I read—mystery? Reply: “I read
everything.” I was pointed to a display
of critically acclaimed first works—she
told me to pick one (FYI: This display
was in a 2-sided carrel near the
entranceway—the side hosting the
display was not obvious upon entry).
I returned and said: “What else do
you suggest?” She posed no questions
and I offered up Geisha. The librarian
said she hadn’t read it and by the time
it would get to her off the reserve list
she’d be old and gray (now she’s in her
30s or 40s). She walked me to the new
fiction and started pulling works off the
shelves. She asked if I read Cornwell
or Mott Davidson (mystery writers). I
had previously explained that I was
looking for more literary works. She
handed me Cave Dweller (Dorothy
Allison) and Mannequin (J. Robert
Janes). The latter she said was set in
France. She said she read Ian Rankin
and liked his mysteries and pulled his
latest off the shelves.
Did s/he ask: no
• What book you read last
and enjoyed?
• Why you enjoyed that
book?
• Which genres you yes (didn’t Asked what I read but ignored answer
typically read? use term that I wasn’t particularly interested in
• What types of books/ genre) mysteries.
stories you enjoy?
Did s/he consult with no
other staff members
during the course of
advisement?

Did s/he employ readers’ no
advisory tools?
Which ones?
Were you instructed in

the use of these tools?
Did s/he make a yes First I was steered to a display titled
suggestion or a reading “Best First Novels Chosen by LJ as
recommendation? Novelists Worth Watching” and told to
choose a book. I returned and insisted
on additional aid. Cornwell and Mott
How was the suggestion
Davidson were mentioned in passing. I
phrased?
was handed Cave Dweller, Mannequin,
and the new Rankin.
Which titles were
suggested? (enumerate) Rankin was recommended based on the
librarian’s personal reading preference.
Cave Dweller and Mannequin were
Were the suggested titles no handed over with the comment “How
booktalked or about…?” The mystery writers were
summarized? mentioned as possibilities.
Were you given any no
booklists, bookmarks,
annotated bibliographies,
etc.? (enumerate)
Describe the attitude and The librarian seemed a bit bothered by
attentiveness of the my request and somewhat dismissive.
advisor. First she pointed me to the
display—but I persisted and insisted
upon additional service. I only got the
Did s/he attend to you I was
attention I ultimately received because
exclusively or conduct attended to
I refused to be deterred.
other business with other exclusively.
patrons and colleagues?
I checked out two titles and the circulation
clerk queried: “What are you doing here
so far from your home library?” She
remarked something to the effect: Why
would you come here? You’re a patron of
a much larger institution.


Calculate the time spent 5 minutes
with you.
How busy or taxed was untaxed—I
the point of service was only
rendering RA? patron
Promotion/Passive RA
Were there any posters or no
fliers advising patrons of
the availability of RA?
Were there any posters or no Oprah’s Book Club Selections posted
fliers advising patrons of by dictionary stand
book clubs or literary
discussion groups
sponsored by the library?
Shelving: yes
• Were books shelved by Separate shelving: mystery and
genre? romance
• Interfiled with genre
spine labels? Interfiled works with spine labels:
• Shelved by interest sci-fi, western, and additional romance
categories? novels
Was a bestseller list yes
posted? circulation
Where?
Were readers’ advisory no
tools kept accessible by
the fiction stacks?
Were there any yes Display of critically acclaimed first
displays/exhibits of books works (inconspicuously located); cart
by category or special of Spanish fiction (sign in foyer
interest? referring to these works)

What handouts were yes Bookmark bibliography (no
available for patrons? annotations) of fiction re: engineers
(e.g., bookmarks, and engineering (located among
booklists, annotated community handouts at circulation
bibliographies, etc.) desk)
From which point of

service were they displayed
and/or distributed?
Does the library subscribe not
to NoveList or other mentioned
readers’ advisory
databases for the use of
patrons on premises?
Does the library post a yes
Web page?
Are readers’ advisory no

services mentioned on
Web page?
Are there links to other no

readers’ advisory
resources?
Does the library enable no

patrons to utilize readers’
advisory tools (e.g.,
NoveList) online?
Figure 7.2. Sample library worksheet
For purposes of this study, all advisees read Memoirs of a Geisha by

Arthur Golden and stated that it was the most recent book they had enjoyed.
This title was chosen because it represented the author’s only extant fiction.
The multicultural nature of the work gave rise to the possibility of ethnic steer-
ing: Would staff recommend only novels with Asian themes or with Asian au-
thors, or would they launch a full-fledged readers’ advisory interview?
Each investigator also gauged the attitude and patience of the readers’
advisor with her query. Under consideration was whether the readers’ advi-
sor devoted his or her attention to the investigator or became distracted by
other patrons and colleagues. The researchers examined how the advisor
went about the transaction: Did he or she consult with colleagues, use pro-
fessional tools, or employ any other methodology? The advisees noted
whether the staff member suggested a range of titles, leaving the matter of
choice to the patron , or whether the advisor recommended titles and foisted
them on the patron.
Findings
Despite the geographic difference and a time differential of four years,
our study supports many of Shearer’s findings. In most instances, it was not
readily apparent whether the person fielding the request held an MLS de-
gree. Personnel wore no tags that identified their academic credentials; in
only five facilities did staff wear name tags or sit by signs marked “librarian
on duty.” In most instances, investigators could only attempt to discern the
professional from the paraprofessionals by explicitly asking whether the
specified staff member was a librarian.
The response by staff to the reading guidance query varied. Reactions
ranged from delight to trepidation to bafflement to downright dismissal of
the request for a good book. In some instances, advisees were welcomed
with remarks such as “You’ve come to the right place” or “I’m so excited to
find someone who reads.” But in other locations, the personnel were simply
unreceptive. For instance, one reference librarian remarked, “That’s a tall
order,” when asked for a “good read.” The manner and body language of
particular staff members conveyed irritation. Their attitude proclaimed that
the demand was atypical and somewhat inconvenient. In certain encoun-
ters, the researchers received the message that the reference desk was to be
consulted only as a last resort. One staff member asked an advisee why she
had not looked at new fiction or consulted the New York Times Best Seller
List before enlisting the staff member’s aid. Another staff member sum-
marily dismissed a researcher and told her to consult the Cardex (which
turned out to be the OPAC), while yet another staff member referred a re-
searcher to a display of acclaimed first works.
Many librarians and paraprofessionals seemed uncomfortable with
our requests for advice. One librarian remarked, “You know, this is the
query the reference desk dreads,” and another muttered under her breath, “I
hate this question.” In several cases, clerks or library aides were far more
eager to help investigators than their professional counterparts. In a facility
that had no full-time librarian, a staff member approached an advisee in the
fiction stacks and offered assistance. Four clerks cheerfully aided her for at
least fifteen minutes. At the conclusion of the interchange, one clerk re-
marked, “Wasn’t that fun?” In at least three encounters, the circulation
clerks provided suggestions about authors or titles that were comparable to
those the reference librarians suggested. Moreover, in each instance, these
staff members continued to assist the advisees even after they had been re-
ferred to the reference desk.
Our study and those of Shearer and his colleagues have found no com-
pelling reason why readers’ advisory work must be the exclusive domain of
librarians:
[W]e have at this time, no evidence that readers’ advisory work must
be conducted by professionals. Their performance does not seem
better on average, than nonprofessionals. To be sure, the worst trans-
actions were conducted by nonprofessionals, but so were some of
the very best. (Shearer and Bracy 1994, 457)
In fact, certain librarians referred the advisees to circulation clerks because

the aides were more voracious readers or because the paraprofessionals re-
called information that the librarians could not remember.
The formal comprehensive readers’ advisory interview as the experts

envisioned was not fully performed at any of the Nassau County encoun-
ters. Unlike the Shearer researchers, we did not immediately ask for a book
“like” a designated title. Instead, we initially asked for “a good book” and
waited for the staff member’s response. In the vast majority of transactions
(80 percent), personnel probed our general domains of reading. They asked
questions such as “What kinds of books do you read?” or “What kinds of
books do you like to read?” However, in only one instance did a staff mem-
ber ask an investigator what exactly it was about the types of books she read
that brought her enjoyment.
As in Shearer’s research, staff members almost never asked questions
on the appeal of works. They never probed into which elements were criti-
cal to our selection or appreciation of fiction. At one large library, a staff
member said that a reading recommendation would depend on what authors
the advisee read, yet she never specifically asked the advisee which writers
she followed. The “ice breaker” question (“What was the last book you read
and enjoyed?”) was posed on only two occasions. And even in these two in-
terviews, staff members failed to elicit further information regarding the
specifics of the book’s appeal.
All too often library personnel remarked on their own reading prefer-
ences instead of listening to their clientele. Comments included: “I only
read Mary Higgins Clark,” “I only read mysteries,” or “I only read nonfic-
tion to keep up with the reference desk.” Such responses underscored the
evidence that many staff members were under the misapprehension that in
order to recommend a particular genre, they had to read in that genre. Even
more problematic were statements by certain personnel that they didn’t

read or they “hadn’t the time to read.”
In many instances, the advisor’s inquiry into the patron’s reading
tastes was perfunctory. Frequently the staff member opened the interview
by asking, “Do you read mysteries?” before mapping the advisee’s other
domains of reading. This is contrary to model practice. Each readers’ advi-
sory transaction should center on the client. Of paramount importance are
the reader’s tastes, values, and wants. Although we spoke of reading eclec-
tically, on many occasions the advisors suggested as suitable selections the
types of works they themselves were enamored of. Although many staff
members made appropriate recommendations, these reflected the staff
members’ own reading preferences rather than a professional approach to
answering the query, “What do I read next?” In one of the most outlandish
encounters of the study, a librarian who read primarily nonfiction suggested
a book on the Shroud of Turin as a successor work to Geisha.
Just as in the Shearer study, we had to take the initiative by providing
information that a formal readers’ advisory interview should have elicited.
In the great majority of transactions, we cued the advisors by offering Mem-
oirs of a Geisha as the last book read and enjoyed. Only one librarian rose to
the task and asked, “What was it that you exactly liked about the book?”
Others commented instead, “I haven’t read it,” or “I’ve heard of it,” or
“You’re unlikely to find another novel as well written.” In every episode, it
was incumbent upon us to elaborate upon the novel’s merits. We com-
mented on the literary nature of Geisha and our desire for well-written fic-
tion with a female protagonist. Our investigators also emphasized an
interest in works with a multicultural focus or works featuring women in
exotic locations. What we asked for was a window into a world that was
foreign to the advisees’ everyday experience.
The majority of the staff members we consulted did not unthinkingly
recommend books by Asian authors or with Asian motifs as follow-ups to
the Golden work. Nonetheless, they suggested many books with Asian or
Asian-American protagonists, such as Snow Falling on Cedars, Middle
Son, and Still Life with Rice. But other encounters were not so satisfactory
and evidenced a ritualized, almost knee-jerk reaction to the query. At one li-
brary, the staff member’s only recommendation was James Clavell, author
of Shogun. During another exchange, the reference person retorted, “I sup-
pose you’ve read all of Amy Tan,” and at yet a different library, the librar-
ian declared, “Well, there’s always Pearl Buck.” Certain librarians took an
alternate tack and recommended female authors who depicted female pro-
tagonists, such as Fay Weldon, Olivia Goldsmith, and Anne Tyler, without
heeding the multicultural component of the request.
The list of suggested or recommended titles and authors was many and
varied. Surprisingly, there was little duplication among the works and au-
thors proffered by the fifty-four libraries. Mentioned as possible reading se-
lections were 134 different titles from All Over but the Shoutin’ to Yellow
Raft in Blue Water (see Figure 7.3). Two advisors even promoted Geisha
before the investigator could interject that it was the last book read. Sixty
separate authors were championed, from Alice Adams to Fay Weldon (see
Figure 7.4).
Consultation was frequent, and book recommendations were often a
collegial enterprise. Staff members called in others to help them, and on
certain occasions personnel chimed in their ideas without even being solic-
ited. In several encounters, bystanding patrons added their commentary to
the ongoing interchange.
Much of the time (44 percent of all transactions) titles were plucked
from the new fiction racks. At one library, volumes were foisted upon the
patron with the librarian taking the attitude, “I know what’s good for you,”
and limiting the researcher to her two handpicked selections. At another fa-
cility, the librarian responded to the initial inquiry for a good book by ex-
claiming, “I can help you.” Without even launching an interview, she
pulled The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver off the shelf. When
the researcher asked for additional choices, the librarian responded,
“What’s wrong with this?” Some staff members suggested titles on the ba-
sis of their popularity among their library’s clientele, while others relied on
book reviews in proposing titles. One idiosyncratic librarian recommended
the works of Judy Blume because he knew and liked her as a person. A few
advisors used an amalgam: personal experience, popularity, and critical ac-
claim as benchmarks for their recommendations. In large measure, staff re-
lied on their own intuitive knowledge to the exclusion of all other
methodologies in fielding requests for book suggestions.
Titles Suggested/Recommended As a Follow-up to

Memoirs of a Geisha.
Title Author Number of
Suggestions/
Recommendations
Cold Mountain Frazier, Charles 7
Snow Falling on Cedars Guterson, David 4
Black and Blue Quindlen, Anna 3
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Wells, Rebecca 3
Sisterhood
Paradise Morrison, Toni 3
Summer Sisters Blume, Judy 3
The Most Wanted Mitchard, Jacquelyn 3
A Monk Swimming McCourt, Malachy 2
Breath, Eyes, Memory Danticat, Edwidge 2
Charming Billy McDermott, Alice 2
Evening Class Binchy, Maeve 2
Memoirs of a Geisha Golden, Arthur 2
Snow in August Hamill, Pete 2
Stones from the River Hegi, Ursula 2
The Color of Water McBride, James 2
The God of Small Things Roy, Arundhati 2
The Midwife Courter, Gay 2
Visitors Brookner, Anita 2
Women of Brewster Place Naylor, Gloria 2
A Lesson Before Dying Gaines, Ernest J. 1
A Patchwork Planet Tyler, Anne 1
A Perfect Crime Abrahams, Peter 1
A River Sutra Mehta, Gita 1
A Thousand Acres Smiley, Jane 1
All Over but the Shouting Bragg, Rick 1
Angela’s Ashes McCourt. Frank 1
Angels in a Harsh World Bradley, Don 1
Apaches Carcaterra, Lorenzo 1
Are You Somebody? O’Faolain, Nuala 1
Bastard out of Carolina Allison, Dorothy 1
Black Leopard Voien, Steven 1
Breaking News MacNeill, Robert 1
Bridget Jones’ Diary Fielding, Helen 1

Suggestions/
Recommendations
Brimstone Wedding Vine, Barbara 1
Cambridge Phillips, Caryl 1
Circle of Friends Binchy, Maeve 1
Collector of Hearts Oates, Joyce Carol 1
Corelli’s Mandolin De Bernieres, Louis 1
Damage Hart, Josephine 1
Damascus Gate Stone, Rogert 1
Darkness Falls DelVecchio, John 1
Death at the Crossroads: A Furutani, Dale 1
Samurai Mystery
Dinner at the Homesick Tyler, Anne 1
Restaurant
Empire of the Sun Ballard, J. G. 1
Europa Parks, Tim 1
Firebird Graham, Janice 1
Flowers in the Blood Courter, Gay 1
Foreign Studies Endo, Shusaku 1
Greatest Generation Brokaw, Tom 1
Green City in the Sun Wood, Barbara 1
Hacks Wren, Christopher S. 1
Herb and Lorna Kraft, Eric 1
Hill Towns Siddons, Anne Rivers 1
Homecoming Plain, Belva 1
Homeplace Siddons, Anne Rivers 1
In the Deep Midwinter Clark, Robert 1
In the Time of the Butterflies Alvarez, Julia 1
Inn at Lake Devine Lipman, Elinor 1
Kagami Kata, Elizabeth 1
Kowloon Moon Theroux, Paul 1
Ladder of Years Tyler, Anne 1
Lenoir Greenhall, Ken 1
London Rutherford, Edward 1
Lovers and Friends Marechetta, Camille 1
Mannequin Janes, J. Robert 1
Middle Son Iida, Deborah 1

Suggestions/
Recommendations
Miracle Cure Palmer, Michael 1
Mirage Khashoggi, Soheir 1
Mommy Dressing Gould, Lois 1
Mona in the Promised Land Jen, Gish 1
Moon Cakes Louie, Andrea 1
My Heart Laid Bare Oates, Joyce Carol 1
Native Speaker Lee, Chang-Rae 1
On Gold Mountain See, Lisa 1
On the Occasion of My Last Gibbons, Kaye 1
Afternoon
Once upon the River Love Makine, Andrei 1
Out of Nowhere Mortman, Doris 1
Past Caring Goddard, Robert 1
Possession Byatt, A. S. 1
Princess: A True Story of Life Sasoon, Jean 1
Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia
Ramses Series Jacq, Christian 1
Reign of the Favored Women Chamberlin, Ann 1
Rise of the Euphrates Edgarian, Carol 1
Serenity of Whiteness Hong, Zhu 1
Seventh Heaven Hoffman, Alice 1
Shining Through Isaacs, Susan 1
Short History of a Prince Hamilton, Jane 1
Smilla’s Sense of Snow Hoeg, Peter 1
Spending Gordon, Mary 1
Spring Moon Lord, Bette Bao 1
Still Life with Rice Lee, Helie 1
Stone Diary Shields, Carol 1
Switcheroo Goldsmaith, Olivia 1
Tai-Pan Clavell, James 1
Tell Me Your Dreams Kingston, Maxine 1
Hong
The All-True Travels and Smiley, Jane 1
Adventures of Lydie Newton

Suggestions/
Recommendations
The Beekeeper’s Apprentice King, Laurie R. 1
The Book of Blam Tisma, Aleksandar 1
The Chimney Sweeper Boy Vine, Barbara 1
The Country Ahead of Us, the Guterson, David 1
Country Behind
The Dieter Sussman, Susan 1
The Essence of the Thing St. John, Madeleine 1
The Fifth Queen Ford, Ford Maddox 1
The First Eagle Hillerman, Tony 1
The Fourth Estate Archer, Jeffrey 1
The Game of Kings Dunnett, Dorothy 1
The Handmaid’s Tale Atwood, Margaret 1
The Holder of the World Mukherjee, Bharati 1
The Hundred Secret Senses Tan, Amy 1
The Joy Luck Club Tan, Amy 1
The Kindness of Women Ballard, J. G. 1
The Kitchen God’s Wife Tan, Amy 1
The Last Hostage Nance, John 1
The Lazarus Child Mawson, Robert 1
The Liar’s Club Karr, Mary 1
The Lives and Loves of a Weldon, Fay 1
She-Devil
The Midwife’s Advice Courter, Gay 1
The Pagoda Powell, Patricia 1
The Poisonwood Bible Kingsolver, Barbara 1
The Secret Book of Grazia dei Park, Jacqueline 1
Rossi
The Shell Seekers Pilcher, Rosamunde 1
The Stillest Day Hart, Josephine 1
The Street Lawyer Grisham, John 1
The Troublesome Offspring of De Bernieres, Louis 1
Cardinal Guzman
The Undertaker’s Widow Margolin, Phillip 1
The Vampire Armand Rice, Anne 1
The Voyage of the Narwhal Barrett, Andrea 1

Suggestions/
Recommendations
The Wind-up Bird Chronicle Murakami, Haruki 1
The Woman Warrior Kingston, Maxine 1
Hong
Tripster Monkey: His Fake Book Kingston, Maxine 1
Hong
Tuesdays with Morrie Albom, Mitch 1
Two for the Devil Hoffman, Allen 1
White Mare’s Daughter Tarr, Judith 1
Yellow Raft in Blue Water Dorris, Michael 1
Figure 7.3. Titles suggested/recommended by library staff as
a follow-up to Memoirs of a Geisha.
Authors Suggested/Recommended As a Follow-Up to

Memoirs of a Geisha.
Author Number of Suggestions/
Recommendations
Cornwell, Patricia 4
Siddons, Anne Rivers 3
Carr, Caleb 2
Clavell, James 2
Davidson, Diane Mott 2
Goldsmith, Olivia 2
Kingsolver, Barbara 2
Mahfouz, Najib 2
Mitchard, Jacquelyn 2
Quindlen, Anna 2
Weir, Alison 2
Adams, Alice 1
Auel, Jean M. 1
Blume, Judy 1
Brookner, Anita 1
Brown, Sandra 1
Buck, Pearl 1
Conroy, Pat 1
Cussler, Clive 1
Dereske, Jo 1
Dickens, Charles 1
Author Number of Suggestions/

Recommendations
Forsythe, Frederick 1
Fraser, Antonia 1
George, Elizabeth 1
Gibbons, Kaye 1
Godwin, Gail 1
Gordon, Mary 1
Greene, Graham 1
Gregory, Philippa 1
Hillerman, Tony 1
Hoffman, Alice 1
Holt, Victoria 1
Howatch, Susan 1
James, P. D. 1
King, Laurie 1
Kingston, Maxine Hong 1
Lord, Bette Bao 1
MacMillan, Terry 1
Matthiesen, Peter 1
Mayle, Peter 1
McCullough, Colleen 1
Meyers, Annette 1
Michener, James 1
Morris, Mary McGarry 1
Morrison, Toni 1
Parks, Tim 1
Perry, Anne 1
Perry, Thomas 1
Piesman, Marissa 1
Plain, Belva 1
Quick, Amanda 1
Ragen, Naomi 1
Rankin, Ian 1
Renault, Mary 1
Rendell, Ruth 1
Rice, Anne 1
Rolvaag, O. E. 1
Tan, Amy 1
Tyler, Anne 1
Weldon, Fay 1
Figure 7.4. Authors suggested/recommended by library staff, without
regard to specific titles, as a follow-up to Memoirs of a Geisha.
It also appeared that the advisors were reluctant to resort to profes-

sional tools to satisfy the readers’ advisory query. Only 46 percent of the li-
brarians employed such tools, and most often the online catalog was the
tool of choice, which the librarians employed in three ways: to locate titles
and /or authors with whom staff members were familiar, to find “related ti-
tles,” or to conduct a keyword search. In several instances, personnel used the
OPAC to determine whether Golden had written another book. Beyond this,
few staff members utilized any other print or electronic readers’ advisory re-
sources, and they consulted no Web sites whatsoever with readers’ advisory
content. But even when they employed tools, they provided no bibliographic
instruction. Instead, staff members tended to search the OPAC or use other
resources without offering a minimum of education or even mentioning the
name of the tool to the researcher. This practice continued even when the
advisee explicitly asked the staff member for instruction.
In forty-eight instances, researchers received the advisor’s undivided
attention. There was a minimum of competing distractions inasmuch as the
visits took place when libraries were relatively quiet. In the majority of li-
braries, staff members accompanied the investigator to the stacks to re-
trieve the reading matter. In one library, a staff member excused herself
without explanation and did not return for more than five minutes. The re-
searcher was in a quandary as to whether to stay or go. The librarian eventu-
ally returned with four titles collected from the older fiction shelves. In
certain encounters, the advisors remained at the service desk and pointed
the patron in the direction of the new stacks, the OPAC, or the print catalog.
The time spent in each encounter varied. In 92 percent of the interac-
tions, the time spent with the librarian ranged from less than five minutes up
to fifteen minutes. In most instances, the interchange was over once the
books were recommended. But on rare (two) occasions, the researchers en-
gaged in extended dialogues with the advisors. In these instances, the pa-
tron and librarian shared their likes and dislikes and discussed the various
emotions that particular titles evoked.
The amount of effort that library staff members expended on behalf of
the query differed markedly. Some suggested one or two books or authors
and made no further contributions. In general, the majority of staff mem-
bers tried to render assistance. But as the preceding anecdotes show, their
expertise and confidence varied considerably. Regardless of the person-
nel’s knowledge of specific titles and/or authors or their reliance on mem-
ory or use of professional tools, almost all investigators left each library
with reading matter. The vast majority of the time, the staff suggested titles
and left it to the patron’s discretion to accept or reject these selections. It has
been deemed far less threatening to talk with a reader and suggest a range of
books than to take the responsibility for recommending something the advi-
sor thinks is appropriate (Saricks and Brown 1997). At only four libraries
were no titles suggested whatsoever. At one facility with no full-time li-

brarian on the premises, the clerk on duty ended any and all discussion with,
“Sorry, I can’t help you,” after admitting she hadn’t read Geisha.
The degree of affability of staff members varied also. At one large li-
brary, a staff member who refused to be of assistance apologized for not be-
ing able to help. In contrast, an adult services librarian who devoted much
time and effort to reading guidance was remorseful about not being able to
do more. Certainly personnel who were pleasant and well meaning made a
more favorable impression than those who seemed burdened and put off by
the request for advice. If the researchers perceived condescension or irrita-
tion in the encounter, they considered the readers’ advisory transactions un-
satisfactory, regardless of the suitability of the suggested materials. This
finding replicated Shearer’s results—the attitude and congeniality of the
advisors were more important to advisees than the appropriateness of the
selected titles. “The problems exhibited in the least successful transac-
tions…have much more to do with inappropriate business etiquette (such as
not acknowledging a waiting patron’s presence) than subtleties relating to
advisory transactions” (Shearer and Bracy 1994, 457).
Surprisingly, only three of the persons consulted asked the investiga-
tors to return and tell them how they liked the suggested works. This obser-
vation of little follow-through was also consistent with Shearer’s work.
One of the librarians interested in establishing an ongoing dialogue was the
person who foisted two and only two books on one of the researchers. An-
other was a professional who emoted a consuming love of books. She sug-
gested works that she had read and savored and praised the advisee for
being a reader. This transaction epitomizes how the readers’ advisory inter-
change may exist as a forum in which to display an unabashed adoration of
books. Says Shearer, “Reading is such a solitary activity that readers have
few opportunities to express why they like what they like; the expression of
recollected reading pleasure and the sharing of that pleasure with the staff
appears to enhance user satisfaction—satisfaction with both the staff mem-
ber who asks the question and listens attentively to the answer and also with
the library” (Shearer 1996a, 18). But in stark contrast, another librarian
warned, “Don’t blame me if you don’t like the book.”
Conclusions
In this information-centric age, one must reemphasize a fact that re-
mains constant: recreational reading is still the most common rationale for
public library visits. “Leisure, hobby and self-improvement” items make up
the majority of circulated materials (Berry 1993), thus indicating an impor-
tant role for readers’ advisory services in all public library systems. It appears
from the Nassau County library visits that many of the public libraries have
retreated from this mission. In fact, our study found no formal institutional-
ized readers’ advisory protocol among the observed encounters. Rather, its
findings “underscored that a nonmethodical, informal and serendipitous re-
sponse was the norm to a patron’s request for a ‘good read.’ This [was] an
approach that at times, serve[d] patrons brilliantly but more often offer[ed]
unprofessional and unsatisfactory service” (May, Olesh, Miltenberg, and
Lackner 2000, 43). It is a sentiment with which Shearer would certainly
agree. Despite the differences of time and place between the two studies,
both groups of researchers had remarkably similar experiences.
Whither readers’ advisory? Our research and that of Shearer highlight
long-existing problems in the delivery of this service. However, both quali-
tative studies were exploratory in nature and did not entail systematic, re-
peated visits with each library. In general, we based our findings on random
samples involving one or two of each facility’s staff members. The readers’
advisory service we received was dependent on the person we consulted
and perhaps that person’s disposition on a particular day. Nonetheless, we
discerned certain overall trends.
In order to follow up these trends and investigate new, related avenues
and issues, additional research involving more extensive fieldwork is
needed. In this manner a more accurate picture may emerge of the way
reading guidance is facilitated among the public libraries in North Carolina;
Nassau County, New York; and all across our nation.
Whether the provision of readers’ advisory has improved since the
two studies is questionable. Certainly, recent articles indicate that our pub-
lic libraries need to expend more effort in this arena (Fialkoff 2000; Smith
2000a). The profession can and must do better. Public library staff mem-
bers must take the pledge and recommit themselves to providing better
readers’ advisory service. What better place to begin than with a revitalized
readers’ advisory transaction? Libraries must do more than pay lip service
to experts such as Chelton, Ross, Saricks, Shearer, and Smith. Their tenets
must be put into action. We owe our most important constituents, the recre-
ational readers, at least that much.
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Shearer, Kenneth D., and Pauletta B. Bracy. 1994. Readers’ Advisory Ser-
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33 (Summer): 456–59.
Smith, Duncan. 1993. Reconstructing the Reader: Educating Readers’ Ad-

visors. Collection Building 12, nos. 3–4: 21–30.
———. 2000a. Talking with Readers: A Competency Based Approach to
Readers Advisory Service. Reference and User Service Association
(RUSA) (December 2000) [Preprint].
———. 2000b. Librarians and Libraries: Growing Readers’ Advisory
Services in the New Century. Presentation at the Readers’ Advisory
Preconference of the Public Library Association, Eighth National
Conference, Charlotte, NC.
CHAPTER 8
Advisory Services in the School

Library Media Center
Carol A. Doll
Introduction
The fundamental distinctions between readers’ advisory services in a
school library media center and readers’ advisory elsewhere arise from a
single, but important, difference: the setting. A school library media center
functions within, and is always part of, a school community. This context,
which brings both challenges and rewards, is unavoidable. And school li-
brary media specialists must, first and foremost, function as members of
that school community.
The main function of a school is to educate youth to become tomor-
row’s adults. The media specialist works with teachers, administrators, stu-
dents, and parents toward that goal. By collaborating with teachers to
develop and deliver the curriculum, the media specialist enhances that cur-
riculum with information literacy skills. By working with administrators to
develop and maintain a quality school library media program, the media
specialist provides a foundation for the curriculum. By teaching and lead-
ing students, the media specialist helps to develop lifelong learners. This
job can be overwhelming, frustrating, and infinitely rewarding.
149
Readers’ advisory is one of the many professional skills that the media
specialist employs to educate students. This skill has long been recognized
in the national standards, including those for 1998, Information Power:
Building Partnerships for Learning, which addresses readers’ advisory in
this way:
Library media programs are justly proud of their long tradition of pro-
viding reading, listening and viewing guidance to students and others
in the learning community. Strong and imaginative activities that pro-
mote reading have always been a staple of program offerings, and
over the years, the program’s focus has expanded to promote critical
viewing and listening skills as well. These core abilities of reading,
viewing, and listening, along with writing and communication, form
the basis for developing information literacy skills that are basic for
today’s students. Through its promotion of the pleasure and fulfill-
ment to be derived from using various media for both information and
recreation, the library media program educates and encourages the
school community in the uses of all communication tools. (American
Association of School Librarians and Association for Educational
Communications and Technology 1998, 66)
Because of the unique setting, the library media specialist who per-
forms readers’ advisory must take into account the needs of the teachers he
or she works with and the demands of the school curriculum. Readers’ ad-
visory takes place when a student searches for recreational reading or read-
ing for school assignments. It also takes place when a teacher comes in
search of material to use with a specific class or lesson. All youth librarians,
in both schools and public libraries, actively work to promote reading—
both recreational and educational.
Characteristics of Readers
Advisory in Schools
The most important influence on readers’ advisory within the school is
the curriculum. The curriculum provides the structure, goals, and objec-
tives of teaching and learning. Consequently, the media specialist builds a
collection to support this curriculum, and the media specialist does much of
her readers’ advisory work within a curriculum-based collection.
Ideally, in the school setting the media specialist collaborates with
teachers to integrate the media center resources into lesson plans and
throughout the curriculum. This partnership provides the media specialist
Chapter 8—Advisory Services in the School Library Media Center 151
with opportunities to promote books and reading as well as to build infor-

mation literacy and research skills. (A helpful resource for learning about
collaboration theory is Interactions: Collaboration Skills for School Pro-
fessionals by Friend and Cook [1996].)
A multitude of resources that feature literature-based activities and
lessons is available to both teachers and school library media specialists.
These resources are useful when designing particular lessons. For example,
the school library media specialist and a teacher may be planning a U.S. his-
tory lesson about pioneer life and westward expansion. Together they work
to identify titles proven to appeal to many young readers, such as Patricia
MacLachlan’s Sarah, Plain and Tall. They might also add alternative ti-
tles—Gary Paulsen’s Mr. Tucket and Elvira Woodruff’s Dear Levi: Letters
from the Overland Trail, to name a few. Besides knowing the collection,
knowing the curriculum, and understanding student reading preferences,
the school library media specialist must be creative and flexible enough to
make multiple connections between literature and learning.
Also, to be more effective at reader’s advisory, the media specialist
can take time to learn about the reading preferences of students, which she
can do by speaking directly with them. Professional reading (e.g., journal
reviews) and informal surveys can bolster the media specialist’s knowledge
and provide additional information.
Today some schools are implementing resource-based instruction,
whereas others use whole language reading instruction. Occasionally
schools abandon traditional textbooks completely and use library books for
almost the entire curriculum. Sustained Silent Reading (SSR) or a similar
program for nondirected silent reading for both students and teachers is a
part of the school day in some places. The media specialist can take advan-
tage of these and other opportunities to share library materials with teachers
and students. For instance, the media specialist may want to offer booktalks
in the media center on a variety of titles popular among students and then
leave with the teacher a book cart filled with multiple copies of those titles.
Because of the media specialist’s unique role in the school, he or she
has in many ways a captive audience for readers’ advisory. There is the po-
tential for every student in the school to be in the school library media cen-
ter, possibly numerous times, during the school year. When collaborative
planning occurs between media specialists and teachers and when they in-
tegrate media center resources into the resulting lesson plans, students must
often come to the school library media center for instruction or materials.
This creates a unique opportunity to reach students who would not come
voluntarily. With skillful matching of resources to students, even reluctant
readers return for more. For example, The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton, a title
guaranteed to appeal to reluctant readers, works well for high school dis-
cussions of social class prejudices.
Because the media center is located in the school and therefore nor-
mally follows the school time schedule, students often do not have access to
the collection, facilities, or personnel after school hours and on weekends.
In addition, many school libraries have limited budgets and collections.
Therefore, many students also use public library facilities. Public librarians
often visit schools, especially for booktalks. Media specialists and public li-
brarians can work together to provide the best services possible to students
and teachers.
Readers Advisory Techniques

Within the school setting, the media specialist applies traditional read-
ers’ advisory methods, while attempting to also meet the demands of the
curriculum. The media center can provide book displays, reading lists,
bookmarks, topical bibliographies, and book clubs in the same way that
public libraries do. Although there is no mystery to readers’ advisory in the
school setting and no techniques have been developed specifically for the
media center, the media specialist often works actively to promote reading
and books. She does this by applying professional knowledge about litera-
ture, students, teachers, and the curriculum to the collection. The following
techniques for building an appreciation of literature may be especially use-
ful to the school library media specialist.
Reading Aloud
Many of us have fond memories of listening to adults read us stories
when we were young, often before we could read for ourselves. Reading
and sharing stories is a marvelous way to build the love of stories and pre-
pare young children for reading. Jim Trelease’s The Read-Aloud Handbook
(1989) offers techniques to enhance this activity and tips for selecting titles
to use for read-alouds. The bibliographies of suggested titles (appropriate
for all ages) are a good reference for both beginning and experienced read-
ers. In Books Kids Will Sit Still For, Judy Freeman also gives advice on
reading aloud (Freeman 1990). More important, she includes extensive bib-
liographies of recommended titles separated by grade level. She also makes
the point that you may not need to read the entire book; sometimes a chapter
or two is enough.
But read-alouds are unfortunately too often abandoned once children
learn to read on their own. The popularity of recorded books gives evidence
that some people never outgrow the joy of listening to a story read aloud,
and older students—even adults—have much to gain through listening to
literature. The story that is shared aloud builds listening skills and naturally
leads into related learning activities such as writing and discussion.
By working together, teachers and the media specialist can identify and de-
velop topics to cover in specific lessons. Then they can select appropriate titles
for reading. A high school art class could enjoy several versions of Cinderella as
they study the variety in illustration and the various page layouts involved in cre-
ating picture books. Sixth-graders may enjoy listening to the work of Nathaniel
Hawthorne or Cynthia Rylant, who are both good writers. Early elementary stu-
dents enjoy listening to some of the many folktales and fairy tales available in
picture books. Listening to the stories improves language and listening skills, can
spark students’ imaginations, and often leads them back to the books.
Storytelling
Nothing builds the love of story like storytelling. It is the most ancient
form of literature and speaks to our primal human need for stories. Like
read-alouds, storytelling is often relegated to primary grades and young lis-
teners, when in fact storytelling appeals to people of all ages. In the purest
form, storytelling consists of a teller, an audience, and a story. The story-
teller stands in front of the audience and in a straightforward manner, with-
out props or dramatics, narrates the story. When done in this way, teller and
listeners together create a special moment that no other reader’s advisory or
sharing technique realizes. (And in some situations it is an advantage to be
able to maintain sustained eye contact with the students.)
Listening to stories, like listening to read-alouds, increases language
and comprehension skills (Peck 1989, Nelson 1989, Reed 1987). Storytell-
ing can be part of the services the media specialist offers either directly or
indirectly, through guest tellers. Media specialists, teachers, or guest story-
tellers can also teach storytelling techniques to upper-elementary, middle,
and high school students. Such instruction is legitimately part of most
school curriculums, where students should learn how to speak in public.
Storytelling often uses folktales and legends, particularly to
strengthen the multicultural curriculum. But many other sources are also
suitable. For example, urban legends are very popular with teens. A good
source for them is the scholarly work by Jan Harold Brunvand (1981),
which includes numerous tales for retelling.
Although the idea of standing in front of a class telling a story may intimi-
date some, anyone can be a good storyteller. A number of books are available
to guide both beginners and those with more experience. The best for the tradi-
tional approach to storytelling is Storytelling: Art and Technique (Greene
1996), which offers solid guidance in all aspects of storytelling from story se-
lection to story preparation to story delivery. Extensive bibliographies suggest
additional professional titles for further study and stories for all ages suitable
for telling. Any of the three editions (the first two done with Augusta Baker)
of Storytelling: Art and Technique would be valuable for any storyteller.
For those who work with young children, Margaret Read MacDonald
has developed a more interactive storytelling technique especially appro-
priate for that age. In the Storyteller’s Start-Up Book (MacDonald 1993),
she offers suggestions for finding, learning, and telling stories. MacDonald
presents a method for learning stories that takes less time than the approach
advocated in Storytelling: Art and Technique. MacDonald includes twelve
stories that storytellers have used successfully with young children.
By planning together, the media specialist and teachers can identify
stories that are both appropriate for telling and that meet the needs of teach-
ers and students. For example, they might use a mystery to develop critical
thinking and problem-solving skills. With any age student studying Native
Americans, stories from the individual tribes could be shared orally in the
way of Native tellers. For upper-elementary grades, some of the satires of
traditional fairy tales, such as The True Story of the Three Little Pigs
(Scieszka 1989), could strengthen the classroom curriculum by inspiring
students to write their own version of the tale. Urban legends would be suit-
able for a high school speech class as one model for delivering a speech.
The New York Public Library has published A List of Stories to Tell
and Read Aloud (New York Public Library 1990). This list contains titles
that library storytellers have used successfully with children. In addition,
subject and cultural indexes facilitate finding stories for particular topics
such as food, plants, winter, Tibet, Native Americans, or Jewish culture.
Not all school library media specialists have the time or the desire to
be storytellers. In that case, it is often possible to identify others who are
willing to tell stories to students. Contact a local university, college, or
community college. Often faculty in education or library and information
science know about storytelling and can identify local storytellers. Staff
members at the local public library may also be able to suggest people.
Readers’ Theater
In readers’ theater, students enjoy the drama of a story while partici-
pating in telling the tale. Unlike traditional drama, readers’ theater does not
require participants to learn lines, wear elaborate costumes, or create com-
plicated sets and props. Instead, using a script, students assume roles and
read their lines in an informal group. Some readers’ theater scripts are
based on traditional folktales, fractured fairy tales, true stories, historical
events, or literary classics.
Again, one can tailor this technique to curriculum needs. It is easy to
see how a readers’ theater performance on the signing of the U.S. constitu-
tion, for example, might complement a history lesson, making it come alive
for students.
Although readers’ theater is especially useful with older students

whose reading skills have been developed, other sources (for example,
Multicultural Folktales: Readers Theatre for Elementary Students by
Barchers [2000]) are specifically for beginning readers. Students can even
create their own readers’ theater scripts, basing them on a book they have
read for a class assignment. However students use them, readers’ theater
scripts provide an effective way to actively involve students in reading
while building comprehension and oral presentation skills.
Booktalks
Most young adult librarians, children’s librarians, and media special-
ists are aware of the value and power of booktalking. Basically,
booktalking is an infomercial for books and other materials. The media spe-
cialist should work with the teachers to identify pertinent topics, such as the
environment, mysteries, or the American Revolution. Then the media spe-
cialist, using her knowledge of the students and the materials in the school
library media center collection, selects specific titles to present. Both fic-
tion and nonfiction titles can be appropriate, and booktalks work best with
students who can read independently.
A good booktalk will start with an introduction that prepares students
to listen. Then the media specialist showcases specific titles, flowing
smoothly from one to another. The media specialist may choose to discuss
many titles briefly or a few titles in more depth. She may emphasize the
plot, character, or mood; the book itself often suggests an appropriate ap-
proach. The intent is to share enough of the book (or audio or video record-
ing) with listeners to entice them into reading the entire book.
Joni Bodart (1980) produced several books and one video on
booktalking. In the first book, she presents complete information about pre-
paring for, delivering, and evaluating booktalks. The later pages contain
sample booktalks for specific titles. (Although Bodart has subsequently
published several more books with sample booktalks, her first volume is
still the most helpful for learning how to prepare booktalks.)
Another good source of information about booktalking is the chapter
“Booktalking: Don’t Tell, Sell” in Patrick Jones’s manual on working with
young adults in libraries (Jones 1998). Jones is very successful at working
with young adults, and his advice is practical. Appropriately, his main em-
phasis is how to design the booktalk to “hook” listeners.
One of the most helpful short pieces on this topic is the article by Mary
K. Chelton titled “Booktalking: You Can Do It” (Chelton 1976). This is
quite valuable for the concise, useful guide it gives to potential booktalkers.
Among the practical tips, she reminds booktalkers not to wait until the last
minute to prepare, to carefully state the title and author of each book, and
not to oversell average books. Although the article addresses public librari-
ans who might be visiting schools, the content is equally appropriate for
media specialists.
Anne Guevara and John Sexton (2000), also public librarians, share
their experiences in booktalking to middle school students. Their work has
dramatically increased the communication and cooperation that occurs be-
tween their public library and the local media specialists and teachers. One
technique Guevara and Sexton have found especially useful is to prepare a
bookmark-style bibliography listing the titles they have discussed. The
booktalker gives this bookmark to the students, the teachers, and the media
specialist (or the public librarians, when school personnel give the booktalk).
By collaborating with teachers to develop lesson plans, the media spe-
cialist will find many opportunities to use booktalking with students.
Booktalking can alert students to some of the gems of the collection and
may even make the required reading more enjoyable. In a high school litera-
ture class, a booktalk featuring classics of British literature such as Wuthering
Heights may help students understand the book’s appeal. For upper-elemen-
tary students studying Colonial America, a booktalk could make them more
aware of the wide array of historical fiction and fact available to them. Junior
high students may have a different view of the environment and be ready to
start work on reports after a booktalk emphasizing that topic.
As in public libraries, booktalking in the school library media center is
a good way to let students know how much fun reading can be.
Author Visits
Meeting the author or illustrator of a favorite book can be a thrilling
experience for a young reader. Although few (if any) schools have the re-
sources to fly J. K. Rowling in from England, many more affordable op-
tions are available to the media specialist. Finding local authors or
illustrators to visit, e-mailing them, or setting up a virtual visit on the
Internet are just some of the creative ways to connect young readers with
professional writers or artists. (Publishers will sometimes arrange for an au-
thor or illustrator to visit the school when they are on tour to promote their
latest book.) East (1995) provides all the information you need to plan and
execute a successful author or illustrator visit from the initial decision to in-
vite someone to the final thank-you letter.
Schools with Internet access can also take advantage of the many on-
line author and illustrator resources now available through publishers, book
clubs, and booksellers (for example, Penguin Putnam Young Readers Web
Site [URL: http://www.penguinputnam.com/yreaders/index.htm, accessed
February 2001], where color photos, booktalks, and activities accompany
author and illustrator biographies). For those who lack Internet access, the
traditional approach of writing to popular authors and illustrators or focus-

ing on student favorites in author/illustrator studies can be effective as well.
Terrific Connections with Authors, Illustrators, and Storytellers: Real
Space and Virtual Links (Buzzeo and Kurtz 1999) offers guidance in con-
necting with and creating meaningful links between bookpeople and chil-
dren and young adults.
As with the techniques discussed previously, author and illustrator
visits can certainly enhance the curriculum. Many publishers now provide
curriculum guides to go along with their books. For example, after a visit
from Deborah Hopkinson and reading her book, Birdie’s Lighthouse, stu-
dents built their own papier-mâché lighthouses, complete with rocks at the
base and flashing lights (Buzzeo and Kurtz 1999). (Note: These curriculum
guides contain valuable information and can be very useful, but they are
also intended to sell the author’s work.) Some authors and illustrators have
Web sites and have also created curriculum guides to accompany their
books (for example, Jan Brett’s home page, URL: http://www.janbrett.com
[Accessed February 2001], features craft projects and cyber-postcards to
send to friends by e-mail). Working together, media specialists and teach-
ers should turn up more possibilities for curriculum connections in science,
math, social studies, art, music, or language arts.
Book Clubs
Book clubs provide young readers an opportunity to interact freely
with each other by discussing a book all of them have read. Book clubs may
be either a part of the curriculum or an individual enrichment activity for
volunteer students. In the simplest format, the school library media special-
ist selects a book for the club, students read the book, and then all attend a
meeting and share their opinions of the work. The media specialist must be
prepared to both initiate and guide discussions. Usually she compiles a list
of questions before the book club meets. It may also be necessary to provide
multiple copies of the titles selected for reading.
The Association for Library Service to Children guidelines for book
clubs provides basic information for starting and running a book club. Of-
ten one of the most challenging tasks for the school library media specialist
is leading the discussion. Setting rules for student interaction (such as ask-
ing children to wait until the end of the meeting to tell whether they liked
the book) and generating a list of questions before the meeting help the dis-
cussions go more smoothly. Based on her personal experiences, Ward gives
tips and practical suggestions for school media specialists who want to start
a book club (1998).
Creating Bibliographies
School library media specialists often prepare lists of suggested or rec-
ommended titles that both match a specific topic and are appropriate for a
specific set of students. Bibliography topics may be related to the school
curriculum and grow out of collaboration between teacher and media spe-
cialist, or a teacher or student may suggest them, or they may result from
the school library media specialist’s knowledge or interests. Useful in many
ways, the lists may be formatted as a bookmark to encourage reading or as
part of a bulletin board display.
When the media specialist compiles these lists, one of the first sources
to consult to supplement personal knowledge is the card catalog or auto-
mated catalog for the school library media center. The main advantage of
this is that the titles are already in the collection. The local public library is
another source that is accessible to students and teachers, too. With suffi-
cient lead time, the school media specialist can consult professional tools to
identify specific titles to buy. The purchasing cycle often takes three to four
weeks or more, so it is important to plan ahead.
Individual Guidance
One of the joys that many media specialists experience is the opportu-
nity to talk to excited students about a book, a video, or an audiotape they
have enjoyed. Some students readily share such experiences; others may be
more reticent. They may share excitement about the story, awe over the rec-
ognition of self or situation in the title, or wonder about some new knowl-
edge. Too often in schools, the main emphasis is on the lesson, and it is
possible to miss this kind of excitement. But such opportunities will arise
even in the midst of a very busy schedule.
The readers’ advisory interview is discussed in other chapters of this
book, but one should note that the key to successfully guiding students in
their reading is to ask questions sensitively and listen to their answers care-
fully. In Chapter 14 Angelina Benedetti offers insightful suggestions on
how to prompt teens to share their reading preferences, and many of these
methods would be equally effective with younger students. Of course, if the
book is part of an assignment, the school library media specialist must also
draw upon her knowledge of the collection and curriculum.
Knowledge of children’s and/or young adult literature and knowledge
of children and young adults form the foundation for recommendations.
Also, listening to the individual student to determine what sparked excite-
ment is important. By blending these three things together, the media spe-
cialist can match titles and students. As with most skills, the media
specialist will become more proficient with practice. Listening to students
and getting feedback after they have read recommended titles offers the
media specialist additional clues as to what to recommend next and what
the student generally enjoys. Furthermore, by listening to the students, she
may learn about other titles to read herself or to recommend to others. The
joy of reading can be contagious, and individual readers’ advisory is one
way to spread the contagion.
It can be especially challenging (and rewarding) to do individual read-
ers’ advisory with young adults. Tom Reynolds, a young adult librarian in
Edmonds, Washington, shares specific suggestions on relating to teenagers
(Reynolds 1998). He makes the point that readers’ advisory should be a col-
laborative activity—both reader and librarian should be working together
to find the right book for the reader.
The following sources for identifying specific titles are useful for pro-
viding individual guidance. In addition, discussing books with other pro-
fessionals (either in person or on a listserv) can elicit titles. However, most
individual guidance is spontaneous. In this case, the media specialist works
more effectively when she herself has read and enjoyed the books she rec-
ommends to students. That is why it is so important for her to know the col-
lection. Some professionals keep a quick reference file with selected details
about specific titles to help in making recommendations to students. By
talking with students about current interests and activities, one can identify
subjects for future purchases and reading.
Identifying Specific Titles

Media specialists have numerous tools that can help identify specific
titles for readers’ advisory. Because this chapter deals with readers’ advi-
sory for students from kindergarten through twelfth grade, obvious sources
are those for children and/or young adults. The chapter also includes
sources for adult titles because some high school students will be reading
science fiction, fantasy, romance, or other adult genres.
General Bibliographies
Some standard, retrospective bibliographies list titles appropriate for
school libraries. They are arranged in Dewey classification order. More im-
portant for readers’ advisory, indexes offer subject access. The H. W. Wil-
son catalogs (Children’s Catalog, Middle and Junior High School Library
Catalog, and Senior High School Library Catalog) list only books. The Ele-
mentary School Library Collection: A Guide to Books and Other Media
(Winkel n.d.) includes audiovisual and electronic media, too. The titles
they list have been reviewed and are recommended for use with students.
Most of the listings are in print and available for purchase at the time the
bibliography goes to press. At the same time, the listings are generic (i.e.,
suggested for “Anywhere, U.S.A.,” and may not meet the needs of a partic-
ular school).
When looking for suggested titles on a particular subject, such as
earthquakes, dinosaurs, or Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., these retrospective
bibliographies can help identify possible titles quickly. For example, the
eighth edition of Middle and Junior High School Library Catalog (pub-
lished in 2000) lists four nonfiction titles on earthquakes: Shake, Rattle, and
Roll: The World’s Most Amazing Volcanoes, Earthquakes, and Other
Forces by Spencer Christian; Earthquake Game: Earthquakes and Vol-
canoes Explained by 32 Games and Experiments by Matthys Levy and
Mario Salvadori; Earthquakes by Sally M. Walker; and Plate Tectonics by
Alvin Silverstein, Virginia Silverstein, and Laura Silverstein Nunn. In ad-
dition, the catalog also suggests two fiction titles: Quake! by Joe Cotton-
wood and PaperQuake by Kathryn Reiss.
Some of the titles may already be familiar to the media specialist. If
not, she can locate them in the school library media center, in a public li-
brary, or through interlibrary loan for personal examination.
Specialized Bibliographies
One of the best sources for subject access to children’s picture books is
A to Zoo: Subject Access to Children’s Picture Books (Lima 1993). This
work indexes thousands of picture books under topics such as fire engines,
kites, and cats. This is a very complete subject access to a large number of
quality children’s picture books.
The Bookfinder (Dreyer 1977) offers unique subject access to chil-
dren’s books that deal with the issues of growing up. In addition to topics
such as migrant workers and twins, the bibliography includes developmen-
tal issues such as revenge, avoiding responsibility, and homesickness. The
content of the first three editions has now been reworked into The Best of
Bookfinder (Dreyer 1992).
Some bibliographies are designed specifically for readers’ advisory
services. Among the most useful are the Genreflecting Advisory Series.
The series suggests specific titles as “good reads.” It also covers series fic-
tion titles. Media specialists might wish to consult Genreflecting (Herald
2000) for work with high school students, Teen Genreflecting (Herald
1997) for middle school or high school students, or Junior Genreflecting
(Volz, Scheer, and Welborn 2000) for upper-elementary and middle school
students. Among the genres they include are romance, science fiction, ad-
venture, and historical fiction. These bibliographies separate historical fic-
tion recommendations into lists by century. There are also genre-specific
titles in the series that provide more detailed coverage of individual genres.
Every year the young adult librarians of the New York Public Library
revise their list of recommended books for young adult readers (New York
Public Library n.d.). It is consistently one of the best bibliographies avail-
able for media specialists working with high school students. It lists fiction
and nonfiction titles covering almost every topic imaginable. One of the
strengths of the bibliography is that it is compiled by librarians working di-
rectly with young adults on a daily basis.
Electronic Sources
Access to electronic readers’ advisory tools, such as NoveList and
What Do I Read Next? is often limited by the media specialist’s budget.
However, a subject search of the Internet using the term “readers’ advisory”
results in 3,000 to 5,000 hits. Obviously, this is a topic of interest to people
working with books and libraries. A few of the most useful sites are listed
here. You could explore and find sites you like better than these, but the fol-
lowing sites would be a good beginning.
Some professional organizations maintain Web sites than can be useful
for readers’ advisory. Two divisions of the American Library Association
(ALA) have committees that review and recommend materials for students.
The Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) has won numerous
book awards (including the Caldecott, Newbery, and Coretta Scott King
awards) and some media awards. The Young Adult Library Services Associ-
ation (YALSA) has committees that generate lists of best books and media
for young adult readers and annually bestow the Printz award. Both ALSC
and YALSA post these lists and award winners on their respective Web sites.
By following links through the divisions, you can access both through the
ALA Web site (URL: http://www.ala.org [accessed December 26, 2000]).
Among the Web sites on children’s and young adult literature in gen-
eral, the one David Brown maintains at the University of Calgary is particu-
larly good. He provides discussion boards, quick references, and multiple
links to authors, stories, and resources for teachers, parents, storytellers, and
(implicitly) media specialists. This site is a good source for lists of titles that
have won Canadian and other international awards (URL: http://www.
ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/index.html [accessed December 26, 2000]).
Many public libraries have Web sites with readers’ advisory links for
children, young adults, and adults. The Inland Library System is a
three-county system in southern California serving San Bernardino, Inyo,
and Riverside counties. Their readers’ advisory page features links to rec-
ommended sites, including Amazon.com. Their listing was taken from a
workshop handout that the Metropolitan Cooperative Library System in
Los Angeles uses (URL: http://www.inlandlib.org/reference/readers.htm
[accessed December 26, 2000]).
Ann Chambers Theis maintains Overbooked, a Web site for “ravenous

readers.” It includes multiple links for genre fiction, reviews and reviewing,
and what to read next. Separate pages are available for children’s and
young adult readers’ advisory (URL: http://www.overbooked.org [ac-
cessed December 26, 2000]).
The Salt Lake County library system has one Web page for children’s
books and one for teen books. Both pages provide extensive lists and links
for award winners, book lists, series books, authors, and book-related
items. Although a few links mandate a Salt Lake County library card for ac-
cess, many links are open to the general public (URL: http://www.
slco.lib.ut.us [accessed December 26, 2000]).
LM_NET is a listserv devoted to school library media programs. It has
several thousand subscribers, many of whom are currently media special-
ists. This is a very active list, with about 100 messages per day. Many of the
postings deal with problems or concerns related to the daily activities in
schools or school library media centers. It is not unusual for someone to ask
list members for help in identifying titles to use with students. Recent post-
ings have solicited suggestions for picture books to use with high school
students, titles for students who liked the Harry Potter books, and historical
fiction for a specific time period. LM_NET listserv protocol asks the ques-
tioner to post a compilation of answers received. This makes it possible to
locate these lists for readers’ advisory purposes by searching the archives at
URL: http://askeric.org/Virtual/Listserv_Archives/LM_NET.html (accessed
December 26, 2000).
Conclusion
One of the greatest joys for school library media specialists is to share
their love of literature with students. They have many opportunities to work
with teachers and students to suggest specific titles appropriate for the cur-
riculum and for enjoyment. Storytelling, booktalking, reading aloud, and
individual reading guidance can all promote reading and books in the
school setting. With interest in readers’ advisory burgeoning and the wealth
of new readers’ advisory tools available, we are now better equipped to per-
form reader’s advisory in schools. Let’s get kids excited about reading, lis-
tening, and viewing!
References
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Communications and Technology. 1998. Information Power: Building
Partnerships for Learning. Chicago: American Library Association.
Association for Library Service to Children. 1981. Programming for

Children’s Book Discussion Clubs. Chicago: American Library
Association.
Barchers, Suzanne I. 2000 Multicultural Folktales: Readers Theatre for El-
ementary Students. Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited.
Bodart, Joni Richards. 1980. Booktalk! Booktalking and School Visiting for
Young Adult Audiences. New York: H. W. Wilson.
Brunvand, Jan Harold. 1981. The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban
Legends and Their Meanings. New York: W. W. Norton.
Buzzeo, Toni, and Jane Kurtz. 1999. Terrific Connections with Authors, Il-
lustrators, and Storytellers: Real Space and Virtual Links.
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Dreyer, Sharon Spredemann. 1977. Bookfinder: A Guide to Children’s Lit-
erature About Interests and Concerns of Youth Aged 2–18. Circle
Pines, MN: American Guidance Service.
———. 1992. The Best of Bookfinder: A Guide to Children’s Literature
About Interests and Concerns of Youth Aged 2–18. Circle Pines, MN:
American Guidance Service.
East, Kathy. 1995. Inviting Children’s Authors and Illustrators: A
How-to-Do-It Manual for School and Public Librarians. New York:
Neal-Schuman.
Freeman, Judy. 1990. Books Kids Will Sit Still For: The Complete Read
Aloud Guide. New York: R. R. Bowker.
Friend, Marilyn, and Lynne Cook. 1996. Interactions: Collaboration Skills
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dence, NJ: R. R. Bowker.
Guevara, Anne, and John Sexton. 2000. Extreme Booktalking: YA
Booktalkers Reach 6000 Students Each Semester!” VOYA 23 (June):
98–101.
Herald, Diana Tixier. 1997. Teen Genreflecting. Englewood, CO: Libraries
Unlimited.
———. 2000. Genreflecting: A Guide to Reading Interests in Genre Fic-
tion, 5th ed. Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited.
Hopkinson, Deborah. 1997. Birdie’s Lighthouse. New York: Atheneum.
Jones, Patrick. 1998. Connecting Young Adults and Libraries: A How-to-
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MacDonald, Margaret Read. 1993. The Storyteller’s Start-up Book. Little
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Nelson, Olga. 1989. Storytelling: Language Experience for Meaning
Making. The Reading Teacher 42 (February): 386–90.
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3d ed. New York: New York Public Library. [Order from Office of
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New York, NY 10016.]
———. n.d. Books for the Teen Age. New York: New York Public Library.
(Order from the Office of Branch Libraries, The New York Public Li-
brary, 455 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10016.)
Peck, Jackie. 1989. Using Storytelling to Promote Language and Literacy
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Foundation.
CHAPTER 9
The Best Tools for Advisors and

How to Integrate Them into
Successful Transactions
Joyce G. Saricks
Those of us fortunate to be working librarians during this readers’ ad-
visory renaissance understand how much the unprecedented wealth of tools
available to us—in electronic and print forms—has enhanced our skills and
knowledge. Never have we had so much information at hand to help us an-
swer readers’ requests for “good books” or books on particular topics or
books that meet their specific reading requirements. Although we use these
tools extensively in preparing to work with readers—in creating lists and
displays to share with readers and in exploring genres and subgenres to in-
crease our own understanding—many of us still have difficulty using these
tools effectively with readers. Even though at times we can readily incorpo-
rate the use of reference tools into the interview, as when a reader asks a
factual question, on other occasions (seeking a “good book,” for example)
our efforts may feel stilted, and neither we nor the reader finds the inclusion
of tools in the interaction satisfying or helpful.
Sharing with patrons the wealth of information at our fingertips has of-
ten proved complicated. This chapter discusses the types of tools, both
commercially and locally produced, available to librarians, explores ways
165
in which we incorporate tools in the readers’ advisory interview, examines

possible barriers to their successful use, and suggests ways in which we
learn to use both our interviewing skills and reference resources to create
truly satisfying conversations about books with readers, setting up the
long-term relationships on which readers’ advisory thrives.
We should never lose sight of how fascinating—and how much fun to
use—these tools can be. If we enjoy using them ourselves, we can readily
see how important it is to share them with readers. Just as we share the plea-
sure of good books that meet our readers’ needs, so we should share the en-
joyment and satisfaction that exploring these interesting resources provides.
Long ago I admitted to being an index junkie. The more indexes or access
points a reference tool provides, the happier I am using it. I love to explore
new reference tools, reading about authors I know and discovering new
ones. Indexes that link authors or types of books send me on lengthy and
satisfying searches as I pursue leads to discover new authors—and new
ways to use a particular tool. Needless to say, I am not the only one who en-
joys “playing” with reference tools in this way, and it behooves us to re-
member that because many readers share this same pleasure, we should
make an effort to introduce them to the tools as well. In my experience read-
ers are often amazed at the range of resources we have to help them find
books in their favorite genres or information about their favorite authors.
Sharing these resources, showing readers new tools, and explaining how to
use them should be a natural part of our interactions, whether we turn to
them to answer a question or simply present them to readers as resources.
What Are Readers Advisory

Reference Resources?
What do I mean by readers’ advisory reference resources or tools?
These resources come in many forms—print, electronic, and even human.
Any book that discusses authors and their books can be used as a readers’
advisory resource, as can titles that discuss genres and subgenres and pro-
vide us with useful lists of authors and titles within these categories. Most
libraries already own many tools that are valuable in providing readers’ ad-
visory. An evaluation of the reference collection and circulating 800s often
reveals a broad range of books that serve as valuable readers’ advisory ref-
erence sources, and one can identify and create a collection without in-
creased funding. Many libraries own copies of Genreflecting or What Do I
Read Next? and their various offspring. Electronic resources may be com-
mercial, such as NoveList (URL: http://novelist.epnet.com [accessed De-
cember 26, 2000]) and What Do I Read Next? (URL: http://www.
galenet.com/servlet/WDIRN [accessed January 5, 2001]), or freely avail-
able on the Web, such as Amazon.com, Bookbrowser.com, the Kent
Chapter 9—The Best Tools for Advisors… 167
District Library’s What’s Next? A List of Books in Series (URL:

http://www.kentlibrary.lib.mi.us/whats_next.htm [accessed December
26, 2000]), and more [See Chapter 11 for more discussion of electronic
resources.
Review journals increasingly make excellent readers’ advisory re-
sources. It is interesting that more and more reviews try to place books and
authors within genres or in comparison to others that might appeal to the
same reader.1 Genre overviews, aimed at readers’ advisory librarians, ap-
pear with regularity in Booklist, as do columns on romance in Library Jour-
nal, and on inspirational fiction—often an area in which reviews are more
difficult to find—in both Booklist and Library Journal. Genre-specific
journals, Romantic Times and Locus, for example, expand our horizons
with reviews we might not otherwise discover and with articles of interest
to readers’ advisors and fans alike. The problem with using review journals
as reference sources is that it is difficult to keep track of the material that ap-
pears in them. Do we ask permission and post articles, columns, or reviews
for readers so that we can advertise and circulate them? Do we then keep
files of useful articles? Or if we remember an interesting article on the au-
thor a reader is asking about, do we search for the citation using indexes?
Most of us simply lose track of this vast amount of information. We may re-
member something from an article or review, but we are less likely to keep
the material available for future consultation.
Do not forget the value of other staff and even readers as reference re-
sources. What staff and patrons tell us about what they have read and what
they have read and heard about authors and genres can also help expand our
own knowledge. Hearsay is a valid source of information in the readers’ ad-
visory interview. If we have not read a book, we still feel comfortable shar-
ing another reader’s comments. Readers’ advisory is a collaborative activity,
with readers and librarians sharing their knowledge of and pleasure in
books and reading. Even though we do not purposefully designate a staff
member as a genre expert, we know the value of consulting the fan of a
genre. Certainly the success of Fiction_L,2 the popular readers’ advisory
mailing list, is due in part because librarians recognize its value as a refer-
ence source, a group of more than a thousand readers who may be able to
answer our questions.
Readers’ advisory librarians also make a practice of creating their own
tools, taking information from all these sources and assembling it into a
form designed to help readers. Every bookmark and booklist we create is a
readers’ advisory reference resource, one that our patrons cherish, because
it reflects a concise list of materials available in this library, on a particular
subject or theme. If we receive a lot of requests for legal thrillers, we create
a list to hand out, rather than taking every patron through every possible ref-
erence source and creating individual lists each time the question arises.
We keep lists at our desks as well, collecting information on frequently re-

quested topics and eventually producing something tangible to share with
readers. Displays are also reference resources. We create displays that re-
flect the interests of readers at our libraries. We find the books through our
own knowledge, suggestions from other readers, and standard print and
electronic tools. We use these published, commercial tools on a regular ba-
sis to create other resources, often smaller universes of books that are easier
for readers to browse.
When we first started doing readers’ advisory seriously at my library
in the early 1980s, Fiction Catalog was the premiere source of subject ac-
cess to fiction. How times have changed! Not only are there more, and cer-
tainly more sophisticated, commercial readers’ advisory resources that
provide similar access, but a query on almost any topic posted on Fiction_L
will produce dozens of appropriate titles in a matter of hours. We certainly
cannot use lack of resources as an excuse for not providing full and diverse
displays on interesting, popular topics or bookmarks and booklists on al-
most every topic our readers request.
Why Are Readers Advisory

Tools Important?
Readers’ advisory reference tools serve three main purposes in addi-
tion to providing answers to the factual questions we receive daily at our
service desks: They make legitimate our service and the questions we re-
ceive, they serve as memory joggers when our minds go blank, and they ex-
pand our memory. First, having a collection of resources and consulting
them to answer readers’ questions or to research on our own make readers’
advisory service more legitimate in the eyes of some users, librarians, and
administrators. The popular belief is that if there is a source to consult, these
questions about fiction are just as important and quantifiable as any refer-
ence question. Even though readers’ advisory is not “just like” reference,
tools are valuable in that they reinforce the reference function for fellow li-
brarians and administrators, who may need convincing that readers’ advisory
is a legitimate service. Patrons benefit, although perhaps subconsciously,
from the understanding that they have asked a “real” question, if we consult
a reference tool to answer it.
I think the other purposes are even more important. On many occa-
sions we consult tools, not to find an answer, but simply to get our minds
working so that we can find an answer. Looking at a reference source, like
walking to the stacks, gets our minds working. We come across a title or an
author, and this reminds us of something else that is even more appropriate
in answering a patron’s query. I have always said there is a magic in books;
they know when we are desperate, and handling them jumpstarts our brains.
The same is true with readers’ advisory reference sources. They often pro-
vide the stimulus that brings appropriate suggestions to mind. Looking up
information using a reference tool focuses our minds on something other
than what we cannot consciously remember; it frees our minds to make the
connections that lead to useful suggestions.
Finally, as Duncan Smith has pointed out for years in his inspirational
workshops, readers’ advisory reference tools provide librarians with added
memory. They expand our personal databases and help us offer more possi-
bilities. We cannot read everything, and most of us cannot remember even a
fraction of what we have read. Not only do these reference tools introduce
us and readers to far more titles than we would encounter through our own
reading, they also offer us the comfort of a safe haven, a place we can look
and expect to find something that will help the reader standing in front of
us. They often provide lists of authors and titles, and, based on our experi-
ence, we can identify those that are most appropriate to the question.
Readers’ advisory tools are not designed to replace librarians; they offer
possibilities that we can help readers interpret and explore.
How Do We Use Tools in the Readers

Advisory Interview?
How we incorporate tools into the readers’ advisory interview is not as
straightforward as it is in the traditional reference interview. In the latter we
turn automatically to reference resources; no question is correctly negoti-
ated unless the sources we consult are cited. The outcome is usually a single
correct answer, identified in an authoritative source and presented to the pa-
tron as a fait accompli. Readers’ advisory transactions, on the other hand,
tend to be more flexible. In fact, readers’ advisory interviews are conversa-
tions about books, and the pattern they follow does not consistently reflect
an established formula but depends on input from both patron and librarian.
Conversations allow us more flexibility in the way we communicate with
the patron and answer questions. Whether we turn immediately to read-
ers’ advisory reference resources depends on several factors: our interpre-
tation of what the reader asks, our knowledge of areas of interest, and how
the reader reacts as we offer material. We base the way we interact on the
manner in which we read these signs. Thus, if in this conversation, I dis-
cover that a patron is interested in—or might enjoy—a genre I read regu-
larly, I may be more comfortable simply going to the shelves to discover
suggestions. My personal knowledge provides enough depth so that I can
offer a range of titles and let the reader choose. On the other hand, if the
reader has read extensively in a genre I am not especially familiar with, I
may recognize early on that I need the expanded memory and knowledge
that reference tools afford. Consulting sources and introducing them to this
reader are the next logical steps. Incorporating sources in this conversation
can fit comfortably into the pattern.
Although we cannot easily define readers’ advisory questions, they
seem to fall within four basic types: those that request factual information
(for example, all titles by an author, the next book in a series, or the series
that features a particular character), those that seek reading suggestions
within a particular genre or subgenre, those that require authors similar to
an author read and enjoyed, and those who are simply looking for a good
book to read. Obviously these overlap, and we are often not certain what
type the reader has asked because readers are often not certain themselves
until we explore their needs in more depth in the readers’ advisory inter-
view. However, examining each type and the ways we might incorporate
tools to help answer helps us understand better how we can use tools in the
readers’ advisory interview.
When readers ask us reference-type questions—the author of a series
featuring a particular character, or the titles of a series in order, or even a list
of mysteries set in Seattle—we readily turn to reference sources and offer
the reader the information as well as an introduction to a potentially useful
source. We all have favorite sources we turn to in order to answer these
questions, and as we consult them, we introduce them to readers, allowing
them to see a collection of resources they might also browse through or con-
sult on their own. However, the interaction does not end there; the next step
is to go to the shelves to find the books. Here, the interview may change and
veer in any of a number of directions: The reader may find a book and leave
satisfied; the reader may have read all of that series and want something
similar; or the reader may have read all by that author and be tired of it,
seeking instead something quite different. What else might that person
read? As in reference, even the most straightforward-sounding query may
lead in other, more complex, directions before the patron leaves with books
in hand.
Other readers ask for reading suggestions in a particular genre. They
may identify the genre—I have often had readers’ requesting suggestions in
the mystery or fantasy genres by name—or they may talk about authors
they enjoy and ask, not for books “just like” those authors write, but for
other titles within the genre. Here again we can often turn comfortably to
reference sources, especially if the reader asks about a genre with which we
are not as familiar. We may consult Genreflecting (Herald 2000)—or other
genre-specific titles in the Genreflecting series—for example, to determine
whether it covers the genre or subgenre, as these tools offer excellent de-
scriptions. Is this the kind of book the patron seeks? If so, which authors
does the resource list? We go from lists to the stacks, helping readers dis-
cover books they might be in the mood to read. On the other hand, we may
be familiar with the genre, and in the stacks, we might be able to select and
describe a number of titles or authors, again allowing the reader to make
choices about which books to take. The reader may have asked for a type
of book popular at the library, one for which we have developed our own
annotated booklist. We share that with the reader, too, using it to supple-
ment commercial reference tools and our suggestions in the bookstacks.
All these become elements in this ongoing conversation about books and
reading.
Related to these readers are students who come to the desk with an as-
signment to read on a particular topic or a book set in a particular time pe-
riod. They trust us more if we can turn to the reference tool first, before we
give them the book that is most accessible and easiest to read or that meets
all their other stated and unstated requirements. If we pull that information
off the tops of our heads, it may not seem good enough for a class assign-
ment. This is the time to consult the books.
Readers seeking authors “just like” others they have enjoyed present
us with a more difficult task. Unfortunately, there seems to be no reference
tool sophisticated enough to discover what the reader enjoys about a partic-
ular author and then to make appropriate suggestions of other authors. Pro-
viding an answer to this kind of question requires excellent interviewing
skills, perceptive interpretation of the nuances in the reader’s responses to
suggested titles or types of fiction, an intuitive grasp of what the reader is
really requesting, and a knowledge of the collection at hand. However, read-
ers’ advisory tools do help us conduct this type of interview and offer possi-
bilities. Personally I distrust those sources that offer long lists of authors “just
like” someone else. What elements of the author’s writing and appeal are
they comparing? Subjects? Style? I much prefer sharing an electronic
source such as NoveList, which, although the matches are limited to similar
subjects, allows the librarian and the reader to see and choose what to
match. For example, a patron might look at a Tom Clancy title and choose,
from among the headings that describe Clancy’s books, “adventure,” “sus-
pense,” and “techno-thrillers” as those that represent what the patron en-
joys. Selecting these categories results in a list of twenty-three titles that
match all three elements—and a much longer list of matches of one or more
of those subjects. Readers, once they discover this kind of source, can move
from author to author and heading to heading, exploring possibilities.
Examples of print sources that offer similar access are those created by
Jean Swanson and Dean James, Killer Books: A Reader’s Guide to Ex-
ploring the Popular World of Mystery and Suspense (Swanson and James
1998), and By a Woman’s Hand: A Guide to Mystery Fiction Written by
Women (Swanson and James 1996). Although they include a selection of
authors covered only in the mystery and suspense genres, Swanson and
Dean often offer suggestions of additional authors to read, in each case in-
cluding the appeal aspect they are matching. For example, at the end of the
article describing Susan Isaacs, this paragraph suggests possibilities for fur-
ther reading: “Readers who have enjoyed the work of Isaacs might try the
suburban sleuths created by Valerie Wolzien and Jill Churchill. Those
looking for witty satire might try the works of Sarah Shankman and Sharyn
McCrumb” (Swanson and James 1996, 115). We librarians often use these
print and electronic sources to create our own lists of authors whom fans of
a favorite popular author might enjoy. The key, of course, is that none of
these lists provides exact answers for readers. They simply offer possibili-
ties readers might try on their own or after consultation.
In addition, readers who ask for “good books” or recommendations of
something to read are often reluctant to consult reference sources or even to
allow us to do so. They appreciate personal suggestions, not lists from ref-
erence sources. (And if we provide a list to answer a question, the patron’s
first question is usually, “Which ones have you read?”) For this reader, con-
sulting a reference tool creates far too much fuss; he becomes uncomfort-
able if we make a production out of answering his question. He is not certain
that the question is legitimate, and he certainly does not want to advertise his
inability to find a book on his own. Although he has asked the most difficult
question we encounter, we know even if we had tools sophisticated enough to
help us answer this, such a patron will likely not be pleased if we immedi-
ately start looking in books or databases for suggestions.
This type of question underlines the nature of the readers’ advisory in-
terview as a conversation about books. We talk with readers generally
about books that they have read and enjoyed. Are they in the mood for that
or something different? Many readers enjoy this opportunity to talk about
books that have given them pleasure or met a particular need in their lives.
We go from their comments to suggestions—from the print and electronic
tools or perhaps from the displays or booklists to the shelves and possible
book suggestions.
Readers simply looking for something to read are often put off if we
turn immediately to a reference source rather than automatically making
suggestions or at least going to the bookstacks to talk about books. Luckily,
browsing in the stacks often stimulates our memory of something that
might work. Then we might suggest that, if the reader has a little time, she
try this new resource. Readers are unlikely to discover reference tools and
use them on their own. Offering them as part of our routine in handling
questions means they may also eventually become comfortable using them
on their own and in conjunction with the interview.
For example, I had a reader chatting at the desk, wondering whether
she had read all of Maeve Binchy’s books. She liked Binchy a lot; did I
think there might be some she hadn’t read? This was clearly a request for
me to accompany her to the stacks to determine which of Binchy’s books

were in. I took along our bookmark, “While You’re Waiting for
Rosamunde Pilcher’s Winter Solstice” because I knew Binchy was sug-
gested as a possibility for readers wanting Pilcher’s book. Perhaps one of
the other authors would work for this reader, too.
Needless to say, the reader had read all Binchy’s books, so we started
down the bookmark list with Barbara Delinsky. Walking through the
stacks—a time of inspiration for patrons and librarians alike—she com-
mented that she had grown up in Montana and really liked books about the
West. We sidetracked to NoveList, selected some titles set in Montana, and
left it printing while we picked up another booklist on display—“Murder in
Mountain Standard Time.” She liked the setting but not the idea of myster-
ies (although she left clutching the bookmark). In the meantime we talked
about time periods. Because the stories did not have to be contemporary, I
also gave her an author I thought she might find as accessible as Binchy but
who writes of women in the historical West: Jeanne Williams. From the
NoveList printout, we also selected an Ivan Doig novel, so she left with two
books and three lists (a bookmark, an annotated booklist, and a printout
from an electronic source). She came back the next week to tell me how
much she liked the author I had given her—and luckily she remembered the
name because I did not even remember the transaction—and we found her
more of Williams’s books. She would be away for a few weeks, she warned
me, but she would be back for more. All and all it was a successful inter-
view, and even though the author she wanted to read more of came from my
own reading experience, I am not certain I would have thought of her with-
out the intervening activities: walking in the stacks, referring to lists we had
created (using readers’ advisory reference tools), and working with a refer-
ence tool to create a list aimed at the reader’s specific interests.
What Problems Do We
Encounter Using Tools?
Although the previous discussion reflects ways in which we might
regularly incorporate tools in our readers’ advisory interviews and how
some of us do, there are also problems, perceived barriers to using reference
sources. A number came to light as the result of a survey I posted on Fic-
tion_L on October 27, 2000.
One problem is our perception that many readers do not expect us to
turn to resources to answer their queries. Some even expect us to have read
and be able to recall details from all the fiction in the library. Others indi-
cate that any “trouble” needed to discover the answer is unnecessary; their
question is not that important. Just as readers often do not think they have
asked a real question, they do not expect to find books or electronic sources
that might help. On the other hand, more than one librarian suggested that
by offering reference tools we might seem to be passing patrons off to
books rather than providing the personal service that is the hallmark of
readers’ advisory. Balancing the personal attention with the more struc-
tured use of resources is clearly problematic.
Another issue is that complex electronic resources require training for
us to use them comfortably with readers. If we and our staff are not com-
fortable using them and if we have not explored the range of materials we
can find in them, we are less likely to share them with patrons. The same ap-
plies to print resources. We are much more likely to share a source we are
familiar with and have explored on our own—or one in which we have pre-
viously found answers. Staff training would help all of us, and one librarian
commented that better instructions for the electronic tools, or perhaps train-
ing for patrons at her library, would make them more useable and more fre-
quently consulted. All responded that they wished they and their staff used
available resources more effectively in working with readers.
Placement of reference materials can also pose a barrier. For example,
one respondent reported that most of the readers’ advisory is done at the cir-
culation desk, yet the commercial tools are in the reference department. Un-
less readers are lured to the reference area to continue their inquiries or
provided with locally produced materials that advertise the additional re-
sources available, they are certainly not benefiting from the library’s re-
sources. Even if the books are nearby, they may be in a reference section
that seems intimidating and uninviting. Even more problematic is the ne-
cessity of a computer to access electronic resources. These may be avail-
able only at the service desk, or there may be one or two computers
throughout the library that provide access to this and many other resources.
What Strategies Easily Increase

the Use of Tools?
One of the most important elements of the readers’ advisory interview,
regardless of whether we use reference resources, is that we are offering
possibilities and seldom precise, single answers to queries. Librarians who
are accustomed to acting as go-betweens, helping readers evaluate the ma-
terial provided by tools or by suggestions, incorporate tools more readily
into their interactions with readers. Our job is not to turn a patron loose with
a reference book or electronic resource and leave him to his own devices,
although we may certainly get him started, leave him to browse, and then
return to help sort out the material discovered. Readers’ advisory tools
greatly expand the material we can offer a reader, but readers still benefit
from the skills of the trained readers’ advisor who can help evaluate the ma-
terial found.
Another strategy is to place readers’ advisory reference tools in prox-

imity to the fiction collection, making them available in an area where pa-
trons are comfortable exploring them. Chairs and tables where readers can
sit and browse create an atmosphere conducive to enjoyable explorations.
However, it also helps to advertise their presence. In the survey one librar-
ian commented that she highlights two popular mystery reference re-
sources, Detecting Men (Heising 1998) and Detecting Women (Heising
1999), for example, by placing signs in the mystery collection directing
readers to their reference collection. They serve as a reminder that there are
reference books to consult and/or browse, sources of interesting informa-
tion for the fan. Electronic tools readily available on computers are cer-
tainly inviting to patrons, who might come across them by serendipity.
Increased visibility of tools and the products we create using them—book-
marks, booklists, and displays—enhance their usability.
Once they discover readers’ advisory reference sources, many readers
love them and return to use them again and again. Readers come to the desk
regularly, asking to see that book we used to find mysteries set in Chicago
or that computer program that had the plot summaries and allowed them to
match books with similar subjects. And, with increasing frequency, they re-
quest a reprint of the list of books in a particular series. They admit we
printed it last week or earlier this week, but they left it at home. Although
introducing readers to tools may sometimes remove librarians from the
equation of helping them find satisfying books to read, the tools also pro-
vide another way in which readers make a connection with librarians as
they share what they have discovered.
What Are the Best Tools?

The best readers’ advisory reference tools are those we are most com-
fortable using, those that open the collections to readers and librarians
alike. They may be print or electronic resources, commercial or locally pro-
duced, but they are the ones we use most frequently for our own searches and
to help patrons. Based on our staff and clientele, these may differ widely
among libraries. We all have our favorites, and as patrons become more fa-
miliar with what is available, they develop their own favorites as well.
Should we be concerned if tools are not part of every interaction? In
readers’ advisory work, the emphasis is on the interaction, on the process.
Through the interview, we discover what the reader seeks and we offer sug-
gestions from what we know or what we discover using reference tools.
Neither print nor electronic technology is sophisticated enough to allow for
the nuances implicit in most readers’ advisory interviews. Tools serve as
adjunct members in the interaction, not the focus they often become in ref-
erence interviews.
On the other hand, it seems clear that all of us could benefit from dis-
covering ways to include these tools more frequently in our interactions
with readers. As we use tools, we expand readers’ knowledge and our own.
The more we use the tools, the more we learn about how they can help us
and the range of information available. We need to develop conversational
gambits that lead naturally to reference sources. We might say, as I have,
“If you’re like me, you’ll enjoy browsing through these, too. But come and
talk with us; tell us what you like about the books you found as well as the
tools you used.”
In introducing patrons to tools, we should remember to offer our assis-
tance as intermediaries. Have we really helped a fan of legal thrillers if we
simply provide a list of fifty authors and titles to explore? Of course not.
Our expertise allows us to help narrow that list, either by choosing other
search terms or by offering our own knowledge of the authors or titles
listed. Although tools are useful when they open readers to the possibilities
available, too many possibilities are no better than none at all. And how can
we rely solely on reference sources to answer that mom who is looking for
fantasy books for her two young teenage boys? No list will take into ac-
count the mother’s concern about finding titles without too much sex, but a
librarian as intermediary can help limit lists and reassure the parent.
What might we do to make better use of these tools to enhance our
readers’ advisory interviews and service? Certainly sharing them with read-
ers whenever appropriate helps. One of our goals as readers’ advisors is to
create a long-term relationship so that readers are comfortable coming back
over and over, no matter what they have in mind to read. With these readers
especially, it is a good idea to make them aware of the possibilities. They may
not always want to talk with us. Where else might they find some sugges-
tions? Do we make bookmarks and booklists readily available to patrons? Do
readers know that there are books that explore genres and subgenres, that
provide fascinating information about authors and their books, that suggest
similar authors? Is everyone on our staff comfortable using these tools? Staff
awareness and comfort are almost as important as that of patrons. We are less
likely to offer tools that we are uncomfortable using or have never success-
fully used ourselves, so training should certainly be a priority.
Readers’ advisory work is done best by sensitive listeners who can
read the nuances in readers’ responses to suggestions and techniques. It is
not surprising that these are likely the best on our staff at integrating tools
into interviews and knowing when that may not be the best direction to pur-
sue. The best readers’ advisory service provides trained staff who interact
intelligently in these conversations about books with readers. No matter
how much we read, we can never keep up with the diverse reading tastes of
all those who use our library; we collect reference tools to help us expand
our own knowledge and to provide the best possible service to readers.
Notes
1. A good example is Bill Ott’s review of Robert Littell’s Walking Back
the Cat. He writes that in this book “you’ll find a fine mix of Tony
Hillerman atmosphere, le Carre psychology, and RossThomas plot-
ting” (Ott 1997, 1967). Those comparisons help us place the title and
give us clues on how to describe both book and author to readers.
2. To subscribe to Fiction_L, send an e-mail message to requests@
maillist.webrary.org with one of the following commands in the sub-
ject or body of the message:
subscribe fiction_l (to subscribe to the regular list)
subscribe digest fiction_l (to subscribe to the digest)
Within an hour you should receive the Fiction_L welcome message.
If you do not receive it or if you have questions about the list, please con-
tact Natalya Fishman, Fiction_L manager, at [email protected].
References
Heising, Willetta L. 1998. Detecting Men: A Reader’s Guide and Checklist
for Mystery Series Written by Men. Dearborn, MI: Purple Moon Press.
———. 1999. Detecting Women: A Reader’s Guide and Checklist for Mys-
tery Series Written by Women, 3d ed. Dearborn, MI: Purple Moon
Press.
braries Unlimited.
Ott, Bill. 1997. Review of Walking Back the Cat, by Robert Littell. Booklist
93 (May 15): 1567.
Swanson, Jean, and Dean James. 1996. By a Woman’s Hand: A Guide to
Mystery Fiction Written by Women, 2d ed. New York: Berkley Books.
———. 1998. Killer Books: A Reader’s Guide to Exploring the Popular
World of Mystery and Suspense. New York: Berkley Books.
CHAPTER 10
No, ThanksId Rather Do It

Myself: Indirect Advisory
Services
Nora M. Armstrong
Think about the last time you went to the video rental store: You may
have gone in with a definite idea of the movie you wanted to see, but maybe
you didn’t have a specific title in mind. You just knew you were in the
mood for a certain kind of story. When you walked in, large posters greeted
you, advertising the latest arrivals, which were arranged in their own sec-
tion. The store was organized into different areas: action/adventure, come-
dies, family films, kids’ videos and games, and so forth. There might have
been a display area featuring staff favorites or a seasonal theme. You may
have found a catalog or perhaps even a computer terminal through which
you could browse to identify all the movies of your favorite director or ac-
tor. Somewhere near the checkout register there was probably a board alert-
ing you to the movies that were going to be released in the near future.
Popcorn, candy, and sodas were available for purchase right near the regis-
ters—impulse-buy items, located where they would sell most effectively.
As you left you might have picked up a flyer full of short blurbs about new
releases, whetting your appetite and urging you to keep coming back so you
could enjoy all those marvelous stories. Even if you didn’t rent exactly the
179
movie you’d come in for, the odds are that you did not leave that store
empty-handed. And most likely, you did not ask any of the staff for
help—there was enough information available to you as it was.
Guess what? The same thing happens in libraries. We do offer
nonmediated assistance to our users. Short of buying refreshments at the
checkout desk (although with the rising popularity of coffee shops attached
to libraries, even this is changing), people can enter a library today in search
of a story and walk out with one—be it in the form of a print or e-book, vid-
eocassette, DVD, or book-on-tape—to satisfy their needs or desires, all
without asking a single staff member for help.
There are many reasons that someone in search of a story at the library
does not seek direct help from staff members. It may be that he already
knows exactly what he wants and is able to find it himself. More often,
however, he may be unsure of exactly what he’s looking for. It is also re-
motely possible that he is already aware of the tools and aids available to
help him in his quest. Then there is the pervasive attitude (in the profession
as well as among the general public) that questions concerning recreational
reading/listening/viewing are less serious than strictly informational que-
ries and are therefore unworthy of the staff’s attention and time (Shearer
1998). Nevertheless, the mere fact that a member of the public has chosen
to enter the library makes him just as much a client as if he walked up to any
service point and asked for assistance, and we have an obligation to serve
his need. What are librarians doing to help this person in his search, short of
direct mediation?
This is a quick overview of the current state of what can be called, for
want of a better term, indirect advisory services—that is, anything short of a
one-on-one transaction between library staff and users that helps those us-
ers find their way to the next enjoyable narrative experience. Some may be
tempted to think of these techniques as passive, but there is nothing passive
about them; indeed, many of them are labor-intensive, even if the work that
goes into their creation and implementation is not immediately obvious to
the casual eye. Many of them have to do with effective marketing of library
collections, whereas others address the more social, interactive aspects of
the narrative experience and its aftermath. Some work; some do not. But
“doing something is more effective than doing nothing” (Chelton 1993,
35). As the growing interest in advisory services over the last ten years or so
demonstrates, more and more librarians are electing to do something.
The techniques and tools that library staff members use are remark-
ably similar to those found in a video store or, for that matter, a bookshop.
They include displays, printed lists, notices of upcoming releases, and find-
ing aids in both print and electronic formats. Like bookstores, libraries also
host story-centered events, such as author appearances and book discussion
groups. A relatively new addition to the library repertoire is the creation of
Chapter 10—“No, Thanks—I’d Rather Do It Myself” 181
adult reading programs, long a staple in children’s departments, but only

now being deployed to reach grown-ups. Some libraries are even offering cus-
tomized service, using a reader profile that tailors a list of materials to the indi-
vidual patron. Using a combination of tools and techniques increases the
likelihood that library users in search of a story will leave the building satisfied.
The most obvious method of indirect assistance is to build displays of
materials and to place them at strategic points in the library, where patrons
are most likely to see them. They need not be elaborate or fancy, nor should
they be so large that their size is daunting to the viewer. The most difficult
step in creating a display is deciding on a theme and location and maintain-
ing it once it has been put up.
The two most logical places for displays are at the entrance to the li-
brary itself and near the collections. A popular entrance-area display is a
new-book shelf, where users can browse the latest additions to the collec-
tion. Another is the returns cart; this gives the visitor the opportunity to see
what others have been reading and perhaps feel “safe” in choosing from
those titles. (A British study showed that up to 50 percent of circulation in
the authors’ library came from the books on returns carts [Van Riel and
Fowler 1996].) The fact of a book’s newness or of its recent return is the
only unifying factor in these kinds of displays.
For displays near the collections, librarians usually work from a more
definite theme, and these can come from anywhere. Many of them are sea-
sonal in nature: holidays, seasons of the year, designated months (such as
women’s history month or Black history month), or a current event such as
an election or the World Series. A display can highlight a certain genre or
subgenre of literature—for example, cozy mysteries or nonfiction survival
stories. Some of the most ingenuous themes for displays come from one’s
colleagues, near and far. I gratefully acknowledge the contributions of the
members of the Fiction_L listserv, an e-mail loop dedicated to reader’s ad-
visory. In my two years on the list, I have been amazed and delighted at
their collective wisdom, creativity, and generosity. An example of all three
qualities is a list compiled for a display of nonfiction men’s adventure sto-
ries—“Manly Men Doing Manly Things Manfully.” Fiction_L rocks!
Some displays incorporate more than one kind of material: “Seen the
Movie? Read the Book” is a common theme. One of the best recommenda-
tions is to place a book truck of older books in plain sight with a sign read-
ing, “Good Books You May Have Missed” (Saricks and Brown 1989).
Another location for displaying materials is on the endcaps of the
stacks; this is a very easy way to show off items. It gives the browser the
chance to see the cover of the book, to pick it up and flip through it, and de-
cide whether she wants to take it home with her. This kind of display need
have no theme and is easy to maintain; staff members merely keep an eye
on the endcaps and refill them when they are empty.
How big are these displays? A standard recommendation is that they

be made up of at least twenty-five but no more than fifty items (Baker
1999). If there are not enough materials, the user may bypass the display al-
together; if there are too many, the user may feel overwhelmed by the num-
ber of items to choose from. The best practice is to keep the display stocked,
but not overstocked. Leaving one or two spaces purposely empty helps to
send the message that taking an item out is allowed. More than once a pa-
tron has asked me whether it is okay to do so. The answer is always, “Abso-
lutely—that’s why they’re there.”
Some displays are intrinsically ongoing, such as the new-materials
shelf, but others are meant to stay up for a limited amount of time. The most
effective displays stay up for two to four weeks. Any less, and regular users
may miss them; any more, and they may seem like permanent fixtures that
garner less than the desired amount of attention (Baker 1999).
Booklists and Bookmarks

The creation of booklists and bookmarks is another way librarians can
help their customers find stories that appeal to them. These do not need to
be elaborate or overlong; something as simple as posting the bestseller lists
from the New York Times, Publishers Weekly, or USA Today is a common
practice. Many libraries keep lists of Oprah’s Book Club titles on hand, and
Booklist regularly runs a feature of “After Oprah” read-alikes that many li-
brarians print out and distribute.
Patrons widely use and appreciate read-alike lists of any kind. Some-
one who enjoys cozy mysteries, for example, will be glad to see a list of au-
thors and titles that are similar to those she’s already read and liked.
Providing her with a list of this kind is an effective way to help her find a
story that satisfies her tastes. Such a list can be created in conjunction with
building a thematic display, then kept on hand, periodically updated, and
available for patrons. Librarians also customize ready-made lists: When the
Modern Library published its list of “best fiction of the twentieth century,”
some librarians used it as the basis for a display and created bookmarks
with all the titles, marking all those that their library systems owned.
Subscribing to book-oriented periodicals is another common practice.
Magazines and newspapers such as Publishers Weekly and the Sunday edi-
tions of the New York Times and the Washington Post are chock-full of re-
views and articles about books and the book industry and are valuable
resources for library customers. Library Journal and Booklist are useful not
only to library staff but also to their patrons for news and reviews. Book, a
monthly magazine aimed at the recreational reader, contains reviews and
information about books and authors. And rest assured, if it’s been re-
viewed in People, customers will seek it out! These sources examine not
just print books but audiobooks and videos, too, and Publishers Weekly
now includes regular reviews of e-books.
A number of genre-specific periodicals focus on customers interested
in specific kinds of stories. Science fiction and fantasy readers can rely on
reviews published in a magazine such as Locus, which enjoys a solid repu-
tation for reliable, informed opinions. Romantic Times is a good source for
romance readers to find out about forthcoming books in that field. A signif-
icant advantage of having this kind of resource available is the lack of (per-
haps inadvertent) sneering or condescension toward a specific genre that
may be apparent in more mainstream publications. The genre fan is assured
that the creators of the magazine are not going to look down their noses at
the fan’s tastes and that the information is reliable because the writers and
editors understand the appeal and conventions of the genre in question.
Aside from periodicals, librarians rely on printed guides to literature.
With the burgeoning interest in advisory services, this is a growing field, and
it seems that every issue of Library Journal or Booklist contains a review of
at least one new title. An article in the 1996 Winter/Spring issue of Reference
Quarterly lists an exhaustive bibliography of these resources at three levels
of completeness: core, expanded, and comprehensive. It has served as the ba-
sis for many librarians to develop an advisory reference collection (Readers’
Advisory Committee, Collection Development Section, RUSA 1996).
One of the most helpful practices is to place these printed materials as
close to the collection as possible. A common practice is to situate a service
desk near the fiction stacks, for example, where the staff keeps a copy of
What Do I Read Next? (a guide to genre fiction that is published biennially),
as well as the quinquennial Fiction Catalog and its annual supplements.
Keeping these materials out where the public can see and look at them, per-
haps with a sign to indicate this, is a way to encourage their use. There’s a
trick involved, though: Library users are not necessarily accustomed to see-
ing, let alone using, the tools for finding a good story in a library. It is the
job of the library staff to arrange these materials so that their visitors know
about them and feel comfortable using them. Some libraries feature them
on a table or shelf at the entrance to the stacks so that they are hard to miss.
A small display of relevant periodicals in this space is also helpful.
In order to keep track of their own reading, many library staff mem-
bers keep a reader’s notebook for themselves or their department, a simple
and easy way to remember the books they have read and their general im-
pressions of them. This is also a very useful tool for clients if the staff puts
the notebook out where the public can leaf through it. Title, author, date of
publication, a very short synopsis, and an indication of whether the reader
liked the book—this is all the information necessary for the browser. The
amount of interest something as easy as this can generate is surpris-
ing—and gratifying.
There are electronic resources that patrons can use on their own, too.
Now that most libraries have automated catalogs, it is not uncommon to
find a computer catalog terminal—or several of them—near the collection.
Patrons are then able to determine for themselves whether the library owns
the materials they are interested in borrowing. As well, the overwhelming
majority of libraries are now connected to the Internet, and numerous sites
are devoted to helping people find a good story; some are available by sub-
scription, but many more are free. Without discussing the merits of these, it
is important to mention them because they are such a valuable resource, and
letting customers know about them is a good practice. A list in the form of a
small flyer or bookmark that customers can take away with them lets them
know of sites that they might not otherwise have learned about. Some sites
have created their own bookmarks and will provide them to libraries for the
price of postage.
If the library has access to an online subscription service (for example,
NoveList or the electronic version of What Do I Read Next?), placing a
computer terminal with an Internet connection near the collection, with a
short set of instructions for accessing and using the service, proves helpful
to patrons. This way they can do their own searching if they like. Providing
a direct link or icon on the screen to a free megasite such as Amazon.com or
IMDB (a movie database, URL: http://www.imdb.com [accessed Decem-
ber 26, 2000]) helps them make use of these resources. (I wonder how much
more likely a patron reluctant to ask for advisory help would be to request
assistance in using the catalog or a PC terminal. My experience is that if the
question is technology-related, people are much more likely to ask for help.
Again, I believe this speaks to patrons’ perception of the “frivolousness” of
questions about recreational reading.)
In order to help patrons find and enjoy a story, librarians are develop-
ing a new kind of tool, the reader profile. This is a short questionnaire that
the patron can fill out and give to the staff; the questions include the all-im-
portant “Tell me about a book/movie that you enjoyed,” as well as other
questions designed to help identify elements that appeal to the patron
(genre, location, characters, setting, etc.). Armed with this information,
staff members then use the tools at their disposal and build a customized list
of materials likely to meet the patron’s tastes. Although this involves medi-
ation on the part of library staff, I include it in the list of indirect advisory
services because of the minimal contact between the patron and the librar-
ian—indeed, if the patron wishes, they may never meet face-to-face in this
kind of transaction. The patron can even choose to use a false name. Imag-
ine a little gray-haired grandmother who does not wish the world to know of
her penchant for reading grisly true-crime stories, and the appeal of such a
service becomes more apparent.
Programs Centered on Books and Reading

One of the most visible and popular methods of providing indirect ad-
visory services at libraries is programming centered on books and reading.
These include book discussion groups, author appearances, and reading
clubs. A well-publicized event draws the public into the library and (we
hope) affirms for them the legitimate role of stories in their lives.
Book discussion groups, often called book clubs, have been a staple of
library service for many years, and there are a few standard operating mod-
els. The club may be a group that reads and discusses Oprah books and
read-alikes or one that meets to talk about literary fiction of the recent past.
Some groups work from a specific list of readings, such as those the Great
Books Foundation prepares. The club may be a genre-based group, concen-
trating on mysteries, science fiction, or romance. In some cases, partici-
pants do not have to read the same books; they merely come together to talk
about what they have read since the last time the group met.
Interest in book clubs with multicultural themes is growing. For exam-
ple, the San Diego Public Library runs a program called “Borders and
Bridges/Puentes y Fronteras” and provides materials for discussion in both
Spanish and English. The Cumberland County Public Library in Fayetteville,
North Carolina, has for a number of years hosted the “Opened Gates” pro-
gram, highlighting writings of African-American authors; the Topeka and
Shawnee County Public Library in Kansas runs a similar group, as well as
another whose theme is “Native American Classics.” Certainly dozens
more such programs exist in libraries across the country, and the demand
for them will only grow as the nation becomes more appreciative of its own
cultural diversity.
Whatever the unifying theme of the group, some common ground
rules can help ensure its successful operation. The library staff sees to it that
information about the meeting time and location for the group receives ade-
quate publicity, perhaps through the library’s calendar of events or a notice
published in the local paper. Staff also makes certain that a sufficient num-
ber of copies of the material are available for all potential participants to
read and discuss (for this reason, most groups avoid current bestsellers: De-
mand for the material from the general public is too high at that moment). If
the readings are relatively short, as is often the case with Great Books dis-
cussions, staff may keep a supply of photocopies on hand for interested par-
ties. Many librarians will ask the group what they want to read or have them
choose from a list of titles; some groups choose their readings six months or
a year in advance. This helps the librarians ensure availability of the materi-
als, either through purchase or arranging for interlibrary loan well in ad-
vance of the time the group will use them.
Before the group meets, some librarians engage in a bit of background

research into the author and/or the circumstances behind the writing of the
book. Although this is not strictly necessary, many club members appreci-
ate knowing a little more about the “story behind the story.” This knowl-
edge can add a level of enrichment to the discussion. In addition, it is the
librarian’s responsibility to prepare or find a series of questions to focus the
discussion once the group meets. Finding these lists is much less difficult a
task than it used to be. They often appear on publishers’ Web sites and can
be printed out and distributed beforehand so that participants can think
about the questions as they are reading. In the case of older or classic litera-
ture, a librarian may even turn to a study guide such as Cliff’s Notes to get
ideas for questions or discussion points.
When the club meets, the librarian starts the discussion with an obser-
vation or question and then steps back to let the members express their
opinions and impressions. This does not mean, however, that the facilitator
does nothing. This person has the task of keeping the discussion focused on
the reading and of ensuring that all members have the opportunity to partic-
ipate without one or two people dominating the meeting. This sometimes
requires great tact and diplomacy and brings all of a librarian’s cus-
tomer-service skills into play. It is worth the effort, though, and is essential
to the successful operation of the group. Letting everyone know that their
ideas are welcome and that there are no right or wrong answers in this set-
ting is one of the keys to making the club a success.
A recent innovation in book-centered programming is the adult read-
ing club, modeled after popular children’s reading clubs. This kind of pro-
gram tends to be more flexible than a formal book club because there is no
set meeting time and no set list of books participants must read. All that
they must do is come into the library to pick up a reading club packet at the
start of the program, read (or listen to) the prescribed number of books in
the prescribed period of time, and return the form—a reader’s log, for ex-
ample—that indicates which books they have read. Although some pro-
grams of this type require that club members read from several genres,
there is no list of titles they must complete—they can read anything in the
specified genres. Most programs also encourage but do not require partici-
pants to write short, anonymous reviews of what they have read. These re-
views serve as another advisory tool for other participants, and they make
an effective display at the end of the program as well.
A reading club like this usually offers incentives—in the form of small
premiums and prizes that local businesses donate—for people to partici-
pate. Eligibility for each of these is dependent on the level of participation
or the number of books the participants read or listen to. Aside from ob-
taining the premiums—something small such as a coffee mug or a brass-
plated bookmark—staff members also prepare the program materials,
which include a flyer explaining how the club operates, a reader’s log, and
book review forms. Printed publicity materials consist of flyers and posters
for distribution in the library and the community. A common practice is to
create another flyer with the names of all the businesses that have donated
prizes and to send one to each business with a thank-you letter at the end of
the program. This kind of program benefits everyone involved: The busi-
nesses get some free publicity, the library attracts more users, and readers
feel rewarded for doing something they like to do.
The Seattle Public Library offers a unique program, “If All Seattle Read
the Same Book.” This is a several-day-long event that takes a multimedia ap-
proach. The chosen book is made widely available in both libraries and book-
stores, and the public radio station broadcasts a reading of it as well. The author
then appears on a radio call-in show and engages in a dialogue with the public
about the work. Again, everyone benefits from the event: Bookstores sell
books, people tune in to the radio station, the author gets publicity, the library
circulates books, and the readers’ involvement in the story is deepened.
The mutually beneficial relationship among readers, writers, and li-
braries is perfectly mirrored in library-sponsored author appearances. The
library is glad to host such events, especially if the author is well known:
Good turnout for such an event is almost guaranteed. For their part, most
authors have a deep appreciation for libraries—not just for their role in in-
creasing the authors’ readership but also for the practical help the authors
themselves have found at their own libraries over the years. The association
among these parties is natural.
An author appearance can fall into one of several categories: an iso-
lated event, one of a series of periodically offered programs, or part of a
larger event, such as a festival of literature-centered programs offered over a
short period (Sager et al. 1998). Local authors, perhaps not so well known,
may agree to appear and talk to interested parties about their books and the
craft and business of writing. Some libraries develop a series of genre-ori-
ented programs, whereby published authors in a variety of genres are invited
to come to the library and discuss their specific genres. Depending on their
specific policies, each library can make an author’s books available for sale;
obviously, the willingness of the library to allow for this increases the chance
that authors will take part in the events. Both of these types of programs are
usually open to the public with no registration or sign-up required.
Such is not usually the case when the event in question features a very
well known author. Because of space limitations, tickets to such an appear-
ance may be a necessity; often they will be free and provided for by a
Friends of the Library group, who may be paying the author’s honorarium.
Sometimes the fee is paid for through a grant or a library endowment fund;
in any case, the policies of many libraries preclude charging the public for
events held there.
This sort of appearance is more common in larger library systems,

which enjoy the funding and publicity mechanisms necessary for such
events. Often it is part of a larger program, such as the Novello Festival,
sponsored by the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County in
North Carolina, which has hosted such well-known authors as Steven
Ambrose and Pat Conroy. Another example is “New York Is Book Coun-
try,” an annual celebration of books and the book industry held in the pub-
lishing district in Manhattan. Denver is the site of the annual Rocky
Mountain Book Festival, and Nashville hosts the ALA-sponsored Southern
Festival of Books, which draws many southern authors, some just starting,
others well established in their careers. If the library lacks the wherewithal
to put on or participate in such a major event, even the isolated appearance
of a solid mid-list author is often a big hit in the community. Moreover,
when the author is from the area, this adds to the popularity of the event.
Appearances such as these go a long way to enhance the library’s posi-
tive reputation in the community and to reinforce in the public’s mind that
the library is a safe place for them to visit when they need or want a narra-
tive experience to enrich their lives. All the techniques and tools discussed
in this chapter are designed and implemented with this goal in mind: People
need stories in their lives, and the library can help them fulfill that need,
whether the help they seek is provided person-to-person or more indirectly.
Challenges
In spite of all the innovative techniques and tools librarians use to de-
liver indirect advisory services, a number of challenges do exist, and these
tend to be elements outside the control of front-line library staff. Many li-
brary buildings are older, and their physical layouts are not conducive to ef-
fective marketing of the collections they house. Aside from moving the
stacks around, if the building itself is difficult to work with, arranging the
collection in an effective manner is a genuine challenge.
Not all collections are inherently browsable, either. While many fic-
tion collections have been “genrefied,” that is, divided into sections by gen-
res, this is by no means a universal practice. Indeed, in larger systems some
branches may be genrefied, while others are not. Staff shortages may mean
that a collection has not undergone comprehensive weeding in some time,
leading to overcrowded shelves of books that can overwhelm the casual
browser.
One area where libraries are letting their users down is in the classifi-
cation and cataloging of many popular materials, more specifically
mass-market paperback books. In some instances, these “more ephemeral”
materials receive only the most basic, stripped-down treatment from tech-
nical-services departments, with a stripped-down entry into a part of the
catalog that is often inaccessible to the general public. How prudent is it for
a library to buy a book and then not allow the public—the book’s owner and
its intended audience—to know of its presence in the library, without a lot
of effort on the part of the user? The argument can be made that cataloging
is an expensive, time-consuming task, and in these days of ever more scarce
resources some sacrifices must be made. Still, a bare-bones catalog entry,
accessible to the public, should not be out of the question (Hood 1996).
Perhaps the biggest challenge in creating a comprehensive approach
to advisory services is the necessity of winning over administrative support,
which will allow the library to devote resources of staff and material to such
an effort. When the library’s director and board of trustees understand and
appreciate the importance of recreational reading/listening/viewing in the
lives of the institution’s core users, half the battle is won. When the library
staff knows it has administrative backing, the task is made much easier.
In the hazy recesses of their minds, most library-school graduates re-
call at least hearing of the five rules of library science put forth by S. R.
Ranganathan: books are for use; every book has its reader; every reader has
his/her book; save the time of the reader; the library is a growing organism
(Bakewell 1986). We can change the wording slightly and apply these same
rules to modern-day advisory services. The materials in our collections are
for use, be they print or e-book, or a story delivered in another medium. Ev-
ery story has its receptor, and every person has his or her story. By all
means, save the time of the user, and as our collections grow and change,
our libraries grow, too.
When we talk about advisory services, it’s likely that two of these laws
will spring immediately to mind: that is, “Every story its receptor; every
person his/her story.” But the other three are equally applicable. We want to
save the user as much time as possible, not leave her to wander the stacks,
discouraged and frustrated in her search for the next good book or tape or
movie. We want the materials in our collections to be used. And we want to
impart to users that the library they are visiting is growing and dynamic, re-
sponsive to their needs and wants, in recreational as well as informational
pursuits. We need to let them know there are good stories waiting for them
at the library—all they have to do is come in and look around.
References
Baker, Sharon L. 1999. Marketing Library Collections. Presentation at the
Readers’ Advisory Section of the Public Library Association’s bien-
nial symposium, Chicago.
Bakewell, K. G. B. 1986. Ranganathan, Shiyali Ramamrita. In ALA World
Encyclopedia of Library and Information Services, 2d ed., 690–92.
Chicago: American Library Association.
Chelton, Mary K. 1993. Read Any Good Books Lately? Helping Patrons
Find What They Want. Library Journal 118 (May): 33–37.
Hood, Anna Kathleen. 1996. Grace Under Pressure: Public Relations,
Readers’ Advisory, and Fiction-Friendly Collections. Mississippi Li-
braries 60 (Winter): 103–6.
Readers’ Advisory Committee, Collection Development Section, Refer-
ence and User Service Association (RUSA). 1996. Readers’ Advisory
Reference Tools: A Suggested List of Fiction Sources for All Li-
braries. Reference Quarterly 36 (Winter): 206–29.
Sager, Don, et al. 1998. Author Programming in Public Libraries. Public
Libraries 37 (July/August): 235–41.
Shearer, Kenneth. 1998. Readers’ Advisory Services: New Attention to a
Core Business of the Public Library. North Carolina Libraries 56
(Fall): 114–16.
Van Riel, Rachel, and Olive Fowler. 1996. Why Promote? Public Libraries
11: 24–25
CHAPTER 11
The Global Conversation About

Books, Readers, and Reading on
the Internet
Roberta S. Johnson
Readers’ advisory is one of the most intimate library services, best
practiced one on one, and most often satisfying when the patron knows the
staff response reflects personal reading experience. That’s why many peo-
ple consider readers’ advisory an art. The pitfall to practicing this art is the
sudden sinking feeling when a patron asks for a recommendation in a genre
that you’ve never read. Thus, the field has spawned many resources—both
print and electronic (in the form of CD-ROM fiction guides)—to provide a
safety net for staff, but it is the advent of the Internet and the World Wide
Web that has opened the door to an unimaginably large, if slightly murky,
pool of relevant information.
Since the mid-1990s, people have become well aware of the Internet
as an information medium, a big filing cabinet of answers to what librarians
recognize as reference questions: What’s the weather in Kansas City?
What’s the current price of Microsoft stock? Reference librarians are
spending hours on the Internet, providing answers—or the gateway to those
answers—for their patrons. But what about readers’ advisory? What is
there of value and interest to librarians serving fiction readers? A key to this
191
question is remembering that the Internet is a popular medium, much like

television. In many ways it is just an enormous group of people talking to
each other. In this global conversation a lot of people are talking about
books, about fiction, about what they like to read.
In the last four years, the Internet has become a very useful tool for
practicing readers’ advisory, but it has also raised some interesting ques-
tions for librarians. When we have so much to look at, how do we find what
we’re looking for? Maybe someone across the country has the answer to my
question, but how do we communicate with them? Can we find accurate in-
formation on authors that does more than echo our print sources? What are
other people in the book trade—publishers, journals, libraries—offering
online? And finally, what can my library and I contribute?
To get the most out of Internet resources, first ask yourself, “What are
my needs?”
• Do I want to increase my knowledge of a particular genre?
• Do I need to identify particular books for patrons who have not given
me much to go on?
• Am I looking for information on a particular author for a book dis-
cussion?
• Am I looking for information on forthcoming books or hard-to-find
genre fiction?
• Do I need to find a particular title in a series, books on a particular
theme, or books for a particular age group—teenagers, for example?
In this chapter I provide some Internet resources that answer those
questions. My focus is primarily adult and young adult fiction. Most of the
sites I mention also concentrate on adult fiction, but many wonderful
Internet resources are primarily for children’s librarians. Some of the best
author sites are from writers of children’s books because they understand
how much fun the Internet can be. Visit Dav Pilkey’s Web Site O’ Fun
(URL: http://www.pilkey.com/ [accessed December 31, 2000]) as a
rib-tickling example. The Children’s Literature Web Guide (URL:
http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/index.html [accessed December 31,
2000]) is a great place to search for children’s resources.
Readers’ advisory librarians can use the Internet in three important
ways: for answering challenging patron requests, as a source of information
on authors and their works, and as a collection development resource. View
the Internet as a communication tool. It puts you in touch, quickly and eas-
ily, with other librarians and fiction lovers. Emphasize electronic mailing
lists. They will help you to discover and create new resources.
Chapter 11—The Global Conversation About Books, Readers... 193
However, because no single Internet site has all the answers, first learn
to search the Internet efficiently. My favorite search tool is Google (URL:
http://www.google.com [accessed December 31, 2000]), not only for its
power and speed but also for its singular lack of blinking ads, shopping
come-ons, headline news, chat rooms, and electronic greeting cards.
Google is my search tool of choice when I have a precise search, for exam-
ple, a specific book title or a little-known author. Google is also smart
enough to give you a useful return on a more general search, for example,
prehistoric fiction bibliography. I also use Yahoo (URL: http://www.ya-
hoo.com [accessed December 31, 2000]) frequently, but it is a little differ-
ent from a true search engine. Yahoo is a Web directory that contains
thousands and thousands of sites. It is organized with hierarchical subject
headings, which makes searching through it very easy. It’s good for a broad
search. However, it doesn’t have everything, so frequently combine Yahoo
with a search engine. Google and other search engines attempt to index the
entire Web. Become a smart searcher (make sure to read the “Help” section
of any selected search engine), and these tools will reward you. To make
digging for electronic treasure easier, here are some basic definitions.
Definitions and Differences

Web Sites
Everyone and his dog has a Web site these days, and sifting out the
useful, current, and accurate ones is a task only a librarian could love. Indi-
vidual sites vary in content and reliability from remarkably useful to annoy-
ingly pointless. Sites that publishers or libraries maintain tend to be much
more accurate, but they can be difficult to navigate due to elaborate graph-
ics or confusing layout. If you are searching for an Internet site on a particu-
lar subject and lack experience, try a straightforward search tool such as
Yahoo and use a simple phrase such as “horror fiction.” For a more specific
search, use the author’s name and the book title, both in quotes, at a more
powerful search engine.
Usenet Groups
Usenet is a precursor of the World Wide Web, created in 1979 at Duke
University. Newsgroups are electronic bulletin boards where people ex-
change ideas in “threads” of commentary. The user signs on to Usenet,
reads new postings, leaves a few, and logs off. Groups are divided into
twelve different categories, indicated with prefixes such as rec for recre-
ational or soc for social issues and concerns. Further divisions narrow the
broad categories into specific interests, such as rec.arts.books.hist-fiction,
for historical fiction writers and readers. Current Web browsers such as Ex-
plorer and Netscape come with built-in newsreader software for those inter-
ested in reading a particular newsgroup on a regular basis. Usenet has a
very handy archival Web site called Deja.com (URL: http://x42.deja.
com/usenet/ [accessed December 31, 2000]), formerly DejaNews, which
collects approximately one year of postings of more than 45,000 Usenet
groups. With Deja.com’s Power Search, you can keyword search by title or
author as well as limit your search to a specific newsgroup or subject head-
ing. Deja.com is fun to browse for opinions on books and authors, but it is
also a useful resource for oddball questions such as “How do you pro-
nounce Ondaatje?” For example, when I was preparing for a book discus-
sion on The Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women by
Geraldine Brooks, a few minutes of searching on Deja.com unearthed a
feminist Islamic newsgroup that had been discussing the accuracy and in-
tent of Brooks’ nonfiction book.
Electronic Mailing Lists

The nature of the Listserv (which is a trademarked name referring to a
particular kind of software for electronic mailing lists) is probably familiar
to everyone who has Internet access. You sign up with a group of
like-minded people in order to discuss a particular topic, and everyone’s
comments are e-mailed to everyone else. Some overlap exists between
newsgroups and mailing lists: For example, both DorothyL and RRA-L
(discussed later) are also available as Bitnet newsgroups (look for their re-
cent postings at Deja.com). Several good directories of mailing lists are
also on the Internet: Liszt (URL: http://www.liszt.com [accessed Decem-
ber 31, 2000]) and Tilenet (URL: http://tile.net/lists/ [accessed December
31, 2000]) are probably the most comprehensive. You can search by key-
word and find lists on any subject. Unfortunately, neither Liszt nor Tilenet
indexes all the available mailing lists. There are also Web sites such as
EGroups.com (URL: http://www.egroups.com/ [accessed December 31,
2000]) that allow people to start their own, highly personalized lists,
whether on the novels of Jan Karon or Heather Graham, without needing
their own Internet server and list software. Most mailing lists archive their
postings in some fashion, although the archives may be limited to subscrib-
ers or lack a search facility.
Joining a fiction mailing list can serve multiple purposes for library
staff. First, it can satisfy our preoccupation and enthusiasm for a particular
genre by watching authors and fans chat about forgotten classics, forthcom-
ing hot titles, and the growing size of their “To Be Read” pile. Second, it
can provide an opportunity for informal genre study for someone who
doesn’t normally read romances or science fiction. By joining a list devoted
to that genre, the reluctant reader can become a “lurker,” eavesdropping on

the science fiction community discussing their picks and pans, which new
author is worth reading, and which collection is the best value. Sheer expo-
sure to names and titles will improve a staff member’s recognition in the
genre, raise staff comfort levels when practicing readers’ advisory, and pro-
vide a helpful forum for tough patron questions. Finally, awareness of the mul-
titude of lists and newsgroups shouldn’t be confined to library staff. You might
not be interested in the exhaustive Web guide to Robert Parker’s Spenser nov-
els, Bullets and Beer (URL: http://www.mindspring.com/~boba4/ [accessed
December 31, 2000]), but there is probably a patron who would be thrilled and
impressed to learn of its existence.
Here is a snapshot of six popular fiction mailing lists:
1. DorothyL
The first, and oldest, incarnated in 1991, is DorothyL (after Dor-
othy L. Sayers), which is devoted to mystery fiction. It is available
only in digest form, which means that it comes as a collection of mes-
sages periodically instead of one at a time. DorothyL has evolved into
a collection of writers, publishers, and readers, which means discus-
sion will occasionally focus on topics such as “What do the bestseller
lists really mean?” but there is no doubt that it is a lurker’s paradise.
You may subscribe online (and learn more about the list) at the
Crozet Post Office (URL: http://www.iwillfollow.com/dorothyl/ [ac-
cessed December 31, 2000]) or by sending an e-mail message to
[email protected]. In the body of your message,
type subscribe DOROTHYL. Turn off your signature file, if you have one.
Because DorothyL is also a Bitnet newsgroup (bit.listserv.dorothyl),
you can search and view postings at the Deja.com Web site. DorothyL
archives are also available by e-mail at the Crozet Post Office (URL:
http://www.iwillfollow.com/dorothyl/ [accessed December 31,
2000]) for list members only. Consider visiting Alec West’s Mystery
Vault (URL: http:// http://mysteryvault.net/ [accessed December 31,
2000]) as well for an overview and archive of mystery discussions on
the Web: mailing lists, newsgroups, and newsletters.
2. Romance Readers Anonymous
Another combination of writers and readers, RRA-L devotes its
profuse conversation to romance fiction and occasionally romantic
films. Among the topics discussed are characterization, subgenres
such as paranormals or time travel romances, “keeper” titles, romance
as portrayed in the media, and reviews of new titles. Romance fans
will enjoy this warm and friendly list.
Subscribe to RRA-L by sending your message to RRA-L@

LISTSERV.KENT.EDU. In the body of your message, type sub-
scribe RRA-L. Turn off your signature file, if you have one.
RRA-L is also a Bitnet newsgroup (bit.listserv.rra-l), so you can
search and view postings at the Deja.com Web site without joining the
list itself. The RRA-L archives are located at URL: http://listserv.
kent.edu/archives/rra-l.html (accessed December 31, 2000).
3. SF-LIT
The official sponsor of SF-LIT is the Library of Congress, and its
focus is the literary discussion of science fiction, fantasy, and horror
in all media including books, movies, television, and graphic novels.
Simple discussion of the latest episode of Babylon 5 is discouraged,
but no topic relating to science fiction, fantasy, or horror is forbidden.
This list appeals to those who want to see science fiction as literature
taught in every college in the United States, but it’s also a great place to
identify elusive writers and stories. Witty, erudite, and truly interna-
tional, the SF-LIT members give science fiction fans a good name. Sign
up here to find half-remembered stories for patrons, an author’s latest
title, or reasons the Universal Translator should (or shouldn’t) work.
Subscribe to SF-LIT by sending your message to LISTSERV@
LOC.GOV. In the body of the message, type subscribe SF-LIT.
SF-LIT is also available as a digest. To receive the list as a daily di-
gest, after subscribing, send the command set SF-LIT DIGEST to
[email protected]. The list’s postings are available via the Li-
brary of Congress Web site (URL: http://www.loc.gov/cgi-bin/
lwgate/SF-LIT/ [accessed December 31, 2000]).
4. Fiction_L
Fiction_L was created as a forum for discussion on general read-
ers’ advisory issues. This list has proved very helpful for librarians
trying to locate fiction “stumpers” for patrons and has also supported
lively discussions about cataloging, shelving, audiobooks on CDs,
book discussions, and other important topics. Discussion is not lim-
ited to adult collections, and fiction lovers worldwide are welcome to
join the discussion.
Complete information on joining the list and viewing its archives
is available at the Morton Grove Public Library’s Fiction_L Web
page (URL: http://www.webrary.org/rs/FLmenu.html [accessed De-
cember 31, 2000]). You may also subscribe by sending an e-mail mes-
sage to [email protected]. In the body of your message,
type subscribe Fiction_L.
5. PUBYAC
Youth services staff everywhere highly recommend PUBYAC, a
discussion list for those concerned with the practical aspects of chil-
dren’s and young adult services in public libraries. Its discussions
cover programming ideas, outreach, collection development, admin-
istrative considerations, job openings, and more.
Subscribe to PUBYAC at the PUBYAC Web page (URL:
http://www.pallasinc.com/pubyac/ [accessed December 31, 2000]) or
by sending your message to [email protected]. In the body of
your message, type subscribe PUBYAC and your name. Turn off your
signature file, if you have one, and leave the subject line in the header
blank.
6. YALSA-BK
One of several lists for young adult librarians sponsored by the
Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), a division of the
American Library Association (URL: http://www.ala.org/yalsa/profes-
sional/yalsalists.html [accessed December 31, 2000]), YALSA-BK
concentrates on young adult literature, whether classic or contempo-
rary. This list is also an opportunity for subscribers to learn what the
nominees are for Best Books for Young Adults and other YALSA
best books lists. YALSA-BK also works hard to include teens in the
online discussion, which adds an invaluable element of genuine teen
opinion.
To subscribe, send a message to [email protected]. Leave the
subject line blank. For the message, type subscribe YALSA-BK fol-
lowed by your name.
Treasure Hunts
Finding a particular book for a patron who cannot remember the au-
thor or the title is the essence of good readers’ advisory service. Because
fiction indexing is subjective, finding a book based on a patron’s descrip-
tion, especially an older title, can be very difficult. Even with a thorough
description of the book, print and even electronic readers’ advisory re-
sources may fail, especially when the patron insists that the book is a ro-
mance novel about an artist living in Montana, and the book actually
concerns an art dealer vacationing in Wyoming! Many librarians are lucky
enough to belong to a readers’ advisory interest group, a “network of
peers,” where they can quiz each other about these patron stumpers
(Saricks, Mortensen, and Balcom 1997). The human brain is still the most
flexible, descriptive resource, and this is where the Internet mailing lists
can be incredibly valuable because they bring librarians, writers, and read-
ers together in a thousand-or-more-member network of peers.
The genre mailing lists, such as SF-LIT, RRA-L, and DorothyL, are
essentially collections of fiction lovers. You can usually count on the par-
ticipants having read and, more important, remembered the book that you
cannot identify. The rapid response time of these lists—I’ve seen questions
answered in minutes on Fiction_L—makes it possible for you to answer pa-
tron questions in a very timely fashion. The mailing list unblocks that “dead
end” and takes you beyond print resources.
Here’s a recent example of this kind of networking. Imagine being
asked, “What’s that romance with Taylor in the title?” The librarian who
was asked this question had no idea. But someone across the country knew.
Rosie Postelnek (R. C. Miller Memorial Library, Beaumont, TX)
posted the original question to Fiction_L: “Has anyone heard of a series of
romance paperbacks with Taylor in the title or series name? She says it is
not Taylor County. She also says they are all written by different authors.”
Christine Raap (Evergreen Park Public Library, Evergreen Park, IL)
posted the following response later that morning:
Harlequin did two series with TYLER in the title. The first series
was “Welcome to Tyler” and came out in about 1992–93. The sec-
ond series was “Return to Tyler” and came out about 1995–1996.
Both contained 12 books in the series and issued one a month. These
series, Harlequin has published a number of these year-long series,
are very popular in our library.
The flip side of this wonderful communication tool is human error.

You can’t assume accuracy no matter how vehement the respondent is. The
point is that even if the information is incorrect, you usually have a lot more
to go on than when you started. It’s an extended version of, “Let me ask our
cataloger. He reads science fiction, and I don’t,” except that you can now
ask an e-mail question of hundreds of readers at one time.
Another question that librarians often hear is, “I heard this author
speaking on Booknotes—or was it NPR?—about her new book and it
sounds great. Can you find it for me?” Amazon.com (URL: http://www.
amazon.com [accessed December 31, 2000]) keeps track of books and au-
thors in newspapers, magazines, radio, and television as part of their Fea-
tured in the Media section. (From the Amazon.com home page, select
“Books” and then “Featured in the Media,” toward the bottom of the Books
page.) Or try going directly to the source’s Web site for information; for ex-
ample, at Online with Oprah (URL: http://www.Oprah.com [accessed De-
cember 31, 2000]), you’ll find descriptions of each of Oprah’s book
discussion choices.
Authors
Leading a book discussion can present a problem that the Internet can
sometimes solve. I try to provide both myself and the group members with
information on an author before we meet to discuss books. It’s often very
difficult to find information about new authors and titles. A good example
was Snow Falling on Cedars, which everyone wanted to read, but nobody
knew much about. When there are 40 million Web pages to look at, however,
the chances are excellent that you will find several current biographies or in-
terviews with the author. Searching the Internet for David Guterson informa-
tion, I found interviews in two Seattle-area newspapers, neither of which I
would have had access to otherwise in a small Illinois library.
A promising place to start is Yahoo’s Literary Fiction Authors on the
Web (URL: http://www.yahoo.com/Arts/Humanities/Literature/Genres/
Literary_Fiction/Authors/ [accessed December 31, 2000]), which lists hun-
dreds of author pages, as well as the Yahoo sections for science fiction, fan-
tasy, mystery, horror, and children’s and young adult fiction. If you don’t
find what you’re looking for in Yahoo, try using a search engine such as
Google (URL: http://www.google.com [accessed December 31, 2000]) or
Alta Vista (URL: http://www.altavista.com [accessed December 31,
2000]) to do a phrase search on the author’s name or book title. This is what
I did when looking for information on Chaim Potok for a book discussion of
Davita’s Harp (I typed “Davita’s Harp” and “Chaim Potok” in the search
field). Of course, there was plenty of information on Mr. Potok on the li-
brary’s shelves, but I wondered what more recent and no doubt fascinating
highlights I might be missing. These were the first two results from Alta
Vista:
1. Chaim Potok at SPU—Biography
Chaim Potok at Seattle Pacific University. SPU. Main. Life.
Books. Images. Interviews Born in Brooklyn in 1929 to Polish…
http://www.spu.edu/special/potok/life.html—size
3K—12-Dec-97 -
2. Chaim Potok: Davita’s Harp: Quotes
Davita’s Harp Quotes. P. 71 Reference to the mezuzah and door
harp—David Dinn and Davita. “That’s a door harp….It plays music
when you open and….
http://www.lasierra.edu/~ballen/potok/Potok.davita.html—size
30K—1-Dec-97 –
At the first site, I located a Web site created for a lecture that the author
had given at Seattle Pacific University in the fall of 1997. This page in turn
led me to what they described as the “premium” and “exhaustive” Potok Web
page, which is the second of the preceding Alta Vista hits. This example
also demonstrates that information on the Internet is not always as transi-

tory as we imagine. These sites, which I discovered in December of 1997,
were still available years later.
Publishers
In 1997 libraries and enthusiastic readers were providing most of the
fiction-related information on the Internet. In 1998 and 1999 we saw pub-
lishers playing catch-up in the sense that that they were putting more and
more content on their pages: book discussion guides, sample chapters, au-
thor tour schedules, interviews, articles, and fan chat rooms. For example,
Random House gives succinct guidelines for inviting and booking an au-
thor to speak at your library (URL: http://www.randomhouse.com/li-
brary/authortips.html [accessed December 31, 2000]). The latest trend is
niche information delivered to your e-mail box, whether mystery, romance,
teen fiction, or even updates on an individual author. Here are a few of the
current e-mail offerings:
Del Rey Internet Newsletter: URL: http://www.randomhouse.com/
delrey/drindex/ [accessed December 31, 2000]
Random House Newsletters: URL: http://www.randomhouse.com/li-
brary/notification/index.html [accessed December 31, 2000]
Murder on the Internet: URL: http://www.randomhouse.com/BB/MOTI/
[accessed December 31, 2000]
Love Letters: URL: http://www.randomhouse.com/BB/loveletters/
signup.html [accessed December 31, 2000]
Penguin Putnam Club PPI: URL: http://www.penguinputnam.com/
clubppi/index.htm [accessed December 31, 2000]
SimonSays.com Email Update: URL: http://www.simonsays.com/
email_update.cfm [accessed December 31, 2000]
Time Warner Newsletter: URL: http://www.twbookmark.com/newsletter/
subscribe.html [accessed December 31, 2000]
To locate a publisher’s Web site, first try looking on the book’s dust
jacket for the URL. You can also look in Yahoo using the name of the com-
pany or visit a site such as the Publisher’s Catalogues Home Page (URL:
http://www.lights.com/publisher/alphabetic.html [accessed December 31,
2000]), which includes thousands of publisher’s Web addresses.
Publishers quickly became aware of the proliferation of book groups.
What was once a delightful online surprise is now a commonplace
timesaver. There are now hundreds of book discussion guides on the Web,
including classics, new fiction and nonfiction, even genre fiction. These
easily printed handouts generally feature author biographies, plot summa-
ries, discussion questions, and suggestions for further reading. Here are
some of the best sources for discussion guides:
Books@Random Library: URL: http://www.randomhouse.com/
library/rgg.html [accessed December 31, 2000]
HarperCollins Reader Resources: URL: http://www.harpercollins.com/
readers/reader.resources.htm [accessed December 31, 2000]
HarperCollins Young Adult Reading Group Guides: URL: http://www.
harperchildrens.com/rgg/outerframe.htm [accessed December 31, 2000]
Henry Holt Reading Group Guides: URL: http://www.henryholt.
com/readingguides.htm [accessed December 31, 2000]
Penguin Putnam Club PPI: URL: http://www.penguinputnam.com/
clubppi/index.htm [accessed December 31, 2000]
Reading Group Choices: URL: http://www.readinggroupchoices.com/
[accessed December 31, 2000]
SimonSays.com Reading Groups: URL: http://www.simonsays.com/
reading_guides.html [accessed December 31, 2000]
Time Warner Books Reading Guides: URL: http://www.twbookmark.
com/books/reading_guides.html [accessed December 31, 2000]
Publisher Web pages can also be excellent guides to genre fiction. An
example of a useful publisher’s page would definitely be Tor SF and Fan-
tasy (URL: http://www.tor.com/tor.html [accessed December 31, 2000]).
Its Web page has one of the most current and useful collections of links to
science fiction and fantasy Internet sites. This is how I found the Internet
Speculative Fiction Database (URL: http://www.sfsite.com/isfdb/in-
dex.html [accessed December 31, 2000]), which allows you to search for
authors, titles, and series. For example, searching for Catherine Asaro re-
turns a list of novels, short fiction, self-penned reviews of other writers, es-
says, and interviews. Each of these listings is hyperlinked to publication
information on that individual work.
In addition, Tor SF and Fantasy features sample chapters from dozens
of upcoming books in their various lines, information on author appear-
ances, and their upcoming publishing schedule. These are standard features
on most publisher sites and can be a great way to explore genres such as in-
spirational fiction, romance, mysteries, or speculative fiction.
Amateur guides to genre fiction have grown up, evolving from enthu-
siastic fan guides into complex resources for all aspects of the genre, from
specialty bookstores to author tours. A site such as Useful Links for Ro-
mance Writers and Readers (URL: http://www.jaclynreding.com/links/
[accessed December 31, 2000]) offers quick access to hundreds of romance
author Web pages, bestseller and awards lists, plus dozens of Web sites of
interest to longtime fans or brand-new readers.
Collection Development
The Internet is useful in collection development for identifying useful
readers’ advisory reference works, highlighting the collection with book-
lists and displays, identifying all the works in a series to fill gaps, locating
reviews of new genre fiction for expanding the collection, and discovering
forthcoming titles well in advance of publication.
Reference Works
Every librarian faces strict budget limitations for reference tools, and
it is often difficult to evaluate a readers’ advisory reference source on re-
views alone. However, asking the members of a mailing list what they think
of a particular new (and often expensive) reference book usually results in a
dozen opinions on its accuracy, usefulness, and overall value from people
who actually own it. They may also suggest an alternative source. For ex-
ample, I heard about What’s Next: A List of Books in Series, compiled and
published by the Kent District Library in Grand Rapids, Michigan (for in-
formation, call [616] 336-2554), from its creator, Nancy Mulder, on Fic-
tion_L when the list was discussing new readers’ advisory reference works.
I use What’s Next every day but would never have discovered it without that
electronic network. Now the Kent District Library has put What’s Next on-
line (URL: http://www.kdl.org/libcat/whats_next.htm [accessed December
31, 2000]).
Whether you are creating a new readers’ advisory department from
scratch or upgrading existing services, you can poll the mailing lists for
their choices for an appropriate core reference collection. People often
share their favorite “miniature works” as well. For example, key training
tools may include their own readers’ advisory patron questionnaires, guides
to giving a booktalk, or little gems such as How to Read a Book in Five Min-
utes (Sampley 1998).
You may also find the online equivalent of that genre magazine you’d
like to subscribe to but can’t afford. Locus Online (URL: http://www.
locusmag.com [accessed December 31, 2000]) offers excerpted interviews,
reviews, lists, photos of recent award winners, and publication schedules
for science fiction, fantasy, and horror novels. Most of the online versions
of magazines are not full text, but Romantic Times (URL: http://www.
romantictimes.com [accessed December 31, 2000]), for example, has doz-

ens of reviews from previous issues, neatly divided by genre.
Bibliographies and Booklists

An effective way to highlight your fiction collection is the book dis-
play or the booklist, but it’s not always easy to come up with three dozen
novels on a single theme. Again, a well-phrased query to a mailing list (for
example, “Can you suggest a few novels that pair older women with youn-
ger men?”) will usually net you all the titles you could want because you’re
tapping into the reading history and memory of hundreds of people. Also, if
someone on the list takes the time to compile all the responses and post the
resulting list, it will be kept in the list archives for that moment when you
realize that you deleted the file or lost the booklist master. And when your
creative vein is tapped out, the mailing list members can share their suc-
cessful display ideas with you.
Fiction bibliographies are also appearing more often in organized col-
lections on the Internet, and one of the first and best sources is Book-
Browser (URL: http://www.bookbrowser.com [accessed December 31,
2000]). Run by a former Indiana librarian, Janet Lawson, and her virtual
partner, Cleveland librarian Cindy Orr, BookBrowser organizes books by
genre, location, series, and character occupation, in addition to providing
thousands of reviews, prepublication information, and author profiles. An-
other rapidly expanding source of reviews by theme and audience is
Genrefluent (URL: http://www.genrefluent.com [accessed October 4,
2001]), from the author of the indispensable Genreflecting, Diana Tixier
Herald (URL: http://genreflecting.com/ [accessed October 4, 2001]).
Genrefluent has hundreds of recommended titles and adds more every
week. Also scattered around the Web are hundreds of single bibliographies
with titles such as Christian Fantasy and Science Fiction (URL:
http://www.enteract.com/~mpavlac/christsf.htm [accessed October 4,
2001]) or Prehistoric Fiction Bibliography (URL: http://www.trussel.com/
prehist/prehist1.htm [accessed October 4, 2001]). These Internet booklists,
along with most of the titles listed at Amazon.com or Barnesandnoble.com,
will often have a scanned image of the books’ covers. The patron may not
remember the book’s exact title but might just recognize the striped face
peering out of the shrubbery on the cover of Isle of Woman by Piers Anthony
(found on the Prehistoric Fiction Bibliography). Finding a favorite search en-
gine such as Google or HotBot, studying its Help section, and using the en-
gine regularly will make finding these hidden gems less frustrating.
Reviews
The online booksellers do a great job of consolidating reviews for new
books. Try Barnesandnoble.com to see reviews from sources such as
Kirkus and Booklist as well as national newspapers and popular magazines.
Best of all, you’ll get a sense of what the average reader thought of a book
by browsing customer comments. Keeping up with new genre fiction can
be a chore, but the Internet has produced several creative solutions to that
problem. Amazon.com provides a service called Amazon.com Delivers
that brings reviews to you. (From the Amazon.com home page, select
“Books” and then “Mystery and Thrillers.” At the bottom of that page is
“Amazon.com Delivers.” Click on “View all categories” for a list of gen-
res.) You fill out an online profile, selecting from categories or fiction, non-
fiction, movies, and music, and Amazon.com sends you regular e-mail
about new titles (with reviews!) in those categories.
The library trade journals are not standing still either. You’ll want to
browse Library Journal Digital’s Prepub Alert (URL: http://www.libraryjournal.
com/articles/books/prepubalert/prepubalertindex.asp [accessed December
31, 2000]) in order to get a jump on titles being published five months
from now, as well as reviewing their Hot Picks (URL: http://www.
libraryjournal.com/articles/books/hotpicks/hotpicksindex.asp [accessed
December 31, 2000]) section. Publisher’s Weekly offers both the PW
Rights Alert (URL: http://www.publishersweekly.com/rightsalert/index.asp
[accessed December 31, 2000]) and PW Religion BookLine (URL:
http://lists.cahners1.com/pwreligion/pwreligion_subscribe.asp [accessed
December 31, 2000]), e-mail services that deliver publishing headlines to
your mailbox. Do you want to let patrons know what authors are coming to
your community? Visit Publisher’s Weekly’s Authors on the Highway
(URL: http://www.publishersweekly.com/highway/ [accessed December
31, 2000]) to see book signings listed by city, state, bookstore, author and
more.
Goals for Readers Advisory Librarians

Let’s look at those “needs” questions again:
• Do you want to increase your knowledge of a particular genre? Sign
up on a fiction mailing list and lurk for a few months, find genre sites
with awards lists and reviews, or look for booklists on specialized
themes.
• Do you want to answer tough patron questions? Tap the collective mind
of Fiction_L and PUBYAC or visit Amazon’s Books in the Media!
• Are you looking for information on a particular author? Look in Ya-

hoo’s author list. If the author isn’t there, try the author’s name in
quotes in Alta Vista or Google.
• Are you looking for reviews or information on forthcoming books?
Look at Library Journal Digital, Barnesandnoble.com, and
Deja.com for formal reviews and reader opinions, and try Ama-
zon.com’s notification service for new books in a particular genre.
• Do you need to find a particular title in a series or a few new and rec-
ommended young adult books? Visit BookBrowser and Genrefluent.
The Librarys Internet Presence

Public library staff discovered the power of the Internet for readers’
advisory early on, combing the Web for fiction-related information and
sharing those resources with patrons and other library staff. Sites such as
Morton Grove’s Webrary (URL: http://www.webrary.org/RS/RSmenu.html
[accessed December 31, 2000]) and Overbooked (URL: http://freenet.
vcu.edu/education/literature/bklink.html [accessed December 31, 2000])
created easy-to-use readers’ advisory Web sites with dozens of well-se-
lected links for fiction lovers. Internally, staff members recognized that
their Web sites could also be easily accessed sources for their booklists and
bibliographies, book discussion schedules, and discussion guides. For ex-
ample, the Des Plaines Public Library has made available its collection of
staff-written “Bookmark” columns from the library’s newsletter (URL:
http://www.desplaines.lib.il.us/readers/rs_BookmarkColumnMenu.html
[accessed December 31, 2000]). The Skokie Public Library (URL:
http://www.skokie.lib.il.us [accessed December 31, 2000]) has their Ac-
cess database of staff recommendations on their Web site, and the Morton
Grove Public Library offers their MatchBook service (URL: http://www.
webrary.org/rs/matchbooksearch.html [accessed December 31, 2000]) to
allow online visitors to create customized lists of new acquisitions.
But some things are still missing in this electronic network of peers.
Perhaps in the near future, library staff will find time to put online their col-
lection development policies, particularly those that address fiction collec-
tions in detail, more annotated bibliographies of both fiction and
nonfiction, and guidelines to help readers’ advisory librarians train staff
[NoveList has some training materials], promote the collection, or deliver
better service. Your library’s readers’ advisory department might not be
more than a desk, a chair, and a helpful, knowledgeable staff person, but by
making the most of the Internet, your experience and talents will cast a
large shadow. Decide what is unique and wonderful about your library or
your department and share it with the world.
References
Sampley, Lisa. 1998. How to Read a Book in Five Minutes. Missouri Li-
brary World 3, no 4: 33–34.
Saricks, Joyce G., Vivian Mortensen, and Ted Balcom. 1997. Connecting
Readers’ Advisors. In Serving Readers, ed. Ted Balcom, 34–45. Fort
Atkinson, WI: Highsmith.
PART III
Envisioning an Expanded Advisory
Services Role in Libraries
Introduction to Part III
The first two parts of this book represent attempts to understand the
current state of advisory services in libraries, both in the more theoretical
focus of Part I and the more practical focus of Part II. The third part of the
book examines the future of advisory services and the possibility of extend-
ing these services both to different formats than have traditionally been the
focus of advisory efforts and to diverse groups.
In Chapter 12 Robert Burgin argues that advisory services ought not to
be limited to fiction and suggests that many of the lessons learned about
readers’ advisory services for fiction apply quite well to nonfiction. He
notes that readers of recreational or discretionary nonfiction represent a
substantial group of users and that the similarities between fiction and non-
fiction extend to the concepts of genre and appeal that are familiar to tradi-
tional readers’ advisory services. Burgin examines both traditional library
tools and nontraditional tools such as Amazon.com and suggests that these
tools need considerable improvement. He also suggests that an improved
understanding of discretionary reading (nonfiction as well as fiction) may
help us improve those tools.
In Chapter 13 Randy Pitman, the publisher/editor of Video Librarian,
extends advisory services to include nonprint materials. He outlines a num-
ber of resources to support audiovisual advisory and then makes a spirited
argument against the traditional print-centric focus of librarians. Pitman
notes that we could answer many reference questions better using video or
audio resources, and he urges us to embrace a wide range of avenues to edu-
cation and recreation, as do our customers.
Chapter 14, by young adult librarian Angelina Benedetti, looks at how
to pair teenage readers with the right books, how to market young adult col-
lections, and how to keep kids reading in this information age. Benedetti
begins by urging librarians to understand teens and the place that reading
209
210 Part III: Envisioning an Expanded Advisory Services Role in Libraries
holds in their lives. She argues that librarians must be familiar with the liter-
ature published for young adults, with the books that teens read, and with
their libraries’ collections before they can become a successful readers’ ad-
visors for teens. Benedetti explores how to market young adult collections,
how to talk with teens about reading, and how to use online resources for
advisory.
In Chapter 15 Alma Dawson and Connie Van Fleet examine the future
of advisory services in the even more diverse, multicultural society that li-
brarians will be serving. They begin by discussing the meaning of “multi-
cultural” in the context of advisory services and note that the term has many
meanings and that its definition continues to evolve. They examine the
trends in multicultural literature and argue that this literature has experi-
enced a shift from cultural isolation to mainstream to genre fiction. Their
exploration of multicultural genre literature is particularly interesting as is
their examination of the shifts in multicultural publishing. They note that as
the multicultural literature emerges, the mainstream advisory sources are
beginning to include more multicultural works. Like many of the other au-
thors in this book, Dawson and Van Fleet are aware of the general chal-
lenges of providing advisory services in libraries, and they are acutely alert
to the particular challenges of providing multicultural advisory services
and the importance of the extent to which librarians appreciate and commit
to diversity.
Finally, St. Louis Public Library director Glen Holt provides the cap-
stone to this book by showing how the many ideas these chapters present
can motivate a single grand, practical vision. His Chapter 16 describes the
St. Louis Public Library’s planned Center for the Reader, a physical place
“devoted to those who delight in reading, listening to, and viewing stories.”
In addition to the physical and material considerations of space and re-
sources, Holt’s vision includes a broad program of outreach to emphasize
the value of stories and the role of the library in their provision, of training
for advisors, and of research to help improve the advisory and outreach ser-
vices that the Center for the Reader provides. Holt’s chapter should serve
not only to outline his and his staff’s dream but also to inspire all librarians
to examine the many ways in which we can create enriched customer-serv-
ing environments.
The first two parts of this book found cause for both concern and hope.
On the one hand, there is evidence that the education of librarians does not
include satisfactory training in advisory services and further evidence that,
at least partly because of the lack of proper training, the advisory services in
libraries are less than adequate to meet the needs of the customers. On the
other, the foundations for an adequate education clearly exist, and the re-
sources needed to do the job right clearly exist as well.
Introduction to Part III 211
The third and final part of this book reflects the same concerns and
hopes. Burgin, Pitman, Benedetti, Dawson, and Van Fleet all suggest that
advisory services need to be expanded to include both neglected resource
areas such as nonfiction and nonprint and neglected patron groups such as
young adults and ethnic minorities. These areas clearly represent chal-
lenges for the profession. On the other hand, the same authors point to a rich
variety of resources to help with the provision of services in these areas, and
Holt shows that we can meet the challenges by blending the staff, material,
and infrastructure resources with the lessons learned from investigations
into the foundations of advisory services and studies of the ways in which
we currently provide those services. All libraries have the potential, like St.
Louis’s Center for the Reader, to be “devoted to those who delight in read-
ing, listening to, and viewing stories.”
—R.B.
CHAPTER 12
Readers Advisory and

Nonfiction
Robert Burgin
Introduction
For Christmas my wife gave me a copy of Bill Bryson’s delightful
Notes from a Small Island, an extremely funny account of his travels in
England, Wales, and Scotland. A neighbor, who is from England, had rec-
ommended the book, and as I read it, I laughed out loud on several occa-
sions. Seeing how much I enjoyed the book, my wife was eager to read it
when I finished. A few pages into it, however, she put it down and an-
nounced that she didn’t enjoy that kind of humor.
Had this anecdote involved fiction (had we disagreed over Donald
Westlake or Carl Hiaasen, for instance), it would have fit well into the re-
cent discussion of readers’ advisory services in libraries. But although the
recent focus on readers’ advisory services has been heartening, the almost
exclusive focus has been on readers’ advisory in fiction.
This tendency to ignore nonfiction in our considerations of readers’
advisory service is unfortunate because many of our users read nonfiction for
pleasure and not to meet specific information needs or to conduct research.
Nevertheless, the library profession appears to have based its treatment of non-
fiction on the assumptions that nonfiction readers are primarily pursuing in-
formation and that they are approaching nonfiction almost exclusively on the
213
basis of subject. In addition, many of the lessons that we have learned about
readers’ advisory services for fiction apply quite well to nonfiction. The pic-
ture often painted in the literature of library users struggling against informa-
tion overload and poor customer service in their attempts to find appropriate
fiction titles almost certainly pertains to readers of nonfiction as well.
Recreational Nonfiction Readers

The readers of recreational or discretionary nonfiction represent a
large enough group to merit our attention. For example, Shearer cites data
that show that 33 percent of all adult circulation in public libraries in North
Carolina represents nonfiction and argues that “[s]ince much nonfiction is
also recreational, the circulation of recreational books is a core business of
the public library” (Shearer 1998, 114).
We do not know what percentage of nonfiction circulation in public li-
braries represents recreational reading (as opposed to research-related or
job-related use), but a quick look at the latest 100 best-selling titles at Ama-
zon.com (URL: http://www.amazon.com [accessed December 20, 2000])
suggests that large numbers of people read nonfiction for pleasure. Presum-
ably, Jacques Barzun’s From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western
Culture, 1500 to Present, isn’t listed among the 100 hottest-selling titles be-
cause of a sudden interest in historical research among the reading commu-
nity; people are reading it because it is entertaining and interesting. Sebastian
Junger’s The Perfect Storm, about a tragic storm off the Nova Scotia coast in
October 1991, is listed because it is as exciting a “read” as any adventure
novel, not because thousands of Amazon shoppers are considering fishing
for swordfish and need to do some career-change research. The popularity of
Bill Bryson’s In a Sunburned Country should not suggest that thousands of
Americans are preparing to move to Australia and need to read about local
culture there. In short, people read many nonfiction titles for their entertain-
ment value and not to solve a problem or fulfill an information need.
As with fiction readers, librarians need to be prepared to help readers
of nonfiction find titles of interest to them. Readers of Bryson’s In a Sun-
burned Country may wish to read “more like that,” and librarians need to
consider how best to direct those readers. Does “more like that” mean more
titles by Bryson (all of which are about other parts of the world), more titles
about Australia (Bruce Chatwin’s The Songlines, perhaps), or more titles
by humorous travel writers (Tim Cahill comes to mind)? What Shearer
calls, in the context of fiction readers’ advisory, the “all-too-rare instance of
probing about the emotional and psychological space occupied by the
advisee” (Shearer 1996, 12) would no doubt be appropriate here.
The fact that “more like that” is a rather fuzzy notion with respect to
this nonfiction title serves to highlight the similarities between nonfiction
Chapter 12—Readers’ Advisory and Nonfiction 215
readers’ advisory and fiction readers’ advisory. Just as “more like that” of-
ten means more to a fiction reader than another title by the same author or
another title in the same geographical or historical setting, so does “more
like that” often mean more to the nonfiction reader than another title on the
same subject.
Nonfiction is also similar to fiction in that genres and subgenres exist
for both. Bookstores use genres instead of Dewey or LC classification num-
bers to arrange their collections—biographies and memoirs, business and
investing, travel, and the like. Many libraries use signage to highlight these
genres, and a branch of my local public library once did away with Dewey
altogether and shelved entirely by nonfiction genre. Furthermore, nonfic-
tion genres can be further broken down into subgenres, much like fiction
genres. Travel, for example, can be divided into subgenres such as “The
World’s Great Places,” “Journeys to Hell,” and “Modern Masters and
Young Turks,” as Outside magazine did (Harvey et al. 1996). True crime
can be divided into “Individual Cases,” “Serial Killers,” “Organized
Crime,” “Old West,” “Trials,” and other categories, as the online bookstore
Bloodpage.com (URL: http://www.bloodpage.com [accessed December
20, 2000]) does. Amazon.com divides several nonfiction genres into
subgenres. For example, “Biographies and Memoirs” is divided into “Arts
and Literature,” “Ethnic and National,” “Historical,” “Leaders,” and sev-
eral other categories; “Management and Leadership” is divided into
twenty-three topics, including “Motivational,” “Negotiating,” “Organiza-
tional Change,” and “Teams.”
Readers Advisory: Fiction and Nonfiction

To further explore the similarities between nonfiction and fiction from
the point of view of readers’ advisory services in libraries, consider
Shearer’s definition of the readers’ advisory transaction:
an exchange of information between two people with the purpose of

one person’s suggesting text for the other’s later reading inter-
est….The text suggested in the transaction is expected to meet a recre-
ational, emotional, psychological, or educational need. Unlike a
reference transaction, the successful conclusion of a readers’ advisory
transaction is not the provision of a fact or missing data, nor does it at-
tempt to fill a known gap in an otherwise complete informational or
knowledge framework. The success of a readers’ advisory transaction
is reflected in a reader discovering a book (or cassette or software)
which is enjoyable, entertaining, stimulating, mind-stretching, and
eye-opening; it is in the realm of the subjective. (Shearer 1996, 3)
Nothing in Shearer’s definition suggests that readers’ advisory per-

tains only to works of fiction. In fact, Shearer parenthetically notes that
such a transaction might lead to the discovery of a work of music or a piece
of software and uses as an example a friend’s recommendation of a Scrab-
ble software package. A perusal of any list of nonfiction best-sellers reveals
that many nonfiction titles clearly meet the “recreational, emotional, psy-
chological, or educational” needs that Shearer identifies.
Or consider Smith’s suggestion that the readers’ advisory transaction
comprises four tasks:
1. The advisor must elicit information about the reader’s interests.
2. The advisor must have developed a style of thinking about books that
looks for the similarities and links between titles and not just their
uniqueness.
3. The advisor must be able to establish links between titles based on the
reader’s interests and the advisor’s knowledge of titles and readers’
advisory resources.
4. The advisor must be able to present identified titles and communicate
how each title relates to the reader’s interests. (Smith 1996, 103)
Clearly, the successful readers’ advisor must be able to complete these
four tasks with a nonfiction reader as well as with a fiction reader. What as-
pects of Bill Bryson’s In a Sunburned Country did the reader enjoy? What
other titles are similar in those aspects? How do we explain those similari-
ties to the reader in a helpful manner?
Likewise, there is nothing in the Saricks and Brown prompt (“Tell me
about a book you have really enjoyed”) that precludes the reader’s having
really enjoyed a work of nonfiction. In fact, it is interesting to consider the
applicability to works of nonfiction of Saricks and Brown’s notion of a
book’s appeal, an understanding of which, according to Saricks and Brown,
“is the keystone of successful readers’ advisory work” (Saricks and Brown
1997, 35). Appeal is a set of elements that “take[s] us beyond the bare bones
provided by subject descriptors and reveal[s] more of the [book’s] es-
sence,” and Saricks and Brown outline four elements of appeal: pacing,
characterization, story line, and frame (ibid., 36).
A quick look at the reader reviews that Amazon.com provides for a
nonfiction title such as The Perfect Storm shows the utility of this notion of
appeal to nonfiction. One reviewer, for instance, uses pacing and character-
ization to describe the title as “an absorbing, educational, fast paced adven-
ture story which introduces you to the lives of the people of the Andrea
Gail, in particular, so you get to know them, then takes you on a ride that
makes it hard to put the book down.” Another focuses on characterization:
“[I]t makes you care about its characters; it makes you care about what they
care about, and in the end, it makes you mourn their loss.” A third refers to
frame and pacing by pointing out “the extensive background about Glou-
cester, the fishing fleets, boats, technology, and the people involved. For
me, each element added a richness to the drama that made the story all that
more gripping….The book has an unusual structure. It cuts in and out from
the present to the past, and from present to past tense and back again.”
Elements of appeal may also discourage or turn away readers, a point
that Saricks and Brown make quite often for fiction. The same is true with
nonfiction, as is evident in the remarks of one of the reviewers of The Per-
fect Storm, who complains about “too many jumps from subject to subject”
and “the mixed-up, dizzying chronology,” the kind of pacing that other re-
viewers had praised.
These references to appeal factors are not limited to narrative nonfic-
tion such as The Perfect Storm. Pacing is also referred to in one reader’s re-
view of The Art of Happiness by the Dalai Lama: “There is a gentle rhythm
to this book—it flows from a question posed to the Dalai Lama, to his
thoughtful and inspired response—followed up by Dr. Cutler’s profes-
sional comments.” When readers note the detailed nature of Lance
Armstrong’s autobiography It’s Not About the Bike (“the intimate and
graphic accounts of his chemo treatments” and “the detailed discussion of
Lance’s illness, treatment, and recovery”) , they are referring to the element
of appeal that Saricks and Brown call frame. When several reviewers of
Bill Bryson’s In a Sunburned Country refer to what one calls his “classical
sarcasm that we have all come to love,” they are referring to an element of
style. Even a distinctly nonnarrative title such as Nicholas Perricone’s The
Wrinkle Cure is described by readers in terms of its appeal factors. One
reader calls the book “encouraging”; another notes that the doctor “gives
wonderful hope.” A third calls it “easy and fun to read.”
Language (“the author’s use of language is evocative, unusual,
thought provoking, or poetic” [Pearl 1999, xiii]), the appeal factor that
Nancy Pearl used to describe works of fiction, is also important to many
nonfiction readers. Laurie Lee’s wonderful autobiography, Cider with
Rosie, is called “Sensuous, breathtaking, heartstopping in its ability to
pluck that which is familiar and delicious in the human experience. The po-
etry is Dylan Thomas made understandable.” One reader says of Rachel
Carson’s Silent Spring, “Though it is gut-loaded with facts, Carson’ s inge-
nious wording makes reading it a somewhat enjoyable experience. It seems
as if the words had an almost surreal quality.” A reader of the Lewis
Thomas classic The Lives of a Cell states, “I was struck by Thomas’ ability
to turn a phrase, make a point, and discuss complex biological ideas in a
manner that is easily understood. The writing in the book is a definite plus.”
Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is described as being “written like
fine poetry.”
In fact, several of the Amazon.com reviewers of nonfiction titles write

about those titles as if they were describing novels. Jacques Barzun’s history
of western civilization, From Dawn to Decadence, for example, is described
as “so enthralling that it moves as quickly as a short novel” by one reader and
“a breathless ‘page-turner’ ” by another. Frank McCourt’s memoir, Angela’s
Ashes, “reads more like an extremely well-crafted novel of the highest order,
bringing forth genuine laughter and tears,” according to one reader. Another
reader notes that John Berendt’s Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil “is
the best nonfiction novel since In Cold Blood.” Style and appeal factors are
apparently as important in works of nonfiction as they are in works of fiction.
It is also possible to speculate on appeal factors that might be specific
to nonfiction. For instance, does the book use examples or provide any kind
of evidence to support its points? One reader of Malcolm Gladwell’s The
Tipping Point (on social psychology and fads) praises the work for being
“loaded with examples and studies that make it involving, easy to read, and
provide substantial evidence for many of the points therein” and for making
“extensive reference to scientific literature and psychological studies to
back up the points that it makes.” A reader of Deepak Chopra’s spiritual
guide, How to Know God, notes that “Again and again Chopra gives exam-
ples from Indian sages of their great spiritual insight and understanding of
truth.” Thomas L. Friedman’s exploration of economic globalization, The
Lexus and the Olive Tree, is praised for providing “examples that bring this
phenomenon to life.” Of course, as with fiction, readers differ in their as-
sessments of how well a title succeeds. One reader of Philip Evans’s analy-
sis of the Internet economy, Blown to Bits, notes that “They prove their
points with example after example,” whereas another reader of the same ti-
tle suggests that “the book could use more concrete examples.”
Other appeal factors might include the following:
• Reading level: Charles Givens’s More Wealth Without Risk “covers
the financial basics in simple English.” Tobin Smith’s ChangeWave
Investing is “simple to read and comprehend.”
• The presence of checklists: Cheryl Richardson’s Take Time for Your
Life “is loaded with many checklists, resources and to-do’s.”
Awaken the Giant Within, by Tony Robbins, contains “tools and
mental exercises and to-do lists….You have to practice and work on
yourself.”
• The presence of tests: Philip McGraw’s Relationship Rescue con-
tains “in-depth and rigorous questionnaires, surveys, tests, and pro-
files that require a ‘brutally candid’ mindset,” according to one
reader. One reader “liked the self-administered tests in [Martin
Seligman’s Learned Optimism] for checking my optimism, that of
my wife, and that of my children.”
• The presence of illustrations: Several readers criticized The Perfect

Storm for not having illustrations, and a second edition of Dava
Sobel’s Longitude was recently published with the illustrations that
the first edition lacked.
It is clear that something more than just subject content is at work here.
Traditional Tools
It is also instructive to examine the tools that librarians provide to the
readers of nonfiction and to compare them with those that we provide to the
readers of fiction.
Modern library classification, in essence, began as an attempt to solve
the readers’ advisory problem for nonfiction readers—or, more precisely,
to put it on a self-service footing. Call number classification is a readers’
advisory tool and follows from the recognition that the author’s name alone
is not sufficient to help the reader find appropriate material. This notion is
perhaps more obvious in nonfiction than in fiction, but in the mid-1970s I
worked as a cataloging assistant in a university law library that had never
adopted a classification system for its monographs and had them shelved
alphabetically by author.
Just as we have begun to understand that in fiction, the author is only
one possible link between a title that the reader has enjoyed and “more like
that,” we should also realize that in nonfiction, subject classification may
be only one possible link.
Consider my situation this past summer when I finished Sebastian
Junger’s The Perfect Storm. Having enjoyed this fast-paced and informa-
tive true story of a fishing boat caught in the storm of the century, I wanted
to read something similar. As noted earlier, the pursuit of similar titles for
nonfiction is not very different from the traditional readers’ advisory ques-
tion for fiction readers, and it is instructive to note that the tools that librari-
ans and others in the “reading industry” use to help the nonfiction reader are
both similar to and different from those available to the fiction reader.
First, there are the traditional library catalogs. I could, for example,
look for further titles by the same author, Sebastian Junger. Unfortunately,
Junger appears not to have published any other books. He has primarily
published in magazines such as Outside, American Heritage, and Men’s
Journal. Perhaps some of his articles would be worth pursuing, but what
about similar books?
Alternatively, I could return to the section of the library where the
Junger book is shelved—974.4—and hope for another title of interest. This
approach would put me in touch with other books about the history of Mas-
sachusetts, which does not seem altogether fruitful. The LC number
(QC945) leads me to other books on hurricanes—a bit better, perhaps, but

still limited (as single classifications must be) to only one aspect of the orig-
inal title.
Finally, I could try searching for the same subject heading that was as-
signed to The Perfect Storm (i.e., “Northeast storms—New England”) . Un-
fortunately, at my local library system, there are no additional titles with
this particular subject heading. In fact, a search of OCLC’s WorldCat re-
veals no additional titles with that heading among the extensive holdings
indexed there (over forty million records). A search of WorldCat for the
more general heading “Northeast storms” reveals only a video (Stephen
King’s Storm of the Century) and a handful of technical reports (Erosion of
Nantucket Island’s Eastern Shore by the Northeast Storm of December
11–13, 1992) in addition to the original title.
It strikes me that assigning a single subject heading to The Perfect
Storm is less than helpful, but this is what the Cataloging in Publication and
my local library have done. On WorldCat, however, I note that the title has
been assigned a wider range of subject headings by other librarians, includ-
ing “Natural Disasters — History — New England”; “Fisheries — History
— New England”; “Swordfish Fishing — History — New England”;
“Fishers — Massachusetts – Gloucester”; “Hurricane Grace, 1991”; and
“Gloucester (Mass.) — Social life and customs.” This is somewhat better,
but in every case, the reader is caught between a subject heading that is too
narrow or too broad. For example, there are no additional titles for “Natural
Disasters — History — New England” but over two hundred for “Natural
Disasters — History” and over 3,700 for “Natural Disasters.”
Nontraditional Tools
I could also take a number of nontraditional approaches in my search
for titles like The Perfect Storm. Amazon.com, for example, lists the book
and provides several options for locating further titles of interest. In the sec-
tion titled “Customers who bought this book also bought,” I find four other
titles that were purchased by customers who bought The Perfect Storm:
Linda Greenlaw’s The Hungry Ocean, Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air, Erik
Larson’s Isaac’s Storm, and Sherry Sontag’s Blind Man’s Bluff. Having
read and enjoyed Krakauer’s book about another doomed journey, I can un-
derstand the linkage, even though its location (Mt. Everest) is as far from
the seas off Nova Scotia as one can imagine. I had begun Larson’s book
some months earlier and am happy to be reminded of it. I am not familiar
with Greenlaw’s book, but she is mentioned in The Perfect Storm, where
her boat was the sister ship to the doomed Andrea Gail that Junger focuses
on. Only Blind Man’s Bluff strikes me as out of place; its subtitle states that
it is “The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage.” I recall neither
submarines nor espionage in The Perfect Storm. But when I look at what
customers who bought Blind Man’s Bluff have also bought, I find Peter
Maas’s The Terrible Hours: The Man Behind the Greatest Submarine Res-
cue in History. This title interests me because of the rescue angle, and when
I view its record at Amazon.com, I find Erik Larson’s Isaac’s Storm again.
Amazon.com connects authors in a similar manner, with a section ti-
tled “Customers who bought titles by Sebastian Junger also bought titles
by these authors.” Jon Krakauer leads the list, and Linda Greenlaw is on it,
but the three other authors listed are an odd mix: J. K. Rowling (of Harry
Potter fame), Frank McCourt (Angela’s Ashes), and Arthur Golden (Mem-
oirs of a Geisha). I assume that customers who bought just about anything
would be likely to buy something by Rowling or McCourt, but Golden
puzzles me and points out the odd combinations that sometimes result
from such approaches.
Amazon.com also provides “Editorial Reviews,” the first of which
specifically mentions Krakauer’s Into Thin Air and suggests that anyone
who enjoyed that book will also like The Perfect Storm. In addition, the site
contains “Customer Reviews,” and there are 578 reviews for The Perfect
Storm. A few mention other authors (Krakauer again) and other titles (Into
Thin Air again and Cynthia Acree’s The Gulf Between Us). As noted earlier
in the discussion of appeal factors, the customer reviews can provide a great
deal of detailed information about the title under consideration.
Amazon.com takes two approaches to subject classification. One is to
provide a list of subject headings. Eleven headings are provided for The
Perfect Storm, from the broad “Science” to the narrow “Halloween
Nor’easter, 1991” to the vague “Specific Groups.” I can search for other ti-
tles that match each subject heading, or I can check any number of subject
headings and search for other titles that match all of the headings that I have
checked (“Shipwrecks” and “Biography/Autobiography” retrieves nearly
twenty additional titles).
Amazon.com also allows me to browse subject categories and lists
five separate areas, which are shown as subject hierarchies. For example,
the first category is “Science > Earth Sciences > Natural Disasters.” I can
search at any of the three levels in the hierarchy. When I select the full cate-
gory, Amazon.com shows me a list of one hundred best-sellers on this sub-
ject, including Isaac’s Storm, John Maclean’s Fire on the Mountain, and
John Barry’s Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It
Changed America.
Barnes & Noble provides similar information at URL: http://www.
barnesandnoble.com (accessed December 20, 2000). A section titled
“bn.com customers who bought this book also bought” lists five titles that
purchasers of The Perfect Storm had also bought. “Customer Reviews—An
Open Forum” provides more than eighty short reviews of the title by
customers. Interestingly, the section titled “More on This Subject” provides

a link to “Fiction and Literature” even though The Perfect Storm is nonfic-
tion. Finally, the Barnes & Noble site allows users to find other books with
the keywords assigned to Junger’s book, “New England” and “Northeast
storms.”
Other online resources for readers often include nonfiction. For exam-
ple, the book discussion guides that publishers provide on their Web sites
often include nonfiction titles. Among the recent reading guides of the Pen-
guin Putnam Club PPI (URL: http://www.penguinputnam.com/clubppi/
index.htm [accessed December 20, 2000]) are nonfiction titles such as Iris
Chang’s description of the Japanese occupation of a Chinese city in the late
1930s, The Rape of Nanking; Elena Kozhina’s account of how she and her
mother survived the German siege of Leningrad in 1942, Through the
Burning Steppe; Peter D. Kramer’s book on relationships, Should You
Leave?; and Judith Sills’s book of psychological strategies for women,
Loving Men More, Needing Men Less.
Finally, an approach to readers’ advisory that has worked well for me
in the past is to ask the subscribers of rec.arts.books, a Usenet newsgroup.
Shortly after reading The Perfect Storm, I posted a simple request for simi-
lar titles to the newsgroup and received twenty-five replies in just two days.
Most of the replies were recommendations of titles along with brief de-
scriptions of those titles and sometimes a story about the link between the
person recommending the book and the book itself (one of the persons was
a former tugboat crew member). Recommended titles ranged from Into
Thin Air (yet again) to Mutiny on the Bounty to Piers Paul Read’s Alive. In-
terestingly, recommendations included works of fiction as well as Web
sites and the URL of an archived radio interview.
Lessons for Readers Advisory

Readers’ advisory is clearly applicable to nonfiction and ought not to
be left out of the increasing discussion and study of readers’ advisory trans-
actions in public libraries. Nonfiction readers are often as interested in en-
joyable and entertaining reading as their fiction counterparts are. We read
Into Thin Air, for example, because it is a fascinating story of individuals
pushing their limits, not because we anticipate scaling Everest ourselves.
Nonfiction reading is not always intended to find a fact or locate a piece of
missing data or to fill a gap in the reader’s knowledge of the world. Even
when it is primarily related to information seeking, nonfiction reading may
involve appeal factors that make the presentation of that information more
compelling or accessible to certain readers and less so to others.
Not only is nonfiction readers’ advisory possible, but it is likely that

any lessons we learn from the study of why people read nonfiction titles and
why they like certain kinds of nonfiction writing will be applicable to stud-
ies of fiction reading. Understanding why a reader was very fond of Peter
Mayle’s A Year in Provence, for example, but not of the follow-up, Toujours
Provence, may help us predict whether some who liked Clyde Edgerton’s
Walking Across Egypt will also like Killer Diller, its sequel. It is also likely
that any advances in our ability to provide better readers’ advisory services to
the readers of recreational nonfiction will enable us to provide improved ser-
vice to the readers of recreational fiction and that “best practice” in readers’
advisory transactions for nonfiction readers will help elucidate “best prac-
tice” in readers’ advisory transactions for fiction readers.
Furthermore, a consideration of the problems of readers’ advisory for
both fiction and nonfiction ought to prove relevant to problems in related
areas of library and information science and other disciplines. The central
problem of the readers’ advisory transaction—finding “more like that”—is,
after all, the central problem of information retrieval, and attempts to un-
derstand why certain fiction and nonfiction titles appeal to certain readers
are clearly pertinent to attempts to understand the slippery notion of rele-
vance in information retrieval. For example, consider Carol Barry’s work
with document surrogates (bibliographic information, index terms, ab-
stracts, and full text in some cases), in which she asked users “to circle any
portion of the stimulus materials that prompted a reaction to pursue some
aspect of the document” and “to circle and cross out any portion of the stim-
ulus materials that indicated something the respondent would not pursue”
(Barry 1994, 153). As Barry considers the implications of her work for fu-
ture research, she wonders whether it is possible to indicate which criteria
are more or less important in predicting whether users will find an item
worth pursuing, whether users can predict the criteria that are important to
them, whether intermediaries can elicit those criteria, and whether interme-
diaries can evaluate items based on users’ criteria. All of these are excellent
questions for readers’ advisory.
It is particularly productive to look at the tools that librarians and oth-
ers in the “reading industry” provide for readers of both fiction and nonfic-
tion and to consider how to improve these tools based on our growing
understanding of what we like when we like a book (nonfiction or fiction).
In this context, it is important to remember, as Baker has noted, that “our
regular patrons learn to use the organization systems we have provided for
them, just as shoppers learn the locations of items in their favorite grocery
stores. However, it does not necessarily mean that further improvements of
our existing shelf arrangements are unwarranted” (Baker 1996, 128).
I saw the impact that our tools and systems have on our users one re-
cent afternoon as I entered a bookstore behind what was obviously a father
and daughter. It was the week before Mother’s Day, and I assume that they
were looking for a present. The father said to the daughter, “I’ll ask a clerk
whether they have any books of poetry about women.” The daughter re-
plied, “You can’t ask that kind of question here.” My first reaction was to
wonder why the daughter thought that such questions were prohibited in a
bookstore, but is her notion so odd given the fact that the systems that we
provide to users don’t support that kind of question? After all, bookstores
typically have a section for poetry only—not a section for poetry written by
women.
Likewise, one of the lessons we can draw from the earlier example of
Sebastian Junger’s The Perfect Storm is that although many helpful and
promising tools already exist for those interested in performing readers’ ad-
visory for nonfiction, we still have much work to do in improving these
tools and advisors’ use of them. As I reflect on my attempt to find other ti-
tles like The Perfect Storm, it strikes me that my Amazon.com experience
was much more useful than my experience with the traditional library tools.
Not all searches on Amazon.com or other Web sites are as successful as my
search, but contrast the library’s traditional author, subject, and call number
access with the wider range of possibilities Amazon.com presents, which
includes a section titled “Customers who bought this book also bought,” a
section titled “Customers who bought titles by Sebastian Junger also
bought titles by these authors,” and editorial and reader reviews in addition
to access by author and subject.
Steve Coffman has already used the contrast between Amazon.com
and public libraries to suggest a number of improvements to the typical li-
brary approach (Coffman 1999). These include “fleshing out the content of
the catalog records” to include to include “cover art, jacket blurbs, selections
from the text, links to reviews, customer comments, author interviews and arti-
cles, and any other content that would help a person decide whether to request a
particular book.” Interestingly, several Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC)
vendors have experimented with linking library records to pictures of the
book jackets and to tables of contents. More along these lines is needed to
make library catalogs truly useful to users and to readers’ advisors.
It is also interesting to note that Amazon.com’s use of customer pur-
chases to link titles has parallels in two recent Internet search engines,
Google and Direct Hit. Google (URL: http://www.google.com [accessed
December 20, 2000]) uses the link structure of the Web to determine which
sites to rank higher in response to your query; if more Web sites point to site
A than point to site B, then site A ranks higher. Google’s success with this
method can be seen in the fact that it has recently won a number of awards,
including the 2000 Webby Award for Technical Achievement, and that Ya-
hoo recently selected it as its search engine. Direct Hit (URL: http://www.
directhit.com/ [accessed December 20, 2000]) monitors which Web sites
users select from the search results list and uses this information to deter-
mine which sites are more relevant to your search. Direct Hit’s 1999 growth
in use exceeded that of all other search engines, and in 1999 top-ranked
search engine HotBot chose it to generate the first search results its users
see. By contrast, existing automated library systems do nothing with infor-
mation about which titles have also been checked out by patrons who
checked out title X, something that could be done without violating patron
confidentiality.
Even something as simple as providing more subject access points to
both fiction and nonfiction requires our attention. Recall that my local
library—and the book’s Cataloging in Publication—assigned just one sub-
ject heading to The Perfect Storm (i.e., “Northeast storms – New England”).
Amazon.com and a number of libraries on WorldCat assigned more head-
ings, and we should explore ways to ensure richer subject access to our ti-
tles. After all, the stinginess with which librarians typically assign subject
headings is a relic of the past, when adding a subject heading meant having
to type yet another card for the catalog. In today’s automated environment,
additional subject headings entail much less cost.
We also need to focus on alternatives to the hierarchical subject classi-
fication systems that we have traditionally used. Hierarchical classifica-
tions tend to leave the user caught between a subject heading that is too
narrow (only one title assigned to “Natural Disasters — History — New
England” in WorldCat) or too broad (more than two hundred titles assigned
to “Natural Disasters – History” and more than 3,700 assigned to “Natural
Disasters”). Nonhierarchical networks like those represented by Ama-
zon.com’s use of customer purchases to link titles are one approach. Formal
concept analysis, which results in nonhierarchical lattice structures, is an-
other (Priss 1997).
More important, though, we need to understand how library staff
members can best make use of existing tools as they assist users. In essence,
readers’ advisory tools such as library catalogs, Amazon.com, FICTION_L,
and NoveList serve two major purposes. First, they serve as a vast external
memory upon which staff and users can draw. Although well-read librari-
ans may make the best readers’ advisors, no librarian could possibly be well
read enough to handle the myriad reading interests of our users, especially
if nonfiction is added to the equation. Lists of fiction and nonfiction titles
with rich representations of individual items and the links between them
(whether based on assigned subject headings or customer purchases) are es-
sential to the work of readers’ advisors.
Note particularly the importance of the richness of how we represent
individual items and contrast the richness of an Amazon.com record with
the sparseness of a library catalog’s record. (The typical library catalog’s
record reminds me of Woody Allen’s summary of Tolstoy’s War and
Peace: “It’s about Russia.”) If we are helping users understand why they
liked a particular title and whether other titles may be of interest to them, we
need to provide information as input to that process. The 578 reader re-
views of The Perfect Storm on Amazon.com are far more helpful in this re-
gard than the single subject heading assigned to the title by its Cataloging in
Publication.
Second, and perhaps even more crucial, as library staff guide the user
through what is essentially a process of exploration and discovery, we need
to understand the importance of readers’ advisory tools in opening this crit-
ical interaction with the user. Helping a reader understand what “more like
that” means for her in a given situation or guiding a reader through the pro-
cess of clarifying what he liked about a specific title is the heart of the read-
ers’ advisory process. The extent to which readers’ advisory tools assist in
that interaction is the extent to which they have added value to readers’ ad-
visors and the users they serve. Again, the richer and more varied the ap-
proaches the tools provide, the richer and more successful the interactions
between readers’ advisors and readers.
Shearer notes that “Successful readers’ advisory transactions are
about relating Reader A’s experience with Book A to the likelihood that
Reader A would value the experience of reading Book B” (Shearer 1996,
19). We can bring these about by realizing that readers’ advisory services
provide library staff with the opportunity to assist readers in the exploration
and discovery process and by improving readers’ advisory tools so that
they facilitate that process. The central problem of the readers’ advisory
transaction—finding “more like that”—is complex, and we need all the
help that we can get.
I was recently reminded of just how complex readers’ advisory can be
when my wife returned from a weeklong conference in Quebec. She
brought with her a book that she had begun reading on the flight back, a
book that she described as one of the funniest she had ever read—Notes
from a Big Country by Bill Bryson.
References
Baker, Sharon L. 1996. A Decade’s Worth of Research on Browsing Fic-
tion Collections. In Guiding the Reader to the Next Book, ed. Kenneth
Shearer, 127–47. New York: Neal-Schuman.
Barry, Carol. 1994. User-Defined Relevance Criteria: An Exploratory
Study. Journal of the American Society for Information Science 45:
149–59.
Coffman, Steve. 1999. Building Earth’s Largest Library: Driving into the
Future. Searcher 7: 34–37. Also available at URL: http://www.
infotoday.com/searcher/mar99/coffman.htm (accessed December 20,
2000).
Harvey, Miles, et al. 1996. The Outside Canon: A Few Great Books. Out-
side (May). Also available at URL: http://www.outsidemag.com/
magazine/0596/9605feo.html (accessed December 20, 2000).
Priss, Uta. 1997. A Graphical Interface for Document Retrieval Based on
Formal Concept Analysis. In Proceedings of the Eighth Midwest Arti-
ficial Intelligence and Cognitive Science Conference, ed. Eugene
Santos, 66–70. AAAI Technical Report CF-97-01. Menlo Park, CA:
American Association for Artificial Intelligence. Also available at
URL: http://ezinfo.ucs.indiana.edu/~upriss/papers/maics97.ps (Ac-
cessed December 20, 2000).
Shearer, Kenneth. 1996. The Nature of the Readers’ Advisory Transaction
———. 1998. Readers’ Advisory Services: New Attention to a Core Busi-
ness of the Public Library. North Carolina Libraries 56 (Fall):
114–16.
Smith, Duncan. 1996. Librarians’ Abilities to Recognize Reading Tastes.
In Guiding the Reader to the Next Book, ed. Kenneth Shearer, 89–124.
CHAPTER 13
Viewers Advisory: Handling

Audiovisual Advisory Questions
Randy Pitman
Let me begin with an illustration of the difference between the percep-
tion and the reality of audiovisual reference/advisory questions. Back in
mid-1997 we launched Video Librarian Online, the Web-based addendum
to our print magazine, and then sat back eagerly awaiting questions and
suggestions from practicing media librarians. One of the first queries came
from a young lady named Chrissie, who was hosting a slumber party on a
Friday night and hoped that we might suggest something suitable for a
small group of 12-year-olds.
Now, if someone had e-mailed me and said, “Yo! Me and my
Budweiser buddies are hosting a kegger this Friday. Can you recommend
any flicks?” the answer would have been simple—Dumb and Dumber or
the collected works of Adam Sandler conveniently bound in the “Feature
Films for Idiots” boxed set. Selecting materials for young adults, however,
especially preteens, is a little more difficult, regardless of the format.
I ended up suggesting to Chrissie one of my favorite young adult titles
at the time, Danny DeVito’s sparkling adaptation of Roald Dahl’s black
comedy Matilda, which is about a young girl saddled with the parents from
hell. And then, reminding myself that this was a slumber party for
12-year-old girls, I mentioned Romeo + Juliet as an option, pointing out
229
that it featured the new superstar heartthrob Leonardo DiCaprio. As a par-

ent myself, I also felt it appropriate to point out that the title was PG-13 and
suggested that Chrissie check with her parents first. A week later I received
an e-mail note of thanks saying that Romeo + Juliet had been a very big hit
with the young ladies.
Although this was not exactly what I had in mind when we launched
our Web site, I quickly realized that these were the kinds of questions that
real people would ask. In fact, we receive far more e-mails beginning with
“Do you know the name of that TV movie where…” than we do beginning
with “I’m just dying to part with $47. Could you sign me up for a subscrip-
tion to Video Librarian right away?”
In a perfect world, of course, the only sane response to TV movie
questions would be “Get a life.” But we live in an imperfect world, and
some of those imperfections are tax-paying patrons. “Get a life” is probably
not your best response in a reference interview.
So how would you handle a typical TV-movie question? Although the
issue of where to turn initially for reference queries—traditional print re-
sources or the Web—has developed into a hot debate amongst librarians, in
our scenario, it’s a no-brainer. Nine times out of ten, the TV movie query
comes from a person with a very short attention span who cannot recall the
essential particulars—beyond the ax pile driven through the center of
someone’s forehead—of something they watched less than a week ago.
Those few movie guides, such as Leonard Maltin’s Movie and Video
Guide, that actually cover TV are rather lacking in current information;
they’re also extremely poor at keyword searches. If you don’t know a major
director, star, or the first word of the title, you’re probably out of luck.
Web Resources
Which means that it’s time to don your SuperWebrarian cape and recall
those inspiring words from Robert Duvall in Apocalypse Now: “I love the
smell of reference questions in the morning…smells like…satisfied patrons.”
To borrow an old English Comp 101 phrase, let’s compare and con-
trast a few reference resources that you might use when searching the Web
for answers to TV movie questions. One of your first destinations might be
the All Movie Guide (URL: http://www.allmovie.com [accessed December
26, 2000]). If you take a peek under the hood of this data-baby, you’ll dis-
cover information on 160,000 titles, with search capabilities for title, cast,
keyword, and plotline. Unfortunately, the plotline searches are not always
comprehensive. Typing in “cannibalism,” for instance, brings you to two
categories, “cannibalism, lifestyle of” (which inexplicably only includes
Night of the Living Dead) and the very odd category “cannibalism, for
Chapter 13—Viewers’ Advisory 231
profit” (which includes twelve entries but omits the black comedy classic
Motel Hell). In other words, the information here is a little on the lean side.
Now let’s point our browsers to the Enchilada Grande of motion pic-
ture databases, the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) (URL: http://www.
imdb.com [accessed December 26, 2000]). This grandpappy (and mammy)
of all movie review guides on the Web boasts an impressive 230,000 movies—
200,000 of which are no doubt absolute dreck on a stick, but for research
purposes, this is the one to beat. In addition to offering numerous
cross-links (cast, director, reviews, etc.), IMDB makes possible a variety of
keyword searches. If you click on the advanced search function, select key-
word search for plot, and type in the word “cannibal,” you’ll bring up some
fifty-three titles, including Chew Chew Baby, Flesh Eating Mothers, I’ll Be
Glad When You’re Dead You Rascal You, Rynda’s Vacation Safari, and
Redneck Zombies, the 1987 straight-to-video effort partially made by a li-
brarian who chose a pseudonym for the credits (and if you’ve seen the
video, you’ll certainly understand why).
Not mentioned in the IMDB list, however, is a little film called Night
of the Living Dead (which is a pretty big omission for a film sporting a
tagline like “They keep coming back in a bloodthirsty lust for HUMAN
FLESH!”) or Motel Hell or one of the darker humans-on-the-menu flicks,
such as the 1989 black comedy Parents starring Randy Quaid. Here we
come to the problem with online databases, particularly free ones: They’re
only as good as their original information, which is generally incomplete
and often riddled with inaccuracies.
Still, the IMDB is a godsend for reference librarians. Consider, for in-
stance, the author search. For all those questions that begin, “Can you tell me
if they ever made a movie of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus?” IMDB will
allow you to search for “Shakespeare” under cast/crew, where you will dis-
cover that Titus has been filmed four times, twice in 1999. In addition to the
four adaptations of Titus, you’ll find four hundred other films based on works
by the Bard, including the forthcoming Rikki the Pig (loosely adapted from
Richard III), The Secret Sex Lives of Romeo and Juliet (1968), and the 1940
musical The Boys from Syracuse, based on A Comedy of Errors.
If you do, however, reach the point where you’re watching your life
trickle through your fingers while you scramble around the print and online
worlds searching for the name of that guy who hosted the 1958 game show
Dotto (Jack Narz), then you’re ready for the Videolib listserv bunch (for in-
structions on subscribing, go to URL: http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/
vrtlists.html [accessed December 27, 2000]). Monitored by practicing
video librarians from public, academic, and school libraries, as well as
video distributors, this group is, I suspect, the most video-knowledgeable
collective think tank on the planet. It’s not uncommon to receive several re-
sponses to queries within a matter of minutes.
Audiovisual Resources and Reference

TV movie questions should cover about 90 percent of your video-re-
lated reference questions. Actually, I’m exaggerating, but only a little bit.
Video and DVD reference could play a much larger part in many libraries.
In fact, writing in Video Librarian—some ten years ago, in our July–Au-
gust 1990 issue—I asked whether students coming in to the library to use
Encyclopedia Britannica or World Book for short papers on insects, foreign
countries, famous leaders, and so on might be equally if not better served by
audio, video, or multimedia resources on these topics.
That same year a library student in Texas made the rounds of public li-
braries in her state, approaching each reference desk with questions that she
knew would be better addressed by video. To put it in statistical terms, the
number of times the staff member directed her to the video collection is less
than the number of hairs on Homer Simpson’s head.
In Charlotte Brönte’s Jane Eyre, Edward Rochester’s crazy wife is
generally kept under lock, key, and the moderately watchful eye of a tipsy
housekeeper. Occasionally, however, Bertha Rochester escapes and—in-
terpersonal social skills not being her strong suit—runs shrieking through
the corridors, winning friends and influencing people with the decidedly
non-Emily-Post-like calling cards of, say, a knife to the guts or a flame-
broiled bed.
Now, gentle reader, I can see those Werner Von Braun-ish brain cogs
a-turning. You’re thinking that Big Bertha bears a mighty strong resem-
blance to a certain large bureaucratic organization that usually plods along
harmlessly but every so often says or does something truly embarrassing,
right? Well, those wacky folks at the American Library Association, the
same schizophrenic organization that signed on to support “Turn Off TV
Week” while backing A&E’s simultaneous airing of The Adventures of
Horatio Hornblower continue to occasionally display their print-centric
colors.
Sounding like Rip Van Winkle after a helluva long nap, American Li-
braries editor Leonard Kniffel, in the December 1999 issue (and I had to do
a double take on that cover to see whether it didn’t really say December
1899), informed readers (and I do mean readers) in his aptly named editorial—
“Read and Learn: Two Words That Still Say It All”—that “if we ever need
to summarize the mission of libraries for this entire century and the next
[emphasis mine] in a word or two we can still do it…the word at the heart of
every library is read” [emphasis his] (Kniffel 1999, 36).
Personally, I think we can ill afford this juvenile more-book-lover-
than-thou kind of rah-rah rhetoric. Even in an imperfect world such as ours,
it’s not only possible but absolutely imperative that we embrace—as do our
patrons—a wide range of avenues to education and recreation. What will
the survival rate be for those librarians who, unable to think out of the
“book” box, automatically hand a student a print copy of Martin Luther
King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, only to receive a puzzled look and be told,
“Actually, I was looking for the original”? The primary version of King’s
speech, like many other twentieth-century events, is audiovisual based, and
I assure you that tomorrow’s taxpayers will quickly tire of the provincial at-
titudes that still pervade our profession.
Regardless of attitudes, numbers tell a different tale. I asked Carol
Dunn, audiovisual librarian for the Findlay-Hancock County Public Li-
brary in Findlay, Ohio, what the circulation figures were for a me-
dium-sized library in middle America. According to Dunn, during the
month of November 1999, a total of 39,257 books was checked out from the
library, compared to 34,485 audiovisual items (27,133 of which were
videocassettes). She also pointed out that 50 percent of the library’s video
collection is “nonfiction,” which, no doubt, proved extremely helpful in an-
swering the 2,642 audiovisual reference questions the library handled that
month.
Although Einstein and I come from different gene pools, my remedial
math skills are sufficient to see that there is nothing in Findlay-Hancock’s
circulation figures to support Mr. Kniffel’s phantom “mission.” Yes, we are
a nation of readers, to be sure, but we are so much more, and the best of our
libraries reflect this diversity.
I believe that if librarians began directing patrons to video resources
when appropriate, they would discover that the vast majority of video refer-
ence questions really aren’t about TV movies. In fact, there are all kinds of
questions that we answer by automatically pointing patrons toward the
book stacks that we could just as easily (if not better) handle with the video
format. How many librarians, for example, faced with patrons looking for
instruction on improving their short game on the putting green, would auto-
matically send them into the 200s looking for prayer books? If they were
thinking outside of the book box to encompass all formats, they’d suggest
Questar Video’s The Power of Prayer as well. Seriously, though, the li-
brary that is still buying three copies of the latest golf instruction “book”
needs to get off autopilot and join the rest of us in the twenty-first century.
The Limitations of Audiovisual Resources

Having said that, I think we still need to render unto Gutenberg what is
Gutenberg’s. To paraphrase Jane Austen, it is a truth, universally acknowl-
edged, that tape sucks. Audiocassettes, videocassettes, John Cassavettes,
they all seem—like the heart Celine Dion sings about—to go on and on and
on—especially when you’re trying to find a specific point. The problem is
inherent in the medium. Tape is linear, and you must physically move from
one location in the song or program to another; you cannot simply, à la CD,
instantaneously replay “My Heart Will Go On” ad infinitum until your
neighbors dial 911.
Videocassette is no different. If you’ve ever held a group of people
captive with repeated claims of “Wait…it’s right after this…no…a little
further…” then you too know what it’s like to get diminishing hit rates on
your party invitations (“Uh…sorry, I’m…uh…sharpening my garden
shears that night…I don’t think I can get out of it…”) . This maddening nee-
dle-in-a-haystack aspect of the video medium has done nothing to further
its acceptance in the hearts of reference librarians. In fact, it’s probably safe
to say that videotape is the worst format imaginable for ready reference.
All that will change with the eventual acceptance of DVD and the pro-
liferation of video and audio clip libraries on the Internet, but that’s not go-
ing to happen overnight, and I’ve always subscribed to the school of
thought that says that although future speculation is all well and good (and
necessary), it doesn’t actually serve patrons and/or students today. Except
for those small handfuls of videos with time code indexes printed on the
box—primarily cooking tapes—the only comprehensive time coded index
I’m aware of is PBS’s American History Curriculum Video Database.
In the past, students who came into either the school or public library
looking for, say, reenactment footage of the Battle of Gettysburg could try
their luck with the piddling thirty-second multimedia clips found on most
CD-ROM encyclopedias but certainly nothing in-depth. Because Ken
Burns’s The Civil War is part of this PBS American History collection,
however, those same students would be able to look up “Gettysburg” in the
hard-copy index (soon to be available online also), go directly to the rele-
vant videotape(s), and fast-forward (using the onscreen time code) to the
pertinent segment—one of 35,000 indexed program segments on nearly
300 complete video programs!
So what’s the catch? Price, of course. At $3,500 for the first year’s
subscription to the PBS American History Curriculum Video Database (it’s
a lease program, although the terms are pretty generous) and $3,000 for
succeeding years, smaller libraries may not be able to take advantage of the
collection. But for larger libraries and schools, the initial windfall of well
over $15,000 worth of fully indexed programming with a steady stream of
new titles arriving each year could be a valuable addition, especially when
you keep in mind that many of the important figures and events of the twen-
tieth century were documented on tape and film and that those media
thereby constitute primary source material.
Nontheatrical Video
Beyond that, although reference resources related to video movies are
plentiful both in print and online, few exist for nontheatrical video (i.e.,
those children’s, how-to, documentary, and performance titles that distin-
guish the library’s collection from the corner videostore’s).
Consumer magazines devote little editorial space to nontheatrical
video, while trade magazines for the video industry, such as Video Store
Magazine and Video Business, tend to cover higher profile special interest
titles as opposed to more educational programs.
In addition to vendor flyers and catalogs, the primary source of current
information about nontheatrical video is found in the library trade periodi-
cals that cover video, such as Booklist, Library Journal, School Library
Journal, and Video Librarian. You might also want to consider picking up a
copy of James Spencer’s Complete Guide to Special Interest Videos
(James-Robert Publishing, Scottsdale AZ; telephone 602-483-7007;
$29.95), which, of course, is nowhere near complete but does list close to
13,000 nontheatrical titles in forty-two subject categories. Although the
book serves as a catalog, it also includes copyright date, running time,
price, and ISBN (when available) for each entry but does not mention the
producer or distributor.
Beyond that, the most important video resource you can possibly have
for nontheatrical reference questions is a well-balanced collection that is
also fully cataloged and—optimally—searchable by subject keyword and
format simultaneously. That, and a savvy librarian who knows—when a
patron is looking for travel information on France—to direct that person to
the relevant videos in the collection as well as the Fodor’s guide. Unlike
movies, unfortunately, the resources on the Web for tracking down
nontheatrical video information are a bit skimpier.
On the one hand, the Web offers a stupefying amount of information
only a handful of keystrokes away. Before purchasing a new DVD player
this year, I spent a lot of time online researching information on brands and
models. After narrowing my choices down to the Denon DVD 1500 or one
of the Toshiba models, I came across a long thread on a serious audiovisual
tech site regarding the pluses and minuses of various players that actual us-
ers had posted. Using the “Find” feature, I typed in “Denon DVD 1500” and
brought up a post that read “Denon DVD 1500 vs. Toshiba 1200,” which
was one of the Toshiba players I was interested in. I grabbed pen and paper,
opened the message, and read: “Eat me, dickweed.”
This, of course, is the downside of Web information—a distinct ab-
sence of quality control on many sites, especially those with unmoderated
messages. Still, if you’re trying to find out whether someone has released a
video on a particular subject, your choices today are so much broader than
they were pre-Web.
Librarians can search the online catalogs of their vendors of choice,
subscribe to large media databases (such as NICEM or Media Review Di-
gest), make use of the larger resource sites geared specifically to the needs
of librarians (such as the University of California at Berkeley’s Media Re-
sources Center page, URL: http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC [accessed
December 27, 2000], or Video Librarian Online, URL: http://www.
videolibrarian.com [accessed December 27, 2000]), or post questions to the
great think tank resource on aforementioned Videolib listserv.
Although it does help to be video knowledgeable when it comes to
handling “Viewer Advisory” kinds of questions, I really think that a little
common sense and a decent toolbox of print and online reference resources
are more important than knowing that Pia Zadora made her big-screen de-
but in Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.
Of course, if you really hit a brick wall in your reference work, you can
always e-mail me. Just let me know your age and how many people will be
attending your slumber party.
References
Kniffel, Leonard. 1999. Read and Learn: Two Words That Still Say It All.
American Libraries 30: 36.
CHAPTER 14
Leading the Horse to Water:

Keeping Young People Reading
in the Information Age
Angelina Benedetti
Our jobs as librarians present many challenges, and one of the greatest
is connecting with the teens who use our libraries and convincing even
more of them that they should try our services. In this age where informa-
tion, and not relationships, receives the highest priority in the library and in
society at large, pairing an individual young adult with the right book is fast
becoming a lost art. In her book, Hangin’ out at Rocky Creek, Evie Wil-
son-Lingbloom writes: “This concession to progress carries with it the dan-
ger of undermining the relationship of the librarian as intermediary
between the adolescent and the book” (Wilson-Lingbloom 1994).
If your library has a staff member who works with the teens in your
community, then you are lucky indeed. The majority of public libraries in
the United States do not have a young adult librarian on staff. Even in cases
where there is a young adult librarian on hand, serving teens in a public or
school library is a juggling act, and sometimes the ball that gets dropped is
on-the-floor service to our teen clients. In a public library, a youth services or
young adult librarian is expected to put in many hours on a reference desk,
to perform outreach to schools and community groups, to create innovative
237
programs for teens, and to develop an exciting collection. School librarians

serve even more masters, putting in time teaching, developing curricula,
and overseeing computer labs. Given this reality, librarians serving teens
can use the combination of a well-organized and user-friendly collection
and enticing and informative displays to market their collections. This chap-
ter discusses how to pair a teen with the right book and how to market a col-
lection successfully so that teens can find the books they need, thus “leading
the horse to water” and keeping kids reading in an information age.
Teen Readers
One the first things that I try to remember when working with teens is
how complicated their lives are and how many things they are thinking
about at any one time. With the pressures of school, extracurricular activi-
ties, active social lives, lessons of every sort, and just hanging out, it is
lucky that they find any time to read, let alone come to a librarian for a rec-
ommendation. It is no surprise that many of the teens who come to our li-
braries never approach us but instead use the library independently. They
may be meeting friends for homework, using our computers, and/or brows-
ing the collection on their own. They may be nervous about approaching
the desk or unsure that we will understand what they want. Teens are driven
by their desire to save face and will avoid the risk of appearing “stupid” for
not being able to articulate exactly what it is that they need.
This reticence does not mean that teens are not reading, even given
their busy lives. A recent online survey of 3,072 teens (ages 11–18), con-
ducted by ALA’s Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) di-
vision and SmartGirl.com, found that 43 percent of the respondents said
that they enjoyed reading for fun but did not have enough time to do so.
(“ ‘Take Time to Read’ is new TRW theme” 2000) As teens grow older, their
reading is more likely to be directed by their schoolwork requirements.
Just as with adults, the library is not the only place where teens look
for good books. They ask their friends what they are reading. They see titles
that interest them in the supermarket or local bookstore. They pick up what
their parents are reading. They receive books as gifts from the well-inten-
tioned adults in their lives. I will often begin a classroom visit by asking
whether the students would like to tell me about the books that they are
reading. I am constantly amazed by the variety of books that these teens are
reading and surprised by how many of the books were not checked out from
a library.
Chapter 14—Leading the Horse to Water 239
Reading for Readers Advisory

Before a librarian can become a successful readers’ advisor for teens,
he or she must have some connection to the literature published for young
adults, to what teens actually read, and to the library’s collection. Although
these three goals are fundamentally connected, one achieves them by using
different strategies.
In her groundbreaking work, The Fair Garden and the Swarm of
Beasts, Margaret Edwards (1994) described her own requirements for li-
brarians serving young adults at the Enoch Pratt Free Library. They were to
read three hundred of the titles currently appearing in Books for the Teen
Age (New York Public Library 2000). They were to keep current, adding
new titles to their repertoires. Even though this is an altogether admirable
goal, it is difficult to achieve in an era when mastering databases and search
engines is seen as having more immediate benefit. That said, it is still im-
portant to know the literature. If you are able to read only a handful of titles,
be sure to maintain an awareness of new publications. At the end of this
chapter is a list of selected resources for young adult readers’ advisory.
ALA’s YALSA division provides excellent lists of Best Books (URL:
http://www.ala.org/yalsa/booklists/bbya/2000bestbooks.html [accessed Jan-
uary 5, 2001]), Popular Paperbacks (URL: http://www.ala.org/yalsa/booklists/
poppaper/poppaper00.html [accessed January 5, 2001]), Quick Picks (URL:
http://www.ala.org/yalsa/booklists/quickpicks/2000quickpicks. html [accessed
January 5, 2001]), and Best of the Best titles for teens (URL: https://
members.ala.org/yalsa/membersonly/booklists/bestofbest2000.html [Pass-
word required to access]).
Although maintaining an awareness of the best and newest titles in
young adult publishing is fundamental to successful readers’ advisory, the
reality of what teens actually read may be different from what librarians are
reading about. The most popular titles among teen readers are less likely to
appear on Best Books lists than they are on grocery store shelves. The next
time you do your weekly grocery shopping, browse these shelves. Are there
any new series? Movie or television tie-ins? Magazines marketed at teens?
Chances are that these are the items that the teens will be looking for in your
library as well. Put your snobbery aside. Some first-rate teen authors write
for series on the side. It is a good idea to read at least one of every popular
series in your library to discover what it is about the series that appeals to its
readers. Does the series deal with hard-hitting issues? Is it more of a fantasy
of what high school should be like? Does it leave the reader hanging at the
end of each chapter? Only when you understand why a book is popular will
you be able to recommend other books like it.
Finally, get to know your own collection and how teens are using it.
Survey your circulation statistics and also how many times individual titles
are going out. Look at your return carts frequently. Find excuses to hang out
in your stacks, observing the browsing behavior of your teen patrons. If you
are putting books away, they may just ask you a question, usually beginning
with “Do you work here?”
Setting Up Your Collection

I work in a library system with over forty community libraries. Each of
these libraries has a different way of featuring books for teen readers.
Some, like my own library, have an area set aside for teens. Some interfile
teen and adult books, fiction and nonfiction. Some feature homework col-
lections. Nationwide, the differences are even more dramatic. Some librar-
ies put their children’s and teen collections together, and some feature only
fiction or only hardcover titles.
Many teen readers gravitate toward the familiar. If a teen likes a par-
ticular author, he will look for books by that author. If fantasy or horror or
poetry is what they crave, they will look specifically for those books to the
exclusion of all others. Given this tendency, I have organized my own pa-
perback fiction collection according to genre, with additional sections of
such teen standards as CliffsNotes and graphic novels.1 These genres are
shelved together and labeled using easy-to-read genre stickers—I confess a
personal bias against color-coded classification systems where the reader
must consult a chart to learn that green equals science fiction and red equals
romance. The shelf labels, created on a graphics program, match the stick-
ers. Face-outs abound, highlighting titles that I have recently featured in a
booktalk or of which I have multiple copies. Even in my absence, my fellow
librarians can walk a teen into the area and find a historical fiction or sus-
pense title without the need of a booklist. My colleagues appreciate the ease
of this system and have less reason to call me from my few off-desk hours
to assist a teen in need.
Libraries without a clearly marked “young adult collection” can still
set aside display space for teens to browse titles that might interest them.
These displays can feature specific genres, highlight an upcoming library
program, or celebrate a time of year (for example, Women’s History
Month). If a particular display has been extraordinarily effective, be sure to
reuse it and note the titles that were especially popular.
Take your cue from bookstore merchandising; libraries and book-
stores are both in the business of selling books to readers. The best book-
stores do not just set books out on display; they also allow staff to highlight
favorites, write comments for the shelf browser, and hook the customer into
picking up the books. In one display I wrote brief annotations for some of
my favorite books and put them up side by side with the books on display.
What I learned was that I needed more and more annotations as the days
went on. The books would go out as quickly as I put them up.
Reaching Out
Booktalking is perhaps the single best way to bring teens into your li-
brary and get them interested in your collection. Although I will not attempt
to instruct in the fine art of booktalking (many others have written at length
on the subject, including Joni Bodart [1985] and Patrick Jones [1998]), I
will suggest ways to extend your sales pitch into your library and make it
easier for teens to find the books they need.
Teachers will often invite librarians into their classroom to recom-
mend books on a specific topic or relating to an upcoming assignment. Cap-
italize on your need to do so by also creating (with the teacher’s input, if
possible) a booklist that you can both hand out in class and feature in your
library. Make this booklist the center of a display of the titles you discussed
and be sure to leave a copy of it at your reference desk for the other librari-
ans on staff. This will make it easier for the teens to find the books (now that
your excellent talk has lured them) and also make the books available for
other students who may be interested or who have a similar assignment.
Keep a file of all of your past talks, both to keep you from repeating your ef-
forts and to make it easy to update your display area if no other ideas come
to you in a pinch.
There are as many ways to do a booktalk as there are young adult li-
brarians who do them. Many of my colleagues like to talk about the latest
young adult books. I will do this on request. However, from a readers’ advi-
sory perspective, I find that it is better to sell a book to a large group of read-
ers when you have more than one copy at your library. Multiple paperback
copies are even better. After a day of talking to students, I have come back
to find that all ten copies of a particular title have been snatched up over the
course of a few days (and once after a few hours).
Note any titles that seem particularly popular with your teens. Even
though I have found that a book might be very popular with one group and
not with another, some titles will perennially strike a nerve and fly off the
shelves. These include the following titles, which I cannot seem to keep in
stock, no matter how many copies I have:
• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
• Tangerine by Edward Bloor
• Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
• Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes by Chris Crutcher
• Catherine Called Birdy by Karen Cushman

• The Silver Kiss by Annette Curtis Klause
• The Giver by Lois Lowry
• Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
• Holes by Louis Sachar
• The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J. R. R. Tolkien
If you order more copies of these books, you will always have a copy
available for the reader who approaches you in the library. Although a
broad collection of titles is great to suit the tastes of a variety of teen read-
ers, it pays to have a few titles that you can recommend to a wide range of
kids looking for “something good.”
Talking With Teen Readers

Readers’ advisory for teens can be a delicate matter. As a practitioner,
I still find myself learning something new every day. Every time I find my-
self too comfortable, a teen reader comes along and destroys my confidence
entirely. What follows is my process for matching the teen reader to the
right book:
1. Begin with an easy question. My favorite is, “What is the last really
great book that you read?” or “Tell me about a book you liked.” Just as
in any reference interview, yes or no answers leave you little room to
move. If the patron appears uncomfortable with such an open-ended
query or responds with “I don’t know,” have a few closed questions
ready to draw them out. “Do you like science fiction? ‘Real’ stories?
Romance? History?” “Do you like diaries? Poetry?” “Do you prefer
male or female characters?” You can also try asking about their favor-
ite TV shows, movies, or video games.
2. Listen to everything the teen has to say. This means both what she
says and how she says it. Is the reader asking for a book for her recre-
ation or for an assignment? What is the teen’s attitude? Is it eager?
Timid? Angry? Passive?
3. Refine your search. I often follow my first question with “What did
you like about that book?” A kid who loved Michael Crichton’s Ju-
rassic Park for its focus on paleontology may want a book different
from the one who loved it for its suspenseful plot. Specific questions
are useful when further clarifying the request. If a reader does not
want anything “too scary,” by all means ask what “too scary” is. If the
teen is looking for a book to fulfill a classroom assignment, ask
whether there are any limits to the assignment. Does the book need to
be a certain length? By a living author? If you can, take a look at the
assignment itself.
4. Narrow your age range. I often ask my patron what grade he is in just
to give me a point of reference. Just looking at a teen is a faulty sys-
tem. So many are further along in their physical development than
their chronological age would suggest. They have often been told that
they are too young (to drive, to date, or to stay out late) so asking their
age might set up defenses you do not want to encounter. What is his
probable emotional and/or intellectual development? A good rule of
thumb is that teens always want to read about characters who are older
than themselves.
5. Assess the situation. Is the teen alone? With a parent? With friends?
Be aware of how these factors affect the interview. Parents sometimes
attempt to dominate the conversation, to suggest titles from their own
childhood, to reinterpret or reiterate the question you are asking, or to
set up boundaries for the teen’s reading. Although I listen to what a
parent is saying, I also ask my patron for verification, asking ques-
tions directly: “Did your teacher say that the book has to be a classic?”
When making recommendations, I speak mostly to the teen, while be-
ing sure to make occasional eye contact with the parent. I offer a
choice of two or more titles that might work and let them make their
final choices together. Occasionally I have been in the uncomfortable
position of being asked by a parent, in front of the teen, whether the
book in question has any profanity, nudity, violence, racial stereo-
types, same sex couples, magic, and so on. If I am familiar with the
book, I try to answer the question truthfully.
6. Be real. Working with teens can at the same time remind you of your
bygone youth and how old you really are. Respect the fact that you
and your patron are not of the same generation. Using teen vernacular,
even if you are sure that you have got the words right, will only make
you sound like someone who is trying too hard. Being yourself, and
perhaps tempering your rich vocabulary, works best. By nature, I tend
to wax poetic about my favorite books. I have learned to moderate this
instinct.
7. Be honest. With all of our good intentions, it is disconcerting to think
that teens smell a fake a mile away. Many times a reader will ask,
“Have you read this?” The best policy is to be truthful. No matter how
savvy, no librarian can have read every book in the collection. Saying
honestly that someone else recommended the book will have to be
good enough.
8. Do not oversell. I personally have been known to kill a book by being

overenthusiastic (“It is the best book!”) or to turn a reader off by tell-
ing too much. As a teen, did you want to read a book that “your teach-
ers just love”? Or one that you would “really learn something from”?
Saying too much about a book is often a surefire way to keep a teen
from reading it.
Although each and every reader is different, I have found that these
techniques make it more likely that I will match the patron with an appro-
priate book. I always end my interviews by giving readers a choice of titles
and leaving them to select the ones that best fit their needs and interests.
The Virtual Library and

the Virtual Librarian
Some public libraries are experimenting with real-time online refer-
ence (including the King County [Washington] Library System), but it re-
mains to be seen how well readers’ advisory, especially for teens, can
translate into an online environment. As we have seen from Internet book-
sellers, teens like to respond to books online, offer their opinions, and rate
what they have read. Online retailers will send digest updates suggesting hot,
new titles to their customers. It is a good idea to sign up for one of these if you
would like to stay current in publishing trends and new titles for teens.
Just as they have adopted other online technologies into their Web
sites (database searching, placing holds on materials, and checking on pa-
tron records), libraries may wish to consider this same method of recom-
mending titles to their avid readers. Even as many of my teens graduate and
move to other parts of the country, we still keep in touch and continue rec-
ommending books to each other. This kind of personal service may be hard
to support on a large scale, but digital reference services may yet extend
into readers’ advisory.
Online booksellers can teach us other lessons as well:
1. The very best online booksellers allow for customer feedback. The
number of customer reviews for a title equals the number of people
who cared about the book, for good or for ill. Books that are very pop-
ular with teens will have as many as a hundred or more reviews.
2. Many online sellers and publishers’ Web sites include author inter-
views and discussion group questions.
3. Online booksellers are in the business of selling books. Avoid recom-
mending books based solely on their sales pitch. Although librarians
working with teens will review for online sellers, publishers will also
push their products. Favorable reviews are good, but seek out other
opinions as well. Was the review from a professional journal? From a
teen? From an adult who works with teens?
4. Make it easy to find the information that you need. Some online book-
sellers are better than others when it comes to finding books for teens.
(For example, Amazon.com features a “Teens” link on its books sec-
tion index. These “Teens” pages list bestsellers, editor’s picks, genre
lists, and best books of the year.) Be sure that your library’s home
page makes it easy for teens to find out about new and favorite books.
Teens see the Internet as a place not only to find information but also
to communicate with their peers. Whether sending e-mail to a best friend
about what they will be wearing to school tomorrow or chatting with some-
one a world away about a favorite group, teens use the Internet as a way to
reach out, often anonymously, to each other.
This use of the Internet has immediate repercussions for readers’ advi-
sory. Many libraries nationwide have put up sites that allow teens to post
opinions or write reviews. Many more link to such sites. These reviews are,
by and large, honest, thought provoking, and certainly worth the attention
of any librarian working with teen readers. Three to look at are these:
• Teen Hoopla: An Internet Guide for Teens (URL: http://www.
ala.org/teenhoopla/reviews/index.html [accessed January 10,
2001]). Maintained by YALSA, this site allows teens to nominate
books for “Best Books,” “Quick Picks,” and other YALSA lists.
• Books Reviewed by Teens for Teens (URL: http://www.slcl.lib.
mo.us/teens/bkreviews/index.html [accessed January 10, 2001]).
Maintained by the St. Louis County Library and written by the teen
reviewers who meet there monthly.
• Book Reviews by Adam Balutis (URL: http://www.euronet.nl/users/
jubo/balutis.html [accessed January 10, 2001]). Adam is a very cool
kid who managed to find the right YA librarians and now has his
own book review site.
The following libraries have posted their booklists:
• Our library (King County [Washington] Library System) has some
of its teen booklists attached to its site, Teen Zone (URL:
http://www.kcls.org/newya/ya.html [accessed January 10, 2001]).
One of the most popular lists that we put out is MegaLit, our classics
list (URL: http://www.kcls.org/kcls/megalit.html [accessed January
10, 2001]).
• Jennifer Hubert’s Reading Rants lists are eclectic and very readable
(URL: http://tln.lib.mi.us/~amutch/jen/ [accessed January 10, 2001]).
• New York Public Library puts many lists on its Teen Link site, Good
Books: Recommended Titles for Young Adults (URL: http://www.
nypl.org/branch/teen/backlist.html [accessed January 10, 2001]).
No longer do we need to reinvent the wheel. If we are looking for a list
of books that might appeal to readers of a specific genre, we can find many
to choose from without much effort. If your own library does not already
use its Web site to recommend titles to teens or to link to sites that do, con-
sider adding this feature. It may take time for teens to start using the site, but
this resource will make it easier for librarians unfamiliar with literature for
teens to make useful suggestions.
Conclusions
The dawning of the information age has resulted in a dizzying array of
distractions for both teens and the librarians who serve them, yet the need to
connect a teen reader with the right book is still very much a part of quality
service to this important age group. By becoming familiar with our collec-
tions and the professional resources available to us as practitioners, we can
better answer the question “Do you have a good book for me to read?” when
it is posed. By marketing our collections and making better use of our
booktalks, we can serve those teens who may be reticent about approaching
us for help. By listening closely to them when they do approach us, we
show our respect for them as patrons and are better able to match the right
books to their needs. Finally, by seeing the online universe as a tool, and not
a competitor, we are moving toward the future, making the most of the in-
formation age and not fighting its impact.
Note
1. Graphic novels have emerged as a new and popular way to tell a story.
They feature a narrative told in a graphic format. The most critically
acclaimed graphic novel would have to be Maus by Art Spiegelman,
which won the Pulitzer Prize. Frank Miller re-created the comic hero
in Dark Knight Returns (a Batman story), and Alan Moore set the
genre on its ear with Watchmen (still my all-time favorite). In my col-
lection, I include these more “traditional” graphic novels, as well as
the Big Book series (e.g., The Big Book of Urban Legends and The Big
Book of Grimm). The Big Book series, from DC Comics, looks at
wacky subjects from all angles, featuring the work of several graphic
novel artists in a single volume. For instance, Jan Harold Brunvand’s
urban legends work is featured in The Big Book of Urban Legends,
with a story on every two pages. Graphic novels represent a huge
genre these days. The most popular titles in my collection (series such
as Sailor Moon) all feature Japanese artists. These are in my library’s
YA collection because they would otherwise get lost in their Dewey
number, 741.5973.
Selected Resources for

Young Adult Readers Advisory
Bodart, Joni Richards. 2000. One Hundred World Class Thin Books: Or
What to Read When Your Report Is Due Tomorrow, rev. ed. Lanham,
MD: Scarecrow Press.
Calvert, Stephen. 1997. Best Books for Young Adult Readers. New Provi-
dence, NJ: R. R. Bowker.
Cart, Michael. 1996. From Romance to Realism: 50 Years of Growth and
Change in Young Adult Literature. New York: HarperCollins.
Dresang, Eliza T. 1999. Radical Change: Books for Youth in a Digital Age.
New York: H. W. Wilson.
Estell, Doug. 2000. Reading Lists for College-Bound Students, 3d ed. New
York: ARCO.
Herald, Diana Tixier. 1997. Teen Genreflecting. Englewood, CO: Libraries
Unlimited.
———. 2000. Genreflecting: A Guide to Reading Interests in genre fiction,
5th ed. Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited.
Herz, Sarah K. 1996. From Hinton to Hamlet: Building Bridges Between
Young Adult Literature and the Classics. With Don Gallo. Westport,
CT: Greenwood.
Jones, Patrick. 1998. Connecting Young Adults and Libraries, 2d ed. New
York: Neal-Schuman.
Lynn, Ruth Nadelman. 1995. Fantasy Literature for Children and Young
Adults: An Annotated Bibliography, 4th ed. New Providence, NJ: R.
R. Bowker.
Makowski, Silk. 1998. Serious About Series: Evaluations and Annotations
of Teen Fiction in Paperback Series, ed. Dorothy Broderick. Lanham,
MD: Scarecrow Press.
Outstanding Books for the College Bound: Choices for a Generation, ed.
Marjorie Lewis. Chicago: American Library Association.
Rochman, Hazel. 1993. Against Borders: Promoting Books for a Multicul-
tural World. Chicago: American Library Association.
Sherman, Gale, and Bette Ammon. 1993. Rip Roaring Reads for Reluctant
Teen Readers. Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited.
———. 1998. More Rip Roaring Reads for Reluctant Teen Readers.
Spencer, Pam. 1999. What Do Young Adults Read Next? Vol. 3. Detroit:
Gale.
Thomas, Rebecca L. 1996. Connecting Cultures: A Guide to Multicultural
Literature for Children. New Providence, NJ: R. R. Bowker.
Zivrin, Stephanie. 1996. The Best Years of Their Lives: A Resource Guide
for Teenagers in Crisis, 2d ed. Chicago: American Library Associa-
tion.
References
Bodart, Joni. 1985. Booktalk!: Booktalking and School Visiting for Young
Adult Audiences. New York: H. W. Wilson. (Bodart has written four
other titles in the Booktalk! series.)
Edwards, Margaret A. 1994. The Fair Garden and the Swarm of Beasts:
The Library and the Young Adult. Chicago: ALA Publications.
Jones, Patrick. 1998. Connecting Young Adults and Libraries: A
How-to-Do-It Manual. New York: Neal-Schuman.
New York Public Library. Office of Branch Libraries. 2000. Books for the
Teen Age. New York: New York Public Library. (Published each year
by the Office of Young Adult Services of the New York Public Li-
brary. Copies are $10.00 each plus mailing and handling (1 copy,
$1.00; 2–5 copies, $1.25; bulk orders, $1.50. Order from the Office of
Branch Libraries, The New York Public Library, 455 Fifth Avenue,
New York, NY 10016.)
“Take Time to Read” is New TRW Theme. 2000. American Libraries 31
(May): 8.
Wilson-Lingbloom, Evie. 1994. Hangin’ out at Rocky Creek: A Melo-
drama in Basic Young Adult Services. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow
Press.
CHAPTER 15
The Future of Readers Advisory

in a Multicultural Society
Alma Dawson and Connie Van Fleet
Introduction
Fiction reading has been recognized as having a powerful effect on
psychological and physiological well-being, and public librarians have
long recognized the power of the humanities in empowering and enfran-
chising the individual (Ross 1991, Van Fleet and Raber 1990, Nell 1988).
Readers’ advisory service, in which librarians link people with carefully
chosen books, has enjoyed a renaissance in library practice and research.
This chapter explores the future of readers’ advisory services in a multicul-
tural society.
A discussion of the future of multicultural readers’ advisory must con-
sider the following four basic elements:
• The meaning of “multicultural” in this and other contexts
• The nature and availability of multicultural literature
• The public demand for multicultural literature
• The actions of the library and information science profession
249
An analysis of trends and a description of the current context in each of

these areas provides a baseline from which we may project a trajectory for
the future of multicultural readers’ advisory services.
Defining Multicultural Literature

The term multicultural has many meanings, and its definition continues
to evolve. There is little consensus on its meaning, and current definitions vary
with user and use. Some observers have even argued that the traditional notion
of a “culture” is obsolete and that “for all but a tiny proportion of the North
American population…the connection with an ancestral culture is now so ves-
tigial that whether to assert or ignore it has become entirely a matter of choice”
(Clausen 1997, 158). Although this is a growing body of thought, most schol-
ars and writers continue to use the convenient term culture to denote a set of
practices, beliefs, and value systems that is distinctive from other coexisting
sets of mores. Broadly, one may define a culture in terms of religion, race (al-
though this is an increasingly outmoded concept), sexual orientation, disabil-
ity, ethnicity, or even a mode of communication (as in the culture of the
Internet). However one chooses to define culture, it is clear that we live in a di-
verse society, and “put in its simplest terms, the ideal of multiculturalism is the
laudable one that people from drastically different backgrounds should live to-
gether in harmony and respect for each other’s culture” (ibid.).
Multicultural literature has been defined broadly to include “the liter-
ature about persons or groups that differ in some way (ethnically, racially,
culturally, linguistically, by sexual orientation, or disabilities) from the
sociopolitical Euro-American mainstream of the United States” (Corliss
1998, 4). Simply stated, literature that reflects diversity is known as multicul-
tural literature. Discussions of multicultural literature and library and infor-
mation services to diverse clienteles have focused separately and collectively
on groups with low socioeconomic status (the poor or homeless); people with
disabilities (physical, cognitive, or emotional); people for whom English is
a second language (immigrants, members of the deaf community, or Native
Americans); those with alternative sexual preferences (gay, lesbian, or bi-
sexual people); the undereducated (people who are illiterate or low liter-
ate); and religious groups (the Amish, Jewish fundamentalist, and
Christians). Most recently, multiculturalism has taken a global focus with
calls for international librarianship (American Libraries 2000).
We recognize the value of a broad and inclusive definition of “multi-
cultural” but will base the concept in ethnocultural terms. Even here, fur-
ther restrictions will apply. Such a categorization would include not only
world literature (African as well as African-American authors; Argentinian
as well as Latino) but Irish-American, Polish-American, German-Ameri-
can, and Cajun authors as well.
Chapter 15—The Future of Readers’ Advisory in a Multicultural Society 251
In this chapter, the term multicultural refers collectively to people of

color, in the words of Cuban-American scholar Gustavo Perez Firmat,
those who “live on the hyphen” (Figueredo 1999, 23). In the United States,
people of color are typically thought of in terms of America’s four major
nonwhite populations: Latinos (of Hispanic ancestry), African Americans
(of African ancestry who are not Hispanic), Asian Americans, and Native
Americans (Gonzalez 1990). One should recognize, however, that each of
these four groups is diverse within itself. Latinos may be of Mexican,
Puerto Rican, Cuban, or other Hispanic ancestry and may be newly immi-
grated or the product of ancestors settled in the southwest region of the
United States before the Revolutionary War. African Americans may re-
flect ancestry of any one of dozens of cultures of the African diaspora and
may be the descendants of slaves or free men and women of color who have
lived in America for a hundred years or be the children of modern immi-
grants. Asian Americans represent very diverse cultures and speak different
languages, including but not limited to Japanese, Vietnamese, Chinese, Fil-
ipino, or Thai. Native Americans can belong to American Indian tribes such
as the Apache, Crow, Cherokee, Sioux, Choctaw, and others, who have
unique religions, art, and language. This chapter primarily emphasizes lit-
erature written by members of these groups, while recognizing the contri-
butions made by nonmembers who base their work in the culture of one of
the groups.
Trends in Multicultural Literature

Generally, multicultural literatures currently exhibit a wide range of
themes and formats appealing to a broad audience and a proliferation of
new and productive voices. The literary history of the four groups in this
study is varied, but common patterns emerge. Their individual and collec-
tive histories demonstrate a movement in themes from oppositional to re-
flective and a migration from cultural isolation to mainstream to genre
fiction.
Impact of Social and Political Change

We may trace the explosion in the amount of work that authors of
color have created in the past few decades to the civil rights movements be-
gun in the 1960s. Castro contends that the noticeable and growing number
of Latino novels, essays, short stories, and poems appearing in English is “a
direct result of struggles and achievements of the social movements of the
1960s in conjunction with the influx of fresh immigrations from Cuba, Cen-
tral America, and South America.” (Castro 1997, 216). Hong reinforces the
importance of social change, crediting the civil rights movement of the
1960s with relaxed immigration laws and the resulting influx of immigrants
who “changed the landscape of a predominantly Chinese and Japanese
Asian America” with energizing Asian American literature (Hong 1997,
412). Fisher recognizes the 1950s and 1960s as a time of “coming of age”
for African American literature and asserts that “profound changes in the
social and political worlds of the United States…brought forth a redirection
toward a new aesthetic in the literature with new voices in African Ameri-
can literature” (Fisher 1997, 4).
Authors cite education as the key to renewed interest in Native Ameri-
can writings. Quoting Gerald Vizenor (Chippewa writer and professor at
the University of Oklahoma), Maria Simson explains: “ ‘The thousands of
[Native Americans] who went to college in the past two decades have cre-
ated a whole new audience of Native American literature.’…At the same
time, courses in Native American literature have exposed a mainstream au-
dience to the culture’s writings” (Simson 1991, 22). Loriene Roy observes
that “while many in the Indian population are experiencing socioeconomic
stresses, there is a growing cultural and educational renaissance underway.
Indians are rediscovering or retaining their culture by establishing geneal-
ogy, reading and inventing literature, reclaiming their Native languages,
and becoming involved with political and social issues” (Roy 2000, 32).
The resulting increase in educational opportunity and achievement for
people of color has both stimulated the creation of works of fiction and en-
sured the demand for it. The prosperity of the past decade has solidified and
expanded an audience with the leisure and values to seek out and enjoy a
wide variety of literature.
Thematic Patterns
Multicultural literature seems to follow a general thematic pattern. As
a literature develops, each theme adds to and builds on earlier themes, so
that the literatures become increasingly varied and rich. Early writings tend
to be grounded in a need for identity—an argument for recognition and re-
spect. This self-definition is often phrased in terms of opposition to a domi-
nant and unjust white society. It is an attempt to find one’s place as the
outsider, whether immigrant or native born. Authors move to the next
phase, that of the person who balances between two cultures, the quintes-
sential dilemma of those who live on the hyphen. This trend away from def-
inition in terms of the other continues with an increased attention to
self-reflection, to relationships within the culture itself. The growing voice
of women is often credited with the adoption of more universally under-
stood themes of families, of love, of issues common to all women—not just
women of color.
The movement continues with the creation of mainstream fiction and

growing popularity and awareness. As multicultural writers gain accep-
tance, their works become more mainstream and move to popular genre fic-
tion. Castro (1997, 218) traces the thematic evolution of Cuban writers
from protest and exile to exploring the tensions of living in two cultures
while maintaining one’s heritage, to “the psyche and aura of women’s
worlds” and family issues. Similarly, Fisher (1997, 6) recognizes the devel-
opment of African-American literature from the 1970s through the 1990s
as a process that paid homage to earlier themes with successful reprints of
pioneering writers while expanding themes with greater emphasis “on
self-reflection and interaction within the African American community.”
The period also saw new attention to women’s issues and sexuality, includ-
ing lesbianism, and the entry of multicultural literatures into the main-
stream, as evidenced by book awards and large audiences. The period
culminated with an “explosion of African American writers during this pe-
riod in paperback romance genre” (ibid.). Castro (1997, 219) provides a
concise model for multicultural literary history: “The early Chicano novels
that meditated on the pre-Columbian origins of the Mexicano evolved to
the immigration novel, to the coming of age novel, and [are] now moving
into the mystery novel, the gay novel, and the romantic novel.”
The pattern for Native American literature varies slightly. In the twen-
tieth century, Native American people began to write novels of their con-
temporary life, taking up traditional themes and often incorporating tribal
mythologies and legends into their work (Williams 1997, 525). Even now,
“natives living within their own cultures find themselves the focus of in-
creased attention and Natives living outside the culture are trying, in vary-
ing degrees, to recover old ways, thus attempting to reverse generations of
assimilation” (Roy 1993, 73).
The result is a rich mixture of diverse forms and perspectives that ap-
peals to a wide audience. Certainly, the addition of patterned fiction to the
repertoire of multicultural writers provides a form that is intellectually ac-
cessible, widely available, and of considerable interest to multicultural au-
diences as well as traditional genre readers. It may be a positive sign that,
freed from an unrealistically high standard and the need to prove their abil-
ity to produce “quality” literature, multicultural authors are now on a par
with their counterparts. Multicultural authors may engage in creating
“light” fiction. Recreational reading is available to multicultural audiences.
Rewriting Genre
The impact of new voices on traditional patterns and styles can be sub-
stantial, and increased critical attention has been given to these voices over the
past decade. The growing popularity of cross-cultural detectives suggests
that such ethnic awareness resonates with traditional genre readers as well
as audiences who may have some interest in the specific culture repre-
sented. MacDonald and MacDonald contend that the ethnic detective as-
sumes a traditional role:
These non-mainstream detectives explore cultural differences—in

perception, in way of life, in visions of the world—and act as links
between cultures, interpreting each to each, mainstream to minority
and minority to mainstream. Their function as emissaries between
different groups is a natural outgrowth of the intermediary function
of many traditional American hard-boiled detectives, figures who
moved easily between their upper-class employers and the shadowy
criminal underworld, or perhaps between the lower-middle-class
police and aristocratic crime victims or criminals. Ethnicity has re-
placed class barriers, but the need for linking problem-solvers re-
mains the same. (MacDonald and MacDonald 1999, 60)
Essentially, the defining pattern of the genre must be preserved, while

the ethnicity of the characters and the representation of their culture must
play an essential role. A mystery reader may enjoy learning about a new
culture, but certain values and patterns that have traditionally defined the
genre must be upheld if this genre is to appeal to the targeted audience. Au-
thors of multicultural genre fiction—whether mystery, romance, Western,
or science fiction—must constantly balance the need to represent and inter-
pret an unfamiliar culture with the expected patterns of the literary form.
Genre patterns are not static. Through the voices of women, Native
American, Hispanic, and African-American authors, the Western has been
revitalized and transformed in the past decade. Although more inclusive
and substantially changed, the Western is still recognized as such. Afri-
can-American and Latino authors are bringing a new flavor to established
lines of romances and creating new categories reflecting multicultural her-
oines and lifestyles.
The Romance in Color Web site identifies and profiles African-Amer-
ican romance writers, lists their works, and includes reviews and ratings of
titles by a three-panel review staff. These reviews and ratings are exclusive
of those that appear in the mainstream media. To date, sixty-five Afri-
can-American romance writes are profiled. (URL: http://www.
romanceincolor.com [accessed November 25, 2000]) This site is not an ex-
haustive listing of African-American romance authors. However, popular
African-American romance writers include Sandra Kitt, who was first pub-
lished by Harlequin. Kitt’s works include Significant Others (Onyx, 1996),
Between Friends (NAL, 1998), and Close Encounters (NAL-Signet, 2000).
BET Books has published several representative African-American ro-

mance authors and titles. These authors include Frances Ray, Incognito
(BET/Arabesque, December 1999); Margie Walker, Remember Me (BET
Books, September 1999); Shirley Harrison, Under a Blue Moon (BET
Books, October 1999); and Rochelle Alers, Just Before Dawn (BET Books,
May 2000). Ray’s Incognito (1999) became the first Arabesque novel that
BET television produced as a movie. Valerie Wilson Wesley, author of the
Tamra Hayle Mystery Series, completes the representative sampling of Af-
rican-American romance writers. Wesley received the ALA Black Cau-
cus’s 2000 Literary Award for genre fiction for her novel, Ain’t Nobody’s
Business If I Do (Avon Books, 1999).
Landrum contends that such a transition is already underway in the
realm of the mystery. Prompted by the success of women mystery writers, “the
potential of the markets and distortions introduced through stereotyping, omis-
sion, and other forms of representation of minority presences,” African-Ameri-
can, Native American, and Hispanic writers have disrupted the conventions of
the mystery genre and begun to move toward realizing further possibilities in
the form (Landrum 1999, 17). MacDonald and MacDonald observe:
Current detective fiction, then, attempts to bridge the developing

gap between traditional American culture and the new, much less Eu-
ropean and/or nontraditional culture….When the detective story
functions to examine, interpret, or mediate between cultures at the
crossroads, the ethnic distinctions often substitute for the class dis-
tinctions of the traditional detective story, and the more tightly bound
the ethnicity is to plot, character, and solution, the more effective the
resultant story. (MacDonald and MacDonald 1999, 94–95)
According to Figueredo, the Latino detective writers have received fa-

vorable reviews by critics (1999, 29). The author recommends a core La-
tino detective collection consisting of at least the following authors:
Abella, Alex. 1991. Killing of the Saints. New York: Penguin Books.
Abella, Alex. 1998. Dead of Night New York: Simon and Schuster.
Anaya, Rudolfo. 1996. Zia Summer. New York: Warner Brothers.
Betterman, Richard. 1997. Project Death. Houston: Arte Público.
Corpi, Luchi, 1992. Eulogy for a Brown Angel. Houston: Arte Público.
Curtis, James Robertto. 1996. Shangó. Houston: Arte Público.
Garcia-Augilera, Carolina. 1998. Bloody Secrets. New York: Putnam.
Hinojosa, Rolando. 1998. Ask a Policeman. Houston: Arte Público.

Nava, Michael. 1998. Death of Friends. New York: Bantam.
Ramos, Manuel. 1993. The Ballad of Rocky Ruiz. New York: St. Martin’s.
Sanchez, Thomas. 1978. Zoot Suit Murders. New York: Vintage.
Torres, Edwin. 1977. Q & A. New York: Dial.
Ybarra, Ricardo Means. 1997. Brotherhood of Dolphins. Houston:
Arte Público.
Publishing
Just as the themes and formats of multicultural literature have devel-
oped and are the result of shifting social and political climates, the type and
nature of multicultural literature published have evolved over time. The
1990s brought renewed interest in multicultural works. Scholars reflected and
examined the difficult and complicated set of social, political, and economic
factors in relation to the larger society (Harris 1993, 1996; Taxel 1997).
Miller-Lachmann contends that the “rise of interest in multicultural publishing
is a product of changing times. Demographic shifts in the United States, in-
creasing global interdependence, and the collapse of colonial systems and em-
pires are among the principal factors contributing to the emergence of new
voices and their success in the publishing world” (Miller-Lachmann 1995a,
xiv). Taking a contrasting view, Muse declares that “multicultural children’s
literature [indeed multicultural literature] does not exist to fill a quota or simply
to provide a quantitative representation of quickly changing demographics.”
Rather, “many works provide greater access to literacy, encourage critical
thinking and philosophical discourse, and teach valuable skills, while pro-
moting cultural understanding” (Muse 1997, 2).
Problems and Progress

Numerous authors have documented the problems, the progress, and
the milestones in multicultural literature (Larrick 1965, Bishop 1987,
Kruse and Horning, 1991, Ford 1994, Reid 1994, Harris1996, Taxel 1997,
Corlis 1998, Dressman 1998, Day 1999). Larrick’s (1965) study, “All
White World of Children’s Literature,” is generally cited as a milestone in
bringing about awareness in the publishing of African-American children’s
literature. She surveyed more than five thousand children’s books for the
years 1962–1964 and discovered that over the three-year period, only
four-fifths of one percent of the children’s trade books from sixty-three
publishers told a story about African Americans. “With few exceptions,
U.S. minority populations were either ignored or treated as comic relief,
objects of ridicule, or blatant stereotypes by mainstream press” (Bishop

1987, 61). On the other hand, authors cite the important contributions of al-
ternative presses (Harris 1993, Horning, 1993). For example, Harris reports
that a “body of parallel literature created by African Americans for African
American children existed contemporaneously with stereotyped literature.
However, these authors lacked the power needed to usurp the authority of
the images presented in The Story of Little Black Sambo and other books of
that ilk” (Harris 1993, 63). Horning studied the publishing output of alter-
native presses in relation to that of mainstream presses for the period
1982–1992. Her findings indicated that alternative presses represent about
3 percent of the total publishing output of children’s books in any given
year. However, in 1991, nearly 23 percent of the total number of children’s
books was published by African Americans. In the same year, 45 percent of
first books by African Americans was published by alternative presses
(Horning 1993, 528).
Several events, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, brought about
substantial changes. In response to social pressures and consumer de-
mands, more works by African Americans came on the market in the late
1960s and early 1970s (Kruse and Horning, 1991; Ford 1994). Day (1999)
observed that books on minority themes—often hastily conceived—sud-
denly began appearing in the mid- and late 1960s. Most of these books were
written by white authors, edited by white editors, and published by main-
stream publishers. Not until the late 1970s did the children’s book world
begin to reflect a pluralist society. Reid’s (1994) study of African-Ameri-
can young adult literature for the period 1964–1993 offers a model of de-
velopment. Her findings indicate a steady increase in new works, coverage
in major review sources, and award winners among its authors, as well as
recognition of African-American young adult literature as an emerging
specialization for scholarly research.
In his “Cult of Multiculturalism,” Ford (1994) reported these practices
in the publishing of multicultural literature, particularly publishers of chil-
dren’s literature: (1) publishers who take advantage of the renewed interest
in books with a multicultural focus by repackaging and publishing
out-of-print or outdated titles and then marketing these as multicultural; (2)
priority in the publishing schedule being given to designated groups, such
as Native Americans or Latinos; and (3) the emergence of major publishers
and small presses who both produce quality titles.
Good Business
Recent reports indicate a change in the availability and quality of ma-
terials produced in general. Muse cautions that a closer examination of the
numbers, such as those done by the Cooperative Children’s Book Center
(Madison, Wisconsin), indicates that the creation of works by minority au-
thors is small in comparison to the overall publication statistics. Books with
Native American themes are not necessarily produced by Native Ameri-
cans. In fact, “[p]eople of color write and illustrate fewer than 7 percent of
books for children and young adults” (Muse 1997, 6). As markets grow, at-
tention to the ethnicity of editors is an aspect still requiring attention (Ford
1994).
Nevertheless, the audience for adult multicultural titles is growing and
clamorous, and publishers are taking note. African-American multicultural
titles are more numerous and more varied than ever before (Jacques 1995,
Dahlin and Lodge 1995, Adlerstein 2000). Jacques reports on the thirty-fifth
anniversary celebration of Marcus Bookstore, in which over 1,300 people at-
tended a party with noted African-American authors. Store manager Blanche
Richardson’s spontaneous (and gratified) comment (“And it’s not even
Black History month!”) is a reflection of the integral part that multicultural
literature now plays in the everyday life of its audience.
Hong (1997) credits the market response of Amy Tan’s Joy Luck Club
with the increased productivity of Asian American authors and the willing-
ness of major houses to publish their work. The bestseller status and mil-
lion-dollar sale of paperback rights lent credibility to multicultural authors
and demonstrated the appeal to a wide audience. Similarly, “hunger for
spiritual ties has produced a renewed interest in Native American history,
medicine, and religion. Thus, this has brought about a resurgence in themes
relative to Native American titles” (Dahlin 1995).
The publishers of works on Latinos have reported similar results
(Salas 1996). “Hispanic readers, too, are being drawn into the lucrative love
triangle of writer, publisher and reader” (Adlerstein 2000, 49A). Small and
alternative presses are flourishing, while large publishing houses are pro-
ducing the work of mainstream authors such as Sandra Cisneros, Gary
Soto, and Denise Chavez (Salas 1996). Bilingual publishers such as Arte
Público and The Bilingual Press continue to expand, while general publish-
ers incorporate multicultural categories within genre (Adlerstein 2000). For
example, Kensington Publishing Corporation launched its Encanto Ro-
mances line with four bilingual titles. In a lucrative deal, it sold its Arabesque
line (which features multicultural heroes) to BET Books, which plans to in-
crease by 15 percent its catalog of new authors over the next year (ibid.).
Clearly, multicultural publishing is a profitable business. The rich and
varied landscape of multicultural work stimulates readership (and sales).
Reprints of classic works by major houses sell well; new voices are greeted
by an ever-expanding and enthusiastic audience. Given the publishing his-
tory and the limited attention to ethnic voices in curricula, multicultural lit-
erature, however, presents major challenges in the area of selection and
reading guidance for the individual and the professional librarian, teacher,
or bookstore owner.
Advisory Sources
As the multicultural literature emerges, mainstream advisory sources
are including the works of peoples of color more and more. African-Ameri-
can, Native American, Latino, and Asian American authors and characters
are included in guides to genre fiction such as Bouricius’s (2000) Romance
Readers’ Advisory; Ramsdell’s (1999) Romantic Fiction; and Fonseca and
Pulliam’s (1999) Hooked on Horror. Pearl’s 1999 guide to mainstream fic-
tion, Now Read This, identifies multicultural authors and characters very
specifically (Cuban American, rather than Latino) and contains an excep-
tionally strong representation of such authors. Readers’ advisors may
search NoveList by cultural background of the author or character. Al-
though Gale’s What Do I Read Next? series focuses on the recommendation
of specific similar works rather than matched subject headings, it includes
books by authors of color both as primary entries and as suggested further
reading, although frequently not identified as such. Specialized readers’ ad-
visory tools that focus on multicultural literatures individually and collec-
tively are also available, and the number continues to grow. The sources
provide valuable background for use with readers, particularly if they go
beyond the annotated lists.
In assembling the New Press Guide to Multicultural Resources, Muse
(1997) noted that even though the existence of materials is not a major is-
sue, the selection of materials remains a critical challenge. The introduc-
tions and essays found in the various volumes of specialized resources
assist not only the individual reader but also inform librarians, publishers,
parents, and others who might need to know more about the various genres
for purposes of acquisition, collection building, and reader assistance. The
examples included in the list of professional resources that follows includes
not only annotated lists of works but also provides historical context
through extensive essays; identifies new and lesser known authors, illustra-
tors and small presses; recommends core collections; and provides schol-
arly interpretations of the literature.
Several authors provide examples of specialized general guides that
include annotated lists as well as essays on multicultural issues (Day 1999;
Corliss 1998; Castro, Fisher, Hong, and Williams 1997; Kruse, Horning,
and Schliesman 1997; Muse 1997; Miller-Lachmann 1995b; Rochman
1993). Several titles cover genre fiction specifically. For example, the
works of Figueredo (1999), Muse (1997), and Woods’s Spooks, Spies and
Private Eyes (1999) provide guidance in detective fiction. The works of au-
thors such as Whitson (1999), who provides a volume that represents Na-
tive American authors, characters, and themes, represents specific cultures.
Schon’s numerous works on Hispanic authors are represented in this in-
stance by The Best of Latino Heritage (1997). The science fiction and fan-
tasy genre is represented by Thomas’s work, Dark Matter (2000). Although
all essays, Lape’s West of the Border (2000) provides an example of re-
gional multicultural literature.
Are the specialized resources still needed now that mainstream
sources are including multicultural literature? Both are currently needed as
each provides unique access to the literature. More coverage of the topics
from the historical and social context encourages an understanding and
value of the literature. Romance fiction, for example, has new and growing
African-American and Latino audiences (Adlerstein 2000) who will be
guided to this literature for their personal enjoyment. The primary focus of
these sources, however, is on literary form rather than authorship. These
sources include some representation and recognition of multicultural
voices, but ethnicity, by design, is not the key element and does not provide
the primary organizing element.
Professional Response
The future of readers’ advisory services in a multicultural society ulti-
mately is in the hands of library and information science professionals. Re-
cently conducted polls demonstrate widespread enjoyment of reading as a
leisure activity. Polls indicate that the majority of Americans use the public
library and that borrowing books remains a top priority (Towey 2001). The
astounding success of super bookstores is further evidence of the sustained
and growing importance of reading, and sales figures demonstrate the read-
ing public’s desire for multicultural literature (Fisher 1997; Jacques 1995;
Adlerstein 2000). Research emerging from disciplines other than library
and information science indicates the importance of reading in the lives of a
great number of people and the impact it has on their psychological and
physical well-being. (McCook 1993, Towey 2001, Nell 1988).
Reading is especially important to people of color. QBR publisher
Max Rodriguez asserts that African Americans have always valued books,
and Cheryl Woodruff, associate publisher with Ballantine/One World,
contends that “[b]ooks reflect the truth of our experience better than any
other medium at this point” (Jacques 1995, 36). McCook, in her persuasive
essay, “Considerations of Theoretical Bases for Reader’s Advisory Ser-
vices,” explores this modern-day belief in the power of books and reading
in the context of “the library faith” (McCook 1993). Johnson, in his fore-
word to Sacred Fire: The QBR 100 Essential Black Books, uses the rhetoric
of the 1960s’ civil rights movement to underscore the importance of the
thought, analysis, and critical interpretation inherent in interacting with the
printed word. “In the midst of formulaic entertainment, in a popular culture
where ‘dumbing down’ is the rule, reading becomes the most radical of all
enterprises” (Johnson 1999). His thesis reflects the arguments supporting
the public library’s role in preserving cultures, supporting social change,
and making available to all the potentially enfranchising power of the hu-
manities (Van Fleet and Raber 1990).
Given the value of reading and the public’s demand, it is disturbing
that the library and information science profession has not more widely and
enthusiastically embraced the readers’ advisory function. Saricks (2001)
postulates five reasons for this reluctance: There are no specific, objective,
or correct answers; fiction is perceived as unimportant; people don’t ask for
help; advisory questions are time-consuming; and staff members lack train-
ing. Interestingly, the professional community has demonstrated an in-
creased awareness of the importance of fiction guidance, The American
Library Association and its divisions—Public Library Association (PLA)
and Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) of ALA—have been
particularly active in readers’ advisory for adults. PLA in particular has
been active in training through workshops. RUSA’s activities focus on re-
search conducted by its standing committees on readers’ advisory and pub-
lication of research, bibliographies of resources, and essays focusing on
readers’ advisory issues and practice. RUSA’s journal, Reference and User
Services Quarterly, began a column devoted to readers’ advisory with the
Winter 2000 issue. Individual librarians and educators in schools of library
and information science are exploring conceptual constructs, effects, and
service strategies for readers’ advisory. Readers should explore other chap-
ters in this volume for examples of work by the most vocal advocates in the
field.
Schools of library and information science, however, seem to be lag-
ging behind in the recognition of fiction guidance on a par with reference
service or technological expertise. Saricks notes that “although it is now in-
creasingly taught in library schools, for years no one learned about reader’s
advisory in library school, or even had professors who acknowledged that
there was more to working with patrons, even in public libraries, than find-
ing answers to factual questions” (Saricks 2001, 116). A 1999 survey found
that only 14 of 56 responding schools of library and information science of-
fered a course in readers’ advisory services (Watson and RUSA CODES
Readers’ Advisory Committee 2000). Lack of attention to fiction guidance
in schools of library and information science may reinforce the perceptions
of those who find readers’ advisory unimportant. Wiegand’s (1997)
well-crafted and persuasive arguments for an increased attention to reading

in the curricula of our professional schools have fallen on deaf ears. McCook and
Jasper observe that “It is seldom the act of reading that is studied in the curric-
ula, but the act of using technology to organize and access materials” (McCook
and Jasper 2001, 52). The extent to which schools of library and information
science respond to sociological needs and professional demands may deter-
mine the future of the schools as much as the future of readers’ advisory.
A further consideration in the future of readers’ advisory in a multicul-
tural society is the extent to which librarians appreciate and commit to di-
versity. Although such a commitment seems to be a given, it is a typical
pattern for our profession to become engaged with a particular issue or
cause for several years and then to shift its attention to a different arena. Just
as attention to readers’ advisory services was minimal until a resurgence in
the past decade, focused attention to the needs of people of color has been
cyclical. The volume of library and information science literature con-
cerned with the needs of ethnic and sociocultural minorities reflects the fact
that this subject occupied the forefront of professional concern and activity
in the 1960s and early 1970s, followed by a fairly dormant period, with a re-
currence of interest in diversity and multiculturalism in the 1990s.
The Trajectory
In an attempt to establish a sense of the future for multicultural read-
ers’ advisory services, this chapter has explored four basic elements: the
meaning of multicultural, the nature and availability of multicultural litera-
ture, public demand for multicultural literature, and the responses of the li-
brary and information science profession.
Although some argue that American culture is becoming increasingly
homogenized, it seems unlikely that the rich diversity of our society will
disappear. A reaction of pride and a growing realization of the importance
of a regard for history and heritage serve as a counterbalance to the natural
blurring of cultural definitions that occur when people live in proximity and
harmony. We have much to value and much to preserve. Awareness and ap-
preciation do not equate with assimilation.
Multicultural literature is rich and varied. It speaks to universal themes
yet preserves the unique perspectives that add depth, meaning, interest, and
excitement to traditional forms. Increasingly, there is a movement to genre
fiction that coexists with more serious work of the literary mainstream.
Such a pattern brings multicultural literature into a parallel course with tra-
ditional publishing. It allows people of color the same scope and
breadth—the same freedom to choose—that has been traditionally enjoyed
by readers who are members of the dominant culture. In addition, the use of
familiar forms creates a nonthreatening means of access for others to learn
about, appreciate, and perhaps empathize with a different perspective. Con-

current with the increased attention to multicultural literature in main-
stream and general purpose review and readers’ advisory sources is a
growth in focused, specialized publications.
The value we place on reading and on communicating through stories
persists in an increasingly technologically oriented society. Response to
multicultural literature has been positive and profitable. Small presses and
mainstream publishers are publishing in increasing numbers books by peo-
ple of color, books that include characters who represent diverse cultures,
and books that explore multicultural themes. The literature that exists is
widely available, and audiences continue to purchase and to borrow books
in increasing numbers.
The professional library community is giving increased attention to read-
ers’ advisory services and concurrently to diversity issues, including equitable
and appropriate services. There is a renewed emphasis on community and
community building, with the public library as an integral and vital component
that reflects the heritage and nature of its constituents (McCook 2000). Al-
though schools of library and information science focus on technology and ac-
cess rather than books and content, a growing number are offering courses on
readers’ advisory services. Fewer offer stand-alone courses on services to peo-
ple of color, people with disabilities, or other component cultures of a diverse
society. Still, even those that do not offer specific courses are incorporating the
necessary skills, processes, and awareness into traditional courses, and we may
be seeing the beginnings of a new equilibrium that balances humanist and tech-
nical values, content and process. In essence, the future of readers’ advisory
will depend on an understanding of the value of reading and the humanities, of
communication processes and their implementation, and of the structures of
literatures and their context within a given culture.
In each of the four major areas discussed in this chapter, we are seeing
increased acceptance by the dominant culture of multicultural work and
values and by the various ethnocultures of mainstream values and literary
forms. Hong suggests:
Asian American literature is finding a larger more encompassing au-

dience without ethnic boundaries. Ironically, as the field of Asian
American literature develops and broadens, it will ultimately out-
grow itself because someday, such defined, exclusive ethnic terms
as Asian American, African American, Latino or Native American
will no longer be necessary in the multicultural American society of
the future. And in this potentially tolerant, fluid world, even a refer-
ence guide such as this, which is much needed today, will hopefully
render itself obsolete. (Hong 1997, 15)
Hong’s vision of the future may well prove accurate. At this time,
however, and in the foreseeable future, the trend toward cultural pride and
preservation of distinct heritages will prevail. People of color will be able to
choose whether they wish to identify themselves in terms that emphasize
the distinctiveness of ethnic heritage or in terms that emphasize commonal-
ity and kinship with other cultures.
Conclusions
As we recognize that public libraries will be sources of inspiration as
well as information and that these roles are equally valuable and deserving
of our attention and expertise, so too will we need to be able to appreciate
the different perspectives and choices of our patrons. It is incumbent upon
librarians, therefore, not only to utilize the specialized multicultural re-
sources at our disposal and to offer specialized services but to learn when
these are appropriate. Based on the current trajectory, readers’ advisory ser-
vices in our multicultural society should continue to expand and grow.
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CHAPTER 16
Conceptualizing a Center
for the Reader
Glen Holt
The Transformation of Reader Culture

Three truisms underpin today’s public library culture. One truism is
that books are changing. Another is that readers are changing. A third is that
libraries must change to deal with these shifts.
The foundation on which libraries can build is the constancy of the
story. Human beings hang on to the stories of their childhood, school, work,
and family. They turn to stories—whether those in the Bible or Harlequin
romances—to fulfill needs in their lives. They delight in stories about oth-
ers—whether they are sports or Hollywood heroes, human-interest tales
about anonymous citizens, or picaresque accounts of the famous. They en-
joy fantastic stories, whether fairy tales or video games. They tell true and
made-up stories about themselves (Simpson 2000, Engram 1997, Eheart
and Power 1995).
269
The Changeable Book

In the culture of writing and print, the book is the principal written
transmittal tool for stories. The book, however, has never been just one
thing but many. Since humankind first figured out how to put covers over
skins and paper, books have changed dramatically.
• Monastic tomes and folio editions evolved to mass-produced edi-
tions and paperbacks.
• Story-related graphics changed books. Original sketches, woodblock
prints, rotogravure illustrations, and computer-enhanced photographs
mark graphic milestones in the transformation of the book.
• Technological innovations affected stories and the books that hold
stories. The telegraph, the telephone, high-speed printing, sound re-
cording, and radio; film, television, videotape, audiotape, compact
disks, and more recently, digital imaging, recording, and transmis-
sion all created new opportunities for storytellers of every kind from
biographers and historians to fantasy and fiction writers. The tech-
nology also changed the way books were created, the way stories
were told, and even the stories that were created.
• The e-book is the newest literary tool. Fright-writer Stephen King
has already published a manuscript exclusively as an e-book. Other
best-selling authors are working e-books into their mass marketing.
As I was completing the final draft of this chapter, best-selling fic-
tion writers Patricia Cornwell, Robert Ludlum, James Patterson,
Ken Follett, Ed McBain, and Brad Meltzer had either recently pub-
lished electronic editions of hardback books or were about to do so.
In each case, the electronic publication was scheduled in advance of
the paper publication by a period ranging from two weeks to a little
over a month. The e-book is taking its place as a presence in Ameri-
can literary life.
The Shifting Reader Culture

Social and cultural forces also have an impact on stories, reading, and
books. Adults are working longer hours and have less time to engage in sto-
rytelling, story reading, or reading of any kind. In survey after survey, many
persons—especially women—report a lack of time to read for fun or to go
to the library just for fun. In the absence of solid reading time, many have
changed the source of their stories from popular books to watching shorter
and simpler stories on film and television (Sheldon 1992, Bailyn 1993,
Pencavel 1998, Starling 1999).
Chapter 16—Conceptualizing a Center for the Reader 271
Children’s story use has shifted even more visibly. Raised in a

high-tech world, today’s children turn to movies rather than books, com-
puter games rather than comic books, and playing video (story fantasy)
games rather than watching television. In general, the younger the child and
the more experience the child has with computing, the greater the prefer-
ence for active self-customized computer interaction rather than sedate
story reading or passive television watching. In all these examples, people
are not turning away from stories, only moving to different forms and kinds
of stories (Henry 2000, Dolliver 1999, Benton 1995).
Books in Library Story Culture

Amid all these changes, books remain dominant in the story culture of
libraries. In the relatively poor city of St. Louis, which has a relatively high
percentage of people with literacy problems, the St. Louis Public Library
(SLPL) circulates annually seven books per capita and thirty-three books
per cardholder. Over 55 percent of SLPL’s circulations come from popular
books, including the stories found in fiction, biography, and history. The
vast majority of popular book circulation, of course, is fiction. Hence, al-
most all circulations are stories of one kind or another.
Another set of statistics illustrates the importance of books (and sto-
ries) for libraries. In a recent cost-benefit analysis, an SLPL research team
calculated that users received between $2.50 and $5.00 in benefits for each
dollar in public funds spent on providing library services. A large percent-
age of those benefits—more than 80 percent—came from three categories
of service: books for adults, books for children, and staff help.
These benefits might be suspect except that library users in four other
cost-benefit-analysis study communities—Baltimore County, Birming-
ham, King County (WA), and Phoenix—experienced similar or greater di-
rect benefits from books and staff help. And, like St. Louis, the great
majority of all their popular-book circulations are storybooks.
The Center for the Reader

In this rapidly shifting, still-book-centered story culture, public librar-
ies have to build on their long heritage of change and adapt again. The St.
Louis Public Library’s Center for the Reader (CFR) is one such adaptation.
At this point CFR still exists only in the minds’ eyes of staff. But planning
for this space and the tools that will make it work already drive decisions about
how SLPL will remodel and expand its main library and refocus its services.
This chapter shares the staff’s current conceptualization of CFR not because
they have already solved every problem but so that others may consider the
ideas and use them to generate other enriched reader-serving environments.
CFR will include four different elements:

• A physical place in the central library devoted to those who delight
in reading, listening to, and viewing stories
• The headquarters for a broad outreach program informing both chil-
dren and adults of the joys and insights they can find in stories and
the value of turning to the public library as a source of such stories
• The center for extensive and more sophisticated training for advisors
who work in the CFR space and throughout the system
• The locus of a research program focused on improving readers’ ad-
vising and outreach. Research activities will focus on readers, their
materials’ selection, and the value they obtain from their reading,
viewing, and listening experiences
Each of the following sections explores one CFR element.
The Center for the Reader As a Place
Space
The first requisite for a special place is adequate space. SLPL’s cur-
rent “popular library” occupies four thousand square feet. This unit ac-
counts for nearly 60 percent of the central library’s circulation.
The popular library has a very traditional appearance and feel. It is
dominated by seven-foot stacks in a room lined with five-foot-high bays
with shelves of popular books. Other display units hold videos along with
audio books. More floor space is needed to provide more face-out shelving,
a fully merchandised environment, and more seats.
The new Center for the Reader will double the floor space devoted to
popular books and other current-story formats. As presently calculated, this
space will be the library’s Great Hall, the most magnificent room in the
1912 Cass-Gilbert Italianate-palace building.
SLPL staff are thinking through how to create within this space a new
kind of reader/listener/viewer destination for the region. The underlying
conceptualization is a magnet store that will attract those who delight in
popular stories, their telling, and their discussion.
Materials
Library professionals already know that the well-organized abun-
dance of central and regional libraries generates disproportionately higher
circulation than well-stocked neighborhood and minibranches. Like re-
gion-serving grocery stores, or Barnes & Noble and Borders bookstores,
CFR will have an abundance of materials—multiple copies of thirty thou-

sand current popular book titles and ten thousand stories in video and audio
formats. This plentitude is based on three strategies:
• A healthy annual budget for popular materials. Nothing turns off a
library’s popular-materials users faster than a meager stock that does
not meet their expectations.
• Regular, deep weeding of dead stock occupying space that ought to
be filled with current titles. One of the great myths of popular-library
operations is that users cannot tell the difference between older and
newer stories and books. Every time SLPL staff weeds deeply, in-
cluding weeding that cuts the overall size of a unit’s collections, cir-
culation increases.
• Adjacent shelving of classic materials and last copies of recent but
still used materials. Although shelves of old books in popular librar-
ies do not pass customer muster, carefully selected shelves of liter-
ary criticism, older classic literature, and single copies of recent
popular materials circulate sufficiently to house them adjacent to
CFR. This location will add to CFR’s abundance and will encourage
users to expand their reading, listening, and viewing into related ar-
eas. SLPL’s central library last-copy and classic fiction holdings
consist of about eighty thousand items. These volumes remain under
a collection-development policy acknowledging that SLPL does not
provide research collections in popular materials of any kind.
Anticipatory thematic displays catering to customer

interests
Finding volumes by Alexander Kent, Lawrence Sanders, and Sinclair
Lewis on the same or different trips to big libraries and big bookstores illus-
trates a common and much-abused shelving rule (i.e., the fewer alphabets
and shelving topics, the better). Fiction and stories are generally not one
thing but many. Many of these deserve themed display in categories that
anticipate users.
One example is the Gütersloh (Germany) Public Library. For several
years the staff of this institution has followed a popular-book marketing
strategy that breaks out lots of kinds of story materials. These include both
books and videos by subjects such as “at the beach,” “your French vaca-
tion,” and “love and sex.” The mini-merchandising program is so popular
that regular library users have come to expect its continually refreshed de-
lights along with more traditional merchandising categories such as “war,”
“mystery,” and “romance.”
By and large, libraries—and large bookstores—do not lead in present-

ing their merchandise to their customers. For comparison, look at super-
markets with their hundreds of brand types and thousands of different
brands. Such stores give enormous attention to shelving and displays be-
cause they know that positioning influences purchases.
Some libraries have already learned this lesson. King County (WA),
Columbus (OH), Hennepin County (MN), and Charlotte-Mecklenburg
(NC) are all high-circulation library leaders that have pointed the way in
customizing the organization of their popular materials to meet user needs.
It is no accident, for example, that “for-rent” best-sellers are displayed just
inside the main entrance at Charlotte-Mecklenburg’s main library and
Hennepin County’s Ridgedale branch. Their shelving message is plain: The
hottest books used by the library’s best customers deserve the most conve-
nient shelving and display location.
Virtual tools and access

Who could conceptualize a Center for the Reader without computers
that allow patron-placed reserves of materials as well as access to NoveList,
the Rating Zone, and other materials-advisory products like them, and
Internet sites such as Barnesandnoble.com and Amazon.com?
CFR will acknowledge that virtual reference tools and virtual reading
experiences are now part of American life. Libraries should use them and
offer such services, including patron-placed reserves and interlibrary loans
(whether mediated or not). Furthermore, staff ought to be more skillful in
using these virtual tools than users are. After all, online information sites
have become standard tools in the readers’ advisory field.
CFR also has to be set up digitally so that it can provide stories when
e-books become a way of literary life, not just a developing trend. In the
near future, public libraries will buy “publication rights” to electronic
“books” and encourage their in-person and virtual users to download the
digitized text and pictures of the stories they want. CFR needs to be ready to
participate in this growing literary phenomenon.
A look and feel beyond the bookstore formula

When professional librarians compare the treatment of popular books
in big new bookstores and large libraries, bookstores usually win because
of their amenities. Subjects are easier to find, the seating is often more gen-
erous and comfortable, and pleasant smells drift out from the inevitable
latte bar.
Libraries can have a comfortable feel without emulating the sales-pro-

motional aspects of bookstores. The highest purpose in libraries, after all, is
still books and skilled staff who give personalized help. Here are some de-
sign tools:
• More seating in relation to shelves. Librarians nearly always try to
stuff too many books into too little space and/or they fail to weed
sufficiently, so that books eventually crowd out seating. Popular li-
braries ought to have an open look and feel with higher seat-
ing-to-shelf ratios and less stock storage than other parts of the
library.
• Good lighting can add texture to space as well as illuminate it. Task
and side lighting appropriate for reading needs to be a CFR feature.
Pleasant reading light is different from the lighting that illuminates
the bottom rows of packed, spine-out book shelves. Bounce-off-
the-ceiling lighting can provide appropriate stack illumination while
accent and color-corrected study and reading lighting can give CFR
comfortable reading, viewing, and listening lighting at a reasonable
price.
• This section ought to look nicer than any other library section. It
ought to delight those who use it. Furniture ought to be rearranged
periodically. New furniture and displays ought to be substituted for
older models on a frequent basis. In short, a library’s best customers
deserve high-quality design and fittings in the setting they use most.
• Electronic security makes it possible to create discrete (as opposed
to lumped together and noisy) reader settings. Too many popular
materials units look more like research-university reading rooms
than friendly reading and selection places. The two environments
should not look the same. Popular materials users do not need to be
subjected to an academic study hall environment.
• As SLPL’s cost-benefit analysis indicates, a well-trained, knowl-
edgeable, enthusiastic staff is critical to the success of CFR, even
when that staff consists of clerks, techs, and security officers. So
many bad experiences occur in libraries because security and service
staff are rooted to their places. The interrogative “May I help you
find something?” is more appreciated by users when they have just
entered and are not yet quite sure what question to ask or whom to
ask. A few libraries have already organized a mobile in-library staff
that moves about with cell phones. At SLPL, CFR staff are likely to
be the equivalent of the institution’s current homework helpers and
technology assistants. Like these two sets of employees, the story as-
sistants will provide one-on-one customization of service at a level
where the reader requires it. Librarians and bibliographers have an

important place in this setting. They are the brains of the operation.
They manage its service. They answer questions that are too hard for
others to handle. In these tasks they are part of the full expression of
the library’s customized-service culture.
CFR’s muted sound, differential lighting, and multiple activities will
send the message that the unit is a vital, ever-changing place; an explicitly
designed personal-entertainment center that deserves use; and a physical
setting that testifies to a continuing and dynamic relationship between li-
brary and user.
Focus on all forms of the story

The book-based story is the cheapest, most convenient, and easi-
est-to-read narrative format that currently exists. If the technology of infor-
mation and story dissemination holds true, however, the storybook format
and the way stories are told will continue to change as they have many pre-
vious times. In response to this recognition, CFR will be a multimedia facil-
ity. It will contain copies of stories and discussions of stories in audio,
video, CD, live TV, and videoconferencing formats. CFR will also recog-
nize that popular and/or important stories exist in music, including opera, as
related story forms.
Authors ranging from Alexander Dumas and Charles Dickens to Ste-
phen King and James Patterson have written stories that are the basis for
screenplays. And who can forget the powerful and entertaining stories con-
tained in the movie “Citizen Kane,” the comic operetta “The Pirates of
Penzance,” and the opera “Aida”? These stand beside a work such as
George Bernard Shaw’s “Pygmalion,” which has been retold as a movie
and portrayed over and over in stage plays. CFR, therefore, will be a place
to listen to, view, and read stories.
Cater to intergroup audiences

The Wizard of Oz and the Harry Potter novels cut across age, ethnic,
and racial lines. So, too, does the work of contemporary novelist Toni Mor-
rison, romance writer Danielle Steel, and mystery writer Mary Higgins
Clark. The CFR staff will be trained to recognize that old and young, Afri-
can-American and white, and old ethnic and new immigrant groups can all
enjoy the same stories as well as different ones. In some cases, this integra-
tion can involve both new adult readers and youngsters already recognized
as having reading problems. Part of the CFR style will be building relation-
ships with people from all these groups and among members of different
user groups.
Because they represent future customers, the most important part of

catering to intergroup audiences is to integrate youth and young adults into
the adult popular materials culture. Historically, in most large libraries, the
young adult section occupies an out-of-the-way alcove. Children of youn-
ger ages are even more segregated. The Center for the Reader will acknowl-
edge both groups by shelving youth and young adult collections in
prominent units that are adjacent to and/or part of CFR and will include
both groups in its programming mandate.
Organize readers’ discussion groups

SLPL focus groups show that readers want to talk about their read-
ing—with readers who read the same works, those who read the same kinds
of stories, and those who read different stories entirely. Library users also
want creative opportunities to discuss stories told in music and motion pic-
tures. CFR can satisfy all of these programming needs, building one-on-one
and group relationships by offering readers high-quality social/learning op-
portunities. One important way to build such relationships is through the
organization of reading discussion groups.
Volunteers will become an important part of this process, expanding
their role as storytellers, discussion leaders, and outreach visitors. Librar-
ians will undertake such tasks as well, but their time is limited because they
have to perform collection development, team coordination, and manage-
ment tasks.
Offer customized services

Shopping on the Web has made library users all the more conscious of
customized service. America Online and Amazon.com are just two com-
puter-based companies that offer customized consumer services. In the for-
mer, the online user volunteers various consumer interests and, in
exchange, receives AOL shopping opportunities and suggestions about
Web articles and information. Amazon.com offers shopping opportunities
on the basis of a profile of prior purchases. More customization is on the
way as computers become ever more capable of broadcasting person’s
needs to the marketplace and of filling out a user’s interest profile.
A Center for the Reader needs to customize its services. Personalized
advice about what to read, anticipatory selection against profiles that readers
have shared with libraries, and the bringing together of readers with similar
interests for story discussion are all examples of library customization.
Convenient pickup and delivery are additional tools for customiz-
ation. CFR will consider delivery options—even if they can be done only
with fees. These might include contract delivery by taxi or a firm such as
United Parcel Service. They might include the online delivery of the full
text or selected chapters of electronic publications to the library or to regu-
lar customers’ homes and offices. As the largest holder of materials for a li-
brary system, CFR will have to be part of an efficient delivery system.
Operate a computerized stock-management system

For the past decade, most retail stock-management systems have had
ordering and transference-between-location schemes built into their func-
tionality. Anyone who shops at a department store has watched as a sales-
clerk checks a stock item’s availability at other locations either by phone or
computer. Library stock management too often focuses only on a shelv-
ing-and-finding scheme, not on stock management.
A few years ago SLPL’s technology services staff devised a comput-
erized stock system that responds to multiple circulations of merchandised
popular videos, audiotapes, discs, and books by initiating a computerized
pull-item order at locations where the materials are not circulating. This
Auto Rotate system also creates a queue list that staff can use to order more
copies of very popular materials. In short, Auto Rotate manages a respon-
sive stock-replacement system that optimizes the use of each stock item and
gives library users an impression of greater abundance of material supplies
than that which usually exists without such a system in place. CFR needs to
have access to this sophisticated stock-management system.
Offer important public performances

Five years ago SLPL set out to build Friends’ memberships. Staff and
professional focus-group leaders asked current and potential Friends what
benefits would most attract them to library-support memberships. They an-
swered that lectures, photo opportunities, and book signings by well-
known authors would most attract them.
Out of that finding came an initiative for the development of the SLPL
Signature Series, talks and lectures by well-known writers, storytellers, and
actor-performers. For the past five years, the Signature Series has featured
performances by Toni Morrison, Mary Higgins Clark, Susan Sontag,
Baxter Black, Stephen Ambrose, David Halberstam, Robert Pinsky,
Gwendolyn Brooks, Rita Dove, and Danny Glover.
Events in the Signature Series have deepened the relationships be-
tween the library and its user-constituents. In focus groups, participants
talked about particular Signature Series performances as memorable indi-
vidual and/or family events.
Three generations of one family showed up to hear Mary Higgins
Clark, whose books often constitute the crossover between young adult and
adult reading, especially for young women. Stephen Ambrose was ac-
claimed by a different group who related his talk to their own amateur study
of local and regional history. Danny Glover’s reading of the poetry of Har-
lem renaissance writer Langston Hughes, accompanied by his associate Fe-
lix Justice’s delivery of one of Martin Luther King’s famous speeches, still
serves as a notable memory for many SLPL Friends.
The events also help gain adherents. Each author attracts a different
constituency. About half of the attendees have no previous relationship
with the library. Hence the Signature Series serves as a mechanism to at-
tract more Friends’ members—and new library cardholders as well.
Library Outreach
CFR special events, most notably the Signature Series, are one means
to promote the story, books, and library use. By their reputation, the speak-
ers add stature to the library’s reputation and often attract library users who
would not come otherwise. There are still more proactive mechanisms. As
they are conceptualizing CFR, staff members will organize both adults’ and
children’s outreach services housed in that unit. Here is an outline of sev-
eral strategies:
Partner with Those Who Promote

Reading and Stories
Public libraries will never have enough staff and volunteers to do all the
necessary outreach work. In this situation, partnerships are in order. In a city
like St. Louis, where resources are few and where schools lack school librar-
ies and most classrooms have too few computers, teacher-librarian partner-
ships deserve considerable effort. So do efforts to reach senior citizens.
• Materials are the basis for one important SLPL teacher-librarian
partnership. One strategy is to organize book boxes for caregivers in
day-care facilities as well as for parents with preschool children.
Each of the boxes provides more than a dozen books, activities, pup-
pets, and/or games on topics such as “telling time,” “visiting the doc-
tor,” and “African animals.”
• Another strategy is to organize book bags for teachers. In this part-
nership, teachers call the library and talk with staff about their con-
ceptualization of a unit they want to teach. Staff members gather a
book bag of twenty-five to forty books that the teachers can pick up
and use as a classroom collection for the teaching of the topic.
• A third strategy is to train teachers, caregivers, and parents in how to

prepare children to read and how to help them learn to read. The as-
sumption is that parents want their children to be successful, but
many are unsure of how and where to begin. Training in reading
readiness and how to teach reading helps children learn to read and
develops new and reinforces old relationships between the library
and those who care for children.
• Another materials-related outreach activity to be housed in CFR is a
seniors’ book-delivery program. Because so many seniors are low
literates, these circulations often involve low-literacy materials.
They also involve large print. In this program, seniors who other-
wise would lack access to books have them in abundance.
Friendly visitors
More than a century ago, settlement house founder Jane Addams de-
scribed the home and institutional outreach activities of her staff and volun-
teers as the domain of Hull House’s “friendly visitors.” SLPL also has
friendly visitors, and CFR will be the base of their activities.
• SLPL staff deliver materials and programs to more than two hundred
day-care centers each month.
• SLPL staff deliver materials and programs to more than a hundred
senior residences and nutrition sites each month.
• CFR will emphasize outreach to high school and college students
who, in some cases, lack both popular materials and reference help.
• In addition, CFR staff and volunteers will reach out with programs,
especially story telling, to new adult readers.
With Outreach and CFR staff working together, each aspect of out-
reach and customer service ought to be strengthened.
Readers Advisory Training

For five years now, it has been apparent that the library staff we have is
not the one we need. That perception is not a negative reflection on those
who are currently employed. Rather, it suggests the historical weakness of
SLPL’s library in-service education, a problem for many other library sys-
tems as well.
That weakness is especially apparent in readers’ advisory. Promoting
the enjoyment of stories has never been an easy library specialty. His-
torically, the responsibility for this specialty fell to those individual staff
members who read widely. These readers’ advisory stalwarts were left
pretty much to guide their replacements through enthusiasm for reading
and mentoring in the use of limited tools. At every library location, these
people’s ability to suggest a good book and to help readers select the next
best story became the foundation of much of a library’s reputation and the
source of many of its notable successes.
Libraries need to build on that tradition, but they also need to over-
come the weaknesses that are inherent in this often-idiosyncratic “star sys-
tem.” Without special training, many readers’ advisors often know well
only one genre of literature and have minimal or no knowledge of others.
Even if they were advising stars in the truest sense, a weakness still exists in
the readers’ advisory system. What advising strategies did staff use on days
or evenings when that specialist was not on site? How did readers’ advisory
experts pass on their knowledge to their peers and successors? And how did
any readers’ advisor come to know the process by which to determine what
help readers really needed and whether the staff had actually helped the
customer?
Without good answers to questions like these, the need to train quality
readers’ advisory staff becomes central to promoting and sustaining inter-
est in all forms of the story. These questions took on paramount importance
in planning for the Center for the Reader.
For this reason SLPL became a partner with NoveList in the develop-
ment of a formal curriculum that could help train readers’ advisors and
thereby to help provide an outstanding experience for CFR visitors. Out of
this partnership has come the pilot curriculum for “Readers’ Advisory
101.” This course already has been piloted, and its authors are currently re-
vising it.
The new multiunit curriculum now available from EBSCO lays out
systematic strategies involved in the readers’ advisory process, explores the
reasons people read, helps staff understand the role of readers’ advisory,
and develops techniques for effectiveness in the readers’ advisory transac-
tion. In addition, there is training in content—how people can build their
knowledge in fiction without reading every book and how staff can help us-
ers help themselves in selecting materials.
This training also suggests how readers’ advisors may use new elec-
tronic tools to improve their advising. These include new general readers’
advisory tools such as the well-known NoveList and categorical tools such
as Soon’s historical fiction site (URL: http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~soon/
histfiction/ [accessed January 28, 2001]) or AOL’s science fiction site. For
those whose readers have more esoteric tastes there is often intriguing in-
formation and customized publication and delivery at iUniverse.com
(URL: http://www.iuniverse.com/ [accessed January 28, 2001]). Such
tools—and dozens of others—support advisers’ efforts to find the next
book or story. Moreover, networked computer users have begun to use

electronic tools, and they expect library staff to use the tools in sophisti-
cated ways to improve their personal reading experience.
One other reason exists for adding a heavy readers’ advisory training
component to CFR operations. To cope with the general staff shortage in
the knowledge sector, including the library profession, training has become
an imperative. In the process, staff will have more opportunity for upward
mobility while remaining librarians.
Applied Research in the

Center for the Reader
In developing the SLPL/EBSCO-NoveList readers’ advisory curricu-
lum, the authors, Sterling Hayden, director of training at the St. Louis Pub-
lic Library, and Duncan Smith, relied on Smith’s experiences as a readers’
advisor and a readers’ advisory trainer at SLPL. Even before this curricu-
lum-development project, SLPL staff recognized that they could provide
better training if they knew more about how library patrons select and use
popular books and stories and the role library staff readers’ advisers play in
helping with and/or affirming selections and use.
Research on fiction readers and library users is therefore on the CFR
agenda. The following outline agenda expresses the purposes of and strate-
gies for this research. In considering the agenda, remember that this re-
search will focus on the library’s best user-customers, its core readers who
contribute the most absolute and relative circulations to a library’s bottom
line.
CFR research will explore general patterns of reading behavior and ef-
fective readers’ advisory techniques by which knowledge of these patterns
can help improve readers’ advisory. Here are the topics we intend to explore:
Topic 1. How readers measure their selection successes and failures.
Do readers who select by browsing do so because they enjoy the pro-
cess or because they know no better way to get what they want?
Topic 2. How story selection changes throughout people’s lives. How
much do changing age, transformation of family structure, and shifts
in economic circumstance affect what people select to read? Examples
of questions are as follows:
• Are there discernible life cycles in the adult reading habit for reg-
ular readers? How do reading selections change with life cycles?
• Are the reading habits and the reading life cycles of Cauca-
sians, African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians different?
Recreational selections are quite different. How different are
their reading habits?
• How do reading selections change with the rhythms of life such
as family stress, vacations, or traveling?
• Do shifts in economic circumstances produce short-term or
long-term shifts in story selection?
• What are the special reading and readers’ advisory needs of
new adult readers?
Topic 3. How child-to-adult reading patterns change. Among all the
age issues, the transition from child to adult reading is one of the most
important for library professionals and for the future of libraries. In
that transition readers take the first steps of their lifelong reading hab-
its. It is then as well that they consider their relationships with libraries
and librarians. Some become lifelong readers. Others never volun-
tarily enter a library again.
• What are the most important factors affecting that transition?
• Why do many children turn away from reading as young adults
and adults while others become even more avid readers?
Topic 4. How libraries turn on and turn off their best customers.
• What are the factors in retaining user loyalty and the ways that
library staff/user transactions develop into rich and stable rela-
tionships?
• What roles do friendliness, openness, content knowledge, age
similarity, and so on play in user perception of successful read-
ers’ advisory?
Topic 5. Reading patterns.
• Are there discernible reading patterns? How do they change?
What factors do readers think cause their reading patterns to
change?
• Test this hypothesis: The reading population can be distributed
into three general categories—those who are content based,
those who are style based, and those who are some combination
of these two. In his readers’ advisory training materials,
Duncan Smith suggests this general division between those
who read for content (what is happening in the actions of the
characters and the character of the narration) and those who
read for style (enjoyment because of the structure and sequence

of plot and the predictability of principal characters in series).
• If there are discernible reader categories, do they require the
same readers’ advisory strategies or different ones?
• Assess models for making those judgments.
Topic 6. Effectiveness of virtual advisory tools.
• Of what help to which readers are virtual readers’ selection
tools such as Alexandria (URL: http://www.alexlit.com/ [ac-
cessed December 27, 2000]), reader-submitted reviews like
those found at Amazon.com, and reader-interest profiling tools
such as NoveList (URL: http://novelist.epnet.com [accessed
December 27, 2000])?
• How can NoveList and other virtual reference products be im-
proved to make them even better as self-help readers’ advisory
tools by which readers can help themselves find “the next best
book”?
Topic 7. Development and measurement of the effectiveness of read-
ers’ advisory training protocols.
• CFR will provide a test bed for testing and refining different
readers’ advisory training-for-service models.
• CFR will assess the portability of training-model protocols.
A whole range of research techniques exists for studying readers’ ad-
visory and the reading experience. SLPL has already had success with the
audio- or videotaping of focus groups and individual readers’ advisor/user
interactions. Telephone and written surveys also provide an abundance of in-
formation. More complicated are techniques such as readers’ diaries of their
readings and analysis (with permission) of borrower records, including
self-analysis of checkout patterns. A single library cannot conduct all of these
activities. Partnerships between academic researchers and libraries offer the
best possibility for conducting large portions of this research agenda.
Conclusions
The successful library of the future, like the business of the future, will
be built on relationships. The SLPL Center for the Reader is one tool for
building and sustaining relationships with a library’s best customers.
That is true no matter whether the activity is developing a design for a
better library-reading-and-advising environment, training staff to provide
high levels of service in the library environment, or conducting research

that provides the basis for improved service to users.
These are exciting times, as books become e-books, as family struc-
tures creak at the pressures they bear, and as stories keep appearing in new
forms and formats. Amid these shifting sands, the library’s best pathway is
clear-headed adaptation to meet the story and reading needs of the institu-
tion’s most consistent customer base. One such response is SLPL’s Center
for the Reader.
References
Bailyn, Lotte. 1993. Breaking the Mold: Women, Men, and Time in the New
Corporate World. New York: Free Press.
Benton, Peter. 1995. Conflicting Cultures: Reflections on the Reading and
Viewing of Secondary School Pupils. Oxford Review of Education 21
(December): 457–71.
Dolliver, Mark. 1999. Computers as Menace to the Youth of America.
Adweek (Eastern edition) 40 (November 15): 33ff.
Eheart, Brenda Krause, and Martha Bauman Power. 1995. Adoption: Un-
derstanding the Past, Present, and Future Through Stories. Sociologi-
cal Quarterly 36 (Winter): 197–216.
Engram, Sara. 1997. Good Stories Make Hope Possible. Nieman Reports
51 (Fall): 40–41.
Henry, Julie. 2000. Boys Drop Books in Favour of Computers and TV. Ed-
ucational Supplement 4388 (August 4): 7ff.
Pencavel, John. 1998. The Market Work Behavior and Wages of Women.
Journal of Human Resources 33 (Fall): 771–805.
Sheldon, Beth Anne. 1992. Women, Men and Time: Gender Differences in
Paid Work, Housework and Leisure. Westport, CT: Greenwood.
Simpson, Timothy A. 2000. Streets, Sidewalks, Stores, and Stories. Jour-
nal of Contemporary Ethnography 29 (December): 682–717.
Starling, Kelly. 1999. Career Moms. Ebony 54 (July): 52–56.
Conclusions: Readers’ Advisory
Services Today and Tomorrow
Reading for pleasure is an extraordinary activ-

ity. The black squiggles on the white page are still as
the grave, colorless as the moonlight desert; but
they give the skilled reader a pleasure as acute as
the touch of a loved body, as rousing, colorful, and
transfiguring as anything out there in the real world.
And yet, the more stirring the book, the quieter the
reader; pleasure reading breeds a concentration so
effortless that the reader of fiction (transported by the
book to some other place and shielded by it from dis-
tractions), who is so often reviled as an escapist and
denounced as the victim of a vice as pernicious as
tippling in the morning should instead be the envy of
every student and every teacher.
Victor Nell (1988, 1)
Renewed Emphasis on Reading for Pleasure

There is a confluence of streams of events that shape a river of promise
for school and public librarians. Alone, each stream would encourage li-
brarians to pay more attention to the role of reading for pleasure in the lives
of their clients. Together they have the power to transform and reinvigorate
library services. These streams are as follows:
• Bookstore chains, such as Barnes & Noble, have shaped themselves
into inviting spaces offering easy browsing, comfortable reading,
good coffee, story hours, and author events. Librarians recognize
that libraries have competition and that they must compete success-
fully or lose their dominance in a market long their own.
287
288 Conclusions: Readers’ Advisory Services Today and Tomorrow
• In the past decade, librarians have placed more attention on recre-

ational fiction, especially genre fiction, in popular collections.
• During the past decade, the Public Library Association, the Refer-
ence and User Services Association, and state library associations
have offered conference programs and workshops on readers’ advi-
sory and have performed committee work related to it.
• Publishers have seen that guidance to fiction reading is in need of
new tools that move beyond standards such as Fiction Catalog and
The Readers’ Adviser to Genreflecting, What Do I Read Next?
Multicultural Literature, New Press Guide to Multicultural Re-
sources for Young Readers, and Diversity and Detective Fiction. An
explosion of publishing of advisory tools has occurred.
• The St. Louis Public Library has created a new concept in library
service, the Center for the Reader, devoted to pleasure reading, lis-
tening, and viewing. Many public libraries are creating spaces de-
voted to pleasure reading and clearly distinct from the library’s
informational services.
• Research into reading and readers—providing a basis for readers’
advisory services—is being conducted both within the profession
and in many other fields. The opportunities for true interdisciplinary
work are growing.
• Researchers are observing and evaluating the degree of success or,
more correctly, the degree of failure with which public libraries de-
liver advisory services . Knowing that they often do the job poorly
has provided clear evidence that improvement is needed. This
knowledge is a powerful motivator for positive change.
• Continuing education for readers’ advisory work has increased dra-
matically in the past decade.
• Search engines help alleviate the memory overload characteristic in guid-
ing readers to the next book. NoveList and Amazon.com, among others,
have reinvigorated the way in which advisors interact with clients when
discussing books and offering suggestions for further reading.
• Listservs such as Fiction_L and Dorothy_L have created virtual
communities of librarians, authors, and readers devoted to sharing
information on general fiction, mysteries, and so on.
• The gap in graduate professional education for readers’ advisory, in-
cluding building popular collections, has been forcefully noted and
documented. The curricular implications of this deficit and the cre-
ation of new courses are receiving new attention.
Conclusions: Readers’ Advisory Services Today and Tomorrow 289
• Professional journals such as Booklist now routinely feature genre

fiction, including romance novels and inspirational fiction that
would have gone unnoted earlier.
All of these developments trend in the same direction for librarians: a
new emphasis on helping clients who seek to live fully and well, making the
most of leisure and enhancing their quality of life. That confluence of
trends is the impulse behind the Readers’ Advisor’s Companion. The trends
are representative of the most recent version of what Nell calls “story hun-
ger, the appetite that drove our ancestors to listen, rapt, to tribal storytellers,
and that drives us today to theaters, and television shows, to libraries and
newsstands” (Nell 1988, 3).
But what can we learn from the preceding chapters? What should we
conclude as we reflect on the findings? What are the implications for public
and school libraries, professional degree programs, and the research agenda
that the field ought to pursue?
Just Because Something Is Fun

Doesnt Mean It Isnt Serious
We now know that there are widespread weaknesses in graduate education
for readers’ advisory services and their delivery. Wiegand sounded a clarion call
to the field to base much of its practice on the knowledge base of reading studies.
If professional education programs followed his advice, much of the observed
weakness in practice would be diminished. It is not a choice between the Internet
or readers’ advisory; rather, we must choose to provide both on an equal footing
in all libraries serving K–12 students and the general public.
Knowing of Wiegand’s and others’ view that professional educators
were not fulfilling the charge to prepare librarians to work with readers’ ad-
visory services, Shearer and Burgin surveyed offerings in library and infor-
mation science graduate programs accredited by the American Library
Association. The survey showed a serious neglect of readers’ advisory and
popular media even though fiction, alone among all pleasure reading, con-
stitutes 60–70 percent of public library print circulation. Some graduate
programs in library and information studies pay almost no attention any-
where in the curriculum to popular material collections and the promotion
of their use. The remainder of the schools include some aspects. But some
schools place most of the curricular attention on readers’ advisory topics
exclusively in their core; other schools place the topics only in electives.
Both strategies leave much to be desired. Both the identification of interdis-
ciplinary knowledge about reading by Wiegand and the course that
Crowley developed—the outline appends his chapter—can help other edu-
cators teach readers’ advisory services at the graduate level.
We have seen that it is not only education for readers’ advisory that is
inadequate. May shows us that public librarians usually fail in assisting the
adult pleasure reader. Staff not infrequently treat the client asking for assis-
tance with reluctance, disdain, or outright annoyance. May discovered that
staff overlook the useful new readers’ advisory tools, the Web sites are de-
ficient with respect to pleasure reading, and a widespread absence of good
customer service exists. Her work indicates that the deficiencies noted in
earlier research are not isolated to one region of the country. Unobtrusive
study of reference services long ago showed problems in pinpointing cli-
ents’ information needs and in responding to them accurately. Similar tech-
niques focusing on readers’ advisory today uncover even grimmer
evidence of unprofessional service patterns.
The situation in school media centers seems to be better. Doll notes
that advisory services in school media centers are just as necessary and de-
manding as those in public libraries. She identifies a wealth of tools to assist
the advisor and, like Saricks, urges advisors to talk with students about their
enjoyment of books. It would be valuable to use unobtrusive observation
techniques to see whether readers’ advisory work for children in school me-
dia centers is generally performed at a higher level than advisory work for
adults in public libraries. A study of readers’ advisory service to young peo-
ple in public libraries did provide some evidence that children’s service li-
brarians in North Carolina perform at a higher, although still unsatisfactory,
level than do adult service librarians (Bracy 1996).
It is clear then that the field needs to improve readers’ advisory prac-
tices at the building level. For that reason much of this book has focused on
models of excellent readers’ advisory practice. Saricks not only notes some
of the best tools available, but she also shows how to integrate them into
practice. Some readers, she notes, want to have direct assistance, but all can
benefit from placing tools in proximity of use, such as locating those for
mystery or science fiction or horror on or near the shelves devoted to them.
In her recommendations we find the promise of creating an environment
that promotes the value of reading for pleasure and encourages the discus-
sion of the enjoyment of books.
The Internet’s influence is felt in many chapters. Johnson writes on the
“global conversation” about books, reading, and authors. Just as traditional
business corporations are proving to be very successful in increasing their
markets by using dot-com-type techniques, librarians are finding that the
Internet leverages the traditional strengths of encouraging good reading.
Libraries offer nonstop online access to the catalog; Web sites highlight
reading suggestions; links appear to readers’ advisory resources; annotated
lists help browsers limit their searches; and young adults share their book
enthusiasms with others on Web sites or in publications.
It is not only by working with individual readers that we promote plea-

sure reading. Armstrong’s chapter calls to mind an ideal library with many
active reading groups, author talks, and other celebrations of creative writ-
ing. Her library would offer easy browsing of genre fiction, bookmarks
highlighting readers’ advisory services and programs, and engaging dis-
plays. It would be an environment that subtly encourages readers to find
books suited to their needs. If you ever visit a superb independent bookstore
such as the Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle or Mystery Books in
Washington, D.C., you will quickly see how far most librarians need to go
to create spaces that are conducive to making books irresistible.
The theme of using the strengths of automation to solve the thorny
problems of delivering professional readers’ advisory service is central to
Smith’s concerns. He is the founder of NoveList and believes that the field
needs to study exemplars of advisory service provision (i.e., librarians such
as Joyce Saricks) as they work with readers. The point is to develop algo-
rithms that others can use in conjunction with computers. His ideas point to
research in the areas that Wiegand believes we should stress in library edu-
cation programs—reading and readers—and offer the hope of development
of new, software-based tools to make readers’ advisor practice and training
more effective.
Everything done in readers’ advisory finally rests on people enjoying
the reading process. Ross and Sturm offer two very different ways to under-
stand what goes on in the reading process. Ross starts with pleasure readers
themselves. She interviews them to gain insights into the experience of
reading and ways to facilitate it. Her work leads to the most elaborate analy-
sis I have ever seen of what appeals to readers in the books they read. She
identifies twenty-six characteristics of reading appeal (e.g., fast or slow
paced, sexually explicit or genteel, conversational or descriptive, etc.).
These, she observes, are worth keeping in mind when narrowing the field
for the next book that might interest a reader.
This approach is a little like the game of Twenty Questions. Using di-
agnostic questions, the advisor narrows the set of books that will likely
please the reader. One result of reflection on Ross’s findings is that they
help you to focus on the experience of reading and to identify individual
preferences. You can practice by analyzing your own reactions to books
that delight you and those that, unexpectedly, proved disappointing.
Sturm, taking an approach completely different from Ross’s, dis-
cusses both the way we first learn to read and the later stages of reading for
pleasure. His interest is in knowing the nature of the trancelike state we fall
into when reading or that enjoyed by a child listening to a storyteller. Re-
searchers, he notes, have uncovered evidence that the tedious and difficult
job of learning to decode text takes place in a different part of the reader’s
brain from the effortless act of pleasure reading or listening to a story being
read aloud. But beginning readers have so many skills to master before they
can readily enter the trancelike state of the pleasure reader. Ross has written
in a prize-winning study that “[e]xperienced readers find reading so easy
and natural that it takes an effort of the imagination to bring to mind the
problems that face apprentice readers as they confront long fictional narra-
tives” (Ross 1995, 228). It is an effort of the imagination that all librarians
must make over and over again as they practice their craft. Ross writes in
the same study that “[I]t now appears that a reader learns to read, not by
drills and exercises, but by reading a lot of text that is meaningful and per-
sonally rewarding” (ibid., 232).
Thinking about the work of these investigators, we may anticipate a
time when brain researchers and library scientists collaborate on research
into reading mastery using EEGs and PET scans. One result may be
mappings of the regions of the brain and an understanding of how to hasten
the transition from tedious work to pleasurable reading, a transition that
many never make. One can speculate that in the future librarians will have
means to assist people at various stages of accomplishment to become more
adept readers. Even now it is seems clear that librarians can, through strate-
gies such as story hours and books-on-tape, motivate beginning readers by
demonstrating the pleasure they will be able to enjoy if they make the effort
to master the necessary skills. Another conclusion is that encouraging plea-
sure reading is a socially useful endeavor.
Once people develop the complex skills they use in pleasure reading,
then librarians must encourage them to exercise those skills regularly. We
call ours the Information Economy; in this economy, well-honed reading
skills are very valuable. Fortunately, librarians place over one billion books
in Americans’ hands each year. Both adult and juvenile circulation in pub-
lic libraries has been trending upward over the past decade, with only minor
dips occasionally along the way.1
The most difficult age group to interest in reading books is undoubt-
edly teenagers. The task of motivating them to read has never been more
daunting than it is now. Benedetti offers many techniques to catch young
peoples’ attention. Her eight steps in talking with them about books provide
a process to use with teens. Using a warm, personal approach and employ-
ing newer technologies offer promise. Paying attention to aggressive mar-
keting techniques is emphasized. E-books, movie and television tie-ins, and
superstar associations with reading are other means that may tempt teens to
develop the library habit.
Increasing the lure of books for teens is one way to increase library ef-
fectiveness. For readers’ advisory to be fully effective, librarians must look
at their attitudes toward the reading of books they themselves would not
read and do not value. In the preface is a quote from Margaret Atwood that
contains a message for the librarian, “Just because something is fun doesn’t
mean it isn’t serious.” We’ve all known librarians who look down on plea-
sure reading unless it involves books that have been deemed “literature.”
The Australian psychologist Victor Nell observes that the pleasure reader is
often reviled as an escapist. Librarians must examine the reasons for such
negative attitudes—–most librarians themselves read for pleasure and
should be leading the parade of those who celebrate its rewards. This nation
spends billions of dollars in its schools teaching children to read and de-
votes untold hours to showing them that reading can be one of the great
pleasures of life. It is schizophrenic of society or anyone on the library staff
to suggest that there is less value in spending time on pleasure reading than
on answering informational questions.
Centering on the Client

In addition to practicing readers’ advisory techniques with fiction, ad-
visors’ ought to include print nonfiction and audiovisual materials as part of
their domain. Nonfiction, Burgin shows us, is very often just like fiction
from the point of view of the reading experience. Nell agrees: “Nor does
narrative nonfiction (travel, biography) seem to be in any way distinct from
fiction in the effects it produces on the reader” (Nell 1988, 2). If you have
read McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes, Mayle’s A Year in Provence, Heyerdahl’s
Kon-Tiki, or McCollough’s The Johnstown Flood, then you will need no
further evidence that the power to sweep readers into another place and
time is not a characteristic unique to fiction.
And just as nonfiction has the power to enthrall the reader, storytellers
and dramatists have exhibited that power for millennia. Schools and public
libraries have long capitalized on this fact by instituting story hours, puppet
shows, and author readings. The number of people who can benefit from
any one these events is limited, and the per capita costs are relatively high.
Fortunately, both books-on-tape and videos allow librarians to extend the
presentation of stories to every client. Pitman relates how he encountered
the reality of client needs when he launched a Web-based supplement to the
journal Video Librarian Online. The first inquiry he received was not the
scholarly request he expected but instead came from a twelve-year-old who
needed some good film suggestions for her slumber party. This is a perfect
example of how advisors can meet people’s real-life needs. Another exam-
ple might involve a commuter facing ever longer and more boring com-
mutes. A plentiful and regularly refreshed supply of suitable books-on-tape
can transform that taxpayer’s chore into a pleasure.
Audiovisual materials can add depth and richness to learning while
also teaching many listeners how to become more effective readers. Lis-
tening to dramas brings them vividly to life; novels that actors read can
have a powerful emotional effect. Americans love movies; videos allow
librarians to collect on film all kinds of stories once found only in books.
For those who have never successfully mastered the skills necessary to en-
ter the trance of pleasure reading, this is the best way to satisfy their hunger
for stories.
As Pitman notes, understanding Martin Luther King’s “I Have a
Dream” speech is not really possible from reading it on a printed page; we
must hear it. Imagine for a moment what it might do for our historical un-
derstanding to hear, or better, to see on video Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Ad-
dress” or Christ’s “Sermon on the Mount.” The utilization of audiovisual
materials in libraries has vast potential.
But even if librarians expand the scope of readers’ advisory service to
nonfiction, audio and video, they still will not have completed the vision set
out here. There are new audiences that have been neglected and new publi-
cations that can be assembled and promoted to them. The multiethnic, multi-
cultural population in the United States is becoming more evident every
day. Although it is clear that much has been done, much work still remains
to offer African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans,
among others, the level or depth of collecting and service that is more com-
monly available to middle-class white people in American libraries.
Van Fleet and Dawson make it clear that books for pleasure addressed
to these audiences are being written and published, and the techniques to
extend readers’ advisory to all are at hand. There are major implications for
collection development, client relations, and professional education. The
lessons from adapting collections and services to different ethnic groups
also apply to others in society who have a set of shared concerns and cul-
ture. Gays, lesbians, Christian conservatives, and homeschoolers come im-
mediately to mind. It has been found that many libraries do not purchase the
American Library Association’s gay, lesbian, and bisexual book award fi-
nalists at the rate they provide other award books (Loverich and Degnan
1999). Librarians often treat inspirational fiction, which regularly features
the values of Christian conservatives, as a genre not worth shelf space.
They often treat romance fiction aimed at heterosexual women similarly.
Centering on the client is not, of course, centering on a presumed so-
cial norm or an agenda determined by librarians’ values. Centering on the
client is a healthy extension of the tradition of representing all sides of is-
sues and promoting the freedom to read. Nell writes, “Books are the dreams
we would most like to have, and like dreams, they have the power to change
consciousness, turning sadness into laughter and anxious introspection to
the relaxed contemplation of some other time and place” (Nell 1988, 2).
The advisor in a public or school library works with unique clients and at-
tempts to provide the right stories for them, not for someone else. The li-
brarian must respect their freedom to dream their own dreams.
The last chapter in the book brings together everything that precedes
it. Holt provides a concept of a new kind of popular library. Duncan Smith
has been working with the staff at St. Louis Public Library to bring it into
being. It is a Center for the Reader that collects not just books but also au-
dio- and video-formatted stories. It supports the enjoyment of reading, lis-
tening, and viewing for pleasure, and its staff members are devoted to the work
of advisory service, the generic version of readers’ advisory. Continuing edu-
cation to deepen and perfect advisory practice is built into the system. It is a
bold new concept that captures our imagination. After it has been operation for
several years, impartial researchers should study its effectiveness.
Holt’s vision may be a wave of the future in large public library systems,
but most of them will not have funds for any new branches in the foresee-
able future. And, in any case, advisory services belong in every school and
public library. It would be most unfortunate if a few centers for readers
cleared the way for all other branch libraries to become Internet and reference
centers exclusively. For librarians, the issue is to highlight both information
service and advisory service. Librarians should evaluate and widely discuss
various arrangements of library space that are intended to support this dual
mission. Combining these two major and very different aspects of service is a
challenge for every library that provides both. It is difficult to market and to
arrange systems that offer different kinds of services and products.
Holt and his staff are to be commended for having the foresight to rec-
ognize that new technologies and new demographics dictate creative new
approaches to the delivery of traditional library services. Let’s free up our
minds to invent a future that supports the imaginative lives of people as well
as their intellectual needs.
At present, advisory services in libraries show new energy, imagina-
tion, and vitality. They are also far too often a pale shadow of their promise.
We need to improve graduate education programs for readers’ advisors.
The readers of this book have an opportunity to bring about a splendid
change in libraries, thus creating an opportunity to delight and inspire peo-
ple. To bring it to fruition will involve knuckling down to having serious
fun, working with interesting people, and spending lots of time reading for
pleasure. But somebody has to do it.
—K.D.S
Note
1. By multiplying the nation’s population rounded to 280 million by the
1999 figure of six circulations per capita, we arrive at approximately
1.8 billion books circulated from public libraries during 1999. Al-
though this is merely an estimate, it provides an on-the-order-of fig-
ure worth publicizing widely (Wright 2000).
References
Bracy, Pauletta Brown. 1996. The Nature of the Readers’ Advisory Trans-
action in Children’s and Young Adult Reading. In Guiding the Reader
to the Next Book, ed. Kenneth Shearer, 21–43. New York:
Neal-Schuman.
Loverich, Patricia, and Darrah Degnan. 1999. Out on Our Shelves? Not
Really. Library Journal 124 (June 15): 55.
Nell, Victor. 1988. Lost in a Book: The Psychology of Reading for Plea-
sure. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Ross, Catherine Sheldrick. 1995. If They Read Nancy Drew, So What?: Se-
ries Book Readers Talk Back. Library and Information Science Re-
search 17, no. 3: 201–36.
Wright, Lisa A. 2000. Public Library Circ Down 1% Again as Spending
Continues to Rise. American Libraries 31 (October): 64.
INDEX
academic culture, 35–40 AV

access points, 225–26 collections, 233, 235–36
adolescents materials, 293–94
favor the familiar, 240 resources, 232, 233–34
popular titles, 241–42 awards in RA, 39
reading, 292–93
Adult Readers’ Advisory in the Barnes & Noble, 221–22, 244–45
Curriculum (survey) Benton, Michael, 109
questionnaire, 18 BET Books, 255
response rate, 18 bibliographic documents, 223
responses, 19–23 bibliographies, 203
ALA Library Bill of Rights, 10 creating, 158
ALISE and readers’ advisory, 16–17 general, 159–60
All Movie Guide, 230–31 special, 160–61
Amazon.com, 71, 220–21, 224, book selection, 84–87
244–45 by author, 86
American History Curriculum Video effect of recommendations,
Database, 234 95–96
American Indian. See Native “Perfect Book”, 87–89
American literature physical factors, 87
American Library Association. See reader’s mood, 86
ALA Library Bill of Rights book clubs, 157, 185–86, 199, 277
American society and multicultural book review sites, 245–46
literature, 262–63 booklists, 182–84, 203, 241, 245
appeal of books bookmarks, 182–84
kinds, 216 books
nonfiction, 218–19 history, 270
stories, 67–68 story culture, 271
Association for Library and bookstores, 287. See also
Information Science Amazon.com; Barnes &
Association. See ALISE and Noble
readers’ advisory booktalks, 155–56, 241
audiovisual. See AV Brown, Nancy, 67
author budgeting. See cost-benefit
resources, 199–200, 204 analyses
visits, 156–57, 187–88
297
298 Index
careers in RA quality judgments, 38–39

academic libraries, 29 cultural information and reading, 11
public libraries, 28 cultural studies in readers’ advisory, 9
school media centers, 28–29 culture and reading, 270–71
Carnegie Corporation, 10–11
Center for the History of Print designing RA services, 70–71
Culture in Modern America, 8 digital video disc. See DVD versus
Center for the Reader (CFR), 69, videotape
271–79 discussion groups, 157, 185–86, 199,
atmosphere, 274–76 277
audiences, 276 displays, 181–82, 203, 273–74
custom services, 277–78 Dominican University, 27–58
discussion groups, 277 DorothyL, 195
displays, 273–74 DVD versus videotape, 234
and electronic resources, 274
focus, 276 education for RA
lighting, 275 in core courses, 21–22
management, 278 course development, 33–35
materials, 272–73 course presentation, 34–35
outreach, 279–80 current practices, 60
partnerships, 279–80 developing RA courses, 31–32
performers, 278–79 in elective courses, 22
research, 282–84 initiating a new course, 30–31
seating, 275 questions, 170–71
security, 275 Readers Advisory 101, 281
space, 272 reasons for minimizing, 40–42
staffing, 275–76 research methodology, 62–63
children and RA, 277 syllabus (Dominican University),
children’s reading and parents, 243 45–58
circulation statistics, 240 training, 280–82
civil rights movements, 251–52 electronic resources, 161–62,
client-centered RA, 293–95 244–46, 274
Collections authors, 199–200
development, 202–3, 205. See and collection development,
also Library Company of 202–3, 205
Philadelphia librarians’ questions, 192
displaying, 240–41 mailing lists, 194–97
computers in libraries, 11 media, 198
consciousness, theories of, 100–101 networking, 198
cost-benefit analyses, 271 publishers, 200–202
Crowley, Bill reviews, 204
biography, 29–31 treasure hunts, 197–98
personal worth of patrons, 39 Usenet, 193–94
Index 299
using, 204–205 Johnson, Roberta S., 33

web sites, 193
evaluating RA, 126–27 Latino mysteries, 255–56. See also
multicultural literature
faculty reward system, 40 laws of librarianship, 189
faculty who teach RA, 23 leisure reading, significance, 78–79
Fiction_L, 16, 196 librarians. See also paraprofessionals
finance. See cost-benefit analyses attitude to AV, 232–33
Findlay-Hancock County Public models of RA, 69–70
Library (Ohio), 233 roles, 63, 64–65
future RA services, 260–62 YA, 237–38
libraries
genres, 82–83 and bookstores, 240–41
and multicultural literature, 252–53 improving, 224
nonfiction, 215 opinions about, 13
and readers, 81–82 purpose, 12
Gerrig, Richard, 109–10 using, 12–13, 80–81
Gers and Seward study, 62–63, 65 library administration, 189
Goals of RA, 124 library and information science. See LIS
Grisham, John, as example of RA, Library Company of Philadelphia, 10
64–65 library science
guides, discussion, 200–202 status within LIS, 35–36, 36–37
versus information science, 30–31
history of RA LIS
Hurston, Zora Neale, 46 Benton Study, 12
hypnosis, 111 changes in, 12, 40
faculty selection, 37
identity, as theme of multicultural importance of librarianship, 31
literature, 252–53 and reading, 161
IMDB, 231 readers’ advisory, 9–13, 18, 67,
Indian. See Native American 289–98
literature and reading, 13–14
information recent developments, 12
culture, 13–14 research requirements, 34
definition, 11 student knowledge, 14
information science versus library Listserv. See mailing lists
science, 30–31 literary criticism of genre books, 82
initiating RA services, 69–70 literature about readers’ advisory, 8
Internet
using, 73–74, 192–93 mailing lists, 194–97, 231
and YAs, 245 media centers
Internet Movie Database. See IMDB purposes, 149
interviews. See transactions, RA RA, 290
300 Index
media specialists and public nonfiction RA

librarians, 152 nontraditional tools, 220–22
minimizing RA, 36, 38–40 traditional tools, 219–20
Minnesota readers’ advisory North Carolina Central University
manual, 65–66 study, 60–61
minorities. See multicultural NoveList, 73–74. See also resources,
literature electronic; resources, web
models pages
RA, 69–70
stories, 109 online RA services, 244–46
movies. See AV outreach, 241–42, 279–80
multicultural literature, 294. See also
Latino mysteries; Native paperback books, 188–89
American literature paraprofessionals, 16
and American society, 262–63 parents and children’s reading, 243
as business, 258–59 patrons
and civil rights, 251 benefits, 271
definitions, 250–51 language, 67
effect on genres, 253, 255–56 needs, 8
history, 252–53 questions, 60, 170–73
identity as theme, 252–53 responsibilities, 223
and publishing, 256–60 personal style and YAs, 243
RA resources, 259–60 PLA, 16
themes, 252–53 popular titles and RA, 241–42
trends, 251–56 practicing RA
author visits, 156–57
Nassau County Public Library study, bibliographies, 158
62–63, 125–27 book clubs, 157
findings, 134–45 booklists and bookmarks, 182–84
methodology, 126 booktalks, 155–56
sample library worksheet, 129–33 displays, 181–82
script for researchers, 127–28 indirect RA, 180–82
suggested authors, 142–43 individual assistance, 158–59
suggested titles, 138–42 purpose of, 123
Native American literature, 252 readers’ theater, 154–55
networking, 198 reading aloud, 152–53
nonfiction status of, 59–60
entertainment, 216–19 storytelling, 153–54
genres, 215 tools, 225
RA, 222–26 Princess Bride, The (movie), 100
readers, 214–15 problems in RA, 124
similarities to fiction, 215–19 programs, adult, 185–88
Index 301
public librarians and media Tolkein. J. R. R., 108

specialists, 152 trance states, 103–4
Public Library Association. See PLA reading clubs, 186–87
Public Library Inquiry (study), reading groups, 13
10–11 reference services
publisher resources, 200–202 Baltimore method, 62–63
publishing and multicultural improving, 63
literature, 256–60 kinds, 63
PUBYAC, 197 tools, 202–3
research, 78–94
radio. See AV agenda, 32
Ranganathan, S. R., 189 brain hemispheres, 102, 103, 104
reader experience, 77–78, 79, EEG, 104, 105–6
109–10 Nassau County Public Library
reader response theory, 72. study, 125–27, 134–45
reader states, 99 North Carolina Central University
readers study, 60–61
adolescent, 238 qualitative methods, 79
and guilt, 82–83 questions, 106
experiences, 77–78, 109–10 readers’ advisory transactions,
heavy, 79–82, 84–87 125–27
kinds, 79 St. Louis Public Library study,
of nonfiction, 214–15 61–62
and non–readers, 83 storylistening, 106–8
and story, 111–12 trance states, 101, 103, 104
value of reading, 83–84 resources, 18, 70–73, 159–62, 281
readers’ advisors training, 280–82 adult programs, 185–88
Readers Advisory 101, 281 appeal of stories, 67
readers’ theater, 154–55 attention to patron, 145
reading AV, 233–34
aloud, 152–53 best practices, 65–67
and culture, 270–71 bibliographies, 159–61
Hurston, Zora Neale, 46 book review sites, 245
and information, 292 challenges, 188–89
lack of time, 270 characteristics, 150–52
and LIS, 261 definition, 166–68
for pleasure, 78–79, 287–93 effect of setting, 149
process, 109–10, 291–92 electronic, 47–48, 184, 290
research, 17 future, 71
as ritual, 103 improving, 66
significance, 260–62 indirect, 180–82
social nature, 11 Internet, 73–74, 192–93
theory, 45–46 linking books, 72
302 Index
resources (cont.) SLPL. See St. Louis Public Library

listening, 158–59 Smith, Duncan, 38
multicultural literature, 259–60 sources. See resources
nonfiction, 219–22 state associations, 41
patron requests, 64–65 state libraries, 41
print, 45, 182–83 statistics, using, 7–8
problems using, 173–74 stories
purpose, 168–69 aspects, 90–94
reader profiles, 184 characteristics, 67, 109
readers needs, 66 and children, 271
Romance in Color (web site), 254 and circulation, 271
staff competencies needed, 66 experiencing, 98–100
using, 170–73, 174–76, 183–84 kinds, 269
web pages, 161–62, 193, 230–31, purpose, 8
245–46 storylistening
for YAs, 239–40, 247–48 stages, 99–100
responsibilities of libraries, 11 trance, 106
reviews, 204 storytelling, 153–54
electronic, 167–68 students of RA, 28–29
human, 167–78 subject classifications alternatives,
published, 167 225
Romance in Color (web site), 254 Sullivan, Peggy, 31–32, 34
Romance Readers Anonymous
(RRA) (mailing list), 195–96 technology
Ross, Catherine Sheldrick, 66–67 and RA, 17
Ryle, Gilbert, 47 and stories, 270
teenagers. See adolescents
St. Louis Public Library, 270–79 television. See AV
St. Louis Public Library study, Tolkein, J. R. R., 108
61–62 training in RA, 280–82
Saricks, Joyce G., 29, 33, 67 trance states, 103–104
search engines, 224–25 inducing, 111–13
series books, 80–81 reading, 110, 112–13
services transactions, RA,
aspects, 249–50 methodology, 169–73, 223–26
future, 260–62 nature of, 68
and nonfiction, 222–26 and nonfiction, 214–16
online, 244–46 purposes, 125
and parents, 243 and reference interviews, 22
problems, 224, 229–30 research, 125–27
prompts, 216 tools, 175–76
SF–LIT, 196 with YA, 242–44
Shearer, Kenneth D., 29, 60–61 treasure hunts, 197–98
Index 303
University of Chicago, 10 YA services

Usenet, 193–94 and series books, 239
supermarkets, 239
verbal communications, 98 YALSA, 161
Videolib, 231 booklists, 239
videotape versus DVD, 234 YA survey, 238
YALSA–BK, 197
web sites, 162–62, 193, 230–31, YAs. See also adolescents
245–46 and the Internet, 245
Wiegand, Wayne, 16–17 and RA, 277
Young Adult Library Services
YA librarians, 237–38 Association. See YALSA
young adults. See YA

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Part II: Advisory Services in Public and School

Chapter 10—“No, Thanks—I’d Rather Do It Myself”:

Part III: Envisioning an Expanded Advisory

Chapter 14—Leading the Horse to Water: Keeping Young

Conclusions: Readers’ Advisory Services Today and Tomorrow .................287

I find television very educational. Every time

Writing is play in the same way that playing the

What to Expect from This Book

• Sets forth a vision of a future in which advisory services thrive and

needs into a meaningful relationship may be approached in part by exploring

The Readers’ Advisor’s Companion advocates full equality for read-

The Readers’ Advisor’s Companion, along with offering outstanding

Nora Armstrong is the Information and Referral Supervisor at the

Angelina Benedetti is a full-time Young Adult Librarian with the

Robert Burgin is Professor at North Carolina Central University’s

publications include articles on readers’ advisory, management, and infor-

Bill Crowley worked for twenty-three years in New York, Alabama,

Alma Dawson is an Assistant Professor in the School of Library and

Carol A. Doll is a Professor in the Library and Information Science

Frank Exner, Little Bear, is a Squamish Indian from British Colum-

Anne K. May is a librarian in the Business, Science, and Technology

Randy Pitman is the editor of “Video Librarian,” the video review

Catherine Sheldrick Ross is Professor and Acting Dean of the Fac-

Joyce G. Saricks has worked as Coordinator of the Literature and Au-

Kenneth Shearer is a Professor at the School of Library and Informa-

Duncan Smith is the Creator and Product Manager of EBSCO Pub-

Brian Sturm is Assistant Professor for the School of Information and

Bill Crowley shows in Chapter 3 how readers’ advisory is taught in a

understanding of the act of reading and Smith’s emphasis on understanding

Missing the Real Story: Where

The Act and Social Nature of Reading

How the Oversight Evolved

concentrate on a small but more influential combination of “serious” read-

By analyzing what library and information science education does

nature—would immediately recognize this as a plea for increased access to

Partly Out of Sight; Not Much in

Towey views the educational preparation of public librarians for work

Education conference, although very enthusiastically received by perhaps

Although impressive, this list by no means exhausts recent contribu-

Yes, in Required Yes, in No N

Table 2.2. Survey Responses from 33 ALA-Accredited Schools

Yes, in Yes, in Yes, in No N

Table 2.1 reflects the attention paid to readers’ advisory in ALA-ac-

mentioned ranged over a wide territory, including “Competition to library

SCHOOL FACULTY MEMBER

Lackner, Catherine Patricia, Anne K. May, Anne Weidrich Miltenberg, and

Taught at the University on a

• Explores the critical differences among the various cultures of

What Kinds of Students Study RA?

everything about science fiction or fantasy and want to share their

A Few Words About the Chapter Author

of the “library” world. Prior to earning my doctorate, I spent twenty-three

Adding Adult Readers Advisory

Planning the RA Course

Since 1997 I have asked my graduate assistants to write letters to pub-

Understanding the Research and

Computer networking, computer-supported cooperative work,

Taught at the University on a

Adding Adult Readers Advisory

A Basic Readers Advisory Syllabus

Attachment: Core RA Syllabus

Class 3: (A) The Blessedness of Books

Reinventing Readers Advisory

The Roles of the Readers Advisor

Reinventing Readers Advisory

Readers Advisory in Cyberspace