Online Reader's Advisory Services & Tools: Special Topics Paper ~ Looking for Good Reads

Traditionally, readers’ advisory, or RA, has been a service offered face-to-face with a library patron. The librarian conducts an RA interview to understand the patron’s tastes and reading background, and then uses that information to recommend next reads to the patron. The evolution of both technology and information retrieval methods has required libraries to adapt to include electronic dimensions of their services. The realm of RA is no exception—librarians are continually finding new ways to provide online RA services to their patrons, whether they are exclusive to their particular library and its collection, or they are general tools available to the public. Librarians use certain RA websites—NoveList, Early Word, professional review sites, and literary social networking sites like GoodReads—to come up with book recommendations for patrons, and they sometimes even advertise these sites to patrons so that they can use them on their own. Aside from these well-known resources, there are many other inventive ways that libraries can offer RA services online.

Fig. 1. Denver Public Library
book recommendation request form

One of the most common methods of online RA service is the “Ask-a-Librarian” or virtual reference-type of feature on a library’s website. This can be in the form of a live chat, email, or texting transaction. In a live chat format, a librarian can simply conduct an RA interview as they normally would do, only via typing instead speaking face-to-face. What is unique to a virtual RA interview is that the librarian can send the patron links to items in the catalog, to online booklists, or to book award websites to supplement book recommendations. With email or texting, many libraries provide a form on their websites “for readers to express their interests, checking off favorite genres and sharing particular titles they’ve enjoyed or disliked, and why. Patrons then receive a list of hand-selected suggestions via email” (Wright & Bass, 2010b, p. 9). Figure 1 is an excerpt from an email recommendation request form from the Denver Public Library (2015). It asks for the patron’s format and genre preferences, and it includes other questions that might be asked in a traditional in-person RA interview, such as, “Who are your favorite authors?” An even more comprehensive form is provided through the Williamsburg Regional Library (2015). It asks patrons to not only rate genre preferences, but it also asks for “peeves/pleasures,” content, and tone/style/mood preferences, as seen in Figure 2. This kind of virtual RA service can be just as personalized as a face-to-face RA interview, and it gives the librarian even more time, and sometimes more information, to be able to find sufficient recommendations for patrons using the service.

Fig. 2. Williamsburg Regional Library, example of preferences

Fig. 3. Provo City Library staff blog review example

Another common way libraries are providing online reader’s advisory services is through blogs. Many librarians are writing their own book reviews and publishing them on blogs available through their libraries’ websites. Provo City Library (2015) has its own staff reviews blog, where Kirkus-style reviews are posted a few times a week. Posts are labeled and categorized by genre; special materials such as gentle reads, staff picks, and audio picks are also denoted with the appropriate labels. This allows patrons either to look at all reviews as they are posted, or to look at specifically labeled reviews only. Figure 3 shows an example of a review posted on Provo City Library’s blog. Librarians use professional review sources, such as Kirkus or Booklist, to make book recommendations to patrons, but writing their own reviews adds a personal touch to RA service. Patrons can see that librarians are clearly dedicated to being knowledgeable about their collections and that they are sufficiently qualified to help them find something “good” to read. RA blogs can also “highlight books that patrons might otherwise miss by posting [other, professional] book reviews and best seller lists” (Anwyll & Chawner, 2013, 19). Sharing this experiential knowledge could help patrons find their next read just as easily as they can by participating in an RA interview.

A third form of online reader’s advisory is what Wright and Bass (2010a) term “automated reader’s advisory,” which “refers to a computer program designed to automatically (without human intervention) offer the user suggested reads” (p. 1). These are tools that librarians could advertise by word-of-mouth, on fliers in the library, or on the library’s website. Librarians would not be offering personalized RA service with automated RA tools, but they are useful for patrons all the same. One example of automated reader’s advisory is Gnooks. Gnooks is unique because it not only offers book recommendations, but it also provides recommendations for music, movies, and art. Material suggestions are given when the user inputs his or her favorite authors, artists, movies, or musicians, depending on which type of material he or she wants. The site also includes a literature map and a movie map, where the user inputs an author or a movie and a map is formed with similar titles. As the site explains, “the closer two writers [or movies] are, the more likely someone will like both of them” (Gnook, 2015). The user can click on any name or title on the map to generate a new map. Figure 4 shows a map of authors that readers of Liane Moriarty also enjoy.

Fig. 4. Literature map for Liane Moriarty on Gnooks

Many libraries use social media to advertise things like library-sponsored programs, author visits, and new library services. An additional, inventive use for social media is to offer RA services through it. Anwyll and Chawner (2013) describe an experiment by the Multnomah County Library in which readers were asked on the library’s Facebook page to tell the last five books they had read in return for the RA staff’s suggestions for a next book to read (p. 20). This experiment resulted in good participation and “very positive” feedback. Anwyll and Chawner (2013) also cite the use of Twitter to “microblog” RA suggestions with attached links to the items in the library’s catalog (p. 19). Using Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites can help the library to meet readers where they are—“it allows RA librarians to interact directly with interested readers” (Anwyll & Chawner, 2013, p. 21) on a site where they go for entertainment—and to connect with them in a fun, relaxed way. Social media can improve a library’s presence in its community, and it can also improve awareness about the library’s materials: “Several people have noted that recommending a book on a social media site raises its profile with potential readers…a librarian at Ann Arbor District library who tracked reader involvement through following the holds activity of the books she had written blog posts about, [noted] that one item went from one to fifteen requests” (Anwyll & Chawner, 2013, p. 20). Social media as an RA tool is all about promoting the library and its collection, and it can prove very valuable for raising patrons’ awareness of books they might enjoy.

One last method of offering online reader’s advisory service is through QR codes. These information-storing barcodes can be used for myriad purposes throughout the library, from directing patrons to program sign-up pages, author websites, the library’s catalog, and more. Another use for QR codes, of course, is for reader’s advisory. QR codes can be placed on anything, from shelves to posters to book jackets. When scanned, they can take patrons to book reviews, lists of read-alikes, the library’s blog, or other resources. Hampton, Peach, and Rawlins (2012) cite a library that uses QR codes to “suggest read-alikes for more than 10 genres/age groups, covering more than forty specific titles/authors, all of which can be downloaded for free from the library’s Web site and used as a starting point for the implementation of QR code-based reader’s advisory services” (p. 410). Just as with social media, QR codes are a fun way to engage patrons in RA services, and they do so in a passive way that allows patrons to discover their next reads through their own investigation. Using QR codes also allows the library to offer a large amount of information in a very small space—the codes themselves take up a tiny amount of space, and all of the information toward which they lead is stored online. This could be a great option for libraries that don’t have much space for book lists or read-alike information within the library, or for those that want to cut back on the production and dissemination of paper products containing this information.

Online reader’s advisory services and tools obviously come with their own set of drawbacks. The community has to have access to computers or other technological equipment; sometimes websites fail or crash; and some patrons are too uneasy with technology to take advantage of online RA services. However, these tools greatly expand the reach of the library to more of its surrounding community, and they keep the library relevant and up-to-speed with the developments in technology. People are always inventing and looking for new ways to seek information, so the concept of reader’s advisory should, and can, follow in this trend of evolving information retrieval methods. Despite the possible limitations of online RA services, these options are entertaining, useful, contemporary approaches to reader’s advisory that can influence readers just as much as, if not more than, traditional face-to-face RA interviews.

References

Anwyll, R., & Chawner, B. (2013). Social media and readers’ advisory: a

Win-win combination?. (L. Tarulli, Ed.) Reference & User Services Quarterly, 53(1), 18-22.

Denver Public Library. (2015). Request a personalized reading list. Retrieved

from http://denverlibrary.org/request-reading-list

Gnooks. (2015). Literature map: Liane Moriarty. Retrieved from

http://www.literature-map.com/liane+moriarty.html

Hampton, D., Peach, A., and Rawlins, B. (2012). Extending library service

with QR codes. Reference Librarian, 53(4), 403-414.

Provo City Library. (2015). Provo City Library staff reviews. Retrieved from

http://provolibrarystaffreviews.blogspot.com

Williamsburg Regional Library. (2015). Looking for a good book. Retrieved