Are you finding the recommendations from Booktok a little…stale? Instead, turn to the OG of reader recommendations, the library! In fact, our staff are trained in a skill we call readers advisory—which means we have learned specific strategies to be able to put books in your hands that will best suit your needs, interests, and reading levels.
What is Readers Advisory?
Readers advisory isn’t just listing off books that are popular, or what we specifically like, it’s a whole process of understanding what our patrons want so we can tailor our recommendations to you! There are a few different library services where our patrons experience readers advisory; some of which are direct methods, where we gather information on the receiver of the recommendations to figure out what will appeal to them best, and others are passive methods which is any other method where we do not have contact with our patrons. In the indirect method we need to use our skills to make an educated guess on what our patrons may want. These passive methods need to appeal to a wide range of patrons, so it’s best if we have a firm idea of what our community is looking for.
Direct Methods of Readers Advisory at WBRL
These are our personalized reading recommendations, whether that’s for a small group, or for an individual’s reading habits. Either way, we know who we are pitching the story to, and we may know about their interests and what appeals to them!
One-on-One Interactions:
This one is my favourite way of delivering reading recommendations because there is nothing better than chatting about stories with our patrons! And I do emphasize stories, because some of our patrons are hoping to get back into reading and don’t know where to start! Often that patron comes in looking for a “good book” or “something that will keep them interested”. Which is when I get to ask our secret weapon of a question. “Forget about books for a moment and tell me about the last story you liked, whether that be a movie, tv show, video game, or some other type of media.”
It’s easy to get people talking about their favourite media which leads to a conversation about why it interests them. This is when we get to show off our readers advisory skills and match up their preferences with appeal factors because there’s more to matching a patron to a book than finding the genre they like! For example, a patron who leans towards sci-fi may not like any of these three popular books from the genre: Suzanne Collin’s The Hunger Games, Andy Weir’s The Martian, and The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. Each patron has a specific and personal reason why they’ve chosen the media they have chosen to love in the past, and for that particular patron those three sci-fi books may just not cut it.
Appeal factors are a fancy way of saying characteristics that appeal to the reader like pacing, writing style, tone, and even illustrations. With these, we can use our readers advisory tools, like NoveList (available on our Online Resources page for you to try on your own), to come up with recommendations that may be the best fit for our patrons. Below are some readers advisory scenarios and what books we would have chosen for the patron.
Book Talks:
At a certain age (elementary and older), kids become too cool for regular story times. That’s when we need to switch things up and present materials in book talk formats during our tours. Book talks are intended to convince an individual to read a book. Think of it like a sales pitch that is selling a patron on a story’s character, plot, or theme. It’s a short and informal presentation about a book that convinces others to read it. By introducing a group of patrons to a variety of books, it increases the chance that they’ll explore a new title, author or genre.
If you’d like to see an example of a WBRL Book Talk, check out one of our themed installations from a video series called Book Bites:
Book Match:
Our patrons who use Book Match can fill out a form online to have 3-5 items placed on hold for them based on their answers—it’s that easy! On our end, we treat the answers from the form like we would a one-on-one readers advisory interaction, and we pick out your books based on what we think will fit your needs best. Below is a portion of an old request and the items we chose for this patron.
You’ll notice that the Book Match form has a section where the patron can write about any elements that they wish to avoid when picking up a book. We try our best to avoid any element written here by researching the titles on various platforms like NoveList, Kirkus, and StoryGraph, but it’s nearly impossible to know what’s within the pages without reading it, so we encourage our readers to abandon their reads if they stumble upon something that causes them discomfort. Because life is too short to read a book you don’t like—right?
Indirect Methods of Readers Advisory at WBRL
This is when we give reading recommendations without having direct access to our patrons. It involves knowing what our community demographic is like, what kind of stories they want, and what formats they want them in!
Displays:
You’ll see these curated selections of materials, not always books, in our library or with us at outreach locations. They help us promote our library materials including our special collections, our programs, events, services, and community resources. It’s a great way to offer a selection based on a specific theme. Here are just a few examples of the many displays we’ve created from the past year for you!
Staff Picks:
These handy lists are featured all over our electronic spaces, are featured on displays as QR codes that direct users towards our site where the lists are hosted, and are searchable through our catalogue. Infinatly maluable and sharable, they help us to create a group of curated items for various age demographics on any theme we have the materials for!
Looking for a young adult romance with a dash of culinary sweetness? We have you covered!
And if you’re searching for lists for your little ones, we have tons, including some handy ones to help you along in your parenting journey.
These lists are all searchable through our catalogue by searching Lists.
But you can also see our featured and new lists under our Staff Picks page.
You can spend hours adding to your TBR pile here!
Social Media Posts:
We’d be amiss if we didn’t mention our social media recommendations because where else can we pair a book with an audio clip from Real Housewives? They’re the titles you see us recommending on Facebook and Instagram through posts and stories. Below are some examples of our great content thought up from the mind of our Communications Coordinator, Nicole Andrews.
With this reel on Instagram you can stock up on Canadian made suggestions and read a little closer to home!
We also want to share what you’re reading and what you’re looking forward to, so you’ll see posts like this, where we love to see your answers!
To see more, follow us on Facebook and Instagram.
Eat it, Booktok
To sum up my plea, in a time when popularity relies on user generated content, likes, and trends, come to a place where recommendations are lovingly curated by professionals who reflect on community interests, needs, and—most importantly, what’s the best fit for YOU!
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