Blog post #6 (take 2)
Last week we were able to walk downtown to look at the lit up books that paved Liberty street! I though that this was such an interesting art project that they turned into something really beautiful. Seeing all of the people there as well was something really awesome to be a part of! Even though this was not technically part of the class plan for the night I thought it was really eye-opening for us (especially since this is a class about the library) to see how these books in the street touched so many people.
That was at our break time and for the rest of the class we discussed reader’s advisory: What it means and how to participate in it. Reader's advisory is basically when you give a patron a book recommendation. The term 'reader's advisory' sounds so much more daunting then just book recommendation, doesn't it? The two main things that I took away from class this day was the fact that reader’s advisory can be applicable to academic libraries and book recommendations in public libraries should not be based off of your own personal knowledge. Firstly, Nora brought up an interesting topic about readers advisory within academic libraries… she did not think that it existed and to be quite frank, I did not think it did either. When I think of academic libraries, I envision books that are meant to teach, databases, and books about math (just for example), and when I think about reader’s advisory I think about fiction books and what to suggest once someone has finished a series. However, reader’s advisory is just as common in academic libraries as it is in public libraries because of personal biased that an academic librarian can have!
The other thing I read about reader’s advisory was to not give your personal opinion on a book to a patron because that is putting our own thoughts and feelings on them rather then giving them a voice. Now, while I do not entirely agree with this, I do believe there is a point here. I am sure there are certain librarians out in the world who only read one series and who have their favorite book characters and want everyone to read them. However, that is not the point of a reading library! The point is to let the patrons (especially children) find what they love. Pointing them in a certain direction if they are stumped though can never hurt.
*Real life example of using readers advisory: In my 501 class we are working with a library system and trying to fix their intranet. We are adding a readers advisory section to our list of suggestions for them!
The readings for week 8 (and our future project) are about lib guides! Another thought that someone said during class was that they thought lib guides were made specifically for librarians to use and not for students because of how the information is set up in them. The reading that I took the most away from was the Harvard LibGuides Best Practices because of the descriptions they were able to give to us as readers. For example, they gave us 5 important steps when creating our own lib guides:
2. Written for the web: Guides should have a limited number of resources in each section; resources listed in order of importance; brief, jargonless language.
3. Accessiblity: All links should be accessible to screenreaders.
4. Attribution, individual or group: Guides should include profile boxes or contact information and photograph in some other format.
5. Access restrictions: Clearly indicate print books and subscription resources versus freely available.
These were the 5 tips that I used with my own team when creating our lib guide for the youth resources page. When looking at lib guides, a majority of people tend to scan and go, clicking on the first thing that piques their interest. While that is helpful to some extent, they usually do not make the most out of all of the data and resources that they have at hand. Finding and making a good lib guide with up to date information and an easy to access page is crucial.
Thank you again for being the one to suggest our field trip to Liberty Street! It was such a cool exhibit, and I wouldn't have been able to see it otherwise.
ReplyDeleteI really agree with your point on reader's advisory, and the guideline of avoiding your own favorite books for recommendation. This might almost be best judged on a patron-by-patron basis; some people I've worked with are really looking for those personal interactions, and want to know about a librarian's experience with a given book. If I put myself into the situation and imagine asking for a recommendation, it would be frustrating to receive only impartiality, when I'm looking for a real person to tell me that they liked or disliked a book. That said, it's important to mix it up by being aware of other titles and throwing those into the mix as well. As with so much else in librarianship, it's all about balance.
I think your point that people just tend to skim and click on libguides is really interesting. I think that is the point of some of the design principles--boxy layouts; 3-7 pages per libguide/boxes per page/sources per box/sentences per source; and limited images all are meant to facilitate easy absorption of information by users. But there's only so much we can do to combat the tendency of people to stop once they find what they think they need, rather than exploring other resources.
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