Southern Ontario Library Service

EXCEL: A certificate programme in managing a small public library

E19-Readers' Advisory Services

ASSIGNMENT 2

Submit this assignment to your tutor by the date given on the schedule accompanying this course. Be sure to keep a copy of your assignment.

You have been given a transcript of an interaction between a patron and a library staff person. This transcript is adapted from Talking with Readers: A Workbook for Readers’Advisory Service (EBSCO, 2000).

After reading through the transcript, you will be asked a series of questions to which you will respond. Your answers will form the basis of your assignment for this module. The answers will be a yes/no format, but with examples or an explanation of what you think you “saw” in this readers’ advisory interview.

Submit your answers to the questions that are included on page 17 of this course.

Assignment 2: Transcript of a Reader/Librarian Transaction

Setting: LIBRARIAN IS SEATED AT A COMPUTER, WORKING. AS PATRON APPROACHES, LIBRARIAN STANDS.

Patron: Hi.
    Librarian: How are you doing?
Patron: Fine thanks.
    Librarian: How can I help you this morning?
Patron: I just finished reading a Harry Potter book and I really enjoyed it.
    Librarian: Uh-huh.
Patron: And I’d like to read something more along this line.
    Librarian: And, uh, there’re two more and you’ve read these or you’re….
Patron: I have not read those and I kind of want to space it out.
    Librarian: OK. All right…
Patron: Because I know that there is going to be a series and I want to spread them out.
    Librarian: OK. So you really enjoyed these books. Why don’t you sit down and let’s talk about this for a minute.

PATRON SITS DOWN.

OK. This is really a great question, so I’m looking forward to working with you and trying to help you find some new books to read. If you don’t mind, I’m going to make some notes while we talk.

Patron: Sure.
    Librarian: Why don’t you tell me about the Harry Potter books. Just tell me about them.
Patron: Well, it’s about a boy who grows up. The first chapter or so – his parents are killed tragically – and he grows up with his uncle and his family and they’re very mean to him. So it’s a tough upbringing. Then he discovers that he is a wizard. So it is a whole new experience for him in that he is liked by people, he can do things that he never knew he could do.
    Librarian: Uh-huh.
Patron: And he really starts to enjoy life and it’s very fun because it’s a fantasy type thing. But it’s very enjoyable.
    Librarian: So you really liked the main character Harry Potter and his struggling and growing up. The fantasy background you liked also?
Patron: Right. I really liked the fact that he was getting a raw deal. I mean his cousin was very mean to him. But it was just nice to see things turn around for him. He met some new friends. He had never had friends before.
    Librarian: OK, that’s neat. So it’s sort of like watching his coming-of-age and growing up into himself and who he is supposed to be.
Patron: Right.
    Librarian: That is a very common theme in fantasy novels. Have you read other fantasy novels and enjoyed them?
Patron: Some years ago, I read one of the Chronicles of Narnia.
    Librarian: OK.
Patron: But that was a long time ago.
    Librarian: Right.
Patron: So that’s the only other fantasy novel I’ve read.
    Librarian: OK. Are you open to looking at some other fantasy novels?
Patron: Oh. Absolutely.
    Librarian: OK. Good. Well, one of the things I’ve got here is a resource called NoveList that we use to work with people. What I would like to do is show you a couple of books you might be interested in.
Patron: Sure. That would be great.
    Librarian: One of the first things…. Harry Potter is a very popular author right now. And one of the   things we’ve got here is an article called “If you like Harry Potter…” that talks about what the Harry Potter books are….and here are the other Harry Potter books we’ve talked about. So you might enjoy reading this article.

LIBRARIAN AND PATRON VIEW ARTICLE ON SCREEN.

One of the things this article does is give you series that are related and the Narnia Chronicles are some of the books that a lot of people who like the Harry Potter books also enjoy. So there are several recommendations here and if you want to, I can print this off and give you that to start with.

PATRON NODS.

A lot of these books are set with characters that are children or young adults.
Patron Un-huh.

Librarian: And I’m curious… would you be interested in looking at fantasies that have characters that are our age or older?
    Patron: Yeah. I would. I haven’t really looked into that because I wasn’t really exposed to that type of material like I was when I was walked through it in school. I was handed these books to read. I haven’t had the opportunity to look for such.
Librarian: OK. There is actually one author in particular that I am aware of that might fit here. He is a Canadian author. And, uh, the author’s name is Guy Gavriel Kay. And one of the neat things about him is that he – you know the Tolkien books of course – when Tolkien died this particular author was hired by that estate to work on bringing out the books of Tolkien’s that were published after he died.
    Patron: Oh really.

LIBRARIAN BEGINS USING NOVELIST.

Librarian: So he is really an interesting kind of author. And one of his series is called The Summer Tree. It’s one of his first books. Let’s just take a look here. It’s a 1985 publication date. Here are some of the headings that we have for it – it’s students. This is about college students, but it is very much these students. Let’s take a look at the review here.

LIBRARIAN AND PATRON BEGIN READING REVIEW.

As you can see it is very much about these five young people going to this world and very much like Harry Potter growing into, discovering who they are. So does this sound interesting?
Patron: Sure it does. So the headings are the main theme?
    Librarian: Yeah. That’s right and we could, for example, if you take a look at these headings. Let’s just pull these out with “Choose Subjects.”

LIBRARIAN SELECTS “CHOOSE SUBJECT” FEATURE

    Do any of these particular headings seem interesting to you?
Patron: Good and evil. And imaginary kingdoms.
    Librarian: OK. And what I’m going to do here is I’m going to check the fantasy fiction heading so that we stay in fantasies and don’t pull up other types of books. Let’s see what we get here.

LIBRARIAN PERFORMS SEARCH.

Patron: That’s quite a list.
    Librarian: All of these one hundred percents here have the themes that you just selected. So what I am going to do is print this out for you. And then we can go to the shelf and see what we can find. Seems like we’ve got some possibilities here for you. And the other thing is that I would be happy to show you more about NoveList because this is a resource that you can use on your own.
Patron: That would be great. Finally something to direct me to what I’m looking to read.
    Librarian: OK. We’ve got enough for you to do today you think?
Patron: Oh sure. Yes.
    Librarian: OK. Thanks.
Patron: Thank you.

ANALYSIS

For each question, answer yes or no, and then provide an example of why you gave that particular answer. Submit these answers to your tutor.

1. Did the library staff member treat the reader equally and fairly? We realize that it is hard to evaluate this from just one transaction, but consider how well the patron was treated in this transaction.
2. Was the reader provided with recommendations of books at the reading level desired?
3. Did the library staff member seem knowledgeable about the genres, topics and formats the reader enjoys?
4. Do you think that the reader’s interests and desires formed the basis for the suggestions from the library staff member?
5. Do you think that the library staff member listened to and then used the reader’s comments and reactions to books?
6. Do you think that the library staff member accepted and understood the reader’s reading behavior was accepted and understood? For example, did the staff member suggest books that fit in with the reader’s interests?
7. A library staff member should be able to make suggestions without making assumptions about an individual’s age, sex, race, ethnicity, national origin, marital status, or status in regard to public assistance. In this case, the only variable that was commented on was age. Did the library staff member assume that because the reader had read a children’s book that he would want to continue reading children’s books?
8. Do you think that the library staff member in this transaction was open, receptive and welcoming to reader?
9. Did the library staff member give the patron time and an opportunity to talk about books in general?

*End*
2007 Edition