Readers' Advisory Services - Recently Updated Pages

Transgender Literature

WillC58 — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 06:46:38 CST

There has been an increase in people publishing their experiences on the complicated, and often phobic road of transgendering. This page is intended to do two things. Firstly provide people with autobiographies and biographies of people who have transgendered. Secondly to provide some practical information for Librarians if they are confronted with requests about the process of gender reassignment, either from a person considering undertaking the process, or for family members and friends of people undertaking the process.

Transgender Ogpraphies

	April Ashley's Odyssey. Duncan Fallowell and April Ashley. London : J. Cape, 1982.
	The First Lady. April Ashley. London: Blake 2006.
	Katherine's diary : the story of a transsexual. Katherine Cummings. Tascott, N.S.W. : Beaujon Press, 2007.

Transgender Process

2010 Librarian's Reading Challenge

WillC58 — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 06:24:09 CST

12 Months - 12 Reading Experiences

The NSW Readers Advisory 2010 Librarians Challenge is open to staff from ACT, NSW and NT public libraries.

The aim is to further understand the diversity of readers who use our libraries and the items they choose to read.

We ask that you have 1 Reading Experience outside of your comfort zone for every month of the year. Each month post your reading choice to this page. There will be individual prizes at the end of the year for staff that have participated. Your reading experience can vary from a blog, a number of genres that you normally do not read to poetry and essays.

Add your name to this page and list your reading items throughout the year.

Happy Reading to all!

Name: Vassiliki	Details
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Name: WillC58	Details
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Agenda

updates — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 23:03:04 CST

This page is the agenda for the next meeting of the Readers Advisory Working Group. It will be updated after each meeting so that this page continues to be re-used.

Agenda for 4 February 2010 - location to be announced

10.00 - 12.00

Welcome and introductions
RA wiki demonstration
Other business
Round the room on what everyone is reading
Location and date of next meeting

NSW Readers' Advisory Working Group

CatyJ — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 21:19:47 CST

This working group comprises New South Wales public librarians who provide readers advisory services in their libraries.

Mission Statement
Promoting enjoyment of reading and our library collections

Minutes from previous meetings
Please see Attachments at the bottom of this page.

Readers' Advisory Steering Committee
Therese Scott - Ashfield Library
Jenn Martin - Auburn Library Service
Cathy Johnston - Clarence Regional Library
Virginia Ghezzi - Camden Library
Vassiliki Veros-Elliott - City of Sydney Library Service
Helen Cowen - Wingecarribee Library Service
Ellen Forsyth - State Library of NSW

ALIAread is an e-list for people who wish to discuss readers advisory services in public libraries. This is list is open to anyone who wishes to participate in a discussion about readers advisory services. To join ALIAread click here

NSW Readers Advisory Blog is a new blog for all NSW Public Library Staff with an interest in Readers Advisory. Visit the blog here. If you would like to contribute to the blog, please comment on the blog using your google account with 1) your name and 2) the public library you work for and we will send you an invitation to join the blog.

NSW Readers Advisory Forum. As well as contributing to book lists and knowledge about book groups and authors events etc here on the wiki, NSW Public Library Staff can also contribute to discussion about Readers Advisory at the new NSW Reference and Information Service Group Forum. Readers Advisory is the second to last topic on the main page, right under Library 2.0!

Surveying our Readers

CatyJ — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 20:49:31 CST

How do our library customers and other people find out what they want to read?

Radio? Television? The Sunday paper? Word of mouth? Reviews on the library catalogue? Recommended Reads newsletters provided by their local library? Shop-front displays in their local bookshop? By using Amazon, LibraryThing, A&R online, etc?

We would like to explore different ways that users help themsleves, and find out how we can add to our service by providing further tools and avenues for discovering books.

LIW 2009

CatyJ — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 20:44:45 CST

The theme for this year’s LIW (25-31 May) is designed to highlight the self-directed discovery element of public libraries.

Is anyone using this theme to promote self-help tools that they have available in their Libraries for Readers. Does anyone have any great ideas for how we could promote the self-help aspect of our Readers Advisory services?

We spend a lot of time talking about the Readers Advisor/Reader relationship, but what about those readers who like to help themselves? How do we cater for these very important (but often invisible) customers?

Please feel free to add your thoughts on this to this page.

Library and Information Week in 2010 will be from Monday 24th through to Sunday 30th May

Home

CatyJ — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 20:39:22 CST

There is no abstract available for this page revision.

Seminars

CatyJ — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 20:37:34 CST

The 2010 readers advisory seminar (Murder in the Metcalfe) will be held at the State Library of New South Wales 23 march 2010.

Reality check: non-fiction readers advisory work, State Library of NSW, 3 March 2009

Romancing Your Readers, State Library of NSW, 4th March 2008

Web Sites

CatyJ — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 17:04:31 CST

Websites Suggested By The Group - incl short description of site

GENERAL

NoveList www.nswnet.net - a subscription based database that NSW libraries should be able to access through their NSWnet databases. The database includes author profiles, reading recommendations and readers' advisory resources and training materials. NoveList Notes provides regular updates on particular applications of NoveList in the Library environment.
Library Thing www.librarything.com - online site that enables the user to catalog their books.
Book Choice www.bookchoice.net.au - a fairly new site that recommends and reviews new books published in Australia.
Book Tribes www.booktribes.com - search for your favourite book or author and view recommendations from other people who have loved the book.
Revish www.revish.com - online community, allowing users to post reviews and comments on books.
Literature Mind-map www.literature-map.com - type in an author's name and see a floating list of authors related to them. The closer the name to the author in the centre, the more likely it is that a someone will read both of them.
Logan Berry Books : Stump the bookseller www.loganberry.com/stump - use the united brain trust to find out the title of that book that you read as a child. To submit a question incurs a minimal fee.
Readers Advisor Online www.readersadvisoronline.com/blog - from the team at Libraries Unlimited who bring us Genreflecting and the Genreflecting Advisory Series, a useful blog with regular tips and updates about all things RA.
FictionDB http://www.fictiondb.com/ - for a comprehensive guide to fiction authors and titles
Mostly Fiction - http://bookreview.mostlyfiction.com/ - online book review site

LIBRARY BASED READERS' ADVISORY SITES

Hennepin County Library Bookspce www.hclib.org/pub/bookspace/ - features of this site include Readers' lists which can be added by their borrowers
WorldCat www.worldcatlibraries.org- search the catalogue for holdings of books around the world.
Morton Grove Public Library http://www.webrary.org/rs/rsmenu.html - prominent feature of this site is Fiction_L - an electronic mailing list devoted to RA issues and concerns, it is also a great storehouse of compiled booklists
The Minnesota Competencies http://www.arrowhead.lib.mn.us/renewal/readers.htm - for those of you who have completed Rewarding Reading training, this is the link to those key competencies referred to in the training and put forward by the Arrowhead Library System of Minnesota , USA.

SPECIALIST BOOKSELLERS IN AUSTRALIA

Infinitas Bookshop www.infinitas.com.au - Located in Parramatta, Infinitas specialises in fantasy, science-fiction and horror books, including game and role-playing titles.
Galaxy Bookshop www.galaxybooks.com.au - Located in Sydney, Galaxy books specialises in science-fiction, fantasy and horror.
Rosemary's Romance Bookshop www.rosemarysromancebooks.com - Located in Brisbane, Rosemary's covers a wide range of romance fiction, including paranormal, regency, and contemporary titles .
Shearers Bookshop www.shearersbookshop.com.au - Located in Leichhardt, Sydney. Lists latest reads on Radio 2GB, ABC Radio, SMH, and more

GENRE SPECIFIC WEBSITES

Australian Crime Fiction Database http://www.crimedownunder.com/index.html - a bibiography of Australian crime authors.

Social networking

Reading trails http://www.readingtrails.com/index.php readers can develop their own reading trail to share with others. Reading trails link diverse books together.

Authors to glom

CatyJ — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 16:56:43 CST

You glom when you discover a new author and want to read the entire backlist of that author, kind of binge reading the long tail. This is a long way of saying you find an author you like and want to read everything they have written.

Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
David Eddings

Susan Elizabeth Phillips
Rachel Gibson
Kate Forsyth

Character/Story
Character/Story

Character
Character
Character/Story

Appeal Characteristics - The Language Gateway

CatyJ — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 16:51:56 CST

The language gateway has fascinated me for some time, but it has always been more of a morbid fascination, as I could not understand how people could rave over ‘such beautiful language’; ‘so descriptive’ – so boring?

Lately I have come across a number of books that use various formats to tell their story and wondered if they really shone a light on character (another doorway) or if they truly belonged to the language gateway. Being the sceptic that I am, I also wondered if some of these choices were for marketing reasons, or were they the best means to tell the story. I’ll leave it up to you to decide and list below some examples to consider. Perhaps you can add some further examples of your own.

Mark Haddon. The curious incident of the dog in the night-time.
Jean Webster. Daddy-long-legs
Lucy Kellaway. Who moved my blackberry? / [Martin Lukes with] Lucy Kellaway.
Helene Hanff. 84 Charing Cross Road.
Jodi Picoult. My sister's keeper.
John Boyne. The boy in the striped pyjamas : a fable.
Meg Cabot. Every boy's got one.
Paul Torday. Salmon fishing in the Yemen.
Matt Haig. The Dead Fathers Club
D. B. C. Pierre. Vernon god little : a 21st century comedy in the presence of death.
Sue Townsend. The lost diaries of Adrian Mole 1999-2001
James Joyce - Ulysses (the ultimate in 'language' doorways given its changing tempo, scene, language and movement from a descriptive dialogue to a play to a stream-of-consciousness monologue minus any punctuation)
Jasper Fforde - The Eyre affair, The fourth bear, etc.

You could also include non-fiction such as letters and diaries. These books can make you feel somewhat voyeuristic as you read the personal experiences of notable people.

Love letters of great men / edited by Ursula Doyle. Macmillan, 2008.
Devonshire, Deborah Vivien Freeman-Mitford Cavendish, Duchess of, In tearing haste: letters between Deborah Devonshire and Patrick Leigh Fermor. John Murray, 2008.
Charles Darwin. The Beagle letters /; edited by Frederick Burkhardt . Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Penelope Fitzgerald. So I have thought of you: the letters of Penelope Fitzgerald / edited by Terence Dooley ; preface by A.S. Byatt. Fourth Estate, 2008.
Dirk Bogarde. Ever, Dirk : the Bogarde letters / selected and edited by John Coldstream. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2008.
Rainer Maria Rilke. Rilke and Andreas-Salom*e: a love story in letters / translated by Edward Snow and Michael Winkler. W.W. Norton, 2008.
Erica Wagner. Ariel's gift: Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath and the story of Birthday letters. W. W. Norton, 2002.
Sidney Poitier. Life beyond measure: letters to my great-granddaughter. Simon & Schuster, 2008.
Arthur Conan Doyle. Arthur Conan Doyle: a life in letters / edited by Daniel Stashower, Jon Lellenberg and Charles Foley. HarperPress, 2007.
Noel Coward. The letters of No*el Coward / edited and with an introduction by Barry Day. Alfred A. Knopf, 2007. Donald Horne. Dying: a memoir. Viking, 2007. Summary: A journal of Donald Horne's last few months of life, accompanied by an account of his death, written by his wife, and a selection of Donald's essays.
The Freedom Writers diary: how a teacher and 150 teens used writing to change themselves and the world around them / the Freedom Writers with Erin Gruwell.
Riverbend. Baghdad burning: girl blog from Iraq. Volume 2, October 2004 through August 2006 / by Riverbend ; introduction by James Ridgeway. London: Marion Boyars, c2006.
Elizabeth Cowling. Visiting Picasso: the notebooks and letters of Roland Penrose Thames & Hudson, c2006.
Anne Frank. The diary of a young girl: the definitive edition /Puffin, 1997.

Books to read while drinking whisky

CatyJ — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 16:24:32 CST

Some Scottish reading
In Search of Scotland - HV Morton
In Scotland Again - HV Morton
The Splendour of Scotland - HV Morton
The Return of John McNab - Andrew Greig
In Another Light - Andrew Greig
When They Lay Bare - Andrew Greig
Electric Brae - Andrew Greig
Whisky Galore - Compton MacKenzie
Scotch on the Rocks : the true story behind Whisky Galore - Arthur Swinson
Greenvoe - George Mackay Brown
A Scots Quair - George Mackay Brown
Auld Reekie: an Edinburgh anthology - selected by Ralph Lownie ; foreword by Alexander McCall Smith
Crimespotting: an Edinburgh Crime collection - in support of the One City Trust - introduced by Irvine Welsh (features short crime stories by Lin Anderson, Kate Atkinson, Margaret Atwood, Christopher Brookmyre, John Burnside, Isla Dewar, A.L. Kennedy, Denise Mira, Ian Ranking, &James Robertson)

Some reading from elsewhere
Anathem by Neal Stephenson
The lord of the rings by JRR Tolkien

If you are not a whisky drinker (or these books don't appeal) you may like the beer and wine reading.

Modern conflicts and wars : a suggested reading list

CatyJ — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 16:21:23 CST

Emergency sex (and other desperate measures) : Kenneth Cain et.al.

Another bloody love letter : Anthony Loyd
Carry me home : the life and death of Private Jake Kovco : Dan Box
Running the war in Iraq : Major General Jim Molan
The torture papers : the road to Abu Ghraib : ed. Karin Greenberg
Elvis is Titanic : classroom tales from the other Iraq: Ian Klaus
Standard operating procedure : Phillip Gourevitch
Detainee 002 : the case of David Hicks : Leigh Sales
Kabul in winter : life without peace in Afghanistan :Ann Jones
We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed by our families : Phillip Gourevitch
The Angel of Grozny : inside Chechnya : Asne Seierstad
No end in sight : Iraq’s descent into chaos : Charles Ferguson
The New American militarism : how Americans are seduced by war : Andrew J. Bacevich
Blowback : the costs and consequences of American empire : Chalmers Johnson
Nemesis : the last days of the American republic : Chalmers Johnson
The Sorrows of empire: militarism, secrecy and the end of the republic : Chalmers Johnson
Beyond the green zone: dispatches from an embedded journalist in occupied Iraq : Dahr Jamail
Defeat : why they lost Iraq : Jonathan Steele
Why the Dalai Lama matters : Robert Thurman
The Great war for civilization : Robert Fisk
Baghdad burning : girl blog from Iraq : Riverbend
Out of Iraq : Lewis Alsamari
Civil war from Rome to Iraq : David Armitage
Deliver us from evil : warlords & peacekeepers in a world of endless conflict : William Shawcross
My Israel question : Anthony Loewenstein
Vietnam : the Australian war : Paul Ham
War, evil and the end of history : Bernard-Henri Levy
Sacred places : K.S. Inglis
The Long patrol : Australia and East Timor’s wars : Richard Plunkett
Resistance : a childhood fighting for East Timor : Naldo Rei
A hundred and one days : a Baghdad journal : Asne Seierstad
Friendly fire: the remarkable story of a journalist kidnapped in Iraq… : Giluiana Sgrena
The First casualty : from the Crimea to Vietnam : Phillip Knightley
War reporting for cowards : between Iraq and a hard place : Chris Ayres
Rebel journalism : the writings of Wilfred Burchett : ed by George Burchett
Dispatches from the edge : Anderson Cooper
Blood and sand : life, death and survival in an age of global terror: Frank Gardner
War stories : Jeremy Bowen
Bearing witness : the lives of war correspondents and photojournalists : Denise Leith
Armageddon in retrospect : Kurt Vonnegut
Desert fire : the SAS in Iraq - a shocking true story : Niall Arden

Sand filled books

sue.leverington — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 21:27:14 CST

This list is for summer reading suggestions. It may be to avoid the cricket, or to read during drinks breaks, or at the beach or in the bush.

Try adding in the Nancy Pearl characteristics if you can.

Setting

updates — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:54:09 CST

This has readers describing the location as important, often in terms of details about daily life wherever or whenever. Readers will talk about the place (rather than the people). This will be a cross genre appeal characteristic, for example some people will only enjoy historical crime novels (perhaps only ones featuring actual historic characters in a fictional setting, or only romances set in the middle ages or earlier).

some works written about other times and other places, whether historical or imagined (speculative fiction) will include setting as a important doorway
with speculative fiction there are also setting preferences. Some people may only like fantasy set in recognisable locations (such as Sean William’s works set in South Australia).
Authors who have setting as a dominant appeal characteristic include Tim Winton, Alastair Reynolds and Ellis Peters
You can see some more examples here.

Character
Language
Story

For younger readers

updates — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 22:13:25 CST

From this page you can access some suggestions for younger readers based on Nancy Pearl's doorways of
language
character
setting
story

When you are asking a reader about what they read recently and why they liked it (so you can work about some suggestions based on Nancy Pearl's doorways), you might also ask your reader about the games they are playing and why they like them. This will also help indicate the doorway or appeal characteristic (although you would not use this language with the reader as it is library jargon).

Picture books
For junior readers
For young adults

Games and the story doorway

updates — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 22:10:39 CST

Games have the same appeal characteristics as reading:
language
character
setting
story

When you are asking a reader about what they read recently and why they liked it (so you can work about some suggestions based on Nancy Pearl's doorways), you might also ask your reader about the games they are playing and why they like them. This will also help indicate the doorway or appeal characteristic (although you would not use this language with the reader as it is library jargon).

Mousetrap

Cranium Cadoo

Battleship

Stick Sports

iSports

Gran Turismo

Assassins creed

Games and the character doorway
Games and the language doorway
Games and the setting doorway

Games and the setting doorway

updates — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 22:10:13 CST

Monopoly

Battleship

Stick Sports

Wii: Sports

Indiana Jones

Star Wars

Madagascar

Jam Session

Jamie Oliver’s Cooking Class

Games and the character doorway
Games and the language doorway
Games and the story doorway

Games and the language doorway

updates — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 22:09:51 CST

Boggle

Scrabble

Upwords

Pathwords

Madlibs

SingStar

Games and the character doorway
Games and the setting doorway
Games and the story doorway

Games and the character doorway

updates — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 22:09:15 CST

Pokemon/Yu-Gi-Oh! Cars

Cluedo Juiced 2

Guess Who?

MoshiMonsters

Farmville (fbk)

Indiana Jones

Star Wars

Sonic Rush Adventure

Gran Turismo

Madagascar

Wii: Sports
Tekken
SingStar
Looney Tunes: Duck Amuck

Games and the language doorway
Games and the setting doorway
Games and the story doorway