Good-bye. I learned a lot about the various genres!

Good-bye. I learned a lot about the various genres! I took this course because I am basically mostly a non-fiction reader, not usually interested in fiction. However, I ended up joining several Social Media reading advisory sites, made several book lists for myself-which probably will result in my desk looking like this picture above next time I go to my local library.  I am actually eager to get some spare time to delve into my reading selections. I feel that this class is important, probably moreso for people who don't like fiction than people who do.  Any university awarding a degree in Library Science, should be graduating people who at the minimum, understand genres and can make book selections. This has helped me immensely in this area. Good Reading, everyone!!

Week 13 Prompt. Since you asked......

Week 13 Prompt. Since you asked......

Prompt: "Though this week's group of "genres" all seem very different, they all have in common the fact that many people don't feel that they are legitimate literary choices and libraries shouldn't be spending money on them or promoting them to adults. Obviously, graphic novels are becoming more acceptable, but I still had to fight to get my progressive library in a liberal college town to purchase a book club kit containing graphic novels. The common belief is that adults still don't or shouldn't read that stuff. How can we as librarians, work to ensure that we are able to serve adults who enjoy YA literature, graphic novels, and street lit? Or should we? I can't wait to read your thoughts on this. Thanks!"

I don't think we should work to ensure that this genre is promoted. Personally, I can't stand the genre, but I know I'm not supposed to say that or feel that way. But since you asked, I am saying it here. In addition, I have interviewed many librarians about the teen sections in their departments. I am thinking of one in particular: They have to have a police officer standing by when the middle school lets out, to prevent any disruptions in the library. I won't even go into the library during these times, as I feel like the kids are acting wild, and somewhat threatening to the other patrons.  Even though the librarians try to fix up the reading rooms, make them separate, the teens tend to congregate socially in the graphic novels areas. I feel that for a small library, this is too much to manage, and I agree that the library shouldn't be spending money on them when there really are..let's face it...much better quality books for most patrons available to throw  your limited dollar on. I don't support buying these books, more from a financial and management point of view. I do support it from a freedom to read point of view. No one should not be allowed to not read them- I just don't want to pay for them! Also, they get torn up more easily and have to be replaced because of that or because they are stolen. I'm sorry to sound like an old person here, but that is how I feel about it. Since you asked.....

Week 16 Prompt. What have we lost, and What have we gained? And what are we going to lose sight of forever?

Week 16 Prompt. What have we lost, and What have we gained? And what are we going to lose sight of forever?

Assignment : "Both of our readings this week talk about the culture of reading and the future of the book. So I have two questions for you as readers, pulling on your own experiences and all of the readings we have done over the semester: First, how have reading and books changed since you were a child, for you specifically? Second, talk a little about what you see in the future for reading, books, or publishing - say 20 years from now. Will we read more or less, will our reading become more interactive? What will happen to traditional publishing? This is  a very free-form question, feel free to wildly extrapolate or calmly state facts, as suits your mood!"

This is an important topic. I am probably much older than most people taking this course weighing in at 57 years old. So I can remember very ancient libraries, not being able to find books I was interested in, no book clubs, a librarian whom you would not even think about approaching in a library or you might get in trouble, but mainly NO INTERNET.  

Books were VERY expensive to own, and if you did own them-then it was a special request say for a few Nancy Drew books on Christmas and your birthday: You dreamed that by the time you were an adult, you might own the whole collection! Even the local library did not have all of the selections in the series. If there was a local library event-where say a famous author or even the Children's librarian might read to a group- that was really a HUGE event.

However, it was a simple uncomplicated time that I look back on with fondness. In my childhood, adults read to children at bedtime as a matter of fact. Even if it was the same book over and over, children were read to at night as part of the daily routine. I do not think many families practice that any longer or if they do- it's a real effort to keep up. I remember when my daughter was little in the early 90's, with everything I had to do, and everything she had available to her at school and the local library, this was really an extreme effort on my part to incorporate this into our daily routine. The pace of life was much slower when I was young, resources not as abundant, and mother's usually were home with their children. There wasn't much else to do, but read and re-read a book over and over! I sort of miss that intimacy that developed between my own parents/grandparents and myself- and how those characters- like for me The Boxcar Children- almost became a part of our own family landscape. Jokes or comments would be daily about the characters we had come to know together. "Yeah, do that again and you might be living in a boxcar, too" as a joke my mom might say, and we'd just laugh. So, in that regard, it is this lower pace to life, more time to read, more intimacy with books and people that I think have been lost.


As I mentioned earlier,  there was no internet. It really is the internet that has changed everything in the area of books, reading and the future of such. Add in Social Media, and you have a reader's paradise!! Books are more abundant now in digital and/or hard copy form.

I own a few antique mall booths, and one of the items I sell is books. Where do I get them? At the Goodwill, yard sales, library book sales, and auctions. How much do I pay? Nearly nothing. Sometimes I'm appalled at how cheaply I can get these books, and think back to when I was a youth and had to save all year for a Nancy Drew book. Supplies are in full demand right now. If you want to read an e-book, you can find it for free on a library site, or subscribe for a  minimal fee to a service like Amazon. If you want to know what to read, you can ask Good Reads-which if you've been following my posts, you'll know I think is the greatest invention ever, next to Amazon for book lovers! It is a paradise for readers out there!

However, my great fear for where all of this is taking us is this: For those of us who continue to have internet access and money for digital products, the new world that is evolving is going to provide ease of use, quick selection and no time wasted finding and reading what you want.  I do worry about the loss of hard copies of books though. I think eventually publishers are going to quit producing them..as is evidenced by all of the books I can buy for nothing (No one is reading them!)

And in the worse case scenario-what if something happens to the power supplies of the world? What if electricity is no longer available as resources dwindle? What if all of the hard copies are gone and everything is stored in some great database in cyber-space,  then for some un-forseen apocalypse is then lost to humanity? What if only a few people have the money to pay for access to these things? Then books will be lost forever to people. It is absolutely imperative that we do not go exclusively to a digitized world where no hard copy books remain. I believe to do so would usher in another long dark ages for humanity-- it is that important.

Week 12/13 (?) Prompt: To Separate or Not to Separate?

Week 12/13 (?) Prompt: To Separate or Not to Separate?

Topic: "Consider yourself part of the collection management committee of your local library, or a library at which you would like to work. You must decide whether or not to separate GBLTQ fiction and African American Fiction from the general collection to its own special place. Some patrons have requested this, yet many staff are uncomfortable with the idea - saying it promotes segregation and disrupts serendipitous discovery of an author who might be different from the reader. Do you separate them? Do you separate one and not the other? Why or why not? You must provide at least 3 reasons for or against your decision. Feel free to use outside sources - this is a weighty question that is answered differently in a lot of different libraries."

I think the answer to this question depends on the collections and how they are organized at that particular branch. If the library promotes Genre Segregation among many other genres, then this would not seem to be an odd thing. However, if the clientele of the library were primarily a race for example not African American, then it would seem as if it might be a prejudicial thing. One thing I thought about that is a little differently for the GBLTQ division, might be that a patron would not want to be seen in that section, but might actually want to read the books? I think on this issue, I would have the staff vote on whether to do this or not, and it would also depend on the size of the collection. If our library only had 2 shelves for this genre, then I would keep it in the general collection. But if we had a huge collection and many requests for the  material I would separate it, if the vote was majority. I would listen to my staff about why or why not include it, and would go with the answer that I thought might appeal to MOST readers in this genre.

One other thing that could be done: When posting the genre signs along the bookshelf end caps,  I would note under every Genre something like the following: "We have separated out reading genres for the ease and enjoyment of our patrons" or something similar to this. That way, patrons in the GBLTQ or African American Fiction (Or any other smaller category), would not feel offended. The library could even leave a note: "Please feel free to see the librarian if you are not comfortable with this" or "see her to retrieve a book from this selection", something on that order. This way you've covered both types of patrons, and have assisted the one who won't go into the section but may want a book.

Week 15 Prompt. Sariks Has A Lot of Good Ideas.

Week 15 Prompt. Sariks Has A Lot of Good Ideas.

Assignment:

"What do you think are the best ways to market your library's fiction collection? Name and describe three ways you do or would like to market your library or your future library's fiction. These can be tools, programs, services, displays - anything that you see as getting the word out."

I don't work in a library at the moment, but I do work in an academic setting where I have to promote faculty research and writing. What I currently do is I utilize our website, bulletin boards and newsletters to get the word out. However, if I were working in a Public Library marketing fiction that would be horse of a different color. If given the opportunity to do this, I would do the following:

1. Per Sariks I would have a Reader's Advisory Service. Make sure that I had a Reader's Advisory Service for fiction on the Library's website. I would subscribe to Novelist or one of the other services. If our library couldn't afford it, I would be the Reader's Advisor and would maintain a blog on the site for suggestions. Perhaps when people are checking out books, I would suggest that they post responses on the blog, and utilize it also as a book club.
2.  Segregated Genre Collections. Suggested also by Sariks. When a patron is looking for a book, some times they don't want to look in the catalog. It is much more organic to walk through the stacks and look for something that catches one's eye. With the segregated collections it's much easier to find out if a library has much to read by just glancing at the for example size of the Romance collection vs. the size of the Graphic Novel collection. If I like romance, and see only two shelves devoted to it, I'm probably not going to go any further. however, even if I don't like graphic novels, if there is a huge area devoted to it, I may go check it out to see what all the bustle is about.
3. Book Displays. Per Sariks suggestion, too. I personally like these. I like browsing the shelves and the shelf recommendations. However, I'm usually looking for recent books when I'm looking at the displays. I think these need to be kept to new books or occasionally themed, but even the themed should have recent works.

Notes

Saricks, J. (2005) Promoting and marketing readers’ advisory collections and services. In

Readers’ Advisory Service in the Public Library. Chicago: ALA. Pp. 136-160

Prompt Response-Week 7. I don't want Oprah to Tell me What to Read

Prompt Response-Week 7.  I don't want Oprah to Tell me What to Read

This is the assignment:

"For our prompt this week, I want you to think about fake memoirs, author mills,and celebrity inspired book clubs. Basically write a readers' response to one of the articles you are reading for this week - or talk about a time when a book or author that made headlines affected you personally or your work."

I used to watch the Oprah Winfrey show from time-to-time, and for the most part, trusted her judgement. So, when she began to promote her Book Club, I liked it. I signed up on her website and followed her suggestions. What I found out is, I didn't really like her suggestions! I remember becoming very involved in the

Eckhart Tolle books initially, but especially A New Earth because Oprah said so.

I thought I liked it at the time, but realized later I didn't but was only reading it because I trusted her judgment-which basically comes down to whatever Oprah likes.

Not so long ago, I was also reading an article that may seem unrelated but not so much really, now that I am thinking this thing through a little more: The article was more political in nature and spoke of the dangers of having a few super billionaires in the US. The reason they are dangerous, is because if you put Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and Oprah Winfrey together their influence is huge, too huge---- because of their enormous wealth. They seem to be very good and honest people with good intentions, but that is not the issue: they pointed out that WHATEVER agenda these billionaires have, become our agenda. (The election of Barack Obama for example, promoted by Buffet and Winfrey.) After I read that, I decided I am not going to allow Oprah to dictate to me-even though I like her and admire her- what I read or think.

In reflecting back, I didn't really enjoy the book but thought I was supposed to!!  It's dangerous when billionaires determine what the public should be reading, or doing or promoting. I don't need their suggestions. I would much rather use a Librarian's suggestion or a social media outlet, controlled by my peers.

Week 8: Special Topics Paper

Biographical Historical Fiction:

Which Online Social Networking Reader-Sharing/Book Site is Preferred,

When Recommending Books in This Genre?

Depending on what a reader is looking for, a particular online reader’s advisory (RA) service may or may not be able to assist. In addition to finding information in RA services through the many online databases such as Reader’s Advisory Online, Novelist, etc., one can also find information through literature reviews, book award and prize lists, and social networking (SN) sites.

I have found that I typically like Good Reads, which is a Social Networking Reader-Sharing/Book site, so I thought I would take a look at the many similar sites that Mary K. Chelton recommends in her bibliography READERS ADVI SORY TOOL S FOR ADUL T READERS: A FIVE-YEAR RETROSPECTI VE SEL ECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY, WITH A FEW EARL IER EXCEPTI ONS that was used as a resource for this class.  I wanted to find out if one of the other sites in her list, is actually better than Good Reads.

I like Good Reads because readers make lists of whatever suits their interest, and then compile reading suggestions from those. People can add to the list, rate books on the list, even rate the list! In addition, the site works seamlessly with Facebook, Pinterest and some of the most popular SN sites that exist. Just the ease of use alone, makes it a great tool. I have found these lists on Good Reads very helpful: much more helpful than the Read Alikes on Novelist, when searching for what to read next.  Novelist has a great way to find books- if a similar book is in their database, and if you have access to their paid subscription.  However, I personally still like Good Reads better.

Historical Fiction Genre Preferences

Within the genres we have studied in our class, I prefer historical fiction, but mostly I like biographical historical fiction, so I thought I would take this genre and search through Chelton’s recommendations to see if something other than Good Reads works the best.  My findings and suggestions follow below.

            My reading preferences in general, are mostly geared to non-fiction. Within non-fiction, I enjoy biographies and autobiographies the most. Learning about the qualities of historical fiction as it relates to non-fiction and biography has been very interesting to me. This course has taught me how to distinguish the differences, and how biographical fiction can be used for greater goals:

“As most readers' advisors know, biographical fiction is a great gateway to introduce fans of biography to historical fiction, and steer fiction readers to the equally compelling stories found in biographies” [Stover]

In our textbook, The Reader’s Advisory Guide to Genre Fiction the author, Sariks explains Historical Fiction but points out the biographical reader:  “other readers look for Historical novels that focus on characters and their lives. These character-centered novels provide glimpses into the lived of fictional and real people”

I wanted to put all of this together somehow. How to help the mostly non-fiction reader of biographies and the mostly fiction reader of Historical Fiction locate meaningful reading that has mostly elements of truth, with some entertainment value splashed in.

I discovered that when searching for biographical historical fiction, most of the time one can’t search for the person, it is the era they belong to that is key. Once that is known, one must search within that era. Some common category eras of historical fiction that are used when searching the SN sites are:

·         19th Century Historical Fiction

·         20th Century Historical Fiction

·         American Revolution

·         Ancient Egypt

·         Ancient Greece

·         Ancient Rome

·         British Royalty

·         Christian Fiction

·         Civil War (U.S.A.)

·         Colonial Americas

·         Cultures Through the Ages

·         Elizabethan Era

·         French Revolution & Napoleonic Era

·         Historical Characters

·         Historical Fiction - Biographical

·         Historical Mysteries

·         Historical Thrillers

·         Medieval Europe

·         Multigenerational Sagas

·         Multiple Timelines

·         Prehistoric Fiction

·         Renaissance

·         World War I

·         World War II

Which Social Networking Sites Based on Chelton’s List, Work Well for Biographical Historical Fiction Searches?

On Chelton’s list she included another category: RA tools for Historical Fiction. I did not find those recommendations very helpful as a searchable tool for finding lists of recommendations. For example: Give me a list to search for female monarchs of England. Some of the links on this list did not work, and what I did find were more like literature review sites instead of a usable database that I could query. So I moved on to her SN sites list.

I did not include all of Chelton’s SN sites for my purposes here, but searched through the ones I thought best applied to Historical Fiction. (She had one SN listed with a genre of Crime, so that was not relevant here.) I was searching for sites that I thought might provide me with lists. What kind of list? For example: A list of all fiction books that have as the main character Abraham Lincoln.

Most of my search terms for this exercise were the following: biographical fiction, biography, famous people, history, and then I plugged in famous people names. If I didn’t get any results back,  I browsed the lists that were in the general lists. These are the results that I received:

www.anobii.com. I had to sign up for an account to be able to see the functionality of the site. It allowed me to create an account with my Facebook account which I really liked. Fast and easy account set-up. Right off the bat, I noticed it had reader’s lists capacity, which I also really liked. However, what I discovered is that not very many people are utilizing the site. Of their top reading lists, many times less than 100 followers were following the top lists. Compared to Good Reads, this is not very good. I decided to move on.  Perhaps over time this site can build up a bigger following.

http://www.bookjetty.com   “BookJetty is a social utility that connects you with your friends' bookshelves and checks books' availability in the libraries.” [Chelton] Bookjetty required the user to sign up for an account much like anobii via Facebook or other means. However, I was able to browse the selections without signing up. The results of everything added in the past month didn’t even mention the historical fiction genre. Therefore, I moved on to the next choice.

 http://www.bookswellread.com “The goal of BooksWellRead is to be the online destination of choice for people who want to 'digest' what they read by capturing their thoughts in writing. BooksWellRead has been designed to be simple, fast, and easy to use.” [Chelton]. The link for this site took me to a website in Chinese that was selling items other than books. Not useful.

 http://www.eBooklists.pbwiki.com   “RA wiki being constructed by librarians who were in graduate school together at Indiana University.” [Chelton] I liked the construction of the Wiki. There were several categories to drill into for Historical Fiction. However, upon drilling down, there was very little in the way of content. Not recommended but could be used by librarians to build a niche list.

www.librarything.com  “Helps you create a library-quality catalog of your books and connects you with people who read the same things.” [Chelton] I like Library Thing, but not necessarily for its reading lists.  One of their most popular lists is for Historical Fiction. As far as biographical historical fiction, one has to drill down through the many historical eras to locate people. I did find a really good list of books related to characters in the Bible. (Historical Fiction-Biblical Characters). However, for searches of more lesser-known biographies, there was not much.  Because of the nonprofit low cost do-it-yourself nature of the site, when you get results on a hit, the formatting for the results is very tedious and not very pleasing to the eye. The site itself has probably more overall resources for librarians in general, but it cannot compete with the aesthetics and more robust application of Good Reads for finding a reading list

http://www.revish.com  “Revish is a place where people share their reading experiences. You can use Revish to keep and share a list of books you're reading, write reviews of books, find recommendations from other readers, and a whole lot more.” [Chelton]. Well, “a whole lot more” meant having to wade through testosterone, jewelry, and ‘building your muscles’ ads that were actually listed as subjects (not ads) when I clicked through on GROUPS>GENRES. I was kind of excited when I saw that there were 35 actual groups in GENRES, but quickly disappointed when I realized there were probably only a small handful of legitimate posts about books period. It reminded me of the kind of formatting you might see on a poorly utilized category on Craigslist. The site did not look safe. Not recommended.

http://www.whatshouldireadnext.com/search   “What Should I Read Next? Searchable database of real readers’ favorite books (over 47,000 and growing) to suggest what you could read next.” [Chelton] This is a fabulous site! It reminds me of the travel sites like Priceline.  The very first page asks you to enter the title of a book you liked. As soon as I started typing Abraham Lincoln, tons of results started appearing. Basically, any book in (what appears to be) a very large database, starts appearing as you type. This is very easy to use and intuitive. I will use this in my RA toolkit. Even though it doesn’t provide you with a list of biographical topics, if you know the name of the person you want to read about, this might be the best way to pull up everything that has been written about that person.  This might be one of the most singular tools for the RA to have in her toolkit when she doesn’t have a lot of time for further research. Quick, easy and highly recommended for looking up biographical names.

http://whatsonmybookshelf.com/     “WhatsOnMyBookshelf, a book trading community, allows members to exchange their books using a simple point system. Users maintain their own profile page with friends, book inventory, and wish lists. Our goal is to facilitate the trading of books in addition to connecting people with similar reading interests. Sharing a book is the creation of a common place for dialogue, friendships, and ideas. “[Chelton] Upon first entering the site, I thought it looked a lot like Good Reads.  It had a smart looking interface and book images displayed. However, just like many of the other sites, Historical Fiction was not even mentioned in a group or category, except for Romantic Historical Fiction, which was not what I was looking for. I would not recommend or use this site.

www.goodreads.com  “Keeps track of what you’ve read and what your friends are reading. Also on Facebook.” [Chelton] My favorite site going into this research and this is still my favorite site after viewing all of the others in Chelton’s list! When I search for History from the home page search, and select LISTOPIA, I received results of 1,606 list results (not books)!  Entering Abraham Lincoln resulted in 11 lists alone!  Entering the term biographical historical fiction returned 10 list results. Here is an example of the type of lists and how they display:

Summary of Findings

I don’t have all the time in the world, as do most people, to belong to a million book clubs, subscribe to newsletters and to pour over lists and lists, or to comb through every issue of literature reviews or through their sites. How would I ever find time to read the actual book, or even find a book to suggest to another person, if I have to do all of that just to locate what I am interested in?  I want something easy, fun and interactive.  For the purposes of this paper, I found the two SN sites for RA that are useful to me were: Good Reads and What Should I read Next.com.

I started this paper with the assumption that Good Reads is the best SN site for RA. What I discovered is that I was correct, it is by far the best site. It is a very robust application, with an incredible amount of content that is actually used and interacted with by basically anyone who reads anything.

I realized in trying out these tools and the one’s that Chelton had listed as basic Historical Fiction RA tools, that what I like to use are basically sites or applications that utilize a robust database.   I don’t really like the various list-servs, blog like sites, or primitive wiki’s that well-meaning people are trying to build for these purposes. In some cases, I had to ask myself if some of the people behind some of these sites, weren’t just reinventing the wheel, so-to-speak?

A few other discoveries I made: almost any reference to historical fiction is done by historical era and not person, and many of the types of sites suggested by Chelton, are probably for the benefit for librarian’s niches among themselves, and even then, rarely include biographical historical fiction.

Good Reads, just as I thought, has this market cornered, as far as I’m concerned --but a close second behind it, with a different type of search function is What Should I read Next.com.  I will definitely use both, and be assured that I am using the best for recommendations in this genre!

References

Baker, J. S., & Klaassen, A. (2015). The Readers' Advisory Guide to Historical Fiction.

Chelton, Mary K. READERS ADVI SORY TOOL S FOR ADUL T READERS: A FIVE-YEAR RETROSPECTI VE SEL ECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY, WITH A FEW EARL IER EXCEPTI ONS, October 2008

Sariks, Joyce G. The Reader’s Advisory Guide to Genre Fiction 

Stover, Kaite Mediatore. Story Book Lives: Biographical Fiction. April issue of RA News.