What Tamar Learned at PLA : "Developing an Online Reading Suggestion Service"

This session at PLA, on developing an online reading suggestion service, intrigues me mightily. As you probably know, I'm extremely interested in Reader's Advisory, so I couldn't resist attending several RA sessions at PLA this year. When I read the description for this session, however, I was skeptical. Here's the description: "Taking reader's advisory online can be a challenge-how to keep personal service in the virtual world? The Williamsburg Regional Library's award-winning Looking for a Good Book? service provides readers with personalized reading lists. Learn how to develop, implement, promote, and evaluate a form-based reading suggestion service." So, I read the word "form" and scoffed! How could a form be personal? But I attended the session and I must admit, they have compelling evidence. The speakers contend that there are faulty assumptions in the traditional RA model. These are, to quote their handout, that "readers will approach librarians with RA questions, [that] the library employee approached with a RA question will be the right person, [that] enough information is obtained in a typical RA interview to provide good service, [that] quality RA service is possible, given the time constraints of library encounters, [that] resources needed by advisors can be easily used in face-to-face discussions, [and that] face-to-face RA encounters are documented sufficiently to support follow up." So, WOW, they seem to think that face-to-face RA is NOT the best way to do RA! I found this shocking, to tell the truth. How can a form be more personal than a face-to-face encounter? Well, the speakers argue that there is a need for a reading suggestion service because of several reasons. They feel that: patrons don't come to the librarian for help choosing books, that librarians don't get enough practice doing RA, that face-to-face RA interviews are more threatening to library staff, that RA is not a ready reference process (ie, it takes more time than either the librarian or the patron has while at the desk), that a form would document RA in a way that face-to-face can't be documented, and finally, that patrons love this service. They even claim that a reading suggestion service reinforces the value of the library to readers, which I have been saying about RA in general for years! By this point in the presentation, I was all ears! So, the basic way this service would work is this: patrons fill out a form on the library website. This form would contain detailed RA questions, about their reading tastes and interests. The form would then go to a team of librarians, who would divvy up the forms among themselves to be analyzed. The librarian would then have several days to create a detailed reading suggestion list for the patron. These lists would ideally be better able to help the reader in their reading choices because better questions were asked and the librarian had more time to do a detailed search for good books. This makes sense to me. I have a suggestion, however, to call this online form, instead of the dreaded word form, which makes me think of taxes or applications, let's call it a "profile". People love to fill out profiles, just think of myspace.com or all of those surveys that get forwarded in emails. But people don't like to fill out forms. Anyway, that's just a little thought from me. So, there are lots of numbers, stats, and more reasons to do this that the speakers handed out. They also gave us their form to look at and use a template for our form, should we choose to try it. Can you tell that I'd like to try? Get ready, RQT, I'm coming to the next meeting with a boatload of info about RA!