About Us
Readers' Advisory | Website Purpose | Needs Assessment | Target Audience
Readers' Advisory
A readers’ advisory component is an essential part of every library’s website. What better way to promote the library and its collection! A good readers’ advisory website will always provide direct access to the library’s online public access catalog. According to Wilson a library’s catalog “is the portal to their collections and one readers rely on to provide access to their reading materials” (2004, p. 90).
Purpose of the Readers' Advisory Website
The purpose of the readers’ advisory website is to satisfy the information seeking needs of its readers and to create a virtual community of readers who can exchange ideas and share their love for books and reading. The mission of the website is to serve readers and connect them to books through virtual readers’ advisory resources and services. The same high quality reader advisory services that are available face-to-face in the physical community library will be available in the virtual community library.
The following is a list of goals that the Readers’ Advisory website will provide:
Annotated reading lists of best-sellers, book publishers and bookstores, book discussion guides, organizations sponsoring literary awards, links to e-Books, links to literary magazines, online book groups, and electronic subscription databases. Links to “social book marking” tools will also be provided.
A blog for readers to post book reviews, personal comments, stay current with what others are reading, and discover new books they may not otherwise find. A blog also gives readers the opportunity to participate in the library’s website content.
A list of Library of Congress Subject Headings for genre and sub-genre keyword searches. Tips and hints for doing keyword searches for book series’ and favorite characters will also be included.
Annotated reviews of books in each of the eight genres featured on the website. Annotated links to genre specific websites will also be provided.
Provide personalized book lookup and research. Bibliographies that are generated on-demand will be made available for others to use and enjoy. In the physical library community, these user-requested bibliographies are compiled but rarely are shared with other readers.
Provide reviews of books that library staff have read. In addition to editorial reviews and catalog-enriched content, providing homegrown content adds to a library’s website giving it a more personalized touch. Library staff will be encouraged to contribute annotated book reviews on a regular basis.
Links to websites that help readers create, store, and update their personal reading journals. Additionally, templates will be made available in Microsoft Access, Word, and Excel database formats for readers to download to their own personal computers. Links to second generation word processing tools will be included.
A virtual book display will be prominently featured on the home page each week. Weekly virtual book displays will be archived for readers to use and enjoy.
Needs Assessment
The concept of readers’ advisory was suggested as far back as 1876 when Samuel Swett Green’s article, “Personal Relations Between Librarians and Readers” appeared in the first issue of Library Journal. Genz suggests “[Samuel Green] believed that a librarian was needed to offer assistance to the reader. The impetus behind [Green’s] idea was to ensure that the collection be heavily used to show the importance and necessity of the library” (1998, p. 506). More than 130 years later, in a time when public libraries are faced with shrinking budgets and a shortage of professional librarians to staff readers’ advisory desks, innovative services are needed to attract readers to the library and increase circulation of its collection.
Audience
The primary audience for the Readers’ Advisory website is adult readers. Assisting adult readers select genres, authors, and titles is a key information seeking need and a service that is critical to promoting the use of the library’s collection. Stover (2005) notes that through the service of “helping users locate stories that are important to them and that validate their lives, libraries can build community support, expand the community of readers, and increase circulation of materials” (p. 122).
Library staff has been serving readers since the inception of libraries. Traditional methods have been face-to-face interviews, print bibliographies, library book shelf displays, posters, bookmarks, and staff pick displays. Readers and library staff today are faced with information overload largely in part to the Internet. In the virtual world, readers are expected to sift through hundreds of websites and navigate complicated databases and online public access catalogs. The Readers’ Advisory website will attempt to “harness the Internet” in order to “save the time of the reader” (Ranganathan, as cited by Cloonan and Dove, 2005). The website will provide the “best-of-the-best” resources so readers and library staff can quickly and easily find current, authoritative information.
The recent immergence of a second-generation of internet services and internet users will additionally be addressed. Content will be delivered through traditional asynchronous services and will additionally include new synchronous services such as online readers’ advisory chat. Social-networking services and tools will be included allowing readers to collaborate and share information online.