Welcome to Week Six!

Hi all,

Great job on your Secret Shopper experiences. I know that is can be very uncomfortable and awkward to pretend in this way, but I think it's very valuable to see how the people we are trying to help are treated - both the good and the bad.

This week, we are doing Horror, Gentle Reads, and Romance. As strange as the three of these seem to pair together, they actually go very well as all three genres are designed to elicit strong emotions on behalf of the reader. Please review the PowerPoint in Week 6 resources on Oncourse, and let me know if you have any questions.

We are also discussing integrated advisory and booktalks this week. The concept behind integrated advisory is very simple: it's using forms of media other than books in your advisory. For example, if someone wants to get back into reading but they haven't read too much, you could ask what type of television shows or movies they like, or what kinds of games they like to play. The opposite works as well; I have nearly as many people ask me for movie suggestions as I do book suggestions. And I rarely watch movies, so I have to use sources - and these are not always as easy to find. With reluctant readers, having this knowledge and ability is even more valuable.

I chose to share the romance chapter with you from the book Integrated Advisory, because they do a great job talking about some of the many romance subgenres. However they do fall a bit short in suggesting that there aren't any games for romance readers - that is patently ridiculous. The huge surge in casual gaming is largely due to the same people who read romance novels; people who want a quick, easy, rewarding, and fun diversion. If you go to Big Fish Games or many other casual gaming sites you will find many, many games where the motivation is romance. Also, many romance authors have already put their spin on games - Marjorie M. Liu did years ago with one of her first titles, Tiger Eye. Many indie games have embraced romance as a narrative device. The huge narrative hit Gone Home from 2013 is a sweet teen romance that has won a ton of awards. As libraries expand their offerings to include games and other media, we need to  be aware of the possibilities that integrated advisory offers us. Steam, a cloud-based game media service (kind of like an iTunes for games) has very recently introduced tags into their search features. Library Journal includes game recommendations quite often in their RA articles now.

As for book talks, these are a great way for your library to connect with the outside world. Whether you go to a local group, they come to you, or you post them online, book talks let librarians show off their expertise.  Many librarians use book talks to establish connections with local clubs, schools, senior centers, day care centers, and other groups. Please read the article on book talks listed in the syllabus, and here are a couple of YouTube ones that follow the basic format that Jennifer Baker lays out in her article for booktalks:

Scholastic Book Talk

Library Book Talk

I will post the prompt later this afternoon. As always, let me know if you have any questions!