Dan Brown's Lost Symbol

Besides stocking tons of these books, it is important to be able to refer your readers to readalikes. Face it, those waits for holds will be looooooong! Here is yet another list of readalikes

click here for lists of readalikes

(for my co-workers: I will be working like crazy to make shared/community lists and also handouts asap)

Genre Talk

Some great stuff lately describing and discussiong genre

Mystery via Library Journal - Genre Fiction on 8/14/09"Using the past as a main ingredient in solving present-day crimes has increasingly become an important element in contemporary mysteries.

"Romance via Library Journal - Genre Fiction on 8/14/09"Paranormal Everywhere Paranormal romance is still enthralling readers. In addition to carving out discrete romance niches—vampire romance, shape-changer romance (werewolves, werecats, etc.), witch romance, and so on—magical and paranormal elements continue to seep into other romance subgenres with delightful, or alarming, regularity"

Still Page Turners 10 years Later via RA for All by Becky on 8/16/09"Click here to read Isabel Wilkinson's "Back to the 90s" article outlining nine page turners from the 1990s that are still holding strong."

You're Better at Reader's Advisory Than You Think!

By merely presenting the first sentence from the title in question, Joyce Saricks proves to us that we know more about Reader's Advisory than we think!

At Leisure with Joyce Saricks: Taking On the Quiz Challenge.
via Booklist Online - At Leisure with Joyce Saricks on 8/10/09

Reader's Advisory Resources

Published last October, we here at Librarland Roundup finally stumbled upon Mary K Chelton's most excellent list of reader's advisory resources. Like any good bibliography in the electronic age, some of the links are already out of date.

But c'mon peeps! It's Mary K. Chelton! What's not to love?


Reader's Advisory Tools for Adult Readers: A Five Year Retrospective
via WebJunction - Readers Advisory by Mary K. Chelton, Professor - Queen's College, Flushing, NY on 10/27/08

If you liked...

Student Reading List: So you liked The Other Bolyen Girl, Now Try...
via RA for All by Becky on 5/4/09

Becky's students have made a great list

The Future of Reader's Advisory

Building on a Firm Foundation: Readers’ Advisory over the Next Twenty-Five Years
via RUSQ by angie on 3/29/09

Summary:
Format-based Readers’ Advisory: Instead of concentrating on just books or just fiction, we'll be integrating all kinds of formats from audio to dvd to youtube into our recommendations and searches.

Where is Genre Going? Fiction genres are blending and recombining. While knowledge of the basic genres is important, literary fiction is now very likely to include genre elements. "These writers all use elements usually associated with genre fiction in what otherwise would be considered “literary fiction.” The success of titles such Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife (which uses a very literary style to explore the consequences of time travel on a relationship) or Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (with its postapocalyptic setting) have exposed many readers to elements of genres they would not necessarily have tried otherwise. As genre definitions become increasingly blurry, readers’ advisors may be less able to rely on genre as a defining tool in the practice. At the same time, new genres or reading interests are continually developing"

RA for Non-English Speakers

Making Lists and Reader's Advisory

We here at Libraryland Roundup could not agree more with Joyce Saricks: At Leisure with Joyce Saricks: Keeping a List. from Booklist Online - At Leisure with Joyce Saricks

Whether you keep a Notebook, a Spreadsheet, Goodreads, Librarything, or a Facebook app, a list like this is invaluable for reminding yourself of things you might want to recommend to that patron who comes up and utters those terrifying words: "Can you recommend a good book?"

Even more, just like your ipod or mp3 player shows your taste in music, these lists can give your marvelous insight into your own tastes, how they evolved, and ideas for new areas to explore.

2.0 and Reader's Advisory

What is up with me? Some talks and notes.
from librarian.net by jessamyn
Library 2.0 and what tools and tips there are in there for Reader’s Advisory.

Some of these are old favorites and some have been mentioned here. A good talk to plunder for your own RA gold!

Interested in RA?

If you’re a member of the Public Library Association, take a look at the soft launch of the Readers’ Advisory Group.

Great group of new RA tools!

Wow did Sarah Houghton-Jan hit it on the head with this one. Tons of stuff to explore here!

Sarah's Reference Warehouse: Readers Advisory
from LibrarianInBlack by Sarah Houghton-Jan

Stephenie Meyers

In case you hadn't noticed, Stephenie Meyers crosses over between YA and Adult paranormal readers. Please make a note of it:

'Twilight' author sinks her teeth into an adult tale of aliens, love
via USATODAY.com Books - Top Stories on 5/6/08

Just subscribe in your reader - Reader's Advisor Online

Really, if you don't already subscribe to Reader's Advisor Online's newsfeed in your reader and you're actually interested in reader's advisory, I really must insist that you do so immediately.

Really. Insist. I must.

Look at all the info you're missing!
Summer Fiction Blockbusters
via The Reader's Advisor Online Blog by Cindy Orr on 5/14/08
Something we should all skim. The blockbusters are what we get asked for. And people always want to know the newest title. You can't remember everything but with enough skimming you never know when you'll run across something that rings a bell.

BONUS: Adding to your own reading list - that's what I'm doing at my Goodreads list in between posts today

DOUBLE BONUS: Get ideas for your favorite reader-with-low-budget gifts!

Reader's Advisor also has a weekly list of books hitting the bookstores the following week. Another must-skim so you can at least say to the user "Gee, that rings a bell."
An example (usually has a title - someone goofted that week):
(title unknown)
via The Reader's Advisor Online Blog by Cindy Orr on 5/4/08

Bless Booklist Online!

Booklist now has blogs and rss feeds. No longer do we have anxiously await delivery of Booklist, flip aimlessly through the contents, and then turn to what's really important: The Manly Arts. Nope, they can go to our newsreaders as soon as they're online.


Feeling old-school? Just mark your calendar and go to the website once a month. I suspect they're embargoed until the next month but, hey, give Booklist a break! They have to make money too.


I found it easiest to go to http://www.booklistonline.com/ and select the blogs tab. This immediately showed me the two blogs available that use RSS technology broadcast their contents:


Likely Stories A Book Blog by Keir Graff
Keir Graff, Booklist Online's senior editor, writes candidly about books, book reviewing, and the publishing industry


Book Group Buzz
Join Team Buzz for a book-group bounty: tips, reading guides, news, helpful links, and more.



But there's more!
Receive some of your favorite articles (a month after publication) by subscribing to the RSS feeds. Sweeeet!

At Leisure with Joyce Saricks

The Back Page

Carte Blanche

He Reads She Reads

The Manley Arts

BONUS!
Read-alikes

Story Behind the Story


Top 10 Lists

"Every January, Booklist publishes Editors’ Choice: lists of the best books, databases, video/DVDs, and audiobooks of the past year. From these lists, we further select what we call the Top of the List: the single best title in eight categories—adult fiction, adult nonfiction, youth fiction, youth nonfiction, youth picture book, reference source, video/DVD, and audiobook."

OTHER FEATURES

A review this for subscription about 18 months ago revealed the interface was clunky for searching and the contents could as easily be found on other subscription indexes. If you do not already subscribe you do not get access to those features.