Week 3

Assignment 1

After reading the The RA Conversation I noticed I was even more hesitant about going into the stacks and doing readers advisory. I guess it all comes down to the fact I'm the kind of person that doesn't like being bothered when I'm in a public place. If I need help I will go look for it. So, it's difficult for me to go up to customers in the library and ask them if they need help.

That being said the article did give me a few pointers on what to do. The opening questions will probably help me get over approaching customers. And I liked the statement that even the best librarian can't list four or five titles off the top of their head for every customer. I have to realize I will probably have to go look something up in Goodreads or Novelist to find materials to suggest. It's just going to take time for me to get better and/or more comfortable with readers advisory.

Assignment 2

After listening to the Nancy Pearl podcast I noticed her book talks were somewhat short, about 1 to 2 minutes tops (a skill some librarians I know need to learn.) She uses a lot of the appeal factors when describing the books not to mention her enthusiasm is contagious. I'm not a big popular fiction reader and her descriptions of the books made me at least want to go look at them. As far as the plots go, she reveals just enough to get you interested but not so much that she reveals the whole book.

Assignment 3

Conversation 1: What I got out of this conversation was a customer that likes autobiographies and maybe some travel writing. Based on that I came up with A Year in the World: Journeys of a Passionate Traveler by Frances Mayes.

Conversation 2: So obviously this person wants a fast paced book with vampires without the teen angst. To meet that request I would give her any of the Brian Lumley books that we have in the system. While the main character is a vampire hunter the vampires in these books are the real deal. None of this sparkling stuff.

Conversation 3: It seems this customer is looking for a fast paced historical fiction. Based on this I came up with The lost city of Z: a tale of deadly obsession in the Amazon by David Grann.

Week 2

Assignment 2
For this assignment I reviewed a book I just finished reading (Deceived) and the first book in one of my all time favorite series (The Ranger's Apprentice).

Deceived is a fast-paced plot- driven story set in the "Star Wars: The Old Republic" universe. The story follows Darth Malgus, a Sith Lord who wants to see the Republic crushed beneath the heal of the Empire. Meanwhile, a Jedi Knight named Aryn Leneer, forsakes the Jedi Order to find and punish an unknown enemy for killing her master.

The Ruins of Gorlan is the story of Will, a boy who was orphaned at birth and taken in by the kingdom of Araluen. On his 15^th birthday Will is apprenticed to Halt, Arulen’s resident Ranger. Will’s training has only just begun when he is called upon to help stop an evil sorcerer, Morgarath, from seeking his revenge upon King Duncan. This story is action-packed and fast moving and will keep the attention of both young and old readers.

Week 1

Assignment 1
It seems that my ability to remember book covers is not as good as some of my peers. I was only able to remember 16 of the adult books and 15 of the children's. Now, there were covers in both groups that I definitely recognized but couldn't recall the title in the allotted time period. If you count those I knew around 20 in each group.

Assignment 2
While my long term memory for book covers is not great I was able to get most of the genres correct for this assignment. I would have been mortified if I had gotten any of the Sci-Fi or Fantasy covers incorrect.

Assignment 3
Wow. I break a lot of these so called rules.

Assignment 4

Recommended Links - Books

I decided to go with EarlyWord. I like the way the site is set up. It has a nice list of categories on the sidebar and a list links for other websites in case I want to go elsewhere. Not to mention the fact it had a trailer for the Ender's Game movie coming out in November.


Recommended Links - Genre

For the genre I decided to look at Stop, You're Killing Me! I'm not a big mystery reader (hence the name of my blog) so I figured I'd give it a shot. To be honest I wasn't impressed with either of the sites but the Stop, You're Killing Me! site seemed to be the best of the two.