Once I added "Google Books" and "Amazon Books" to the blog, it got me thinking about how reader's advisory has changed in libraries. Before the web, if a patron came in asking for a suggestion on what to read, the librarin would have to rely on either their own reading experiences or rely on books such as "The Reader's Advisory Guide to Genre Fiction' or "Mystery Readers' Advisory: The Librarian's Guide to Murder and Mayhem" or booklists previously and laboriously compiled by staff.
Today however, librarians can, at a click of the key access a host of online sources to help patrons find new or similar subject books to read. Barnesandnoble.com and Amazon.com both offer features that allow regular readers to review and rate books online as well as posting professional reviews. This allows the patron to see instantly if others liked a book, and what they did or did not like about the book. Also listed on both sites are what books were bought along with a specific title, as well as subject searches that will help find similar books.
In addition to these popular sites there are pay sites that libraries can subscribe to such as Novelist, Novelist k-8, and Reader's Advisor Online etc, that offer similar but perhaps more professional and comprehensive searches.
It's amazing to me that what once took a large amount of staff work to compile, or was out of date because of publishing time, can now be found easily and as soon as a book is published!
Heather W.
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1 comment:
I agree, the technology has definitely improved the efficiency of the process, but at what cost? Hopefully this doesn't mean the libraries of the future will only require an IT person to make sure all the computers are up and running for the patrons to help themselves. The personal interaction one receives when visiting a library has to be worth something.
Matt Marshall
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