9A: Reader's Advisory and Expanding our Imaginative Capabilities

For our last class, our warm-up activity returned to the mysterious realm of virtual reference where we were paired up with group members to conduct a reference interview with…a child!! (DISCLAIMER: this was Nicco, not an actual human child). My team member and I approached the virtual reference interview with a sense of creativity and good faith that our young patron, named “Nicholas”, was sincere in his request for a “sad book” for his brother Roger. After asking for Roger’s age (he’s five), we inquired to Nicholas why does he say his brother likes sad books.

Instead of leaping to the assumption that this kid named Roger and his older brother Nicholas were likely traumatized and needed therapeutic picture books immediately, my team member and I made the judgment that Nicholas most likely means “sad” in a different way than it came off, simply because the young user might not have an expanded vocabulary yet or he does not fully understand the connotations of what he is saying. After that initial exchange, young Nicholas told us Roger “likes when animals get into trouble…not just when their (sic) friends.” From then on, we had an easier time offering suggestions that the young patron could use when finding something for his brother, and we ended the reference interaction with some satisfaction on the user end.

What I found illuminating about this warm-up was how it related to our discussion on reader’s advisory. A major takeaway from that discussion was that we recommend based on what we know, and it is much more difficult to fully recommend books in this day and age because librarians’ attentions are frequently being guided away from reading for reader’s advisory towards other information pursuits. The books I had recommended to the young patron in the warm-up exercise were either books I had read as a child or books I had shelved in the children’s section in my hometown library. At some point during our exchange I wondered, are the limits of my imagination hurting the information prospects of this patron? How do we stretch the bounds of our literary imagination when it is so fully occupied by the other constraints of our changing position?

Thankfully, our discussion during class also reminded me the vast knowledge we share as a group. In order for us as librarians to provide decent reader’s advisory despite our workplace constraints, we must work together to share our knowledge. Whether it is on platforms like Your Next Read or sharing our thoughts in person, our collective understanding of what our patrons potentially want or need is invaluable in this current era of reader’s advisory.