Secret Shopper
My ‘secret shopper’ transaction experience was mixed. Because I have a blog post coming up, I asked the librarian to recommend a book from the ‘relationship fiction’ genre for me. I ended up with a recommendation of a book by one of the librarian's favorite authors after a 5 minute conversation.
There wasn’t much give and take to the conversation, and in order to end up with enough to write about and find a book that I would potentially enjoy, I had to do as much of the work as she did in the transaction. She didn't ask me many questions, and inadvertently dissed my favorite author. The librarian also didn’t utilize any tools, despite having NoveList and Goodreads at her disposal.
From this experience, I took away a few principles. Asking questions is important. I’m hoping to hone my questions over the course of the semester so that I have a good set to work with, and the questions become second nature. Listening to the reader is important, as is remembering that a type of book you don’t like might be just the right fit for them. The range of reader advisory tools at our disposal is immense, and I plan to utilize them to improve my recommendations. I don’t think readers expect a librarian to always have the right answer automatically - but they should expect that we know where to look to find it.
Hi Amanda,
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry your favorite author got dissed. That seems wrong to do and if it had been me I would have been uncomfortable asking for assistance in the future. Did the librarian at least recommend a book that you would like or be able to use for the relationship genre?
-Abby Abbott
Hi Abby,
DeleteThanks for the comment. I'm pretty sure she didn't mean to diss my author, but I think she is pretty inexperienced in doing RA. She did recommend a book, but I haven't been able to get into it. It was good practice, though!
Hi Amanda,
ReplyDeleteYou make a good observation: both asking questions and listening to answers are essential for effective readers' advisory. A conversation without much "give and take," as you experienced, sounds like a lecture or maybe an IRL vlog.
I wonder if there's a misplaced sense of shame in using RA tools to help find suggestions, as if a librarian should know all of the appeal factors of every book in their collection; such an expectation is clearly absurd. My job as a librarian isn't to know everything; it's to know how to find out anything. Very well said.
I also think there's a delicate balance between being personable and being biased. A readers' advisory interaction should be focused on what the patron likes to read, not what the librarian likes to read.
Thanks for sharing your experiences, and here's to a better experience next time.
-Daniel Thurston
Hi Amanda,
DeleteThe negative aspects of your interaction mirrored the ways my advisor also failed, although overall I had a positive experience. Dissing a reader's favorite author, or showing disdain for a whole genre like my librarian did, seems worse to me than simply not offering a good reading option! Why would you ever need to say anything negative about a book or author? I'm also curious, as Abby commented above, do you think you'll like the book the librarian did suggest? Or maybe the sour experience puts you off the suggested book before you even begin!
Amanda, I am sorry for the disappointing interaction. Everyone has bad days or the librarian could be new. I know that when I first started working a circulation desk where I had to provide RA, I was so embarrassed because I had not been trained on how to do it or what tools I could use. There are a lot of reasons why this could have happened, but it is frustrating as a patron to be discounted like that. And you are right, listening and asking questions are two vital aspects of RA. Without listening to the patron's requests or asking open ended questions to allow them to share, your own biases and preferences will be easy to fall back on instead of what the patron is actually asking for. That happens so often on some of the author Facebook pages where people ask for specific RA help and people just comment with their own favorites without taking into account their suggestion did not fit with what the person wanted. It takes practice to rein in our own likes to truly be there for the patron, but it sounds like you learned a lot about how you wanted to do RA moving forward, which is what is important.
ReplyDeleteI think you are spot on.
DeleteAmanda,
ReplyDeleteI'm so sorry that you did not have a great experience. But it sounds as though you did get a good takeaway from it. I think that you are right to say that asking questions is important. I also don't think it is great that they inadvertently dissed a favorite author of yours. People are going to like different things, and as librarians we are not supposed to judge that.
First of all, yikes! I'm sorry your experience turned out pretty awful. The whole point of going to a librarian for help is for them to be able to use their literary knowledge to give you good recommendations! I'm getting secondhand embarrassment from reading your post on their behalf. Also, not using any type of tools is a huge faux pas. Oh my goodness, this is just the opposite of anything I would try to do when I'm looking to provide assistance to a patron. And, I completely agree with your closing point.
ReplyDeleteThanks for all of the comments, everyone. I do think that this librarian is inexperienced with RA, and may be unfamiliar with the tools available. I tried to get into the book she suggested, but I just couldn't - and that might possibly be because of the experience. I think she genuinely did the best she could, but it fell short - and it really drove home the importance of taking a course like this!
ReplyDeleteI have noted the above responses as part of everyone's participation.
ReplyDelete