Incognito!

This week, as an assignment, we were to visit one library and ask for some assistance in finding a 'good book' to read.  We were not to admit that we were library science students, but merely to seek help like any patron and analyze how that help was provided.

We were to be Secret Shoppers on a mission!

I always struggle with this sort of assignment, because it means concealing myself... which is in a way being dishonest with those I encounter.  I'm not good at lying.  I'm certainly not comfortable with it.  Yet I can understand that it's a necessity to experience things from the patron point of view.  By going 'under cover' we can see how librarians are treating the patrons who confront them.  It gives us a feel for what patrons go through whenever they approach us for assistance.  So while it's a hard experience in some ways, it's also a good experience.

Incognito, I ventured off to explore a library which I had only once previously visited.

I'm sad to say, my experience was..... lacking.

Walking into the chosen location, I wasn't exactly sure where to seek assistance at first.  The main desk did not appear to be labeled.  As people were checking things out there, I immediately assumed it was circulation, and that I should go looking for reference elsewhere.  However, after circling the main room idly, I could not find a reference desk, so I eventually found my way back to that main desk I'd faced upon entering.

The lady with whom I spoke at that desk was friendly enough, and open to listening to my question.  I told her that I'd been on a horror kick recently, but had read most everything Stephen King had written.  I mentioned Joe Hill, and how I really enjoyed one of his books, but couldn't remember the title off the top of my head.  In the end, I said, I was looking for another good horror book to read.

With no questions for me, she immediately jumped onto the GoodReads website.  She turned her monitor so I could see what she was doing, and she typed "Stephen King" into the search bar.  She poked at the results for a moment, asking if I was familiar with the GoodReads website, then said something like, "Though I don't know how to tell you which book to read from this.  There are a lot of different types, as you can see!"

"Wait a minute,"  She said.  The next thing I knew, she was hopping up from her desk, abandoning her computer, and heading off across the room.  I followed, as it seemed I was expected to do so.  She led me off to a bank of public terminals, logged me in, and sat me down in front of Novelist Plus.

"Here," She said, "What's a favorite Stephen King book you've read?"

After giving it a bit of thought, I told her the last one I'd finished was Under the Dome.  She typed that in, then pointed out the various other titles listed down the side of the page.  She also pointed out how you could look authors up as well.

"Explore this for a while," She advised, "I'm sure it will help you find something..."

And like that, she was gone.  I was seated in front of a terminal, with very little instruction as to how to use Novelist, let alone any instruction on how to find out if their library had any titles I might come across and want to sample.  So I poked at Novelist Plus for a while.

I was impressed to see that it not only gave you appeal terms for books that it listed, but there was also a page discussing all the appeal terms used throughout the site.  I wanted to print off the list, but as I had no clue how to do so at that library, I opted to wait and see if I could do it at a later point.  I spent a good hour surfing around Novelist, trying different titles and authors that came to mind, checking listed 'read-alikes' and generally looking for some sort of horror novel to take home with me.  The one or two that did look promising ended up not being in their collection, unfortunately.

The employee never did come back to see how I was doing or ask if I had any further questions.

Eventually, I gave up on Novelist and looked up a title that I'd had suggested to me by a friend a year or so ago.  The title had come to mind again last week when someone in our class had mentioned it.  Thankfully, they did have a copy of John Dies at the End on their shelves, so I checked it out.  (I have yet to verify whether this book is an acceptable horror novel for the Emotions Genre assignment, but as GoodReads listed it as primarily a horror book, I'm hoping it will suffice!)

Perhaps if I'd requested a genre other than Horror, then maybe I would have received more assistance.  Or perhaps this is standard practice for how employees at this location treat questions of that sort.  All I know for sure is that I felt like I received very little help, and in the end (if I hadn't had a title in mind suggested to me by a friend) I would have left the building empty-handed and entirely unsatisfied.

Scorecard:
+1 for initial friendliness
+1 for showing what she was doing by rotating the monitor
-1 for negativity over varied results on GoodReads
+2 for public terminal & Novelist access
-1 for lack of decent instructions on how to use Novelist
-1 for lack of instructions on how to verify if a book is in the library's collection
-1 for abandonment!
---------
Final tally:  0

Neither a completely negative, nor notably positive interaction.  There was never any real RA interview, other than to ask what Stephen King novel popped to mind.  She did lead me to some resources that might have been able to help me, but neglected to demonstrate how they were best put to use.  In general, I was somewhat disappointed with the lack of effort on her part.  Hopefully this was simply a fluke and not the experience that all patrons can expect at that location!

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell

After reading The Night Circus and falling madly in love with that book, I went looking for a read-alike.  One of the titles I came across on several lists was a book I'd been meaning to read for quite some time;  since I'd first seen it on the new shelf at my library in fact -- and it was listed as a similar work to The Night Circus.

That is how I came to pick up a copy of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, a book of more than 800 pages in length, and full of magic, magicians, proper English gentlemen and ladies, royalty, Napoleonic battles, and a general sense of wonder as two magicians struggle to bring magic back to England.  I loved it.

Here is a portion of my GoodReads review, but I have trimmed it down, as there may be some spoilers contained within the full version.  Please feel free to read the full review on the GoodReads site if you so wish!

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I picked this book up after eyeing it on the shelf for months. While it is a long read, it is quite a satisfactory romp through England starting in 1806 and running the course of several years. The book is very character focused, and while several countries are visited during the course of the storyline, the intricacies of the characters and their personalities are much more the focus of the story than the locations where they find themselves.

(Snip!)

All in all, I found this to be an excellent read.

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I understand that this is Clarke's first novel, and I hope to see more enjoyable reads from her in the future!

Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi

Last year, I read The Wind-Up Girl by Bacigalupi.  It was quite an intriguing read, enough so that I felt compelled to write down a few brief thoughts in an entry on GoodReads:

The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A different sort of book set in a different sort of location. This is a future-fiction book where much of the world's biology has been re-written by 'gene-rippers' and splicers. New plagues and diseases have wiped out entire species of crops, and calories really matter. The story takes place in a city in Thailand, and the author does a wonderful job of including cultural differences in the storyline.

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(Honestly, not the best review in the world, right?  I guess I need more practice.)

Since then, I have promised myself I would get back to Bacigalupi and read more of his books.  Thankfully my Materials for Youth course this semester required me to read a Printz Award Winner and Ship Breaker by Bacigalupi was at the top of the list of options.  Yesterday, I finished the book.

Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars



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It was excellent!  I think I would like to add an actual review to this book as well, but I need to get the assignment done first. Keep your eyes open for further thoughts on this title!

Class Blog Links

As a reminder to myself, and a way to find all of them quickly, I'm borrowing the list from the S524 Readers' Advisory blog and tacking it into a post here.  (Please let me know if this is a no-no for some reason?  Thanks!)

S524 Readers' Advisory: Your Blogs:

• Tragically Dull Adventures of an Almost Librarian
• Adult Reader's Advisory 
• Books Bejeweled
• Joe's Blog
• In Praise of Books 
• S524 Reader's Advisory-OH's Experience
• JoAnn's Blog 
• Reader's Advisory 
• Even Books Have Feelings 
• The Forget-me-not: A Blog About Books
• Readers Advisory, Annotations and Reviews from a Bachelor Philosopher
• Midnight Flashlight (that's me!)
• Daniel Thacker's S524 Blog 

Reader for Life!

For my Reader's Advisory class this semester, I was asked to create a blog and start it with a personal profile of what I like to read and why. This blog has been re-purposed for that task. Here goes (with introduction):

Hi, my name is Jo, and I'm addicted to reading.

Ok, so that's not really an 'addiction' as it were, but something I have enjoyed doing ever since my father read to my sister and I each night before bed. He read a myriad of different books to us, ranging from titles such as Moby Dick, The Jungle Books, and the Complete Sherlock Holmes to things like the Chronicles of Narnia, The Hobbit, and the Lord of the Rings trilogy. He'd read to us until we fell asleep, then the next night determine where we'd fallen asleep and continue with the story from there.

As you might have deduced from the name of this blog, I was one of those children who, when I finally learned to read on my own, would hide under the covers with a flashlight and read late into the night just to see what happened next...


I've filled my spare time with reading ever since. (And yes, I know about The Reading Promise... it's on my to-read list!) Speaking of my "To Read" list... I try to track most of it on GoodReads. My profile on that site is here. Feel free to add me as a friend if you want!

So, the big question is "What do I like to read and why?"

That can be a tough one to answer. I like to think I'm open to most things, if I see enough interest in them or if I've had enough people suggest them to me. There was a time when I would have said I only read Science Fiction and Fantasy and I hated nonfiction. This is no longer the case.

My favorite genre would probably be either Science Fiction or Fantasy (both, for those of you who would group those together), particularly the subgenre Cyberpunk. I like these for the glimpses into other worlds that they provide. I can completely escape life into the Fantasy world of another time and place where things are very different from our everyday lives. Science Fiction and Cyberpunk in general are interesting for the glimpses of a 'possible future' that they contain. The technology aspects of Cyberpunk in particular have interested me since I first read William Gibson's novels. To date, I will list Neal Stephenson and Pat Cadigan as my favorites, though.

I have more recently added Horror to my list of favorite genres as well. This came about through the gradual discovery of Stephen King. I started in on his Dark Tower series way back when I was in middle school. There was enough of an otherworldly or fantasy aspect to it that I was intrigued. I steadily read more of his work as I waited for the next books in the Dark Tower series to be released. I tried some Peter Straub, since he'd co-authored with King. Then I tried some Dean Koontz. Then I stumbled across Joe Hill. My fascination with Horror is probably dual-natured. Part of it (I'm guessing) is a backlash from spending a childhood absolutely terrified of the dark. Literally, I slept with the covers over my head until I was in my tween years. Then I decided I was being ridiculous. The other part of it is from the gradual realization that I love how the books send shivers down my spine with the creepy eeriness and ghastly terrors that I find between the pages. It makes me wonder how people can think up such things!

Once I started working in libraries, I became more sensitive to what patrons were requesting and what the 'hot titles' were currently. That led me to try Cussler, Evanovich, Patterson, and a few others whom I might not otherwise have sampled. I read "A Thousand Splendid Suns" and "Life of Pi" because I kept hearing about them. I tried "A Million Little Pieces" when I heard about the controversy, though I never did make it all the way through that one. I have also discovered many nonfiction titles I have enjoyed and found quite informative.

.... I just realized how long this post has become. I could probably go on and on and talk your ear off about books, but I'm sure you know plenty already, and have your own preferences to share! Let me know what books you would recommend, because I might want to read them!