Special Topics Paper

Readers' Advisory and Social Media         

            When it comes to helping a patron find a new book to read, librarians think in professional readers’ advisory terms.  However, library patrons do not think in terms of readers’ advisory, they just want to know whether or not a book is good.  The internet has opened up a whole new world of book discussion and amateur reader’s advisory.  Leading the charge into this new world are (free) social media sites like Goodreads, Shelfari, and LibraryThing, which are the three most popular.  Now, we could sit around and whine about how these sites are making librarian guided readers’ advisory obsolete or we could embrace these sites as new opportunities to connect with our patrons.  As Neal Wyatt, readers’ adviser librarian and writer for Library Journal, points out how the Internet “expands the RA discussion and connects the collection and readers to each other in original, flexible, and idiosyncratic ways…it makes greater use of librarian expertise…offering another way to interact and offer suggestions” (Wyatt).

            The idea behind all of these sites is they are a place for readers to connect with other readers.  The sites pretty much like any other social media site, like Facebook or Google+, but for book lovers.  They are places for book lovers to give their opinions and connect with people who love the same books that they do.  These sites were made by book lovers for book lovers.

              While being essentially the same, each of these sites brings something unique to the table.  LibraryThing allows readers to tag specific topics that the book is about.  It also has a Zeitgeist page which is statistics and lists of the top rated books, the top tags, least favored authors, among many other things.  Goodreads allows users to make lists of books that they consider the best or the worst and it offers a lot of social activities, like book clubs.  Shelfari allows “APIs for blogs and other websites as well as the import and export of book lists” (Stover).

            One of the cool and unique things that LibraryThing has to offer is LibraryThing for Libraries.  It allows the tags used on LibraryThing to be integrated into a library’s catalog.  It also allows patrons to look up a book in the catalog and then it is gives the patron a list of similar books.  The patrons can also rate and review books directly in the catalog.

            By taking an active role in using these sites, librarians are making connections that they could never have before.  The sites are allowing librarians to “reach new and different patrons” and to improve “their own knowledge of books read, heard of, and glanced at, and it is all in one place” (Stover).  Creating accounts on any of these sites is a good way to show how knowledge the staff at the library is.  The more that the staff posts, the more that patrons will see that the staff cares about offering good suggestions of books to the patrons.  It also gives patrons who are too shy to ask for suggestions in person an opportunity to ask their questions online.  By using these sites for readers' advisory also shows how adaptable libraries can be in this new technology age.

            These sites can also be used to help benefit those patrons who do not have computers or accounts.  Librarians can create genre lists and read-a-like lists for popular series and titles that can be made into fliers to be distributed to patrons.  Seeing what  GoodRead, LibraryThing, and Shelfari have to offer, might encourage more patrons to create an account.  

            Another perk of these user generated sites is that the information is extremely up to date.  The books that people are reading are always changing.  It is not like a list that someone creates and then does not update.   New books are always being added.  They are also a good place for librarians to see what their patrons are reading.  There could be books that the library does not have, but are popular with the patrons on Goodreads or LibraryThing.

            Librarians are also rubbing off on their patrons by using these social media sites.  Kate Stover, head of Readers’ Services at the Kansas City (Missouri) Public Library, points out how “these bibliosocial networking sites are getting the vocabulary of appeal out there to readers…it would appear through osmosis, [they] are picking up the lingo of readers’ advisors and using it in their own descriptors of what they are reading” (Stover).  It is just another way that libraries are helping people learn something new.  It also makes it easier for librarians to ask patrons questions about what kinds of books they are looking for.

            There are some risks to getting advice from online reviews alone, especially since it has recently come to light that reviews on sites like Amazon.com could be false, hired out by authors in order to make their books look good.  You do not know whether or not the reviews are real.  Bing Liu, a data-mining expert at the University of Illinois, Chicago, estimates “that about one-third of all consumer reviews on the Internet are fake.  Yet it is impossible to tell when reviews were written by the marketers or retailers, by customers or by a hired third-party service” (Streitfeld).  But with these sites, it is a network that was created by regular people.  Amanda Close, runner of a digital marketplace development for Random House, pointed out “because Goodreads is not a publisher or retailer, people feel that the information is not getting manipulated…People trust them because they are so crowd-sourced and their members are fanatics.  You can’t buy a five-star review there” (Kaufman).    

            Just because more and more people are turning to sites like Goodreads and LibraryThing for readers’ advisory, does not mean that librarians have to start freaking out.  Like pretty much all aspects of the library, readers’ advisory has changed over the years.  Librarians just need to adapt and find ways to connect with their patrons on these sites.  Readers’ advisory is not going anywhere, it just looks a little different. These sites provide an opportunity to connect to patrons that might not have the courage to ask their question face to face.  The websites hold new opportunities for readers’ advisory.  It is also teaching patrons a little more about readers’ advisory.  It is important to remember that just because a patron finds a book to read on these sites, does not mean they will never use the library again.  They will have to come to library to check out the book!

Sources

Kaufman, Leslie.  (2013, February 12).  Read any good web sites lately?  Book lovers talk online.  The New York Times,     http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/13/books/goodreadscomis-growing-as-a-popular-book-site.html?pagewanted=1&_r=3&partner=rss&emc=rss

Sheehan, Kate.  (2007).  LibraryThing for libraries.  Library Journal (1976) Net Connect   Supplement, 3.

Stover, Katie Mediatore.  (2009).  Stalking the wild appeal factors: Readers’ advisory and social  networking sites.  Reference & User Services Quarterly 48(3), 243-246.          

Streitfeld, David.  (2012, August 25).  The best book reviews money can buy.  The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/business/book-reviewers-for-hire-meet-ademand-for-online-raves.html?pagewanted=all

Trott, Barry and Yesha Naik.  (2012).  Finding good reads on Goodreads.  Reference & User       Services Quarterly, 51(4), 319-323.

Wyatt, Neal.  (2007).  2.0 for readers.  Library Journal (1976), 132(1), 30-33.