Home → For Libraries → Continuing Education → Librarian Certification → A Course
Readers' Advisory Services
- Link: Readers' Advisory Services
- Topic: Programming & Services - Reference & RA
- Level: Basic
- Sponsor: WebJunction
- Format: self paced online
- Contact Hours: 1
Course Objectives:
NOTE: You must have a WebJunction Learning account to access this course.
Patrons are overwhelmed by the hundreds of new titles every year added to the thousands already on the shelves. Browsing the shelves is a frustrating exercise. Readers' advisory services provides patrons with the help they need to find books they will enjoy, and helps the library retain active patrons.
This introduction to public library readers' advisory services to adults includes the readers' advisory interview, marketing readers' advisory services, promoting fiction, and finding aids. In this course you will learn how to identify what it is in genre fiction that appeals to a reader, how best to get them to articulate that appeal, what books to suggest to the reader, and how to promote the different kinds of genre fiction in a public library.
A chapter titled "Difficult Aspects of a Readers' Advisory Interview" provides tricks of the trade for keeping up with the rapidly changing world of genre fiction. This course provides an excellent opportunity for increasing skills in this vital area of public library service.
