Barry Trott of the Williamsburg Regional Library spoke eloqently about Web 2.0 and how it affects our ability to provide effective readers advisory. He spoke on his topic as well as filled in fpr Jessamyn West who was unable to attend due to a problem with travel arrangements.

Readers Advisory and collection development are connected, Trott said. We cannot recomend matierals to patrons that we do not own.

Web 2.0 forces Librarians to trust the reader. With effective readers advisory we must seta side our preconcieved ideas of what we like and find what the reader is seeking. The reader is also forced to trust us to provide materials they will like based on previous reading habits, likes and dislikes and genre preference.

The proliferation of social networking sites focused on reading and books allows the readers voice to be heard more easily. No longer are we forced to see only what people in our Libraries like or what other Librarians say people like. We can see what people are saying on both commercial book vendor websites (in terms of product reviews) but also on social networking sites. There seems to be a decline in print review sources, so we need to be aware of what our audience is saying.

Libraries need to remember their objective when providing new readers advisory services. They should not try and use the newest adn greatest tool just because it is there. The tool should suit the objective, not the other way around.

One way to do this is to blog. Blogs need to have the 5 F’s: Focus (only book reviews, not programing or Library news), Frequency (post weekly or daily), Fortitude (don’t give up if you run out of ideas), Flavor (reader’s want something consistent) and Felxibility (don’t be afraid to try new things).

All in all, social networking has changed the way libraries operate especailly with readers advisory. Effective Readers Advisory in the tech age has to adapt and as we do patrons will be provided the service they need.

[Cross-bloggged at PLAblog.org]

Tags: pla10, PLA2010

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