Good for What?

Abstract

Since the publication of Readers' Advisory Service in the Public Library (Joyce Saricks. ALA Editions: 1989, 1997, 2005) readers' advisors have used the concept of as a way to connect readers with books. Looking at the elements of a piece of writing--character, language, mood, setting, and story, and what the reader prefers in each area--helps the readers' advisor to make connections between works that the reader may not have considered, and thus expands the possible choices for that reader. What has been less explored, though, is the concept of working with those elements of a book that the reader did not enjoy. In her two-part column, Joan Bessman Taylor explores the role of these non-appealing elements in the practice of readers' advisory. In part one, Taylor looks at how readers' advisors can best work with discussing that do not to them personally but that a reader enjoys. She suggests that understanding can expand the possibilities for making thoughtful suggestions. In part two (RUSQ 47-1), Taylor applies the concept of to working with reading groups in selecting titles that will generate lively and thoughtful discussion. Joan Bessman Taylor is a faculty member in the School of Library and Information Science at the University of Iowa. This column is based on her six years of participant observation in six book groups of varying focus and membership. Her dissertation is titled When Adults Talk in Circles: Book Groups and Contemporary Reading Practices, and is being conducted in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.--Editor. Pacing, characterization, storyline, frame--those who work in reader services know well the aspects of described by Joyce Saricks in Readers' Advisory Service in the Public Library. (1) We may also, as almost second nature, consider the mood of the patron, the reading experience sought, and the patron's tolerance for the cost in time and money finding and reading a certain book will require as is suggested through Catherine Ross's research on how readers select pleasure reading. (2) But how often do we consider what one regular contributor to the Fiction_L electronic discussion list referred to as the dark underbelly of readers' advisory (RA) service--what people dislike about some books? (3) We operate in terms of factors, focusing on what a book has or does, but what about what a book does not have, does not include, or includes when it could have been omitted without anyone missing it? What about non-appeal factors? (I am intentionally avoiding calling these factors for two reasons. I do not want to cast the fact that people dislike certain qualities of as a attribute, and because the term negative appeal is used very explicitly in the marketing field to refer to attempts to increase people's anxiety about not using a service by stressing the loss they will experience if they do not purchase that service. Understand also that many people include these aspects when they refer to factors, though they rarely do so explicitly.) There may be just as much to draw from the reasons people dislike a book (whether they are library patrons or the librarian striving to serve them) as there is from why the same book is revered by someone else. Being a reading advocate does not mean that one must love every book ever written or feign love when a book is not of one's preference. Professionals are people with feelings and opinions, not unlike those of the communities we serve. So how do you talk about a book you dislike when trying to recommend it to someone else who might it? It was precisely this question that was posed, though only partially addressed, on Fiction_L last March. Of course, questions are rarely initiated in such a straight-forward and clear-cut manner. Like all things, they emerge in a context. What erupted into a passionate and lengthy discussion by librarians of books you didn't like (and in some cases hated) and a debate about the extent to which one should feel comfortable on a professional electronic discussion list venting feelings that some might view as in conflict with our mission, began innocently enough. …