Talking with Readers: Readers Advisory is a specialty track for
Minnesota Career Renewal. Readers Advisory answers the question of "What's
a good book to read?". The services related to answering this
question are referred to as readers' advisory services. These
services have three goals:
- Help readers find books of interest to them.
- Help readers understand what they are looking for.
- Help readers develop an appreciation of the role stories play in their lives.
Talking with Readers: A Workbook for Readers' Advisory is a
framework for supporting you, your staff and your institution as you
determine what you need to do to achieve these goals for fiction readers
of your community. The emphasis throughout the workbook is fiction and
adult readers as the intended target population for readers' advisory
service. The workbook has three sections. The first section focuses on
assisting staff in assessing their knowledge and abilities in readers'
advisory. The second section focuses on the service and its components.
A third section identifies resources that aid staff in expanding their
readers' advisory knowledge and abilities and that provide managers with
information on service.
The heart of the workbook is the competencies. Each category of competencies contain assessment
exercises, questions and activities to support you in determining
and enhancing your abilities in that area.
The services development section of the workbook opens with a
"teaching" essay on the components of the service. The questions
and answers following the essay are designed to elaborate on the
text. The section concludes with a services checklist that provides
decision makers with a means of assessing services they currently offer
and next steps they might take to expand and improve their services.
The third section of the workbook is a resource guide that is
designed to aid staff in expanding their capacity in the area of
readers' advisory service.
Talking with Readers: A Workbook for Readers' Advisory is
available in printed format only to public libraries in the State of
Minnesota and institutions with current subscriptions to NoveList EBSCO
Publishing's electronic readers' advisory resource. Public libraries in
Minnesota should contact Library Development and Services at 651-582-8722
to obtain copies. Institutions with a current subscription to NoveList
may access the manual from the NoveList web site through the
product's For Staff Only Section.
All questions or comments from other States should be directed to
Duncan Smith, NoveList Product Mananger, at 919-489-9412 x201
or duncan@epnet.com.
Bibliographies
Readers' Advisory Learning Resources
Adult Readers, Reading and Libraries... A Selected Bibliography by Mary K. Chelton
Readers' Advisory Tools: A Selected Bibliography by Mary K. Chelton
Updated on January 2, 2003.
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