I walked up to the desk and the librarian asked me if I
needed any help. I told her I was looking for a good book. She did not speak at
first and it looked like she was not sure what to do. Then she quite rudely
snapped at me and told me she needed to know what I liked. She was very
unfriendly at this point. So instead of her actually asking me anymore
questions, she waited and stared. After being very uncomfortable, I finally
said I like to read romance and some mystery. I was waiting to see if she would
ask me any questions about either of these genres but she did not. She
continued to wait for about a minute, no conversation and she seemed rather
unsure of what to do. She made no eye contact either. After waiting, I told her
a romance author that I liked, hoping she would find me a good read-alike book.
The librarian still did not ask me any questions. She then pulled out a book
list they had at the desk of new titles that the library had received. She
started to hand this list over to me to view, but then she put it aside and
instead took me over to the new book area. She pointed out the mystery and
romance sections. The phone rang so she went to answer it, giving me the
opportunity to browse a little bit.
After her phone call, the librarian came back over to me.
She asked me this question, “Do you like Sushi?” This was the first question
that she had really asked me. I responded that it was all right. Then she asked
me if I liked sports. Laughing, I said a lot better than sushi. She took me to
another area, the Christian fiction section and gave me the book Sushi for One by Camy Tang. She told me
that she was recommending this title because she had read the book series and
it was a Christian book. She had never asked me in the course of our discussion
if I liked Christian books.
After this title, she then recommended a historical fiction
title to me because it had a romance running through the story line. Her
recommendation was based on the fact that, again, she had read the book.
In ending our conversation, she voluntarily said
she was tentative about recommending any books because we all have different
tastes and it made her uncomfortable to recommend a book when she had not read
it. A librarian only suggesting books that he or she has personally read is one
of the biggest misconceptions about readers’ advisory services (Chelton, 2003).
The librarian never used any tools to offer me
assistance. It would have helped if she would have searched Novelist, Goodreads or used some other tool. She only wanted to give me recommendations on books she has previously read instead of providing suggestions (Saricks, 2009). I felt bad for her and wanted to suggest to use one of these tools, but
then it would have been me recommending to her how to do her job. She was
completely flustered with the entire advisory service. So much of this interaction was uncomfortable, both for me
and the librarian.
I would not say that the librarian successfully
found a 'good book' for me. I really did not care for the book that she
suggested. I had told her the author I liked and was looking for
something similar. I was very surprised about being handed a Christian fiction
book, with her assumption that I would want to read it. While it did not offend
me, I was thinking that it could be offensive to another patron.
The experience was not what I was expecting. I
thought that the librarian would do a better job at asking me questions and
finding out what appealed to me in the romance genre (or mystery). The librarian did not actually ask me about any
authors, but I provided her with one. She could have found read-alike titles to
that author. The entire interaction left me with a bitter taste in my
mouth. I felt like I was being ignored and any comments I made were
dismissed by the librarian.
The librarian could have done a few things better. She could
have asked questions and performed a readers’ advisory interview or had a
conversation. She also could have been friendlier during the interaction. There
are many tools at her disposal that she could have used. The librarian could do some self-training to become familiar
with different genres (Vnuk, 2013). Finally, the librarian could have asked
another colleague for assistance.
I would not go back to this library to ask for another book.
I thought the customer service was horrendous and I did not like the way I was
treated. I did not appreciate the way she snapped and rudely spoke to me. Smiling, keeping a friendly tone and having a quality
advisory interview/discussion are important components in keeping patrons
coming back to the library.
Works Cited:
Saricks, J.G. (2009). The Readers’ advisory guide to genre fiction.
Chicago: ALA.
Hello Anne! I'm so sorry you had such a bad experience! Hopefully that is not the norm at this library but just with this librarian. It sounds like this librarian probably has not had much or any RA training, and it sounds like it shows. At least from this experience you now know with certainty what not to do during a reader's advisory interview.
ReplyDeleteAnne,
ReplyDeleteSorry you had such a bad experience, that's unfortunate! Like Julie said, at least you learned what not to do in a reader's advisory interview now. I think a lot of librarians are uncomfortable giving others book recommendations, but it is part of our job. I think it is kind of a difficult part of our job because it is basically asking us to get to know a person in a short amount of time and then offer them something they will enjoy, after learning as much about them as you can. It is an uncomfortable situation if you look at it that way. In this example the librarian could have used Novelist and the database could have done all of the work for her. Hopefully she'll learn about it one day!
Hopefully the experience was as eye opening for her as it was from you. Maybe you inadvertently inspired her to bone up on some RA skills!
ReplyDelete