Table of Contents

NSW Readers' Advisory Working Group meeting minutes

23 November 2018, Picton Library

Chair

Ellen Forsyth

Minutes

Natalie Funston

Acknowledgement of Country

1. Present

2. Apologies

3. What have you been reading? (Standing Item)

Say three points about how you can use the book you are reading in readers advisory conversations. Look at readers advisory elements eg Doorways rather than plot How did this feel? It was hard to not mention the plot if you aren't familiar with the customer. Practice on other staff.

4. How are people using RA generally, at their library? (Standing Item)

Wollondilly

Canterbury/Bankstown

Staff printed the cover of a book they liked. Each staff member nominates another staff member to choose a book. The book covers are displayed.

Sutherland

Collected staff reviews by undertaking June 30 books in 30 days challenge as a 30 book reviews in 30 days. To help customers with voting, the top 20 most borrowed books from each category were displayed. There was also the "Other" option available, if the customers favourite book was not listed. The 5 most voted for books in each category were shared on the Library news on the Library website.

Bayside

Wollongong

Kiama

5. Genres

*Short talks about many different genres addressing key works, a classic and a new work, plus the appeal of the genre/subgenre, diverse writers.

6. Reports on Training (5 mins/ presentation)

* Monique Akauola - Genre bootcamp training at Sutherland Library

Genre Bootcamp training

Three hour training (with 15min tea break).

One hour 45 mins presentation and activities/ videos pertaining to different genres.

One hour upstairs in TAC exploring various online resources. These will be available on Library intranet.

Each genre being explored is presented in the power point using an image sourced from free images available online and using a different colour and font.

Before the training, staff are being asked to look at selected genre categories within the Stock Quality Health Check.

This document is being used to determine areas of strength and areas where individual staff may like to read/ learn more about different genres. From this, we can identify staff who are knowledgeable in particular genres and who can assist with book suggestions within that genre.

Genres covered:

An overview of each genre:

The difference between similar genres:

We have also created lists of popular titles within each genre, linked back to the Library catalogue, to assist staff with Readers' Advisory.

To complement this, I am also creating self-managed, online, mini genre studies with links to articles, information with questions/activities. These are designed to be completed in 30 minute increments over 10 weeks. Staff can choose which genres they would like to learn more about. There will be a meeting at the end of each study to discuss the training/ genre as a group.

7. Share your RA programs, services, events and material

8. Planning for 2019

3 Meetings

Full Day Meeting

Readers Advisors Interview & Tools including training and staff, form based RA, a series discussion and Doorways with Joyce Sarricks. Also Goodreads research with Beth Driscoll.

Full Day Meeting - What Not To Do & Displays - including:

Half Day Meeting -

Young Adult RA in conjunction with the Young People Working Group - including how to engage youth.

9. Points for communication (what summary of the meeting goes out with the minutes)

The links to join the meeting via Bluejeans are:

Joining a meeting from your PC:

Please check your connections to participate in the meeting via videoconference before the meeting - use this link to test:

https://bluejeans.com/111and talk to the parrot.

You really need to talk to the parrot to check your microphone and speaker settings are working. Technical support will not be available during the meeting. The link to join the Picton meeting is:

Morning

https://bluejeans.com/768131151

Afternoon

https://bluejeans.com/998888966

Information about joining a meeting from an iPhone or iPad

https://support.bluejeans.com/video/join-meeting-iphone-or-ipad

Information about joining a meeting from an Android device

https://support.bluejeans.com/video/join-android

10. Meetings

Full Day Meeting - Readers Advisors Interview & Tools

11. Points for Communication

Points for communication (what summary of the meeting goes out with the minutes)