Abir El-Lahib, Alison Coutino, Amy Heap, Carole Dent, Cathy Rutar, Christine Howard, Ellen Forsyth, Fiona McKie, Jenny Moss, Karen Redlich, Kristy Nightingale, Susan Ambler, Melanie Mutch, Monique Akauola, Natalie Funston, Patra Petrohilos, Rebecch Vick, Sharon Lee, Sonya Campion, Sue Harrison, Taryn Khamlu, Vanessa Henderson, Eric Dodson, Stephanie Hodgson.

Megan Blines, Helen Cowan.

In small groups and in 25 words or less: what are the key appeal characteristics and how would you suggest this to a client?) 15 minutes)Check out some discussion prompts here

• Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
• La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman
• Cork Dork by Bianca Bosker
• Then by Morris Gleitzman
• Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine by Gail Honeyman
• The stranger in the woods by Michael Finkel
• The last act of Hattie Hoffman by Mandy Meija
• The mummy bloggers by Holly Wainwright
• Never let me go by Ishiguro Kazuo
• The prodigal son by Sulari Gentil
• Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
• Effie Gray by Suzanne Fagence Cooper
• Life after life by Kate Atkinson
• American Tabloid by James Ellroy
• His bloody project by Graeme Macrae Burnet
• A man called Ove by Fredrik Backman
• The bear and the nightingale by Katherine Arden
• The Marsh King's daughter by Karen Dionne
• Nevermoor by Jessica Townsend
• Colombiano by Rusty Young
• The Orphan's tale by Pam Jenoff

Ryde

• Formed a working group of volunteer library staff across the branches that meet every three months. The group generates ideas and collects the books for display.
• Displays: Don't judge a book by its cover, grouping books with the same trope together.
• OBEY: 1984 display
• I spy: Books hidden in shelves
• Monthly suggested books from January. This will fit in with Read Watch Play themes.
• Fiction is shelved using genre, rather than alphabetically. This has not affected loan stats.

Lane Cove

• Non- Fiction focus.
• Calligraphy/ Typesetting display
• Dunkirk the movie came out, and as it is a movie based on historical fact, this was a perfect opportunity to display the extensive WWII collection held at Lane Cove. This included newspaper articles and images. The focus was on French and British colonials.
• ADCD book display to coincide with the passing of Malcolm Young.

Sutherland Library

• Vote for your Favourite Book promotion. Asking customers to vote for their favourite book they have read in 2017. This is supported by weekly staff picks and suggested lists of books posted on the website and social media.

Blacktown

• What's on printed pamphlet. This includes all events and activities being held across the library service each month.

Hornsby

• Lists upcoming events at the Library on a poster at front of Library.

Ashfield

Use cross promotional opportunities to raise awareness of library collections by displaying relevant books and other resources at events.This idea could be used for knitting/ Quilters/ Embroidery groups as well and could include both fiction and non fiction titles.

Riverina

Quick book talks at the start of Tinker Cad events.

Other ideas/ suggestions:

• Read Watch Play themes are being used to create monthly book displays.
• Put out book displays relating to various upcoming activities/ programs and events at the library.
• Link various collections: Children and local studies/non fiction and fiction/ parenting books and adult fiction in children's section/ New books and DVDs/ readalikes.
• Recent returns on a trolley at storytime.
• Genre labels on teen fiction.
• Rainbow stickers are used some collections to identify LGBTQI fiction. However some libraries choose not to label teen fiction this way as teens may be uncertain and feel stigmatized if or when borrowing books with genre labels.

DVDs: Have ratings making these harder to borrow. People have a slightly different approach to borrowing these in comparison to a book that may be rated the same.

Action for future meeting

All libraries were asked to put out book displays for various events to create awareness of the resources available in the collection and to cross promote library resources. Library staff are invited to report back on the success of this activity at the next Readers Advisory meeting.

Librarians Choice is one year old! This is site that lists 10 books nominated by Library staff each month. The list of the top 100 books is available onGoodreads. Get involved and become a book reviewer- you can get titles from NetGalley.

It is a good reminder that people do value what librarians are reading and do for Readers Advisory. There is a closed Librarians Choice Facebook Group you can join to share books, find new and debut authors.

Are you following and are you sharing? How will you use the #RWPchat themes in your library. The themes for 2018 are available on the ReadWatchPlay website.

January theme is #firstread.

You can relate these themes to almost anything including both fiction and non fiction (try relating it to Jane Eyre and Jamie Oliver).Pick the themes you are interested in, use it on social media for displays etc.

A suggested report worth checking out is SLQ Libraries as creative spaces. Provides ideas about how to evaluate impact, including case studies demonstrating how Queensland Libraries are using the Creative Spaces Impact Framework. Each case study includes a video worth watching. The user guide may be used to link to your council's strategic goals and demonstrate that Readers Advisory is working towards the strategic plan. Hastings District Libraries have some interesting videos on Facebook to check out.

What areas would you like to explore for next year? What are the challenges and opportunities? Note some topics will not be revisited in 2018 if they were addressed in detail in 2017. There are three meetings planned for next year. Each meeting will focus on a different area, broadly looking at the topic being addressed. One meeting will be held outside the Sydney metropolitan area (last year it was held in Wagga Wagga), 2018 location to be advised. People need to come along to these meetings prepared to present and share stories.

May 2018 : Resources

• What resources do you use (in print and online).
• Resources for staff: Blogs, professional reading, webinars (Library Journal and WebJunction). Codes Conversation. Beck Spratford's blog, Future Learn.
• What tools do staff use: Websites, alerts, print, online training options, what tools do you use for face to face enquires?

August 2018 : Staff Training

• Staff motivation / Training. Creating opportunities for staff to become involved. Shirt talks about how libraries are doing this. How to update skills and keep staff motivated.
• Getting staff involved even when they are not readers.

November 2018 : Genres

• Which genres are a challenge for you?
• Share your favourite subgenre.
• Talk about your favourite sub genre (fiction and non fiction).
• Invite a guest speaker - possibly a favourite blogger, bookshop, independant publisher, a colleague who is an expert on a particular sub genre. Can you nominate anyone?
• Encouraging emerging and new genres

10 slides in 5 minutes

There are a 3-4 people talking about integrating Readers Advisory into programming. We need a few more prepared sessions. Something your library is doing. Do you have something you would like to share?

Bayside

• Customers suggesting categories for Book Bingo.
• Chinese book group - volunteers to run this
• Book voting- customers invited to vote for selection of books from the suppliers for both general collection and Chinese language collection.
• Book reviews through the catalogue
• Customers can request books for purchase via Library catalogue.

Other: Overdrive: books that are not in held by the library but are requested by customers can by considered for purchase by the library. Getting and keeping staff on board

Ryde

Jeopardy game on staff developmental day.

Riverina

Staff are given a form based RA to complete using RA tools.

What are you reading watching playing to start staff meetings and training?

Staff who are not readers are encouraged to share their interests.

Statistics

A discussion about statistics and their use in public libraries. Public Library statistics collected by the NSW state Library can be found on theirWebsite. Scroll to the very bottom of the home page, click on the green Public Services Library button. On the next page choosePublic Library statistics. Click on the hyperlinked year to access annual statistics report. Includes expenditure, circulation breakdown by format. Numbers and totals have been collected. The latest is 2016- 2016-2017 is in the process of being collected. The NSW State library is waiting until all libraries have submitted stats before being able to release the latest Biblio Stats report. It is important to remember to look at a range of statistics to get a more complete picture. Consider how many people are coming into the library, how they are using the library.

This will be reported as soon as all results are logged. Sutherland Shire Libraries are using the Stock Quality Health Check listed books to identify individual staff members areas of reading strength and to identify areas where they may like to read more, as part of their Genre Bootcamp training for all staff. This will help to identify staff with expertise in various genre areas and can be used to create book lists, book suggestions, displays and more.

• Letterboxd is a social network for sharing your taste in film. Use it as a diary to record your opinion about films as you watch them, or just to keep track of films.
• Boundless:A festival of diverse writers
• Diverse writers event attended by Melanie from Hornsby. Provided food for thought regarding the importance of diversity within library collections. It raised the issue of whether people can write about diverse characters if this is not your origin- it can be done, but needs to be handled with respect and consideration.

It is important to try and include a diverse range of writers within displays.

How are these shelved? depends on the Library and their customers:

• Interfiled
• separate sections
• Can be divided into adult / YA/ Junior, Adult and Youth together

Next Meeting May 2018- Wollondilly Details to follow.