Helen Cowen (Wingecarribee) Mary Bush (Liverpool) Lea King (Warringah) Helen Foley (Strathfield) Stephanie Foley (Auburn) Theo Stephens (Manly) Janet Johnson (Ku-ring-gai) Monique Akauola (Sutherland) Melanie Mutch (Warringah) Jane Broadbere (Mosman) Merilyn Porter (Mosman) Elizabeth McKenzie (Warringah) Ailin Ovek (Warringah) Rita Gertskis (Randwick) Renee Fittler (Ashfield) Eric Dodson (Lane Cove) Lim Goodarz (Canada Bay ) Amy Heap (Riverina Regional) Elizabeth Baker (Bankstown) Suzanne Micallef (Parramatta) Katherine Mitchell (Parramatta) Rebecca Lane (Maitland)

Jenn Martin, Heidi Colquhoun

• Some of the best ideas came from smaller libraries
• Easy to read through and find ideas
• A non time intensive way to get professional development
• Try this on twitter- ensure you have a clear hashtag, set timeframes, and that this is adequately resourced, with one person or more.
• Your mail box will be full, but you can quickly skim through to find ideas that may work for you.
• A good learning experience.
• Social Media
• One idea was to experiment on facebook page, tell us your favourite reads and we can suggest some other books.
• The interaction can be positive.
• It is quirky, quick, and book suggestions can be linked back to your catalogue for easy convenient way to request item by the customer.
• Instagram account
• ReadWatchPlay now has an instagram account. It is very new, and was set up to facilitate other social media, allowing access to other peoples media, which was blocked without an instagram account. It is similar to flickr-and is a platform used to share photographs.
• UTS and Singapore Libraries are examples of how instagram is being used effectively.
• UTS Instagram
• Public Libraries Singapore Instagram

If you are interested in contributing images to this account, you can send these to Ellen. Aiming for a couple of images per month would be great.

• My reads display. Displays for each of the monthly ReadWatchPlay themes.
• Novelist is being used as part of RA. Easy to use, goodreads interaction.
• Ashfield library is using “Who Writes like” database, printing out lists for customers.

• Author Zone for suggested reading
• Good reads: example of use- posting all book group reads on shelf.
• Follow author blogs. Examples: Patrick Rothfuss , Brent Weekes.
• Fantastic fiction: links through to suggested author, next book in series, scroll down to find books author has blurbed.
• Make sure you are comfortable using these tools, and remind customers they can still come to you for help.
• Tumblr: Go book yourself ; Check out the “Like this, try this” for suggestions about what book to read next. This idea could be adapted to facebook, or your Library blog.

This could be done collaboratively, across NSW/Australia. It needs 2-3 people to start this. If you would be interested in starting a ReadWatchPlay Tumblr account, please contact Melanie Mutch or Ellen Forsyth.

To promote the ReadWatchPlay Twitter Reading Group, (held on the last Tuesday evening of each month, discussing the monthly reading themes found on ReadWatchPlay blog) you can use Hootsuite. This allows scheduling of tweets. You can auto tweet at the beginning of the month, and on the last Tuesday to remind customers of the Twitter reading group. It only takes 30 minutes to schedule these tweets for the entire year.

Benefits:

• This looks good for council
• Can be done on facebook as well
• It makes it easy for organisational planning- you can schedule posts for the year quickly and easily.
• Saves time and you don’t have to remember to post a tweet
• Other people responsible for posting on this Social Media can see the schedule.
• Be smart about times. Schedule posts in general work hours, to maximise exposure.
• Online search or straight to the shelves?
• If doing a catalogue search, explain what you are doing to ensure customers are informed and don’t feel ignored.
• Taking the customer straight to the shelves allows the opportunity to browse, and find a book to take with them now.
• Depends on how much time the customer has available. More time- an online search first.
• May be quicker to go straight to shelves.
• Consider using ipads and tablets for roving.

State Library has facilitated a Stock quality health check of Non Fiction for 2013.

Previous stock quality health checks undertaken:

• Adult fiction 2011
• Children and young Adult 2012.

The stock quality health check is a practical tool which enables public libraries to undertake an assessment of the relevance, depth and range of collection stock in relation to the communities they serve. A list of 500 indicative titles are chosen. You can use this to determine areas of your collection that may require additional titles. For example, if your library scores lower in a particular section, they may consider adding more titles relating to this subject area to the collection. This list is an indicative list for twelve months, with the list developed being a snapshot of what types of books should be in the collection now. The plan being that within 5 years it will be updated and changed.

This year’s experience has been very different to previous years, as there have been less than expected or required contributions to the non -fiction stock quality health check. Contributing factors may have included the Readers Advisory wiki changing to Wiki Foundry; this did make editing of the wiki difficult, but this issue has now been resolved. Help make this project a success by encouraging staff to go to Readers Advisory Wiki.

Health Check 2013:

• Look at the categories.
• Select particular areas of interest.
• Simply add one or two titles considered to be good, important within these areas for the collection.

If everyone just added a couple of titles that they deem to be important in categories of personal interest, this would make a huge difference to the list (there are 2300 Library staff in NSW alone). If this list has not improved by December, the project will unfortunately have to be closed. Don’t let this happen!

This is 5th March 2014. Parramatta Library holds “Paint Parra Read” days. They are planning to host a giant storytime, with the mayor or another important figure from the local area to read a story. They also won The Reading Hour Cowzat prize - a special reading by Tim Ferguson, whom may speak at their library service for this event.

The theme for the 2014 seminar is “The future of horror”. There will be a call for speakers very soon.

• The Burial by Courtney Collins
• The last unicorn by Peter Pegall
• North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
• The Yiddish policeman’s union by Michael Chabon
• Time’s legacy by Barbara Eskine
• Gunning for God by John Lennox
• Keeping it real by Justina Robson
• Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
• Pimp: The story of my life by Iceberg Slim
• The green man by Kingsley Amis
• Jeeves and the wedding bells by Sebastian Faulks
• Deceptively delicious by Jessica Seinfeld
• Charlie and the Chocolate factory by Roald Dahl
• Lulu and the brontosaurus by Judith Viorst and Lane Smith
• C'mon Papa:Dispatches from a Dad in the Dark by Ryan Knighton
• My mother, my father by Susan Wyndham
• Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
• A tale for the time being by Ruth Ozeki
• Psychobabble by Stephen Briers
• The long road to overnight success by Shane Jacobson
• Not your ordinary housewife by Nikki Stern
• The goldfinch by Donna Tart
• The twelve tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis
• Eyrie by Tim Winton
• Angle of repose by Wallace Stegner
• Crossing to safety by Wallace Stegner
• The Spectator Bird by Wallace Stegner
• The Rosie Project by Graham Simsion
• Leaving behind everything you loved by Jacqueline Winspear
• My love must wait by Ernestine Hill
• Which lie did I tell? by William Goldman
• Tiger voyage by Richard Adams
• Accidently in love with a god by Mimi Jean Pamfiloff
• Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
• Looking for Enid by Duncan McLaren
• The secret diary of Adrian Mole by Sue Townsend
• Me and Rory Macbeath by Richard Beasley
• History of Scotland by Neil Oliver
• Save with Jamie by Jamie Oliver

The February meeting will be held at Parramatta. Date and time to be advised at a later date.

Beneath the cobblestones the beach. Digging deeper for better libraries.

Attendees

RA meeting attendees, listed above and Jo Smith, Rachel Mallaby, Julie Dunn, Glenn Wardman- Lake Macquarie. Robyn Menzies, Adrianna Denmocks -Blue Mountains. Camille White-Warringah.

Dr Matt Finch presentation

The afternoon session held after the readers advisory meeting was an event with Dr Matt Finch. Who is he? Matt Finch writes and makes up fun stuff for people to do in public places. He tells us: Libraries are all about making the real world reach out and touch the boundaries of imagination, knowledge, creativity, and make-believe.

You can do that with books, or comics, or movies. He shared some of his wonderful ideas to use in events in the library. Matt Finch is currently Parkes Shire's Reader in Residence. Since his arrival, there has been a 'Zombie Apocalypse' held in Tullamore showground with over 100 zombies and survivors battling each other. This was a great example of how to hold an event using popular culture, attracting a range of ages and in partnership with the local community.

• You can watch the Tullamore zombie outbreak on youtube.
• Believe in your ideas and ultimately you will be rewarded with success.

Some key points of interest included:

Pop culture:

• Think of it like this: all the books, movies, art, games, shows, performances, Internet memes, YouTube sensations, and other little snippets of media that we consume and enjoy on a regular basis around the world. This is what we can use as a source of inspiration for ideas for events, such as adaptations of the popular angry bird and , fruit ninja games, and or a zombie apocalypse.
• The keyword is culture not technology.
• You don’t need tablet computers and smart phones and games consoles when dealing this kind of material – because we’re interested in the culture, the themes, the stories – not the tech you use to get at them.

UN Public Library mission

• Gives you permission to do practically anything.
• This is a timeless list that is still relevant
• Can be used as leverage to undertake many events and programs.
• It is missing the word book, but does mention reading! It embraces reading in all forms including new technologies.
• Check it out: UN Public Library Mission

Seven points to get an event happening

• Steal an exciting idea from pop culture
• Tell a compelling story
• Provide a hands on activity
• Provide a rich language activity
• Share the kids’ work!
• Always make participants join your library…and always make them borrow!

These points are discussed in detail in Matt Finch’s Literally Awesome Literacy link.

Discussion of ideas from group

• Ideas need to be part of popular reading trend.
• Libraries need to be dynamic leading organisations.
• Carry on with existing need to think up new ideas and push for them.
• Promote resources outside the Library- Zinio magazines promoted at the train station.
• Selection of books available for loan taken to a location outside the library on a trolley: Provision of photo ID allows 3 items to be borrowed immediately. Can join online-take an ipad/ tablet with you.
• Intergenerational activity: Don’t segment by age so much. Think of events where age is less relevant, such as a writers group.
• Libraries have great ideas, but time and staffing are a constraint. One solution may be partner with local community groups, sharing resources etc.

What if an event doesn’t work?!

• Try to learn from your failures.
• Be aware you may get low numbers simply because it is something new.
• Same old, same old. Even though it is not guaranteed it will work, you still need to try new things.

Each of these points and more, are available in further detail from the link below.

Literally awesome literacy