Readers' Advisory Workshop

I attended a workshop today with Nancy Pearl as the presenter. We talked about books and how to suggest titles to patrons. The idea is to get the patron to talk about what type of book they would like to read. There are four doorways to books which we enter, with usually one that we favor. They are story, setting, character, and language. According to what the patron tells us, we can suggest books that fit each doorway. I even have a list of titles that we discussed for each doorway. We also want to get the reader to use different parts of the library, so she gave us the model of a shoe salesman to "sell" the books. For example, we can suggest three books, one that is like the doorway that they pick the most, the second that is like that book but by another author, and the third from another area of the library such as nonfiction. If a patron likes books that come from the story doorway, they may say they like books that they can't put down or that they sat up all night reading. This person may like books by Dan Brown or John Grisham. For the third book, they might try true crime stories, outdoor adventures, or history. She told us we should stretch our own reading habits and read one book that we usually would not at least once a month. We were told to suggest books and not to recommend. We need to let the patron tell about what they like because it is about them, not about us. It was very interesting and informational to take part in the workshop. I also bought her action figure doll for my granddaughter. She already loves to have books read to her.