Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Week 9: Book Trailers and Training Wrap Up

Book trailers have become very popular over the past few years and are often a signal of how committed the publisher is in marketing a title. They can vary greatly in how they approach the subject, e.g. author interview, collage, or short films. In addition, some enthusiastic fans make their own trailers.
pencil iconWeek 9: Assignment 1 Done


pencil iconWeek 9: Assignment 2Post to your blog your opinion about book trailers – do they succeed in marketing the books they are trying to promote? Are they useful for readers’ advisory?

Sometimes I believe they are good marketing tools that lure the viewer into wanting to know more about the story, but more often I think they are just seen as entertaining clips which often have no correlation to the story they are trying to sell.

In addition, they are time consuming to watch. The marketers are going to have to whittle the viewing time way down into about a 15 second spot.

As a reader's advisory tool, if there were enough time in a work day to alot the viewing time needed, then sure, it could be useful. But as is....no. Perhaps only as a suggested resource for patrons to look at.


pencil iconWeek 9 Assignment 3Summarize your thoughts about this program in a blog post. What have you learned that was helpful? 

First what I learned. I found the various genres and sub genres section great. I liked the narrative non-fiction section as well. While I enjoyed the various websites for books, it is very overwhelming. Oh, and if nothing else, I now have lots of Goodreads friends.

I enjoyed parts of the be more bookish workshop, however I think the planners underestimated the amount of time it would take to complete each assignment. In addition, some of the assignments were, in my opinion, unnecessary. If the objective was to open up new ways to to perform readers advisory, then it succeeded. I just think that really focusing of just a couple would have been far more useful and would have allowed the staff to really focus on retaining and using what they had learned rather than just viewing, blogging and checking off boxes.  After 4 weeks, my colleagues and I went from happily chatting about our blogs, to carping about it. That's not a good sign for a successful learning experience. It was too long.

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Week Eight - the torture continues

pencil iconWeek 8: Assignment 1Read the following two articles for an introduction to nonfiction readers’ advisory.
pencil iconWeek 8: Assignment 2View this E-Learning video produced by the Maryland State Library Resource Center. - done
pencil iconWeek 8: Assignment 3Choose any four of the 16 nonfiction genres presented in the video. In what Dewey area(s) did you find narrative nonfiction in these genres? List each of the four genres and their Dewey areas on your blog. Choose one book from each of these four genres that you could recommend to someone who normally reads only fiction. List these titles and their authors.


Overcoming Adverity:

362.29C Stay Close: A mother's story of her son's addiction by Libby Catalidi

History:
Biography: A Woman In Charge: the life of Hillary Rhodam Clinton by Carl Bernstein


Travel
910.409 Tales of a Female Nomad by Rita Gelman

Medical: 

610.027 The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks  by Rebecca Skloot.


pencil iconWeek 8: Assignment 4Using appeal factors, write a 1-2 paragraph book talk for two of the four titles you would recommend, noting who you would recommend them to and why. Post these on your blog.

Bite me.

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Goodreads



When recommending titles, I believe that Goodreads looks at all the books you've read and dumps them into categories.  I read that if you don't rate the book or don't give it a high enough rating, then Goodreads won't recommend books for that category.  Then I think it goes by key words in the title and descriptions.
I liked that in both the cover or list view you could see what books you had read that had been the basis of their recommendations.

Monday, May 13, 2013

Recommendations Based on Conversations

Conversation #1:

My recommendation: Tales of a Female Nomad by


Conversation #2:

Recommendation: The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

Conversation #3:

My remommendation: Ahab's Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Appeal Factor Challenge

Reader's Advisory aka "Oh God Please Don't Make Me Suggest Books!!!!

Given that introduction, it's pretty apparant that I am uncomfortable doing reader's advisory. I actually had someone ask yesterday. "Hi. I'd like a book that's funny and smart and interesting. Oh, and I really loved reading Eli Weisel's Night." ...... WHAT?!!!!! Are you freakin' kidding me?!!! My mind went "duh"..."um"...okay, follow me....."duh". 

On to the assignment:
Tales of a Female Nomad: Living at Large in the World

Tales of a Female Nomad: Living at Large in the World by: Rita Golden Gelman

A slow paced book that strolls around the world with the writer. A fantastic travel log full of rich descriptive language. Set in places all over the globe, the writer is witty and light, for the most part.


The Fault in Our Stars

The Fault in our Stars by John Green

Young adult book populated by strong characters that are smart and witty, yet physically frail and often scared. Extremely well written and thought provoking. Moderately paced. An emotional book that will take you on a rollercoaster ride from laughing hysterically to crying.


Recommending Books to others:
Posted on Becky L.


Tuesday, April 23, 2013

"Do, or do not. There is no try." My journey into the world of Sci Fi

"Do, or do not. There is no try."

Ugh. I do not like the science fiction genre. Fantasy, on the planet Earth, I can handle. Add in a strange planet, weird names, odd life forms and I'm a goner. Oh I like a good sci-fi movie...just not books. All of this is immensely funny if you consider that my father only read science fiction and that my youngest child likes science fiction. It is actually because of his interest that I selected this genre to explore in the hopes that I might have something literary to bring to the table that would interest him.  Historical Fiction, my fave, bores him silly.

On offer were three choices. I chose http://www.sfsite.com/
Why? Of the three, it seemed to most likely to speak some form of English that I might understand.  None of them were visually appealing to me. All of them were rather cold, cluttered and no nonsense. See, I told you I disliked science fiction, and my feeling are undoubtebly coloring my perception of these sites. I could be wrong. We'll see.

Follow Me Where I Go.....

What site, that recommends books, to follow? There are so many, but when given just a handful to choose from, and my A.D.D. mind thanks those that be, then the choice was easy. I chose the most visually appealing with the least amount of visual clutter. http://www.salon.com/topic/what_to_read/ 

According to a Google search I did, there are 129,864,880 books that have been published in modern history. I'm a busy woman. I work two jobs plus I'm a mom, wife, housekeeper, domestic secretary, laundress and general pit boss. Some days I don't have time to think much less browse the internet, library or local book store, with a latte in hand, trying to find good reading material. I may have a few moments, between chores, to quickly browse the "latest & greatest".

Because I am busy and because I, like many readers, want something good to read that won't waste my time with literary muck I often turn to the mass ratings of Goodreads and Amazon. I've never used a recommended book site, so it will be interesting to follow what books Salon choses and to see if, in my opinion, their books are worthwhile.