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.