9A: Reflection on Class 11-1-16

In class, we had a warmup where one person chatted online with another posing as a reference librarian asking for other books like their favorite children’s book. A third person was a researcher helping out the reference person. This was a pretty difficult warmup, but I think a big part of it was because the person asking us the questions was being difficult (which means he did a great job at stumping us!). He told us that he liked this one book because it had his name in it. So at first we started looking for titles with his name on it but then he said he liked that it was an adventure. So then I started looking for that and as soon as I started coming up with something, he said he liked that it was about different cultures, then he later said Eskimos. I was having a heck of a time keeping up. We found a whole bunch of Eskimo books and then he said he wanted something that was about a blow dart because an Eskimo took the balloon down with a blow dart. At this time, our time was almost up and I couldn’t find anything about a blow dart. It was very frustrating. But this scenario could have easily happened when dealing with a child (which he was doing a great job channeling and snickering the whole time about it too :-P ).  Later the professor said that Google Books is really good for helping to narrow down search terms. Sure enough, I put blow dart into the search box, and lo and behold, a whole bunch of children’s books about blow darts showed up. I will never forget to use Google Books to help with search terms after this.

We then talked about galleys, which are advanced reader copies. You create a profile on a company’s website, and if they like your profile, they will send you an online version of their book to read and then write a review. I have always wanted to do this, but alas I don’t have the time. Plus, there are way too many books on my list to read that I want to read first.

We then moved on to reader’s advisory in regards to gender. We talked a little bit about how female authors will publish under initials or pseudonyms because otherwise they are looked down upon. The professor mentioned the author Eloisa James who in reality is Mary Bly, an Elizabethan scholar, and the daughter of a famous poet, Robert Bly. I was shocked to learn this. I own and have read some books by Eloisa James. I wasn’t aware it was a pseudonym. For all the negative criticisms against romance books, some of them are actually written by those who have valid credentials. It’s no wonder I like some of them, because they are written by historians. One author I like publishes books under two different names: Shannon Drake and Heather Graham (her maiden name). I don’t know why she publishes under both. I used to think it was based on the type of romance books (area, century, etc.), but that’s not the case.

We then discussed why intellects love literary greats, but at the same time we like “junk”. The professor said it’s because it’s a comfort thing; books are formulaic and consistent (especially in a series, which she mentioned Nancy Drew). This brought to mind Archie comics. Archie comics have been around for a long time. My mom read them when she was young. Archie comics have been very consistent. For decades, Archie has dated both Veronica and Betty, never truly picking one over the other. In recent years, they have actually mixed this up and created a series where Archie gets married to one of them. But here’s the catch: there are two parallel stories, what happens if he married Betty and what happens if he married Veronica. Today, they are still creating both parallel stories. I wonder what made them do this; maybe readers got really tired of the same old same old (decades worth) so they changed the story a little bit. But it’s still pretty much the same though.

Talking about junk vs. literary greats made me think of why adults love to read books from the young adult genre. I love reading YA. I have coworkers who are in their 60s and they love to read YA as well. I’m talking about books that are a series such as Harry Potter, The Maze Runner, Twilight, Percy Jackson, Divergent, The Hunger Games. What is it about these that all ages love to read them? They’re supposed to be kid books. Is it because they are an easy read, or something else?

8A: Reflection on Class 10-25-16

Our warm-up for class was very interesting and fun. It concerned reader’s advisory. The patron wanted a book like “Fifty Shades of Grey”, so immediately the first thought that comes to mind is that the patron wants to read more erotica books. We first suggested she read the sequels. The patron then said that she liked that the book became a movie. So my group started looking up erotica books that were turned into movies (we came up with Eyes Wide Shut and Brokeback Mountain). But after asking more questions, we realized that the patron did not necessarily want erotica because she said she liked how they were in love. The next question we asked was if she wanted steamy or sweet. The answer was that her friend liked steamy but her husband preferred sweet. At this point, I was like “uhhhhhhh”. A whole bunch of questions flew through my mind: is she reading books based on what others are telling her? Are her friend and husband going to read it after her? Did they all like the movie and book so she wants to get each of them a book as a gift? Or is it that it is something else, which I am not writing down? My group member said we should play it safe and go with sweet since it is better to anger the friend than the husband. My other group member came up with “The Princess Bride” to which the patron said she loves that movie and did not know it was a book. Unfortunately, the book was checked out, so we suggested “Outlander” instead.

It shows that before you perform reader’s advisory, one needs to conduct the reference interview properly. You cannot immediately make an assumption about what a patron would like. It went from “Fifty Shades of Grey” to “The Princess Bride”. That is a big jump considering the latter is comedic. If we had not kept asking questions, I do not think we would have ever come up with what we did. Disclaimer: The patron was not a “real” person; it was just a hypothetical question for an exercise.

Later in class, we had our resource guide presentations. The first one was really good and looked like an actual library guide. It made me think that ours was bad and that we did it wrong. But a lot of the groups had completely different styles and some looked like a website like ours was, so I felt better afterwards. A lot of the look of the design was due to who the audience was, but also the groups used different websites to create it: a Google site, Wiks, Weebly, Word Press, etc.

8B: Reflection on Readings

The ALA Code of Ethics was created in 1939 and has only been amended 3 times since then (in 1981, 1995 and 2008). I am slightly surprised that it has not been amended more times than that. At work, we are always editing policies and documents. And every year, clubs on campus have to edit their constitutions.

Some of the principles of the code are pretty much related to customer service: “We provide the highest level of service…through…courteous responses to all requests” and “We distinguish between our personal convictions and professional duties and do not allow our personal beliefs to interfere…” Unfortunately, because these relate to customer service, I see them get violated every once in a while.  

There are also rules about how to treat one’s coworkers: “We strive for excellence in the profession by…encouraging the professional development of co-workers, and by fostering the aspirations of potential members of the profession.” I see this rule in play all the time. For years, when I was still writing my undergrad thesis, the librarians would constantly ask me if and when I was going to go to grad school to become a librarian. They have done the same with the student workers if they know the students have interest in becoming a librarian. Almost all my coworkers are very supportive in this and always tell us if we need help with something related to school, to just ask them. They also take interest in our education and ask us how our library classes are going every so often.

In chapter 12 of our textbook, there is a section called “reference services to the homeless and impoverished.” At my work, we have a very high homeless population that comes into the library every day (earlier on in the semester one weekend, they outnumbered the students). For the most part, none of them cause problems. Some of them we know by name, others just by sight. The sections talks about how they “have strong body odor, carry all of their belongings with them, [and] stay in the library during all open hours” (page 346). These are all true (though some are very cleanly). It also mentions how they are usually problematic or troublesome. Now whereas a few of them sometimes like to give us attitude (one has a fit if the daily newspaper is not out at 8am sharp while another gets angry that the computer automatically kicked him off after 30 minutes), we do not have too many problems. A big part of that is that if they continually give us trouble, they know that we will call campus safety on them. Therefore, I do not feel threatened because I could always threaten to call safety. I just get annoyed with their attitude, especially if they are not polite (some act entitled to whatever they want), and the smell sometimes gets really bad. I cannot imagine having to deal with this population in a public library setting. I think if I were in the public library setting, I would not feel safe. The textbook says that “there is much overlap between librarianship and social work” (page 347). I never thought of that before. That as a librarian, one could provide information to the homeless patrons to help them better themselves. We do not really do this (usually we just get questions on how to use email and the other day someone asked me how to look up bus and train tickets). The problem is that some people just do not want help. But they also do not really ask us for information. They just come in and go to their favorite spot where they hang out all day long. I wish there were more that we could do for them.