Week 6 Prompt Response

Back in December, I saw this very funny take on Hallmark Christmas movies called "What's the Plot of Your Pandemic Hallmark Movie?" I'll include the full image below, but in case it's hard to see, here is the general idea of how it works: you create your own movie plot by picking items from lists (based on things like your current shirt color, the last thing you ate, the last person you texted, etc...).

My hysterical movie plot would have been this: "An orphaned party planner finds herself stranded in her hometown during a pandemic lockdown, after she came home to be a bridesmaid for the 20th time. Against her better judgement, she falls in love with a centaur. Together, they learn the true meaning of Christmas."

I think a big display of something similar to this would be a fun way to promote romance books in a library. Instead of creating a pandemic Hallmark movie, patrons could be choosing items from a list to create the plot of a romance book. Both Hallmark movies and romance books often have predicable elements that could be used in the lists: (small towns, quaint festivals, starting over, old flames, etc...) A library staff person could create the lists for the different sections based on actual books in the collection, while also adding some elements for humor. Then, after patrons create a funny romance plot, they could look at a display of books/movies that had items similar to the lists. I'm imagining a display of books and movies with speech bubbles taped to them saying things like "cowboy", "desert island", "ice cream store owner", etc... any kind of item from the Create Your Own Plot list. I think this would be a lot of fun.

Week 5 Prompt Response

1. Romantic Suspense ebook reviews: While both reviews offer their opinion about The Billionaire’s First Christmas, I felt the blog review went into more detail. I liked how they included a blurb from the book in addition to their thoughts. The amazon review was helpful in that it explained there would be a second book about these characters. The blog review felt like a friend was talking to me about the book - it had a very conversational tone.
   
   I do not currently work in a library, so I am not sure of the process for buying titles. The Billionaire’s First Christmas seems to me like a Hallmark Christmas Special - cheerful yet cheesy. If I was going to consider purchasing this for a library, I’d have to take a look at other books in the current collection to see if similar titles were popular among patrons. If so, this one would be nice to add to a holiday display.
   
   

2. Angela’s Ashes: The provided reviews do a great job of depicting Angela’s Ashes. I’ve read this book, and I remember it being incredibly depressing, while also compelling at the same time. Because I’ve had the benefit of reading it, I would want to add it to a collection. However, even if I hadn’t, I think the reviews make a strong case for the book, especially this line from the SLJ Review: “He [McCourt] recounts his desperately poor early years, living on public assistance and losing three siblings, but manages to make the book funny and uplifting.“
   
   

3. Fairness of reviews: I don’t think it’s fair that some books get zillions of reviews while others get none. I think this is especially unfair to authors just starting out. If they write a book that isn’t getting reviewed, it greatly decreases their chances of people hearing about it. I’ll admit that before this class I didn’t know anything about Booklist and how they won’t print negative reviews. That seems like a strange policy to me. I would want to know if someone liked or did not like the book. Whenever I purchase household items on amazon, I always read the reviews. I like having feedback that doesn’t feel forced to help me make decisions.
   
   

4. Reviews for personal reading: I don’t read a lot of reviews before starting a new book, mainly because I don’t want to come across anything that might contain spoilers. I rely almost exclusively on the spreadsheet my sisters and I make, along with word-of-mouth recommendations from family and friends. I’m also part of a Facebook book club where people recommend books (without giving too much away). My local library in South Bend also has reviews in their online catalog that I check out from time to time. 

Kirkus Review

Title: Scarlet Feather

Author: Maeve Binchy

Release Date: 2001

Two friends start a catering business in Dublin. Throughout the course of a year, their lives change in ways they never expected.

Cathy Scarlet and Tom Feather, friends from cooking school, decide to open a catering business together named Scarlet Feather. The novel follows Scarlet Feather for a full calendar year, beginning in January when Cathy and Tom find the perfect premises for their business, to December when their lives are vastly different. A quirky cast of characters filters in and out of their lives: Cathy’s husband - workaholic lawyer Neil; Tom’s fiance - model Marcella; Cathy’s mother-in-law - snooty Hannah; Cathy’s mother Lizzie - former maid for snooty Hannah; hilarious 9-year-old twins Simon and Maud - cousins to Neil; along with Cathy’s large extended family. Cathy and Tom’s catering business has ups (stellar recipes, catering huge weddings) and downs (a break-in to their premises, possibly needing to file for bankruptcy) over the year. Cathy and Tom experience personal ups and downs as well - Cathy deals with pregnancy and miscarriage, and Tom deals with Marcella deciding her modeling career is more important than their relationship. Throughout it all, Tom and Cathy resolutely cook, plan, and dream of their business making it. Twins Maud and Simon, abandoned by their parents, move in with Cathy’s parents and show everyone that families can be created wherever there is love. The novel has similar characteristics to Maeve Binchy’s many other books - set in modern-day Ireland, heartwarming cast of characters, real life struggles, honest portrayals of relationships with family and friends, and characters’ side stories connecting to create the larger story. Foodies will enjoy the many descriptive passages about Scarlet Feather’s menus.

Recipe for success? Combine a feel-good story, likeable characters, and an engaging writing style. Maeve Binchy cooks up another winner!

Secret Shopper Assignment

Here is a brief summary of my Secret Shopper experience:

I visited a branch of my hometown library on a Wednesday around lunchtime. It was much busier at that time than I had been expecting, and I ended up having to wait a bit to have someone help me. I requested help finding an adult historical fiction book. The librarian helping me seemed flustered by my request, like he didn't often get requests from patrons for help finding a book. He proceeded to look in the library catalog online, and recommended a few different titles to me, all without asking what time period I wanted to read about, or without asking about books I had read in the past and liked/not liked. I was expecting a RA interview with a conversation about appeal, as we've been learning about in this class, but that wasn't my experience.

The first few titles he recommended were not good choices (one was a juvenile book, and the other he first thought was historical fiction, but then said it wasn't.) Then he suggested a few additional titles, all of which I have read before. Finally, another librarian (who was helping out different patrons at the desk) looked over at us and asked if I wanted a book recommendation. She suggested the book below, which I have not read before:

I think perhaps the original librarian who was helping me doesn't recommend books very often, as he seemed slightly panicked with my request. I was glad the 2nd librarian was there to offer a suggestion. I think my secret shopper experience would have been totally different if the 2nd librarian was the one who helped me initially. However, because it was so busy at that moment, she was helping other patrons and a line was building up behind me. I'm happy to have this book recommendation, but I honestly think I could have found this on my own through a google search. 

From a student perspective, it's interesting to have read these different RA articles for class, and then have an in-person RA experience that didn't seem to match those articles at all. I know that could have been due to how busy the library was at that moment, or the amount of experience the first librarian had with RA. However, what I took away the most from this experience was that if I am asked to give a book recommendation to a patron, I will be sure to ask them multiple questions about their reading likes and dislikes so I can help them find the best possible book.

Week 3 Prompt Response

Part 1: Novelist Searches

1. I am looking for a book by Laurell K. Hamilton. I just read the third book in the Anita Blake series and I can’t figure out which one comes next!

To answer this question, I chose to search in Novelist by “series” from the drop down menu next to the search bar. Searching for Anita Blake returned both the graphic novel version of this series, and the regular novels. I chose the traditional novels and scrolled down to see which book had a #4 next to it - The Lunatic Cafe.

2. What have I read recently? Well, I just finished this great book by Barbara Kingsolver, Prodigal Summer. I really liked the way it was written, you know, the way she used language. I wouldn't mind something a bit faster paced though.

To answer this question, I first searched for Prodigal Summer in Novelist. Once I found the record for that title, I saw the list of readalikes over on the right-hand side of the screen. I took a look at those to see what might be a good option for the patron and think that The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin might be a good choice since this title and Prodigal Summer are both listed as having lyrical writing styles. 

3. I like reading books set in different countries. I just read one set in China, could you help me find one set in Japan? No, not modern – historical. I like it when the author describes it so much it feels like I was there!

To answer this question, I did an advanced search with “Japan” in the subject field and “descriptive” in the Appeal Factors field. This returned close to 70 titles. I scanned the titles and saw one that looked promising - The Teahouse Fire by Ellis Avery, which takes place in 19th century Japan. The record says the book has a sweeping storyline and a strong sense of place, which seems like it would fit with the patron’s request.

4. I read this great mystery by Elizabeth George called Well-Schooled in Murder and I loved it. Then my dentist said that if I liked mysteries I would probably like John Sandford, but boy was he creepy I couldn't finish it! Do you have any suggestions?

To answer this question, I first looked up Well-Schooled in Murder because I was unfamiliar with the title. I saw that the book record listed the characters as likeable and complex, with a richly detailed writing style. I did a search to find titles that also shared those characteristics, and Novelist showed lots of other books by Elizabeth George. Not sure if the patron was asking for another book by the same author, or for a recommendation of a new author, so I’d give them some of the Elizabeth George titles, and then also run a search for similar authors using the “author readalikes” feature. Louise Penny seems to be a good choice based on the Novelist description.

5. My husband has really gotten into zombies lately. He’s already read The Walking Dead and World War Z, is there anything else you can recommend?

I searched for World War Z in Novelist, and then looked through the recommended readalikes. The Passage by Justin Cronin sounds like it would be a good match. According to Novelist, “Both books examine the personal, social, and political consequences of a devastating outbreak of flesh-eating monsters. The novels also share in-depth characterization and a variety of character perspectives, as well as intricate narratives that span many locations and times.”

6. I love books that get turned into movies, especially literary ones. Can you recommend some? Nothing too old, maybe just those from the last 5 years or so.

This one took me a little longer to find. I used the menu on the left and chose “Fiction A-Z” and then “Made into Movies Fiction A-Z”. Then I was able to sort the results by the most recent publication date. This allowed me to see recent books that had been made into movies. I scrolled through the results looking for literary books per the patron’s request. I would recommend The Dig by John Preston to the patron (plus, I just saw this advertised on Netflix the other day and it looks really interesting!)

7. I love thrillers but I hate foul language and sex scenes. I want something clean and fast paced.

To find titles for this query, I looked at the menu on the left under the “Thrillers” category, and then chose the subcategory of “Christian Thrillers” (because those generally have cleaner language/story lines). Smoke Screen by Terri Blackstock seems to be a good choice. Novelist says this about the book: “Blackstock’s intense and twisty story will please fans of her faith-grounded crime dramas.”

Part 2: Books to Read

I don’t actually work in a library yet, so my experience finding books to read is either just for myself or for family/friends. I use goodreads a lot. In fact, I just used it to find a Science Fiction book to read for one of our annotation assignments for this class (since I chose that genre as one I’m not very familiar with). Also, as I mentioned in my reading profile, my sisters and I keep a running spreadsheet of books we want to read/have read. In addition, one of my aunts has kept a book blog for years where she reviews all different kinds of books. I get a lot of titles from there to add to my TBR list.

Before starting the MLIS program, I had no idea that Novelist existed. It’s available through my local library, and I feel like I was missing out on a great resource for years! I am excited to learn more about it this semester so that I can confidently use it to recommend books to patrons someday. 

Annotation #1: Adventure

Title: The Arctic Fury

Author: Greer Macallister

Genre: Adventure (additionally, could be classified as Historical Fiction)

Publication Date: December 1, 2020

Number of Pages: 432

Geographical Setting: Split between Boston and the Arctic

Time Period: 1850s

Series (If applicable): n/a

Plot Summary: This book is told in a split-timeline fashion: one part follows a group of women traveling to the Arctic to search for a missing explorer (Sir John Franklin), while the other part is set 18 months later in a Boston courtroom during a high-profile trial. Most of the story centers around protagonist Virginia Reeve, the leader of the expedition, who also happens to be the person on trial for the murder of some of the women in the search party. Chapters alternate between the women's adventures traveling and trying to survive in the Arctic wilderness, and the trial in Boston. 13 women set out on the search expedition, and the Arctic chapters focus on each one in turn, letting the reader learn their story and why they made the decision to join the expedition. 

Subject Headings: Explorers, Arctic, Women, Polar expedition, Franklin

Appeal: Non-linear, Dramatic, Strong female characters

3 terms that best describe this book: Compelling, Character-driven, Atmospheric

3 Relevant Non-Fiction Works and Authors (titles link to goodreads pages):

1. In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette by Hampton Sides - the true story of the 1879 Polar expedition to try to reach the North Pole, and the fate that the crew faced due to the ice and snow.
   
   
2. Race to the Polar Sea: the heroic adventures of Elisha Kent Kane by Kenneth McGoogan - this story takes place in 1853 and chronicles the adventures of Kane, who was searching for John Franklin.
   
   
3. Living with Cannibals and Other Women's Adventures by Michele Slung - profiles of various women explorers from the 1800s to the present.

3 Relevant Fiction Works and Authors (titles link to goodreads pages):

1. Everything She Didn't Say by Jane Kirkpatrick - features a strong female explorer as the protagonist, similar to Virginia Reeve, except the adventures take place for Pioneers out west.
   
   
2. The North Water by Ian McGuire - Although this is a darker story than The Arctic Fury, it has a similar time period and geographic location - a whaling ship in the far north in the 1850s. 
   
   
3. The Terror by Dan Simmons - this book tells the story of John Franklin’s 1845 expedition to the Arctic (although Simmons has added a horror element to the story).