Running Head: READERS’ ADVISORY DISCUSSION LIST: FICTION_L
Readers’ Advisory Discussion List: Fiction_L
Deborah Bluestein
Southern Connecticut State University
ILS 593 (S70) Readers’ Advisory Services
Elsie Okobi, Ph.D.
Department of Information and Library Science
January 13, 2014 – April
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READERS’ ADVISORY DISCUSSION LIST: FICTION_L
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Readers’ Advisory Discussion List: Fiction_L
FictionL is an electronic mailing list service of the Morton Grove (IL) Public Library, on
which librarians and reader’s advisors discuss and exchange information on book clubs and
discussions, professional concerns, collection development, booklists, and bibliographies. It is
particularly useful in helping individual librarians respond to challenging book questions and
requests from their patrons. Subscribing to FictionL was a course requirement that included
commenting on interaction with the service and on the information gained. The site address is
URL: http://www.mgpl.org/read-listen-view/fl/flmenu/
Fiction_L, January 14 - February 12
Several interesting ideas have been coming out of Fiction_L since the service started
coming. By signing up for the Digest format, there are usually only one or two transmissions
each day, and since they come via email to iPhones, it is very convenient to take a quick look
when they pop up, and then move them to a separate archive folder.
It seems like there is something new to think about almost every day:
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Pinterest: Book ideas from book discussion groups - C. Thurairatnam (01/14/14)
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IndieBound web site: Upcoming paperback release lists - B. Clark-Greene (01/16/14)
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Unfamiliar Fiction_L acronym ARC was found to be:
Advance reading copies
(01/21/14)
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NetGalley & Edelweiss provide digital ARCs to professional readers, such as librarians J. Baird (01/21/14)
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"Contemporary mimetic" genre example: Ernest Hemingway: A Farewell to Arms – T.
Mason (02/07/14)
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There are many activity discoveries from the discussions, particularly for those who do not
already work in a library. An example was "blind date with a book", where patrons check out
books wrapped in brown paper so they can't see the title until they get home - S. Robinson
(01/29/14).
Perhaps the only thing about this service that doesn’t seem to work well is the lack of editing
for repeating posts – eliminating them would shorten reading time considerably. But it is a small
inconvenience when compared to the considerable amount of help people give one another on
the site, and the insight they provide in many of the resource suggestions.
Fiction_L, February 12 - February 22
As we progress into the annotation and notes portion of our genre studies, the value of the
Fiction_L service becomes even more apparent. Several of the suggestions being posted are
current to the genres we are studying now, although they seem to drill down more specifically
into subgenre categories. Of particular interest over the last several days:

There were a few suggestions for books about elections, which was interesting since we
are fast approaching upcoming congressional elections.

It appears that planning for summer reading discussion groups and programs are
underway, and ideas are being exchanged for books and websites.
One website
mentioned during this discussion was Shelfari, which is owned by Amazon, and it made
me wonder if there are any reservations by posting librarians about using booksellerowned listing services.

Another website mentioned in the above discussion was Riffle. From their web page it
appears that they are only accessed through Facebook and Twitter, which seemed rather
limiting for librarians, although maybe more mobile fun for readers.
READERS’ ADVISORY DISCUSSION LIST: FICTION_L
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On February 17th I sent a query to Fiction_L asking if there was book that explains the
"contemporary mimetic" genre that was mentioned in one of the posts. The responses,
both posted and sent to my own email were very gratifying, and went a long way to
providing resources for future exploration. The best reference came from Lynne Welch
at the Herrick Memorial Library in Wellington, Ohio. She recommended The Penguin
Dictionary of Literary Terms & Literary Theory, which turned out to be a terrific text on
all kinds of technical language and theory.
Over the coming years as my reading
experience grows, it would be nice to be able to contribute suggestions as well as
questions.
A lot of information coming out of Fiction_L is not about resource lists. One librarian
mentioned that they use a national resource called OCLC/Worldshare, which helps libraries
share electronic materials nationally and internationally. It includes a technology platform and
management services for resource exchanges.
Fiction_L, February 22 - February 28
It’s always interesting when an idea holds peoples interest for several days on Fiction_L.
That has been happening this week with the subjects of “dystopian libraries” and “twisted
marriages”.

One post included a link to a web article on twisted marriage books that was fairly in
depth:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/02/18/why-we-can-t-get-enough-of-
twisted-marriage-thrillers.html

Sometimes the information is very dense and you catch something you missed in an
earlier post that got repeated, as in this fun fact: Camille Minichino has a Periodic Table
mystery series. First title is The Hydrogen Murder (from Jane Jorgenson Madison, WI)
READERS’ ADVISORY DISCUSSION LIST: FICTION_L
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And for the Alexander McCall Smith set, this was posted, which should be helpful for
genre readalikes: Dalai Lama’s Cat by David Michie (from Robin Beerbower, Salem,
OR).
Finally, there was discussion this week about the efforts in some libraries to combine genre
fiction into one shelving group. Seems the mystery readers may take offense at this.
Fiction_L, March 1 – March 8
This turned out to be a very neat week on Fiction_L, because they actually had some questions
that I knew something about and could respond to:
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First was Robin from the Salem library on March 1 post asking about Pinterest site, and I
was able to send her a favorite of mine for Gone Girl from my Gone Girl research,
http://www.pinterest.com/chandlerlibrary/

Then, Tammy on March 4 had a request for domestic violence titles, and I was able to
send her info on Patricia Evans’ books (she comes to CT from her CA home for speaking
engagements every few years): The author has several very good books out that deal
with domestic abuse. She also has a Facebook page and an electronic newsletter. The
books are:
o The Verbally Abusive Relationship: How to recognize it and how to respond ISBN-13: 9781440504631
o The Verbally Abusive Man, Can He Change?: A Woman's Guide to Deciding
Whether to Stay or Go - ISBN-13: 9781593376536
o Verbal Abuse Survivors Speak Out; On relationship and recovery - ISBN-13:
978-1558503045
READERS’ ADVISORY DISCUSSION LIST: FICTION_L
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o Victory Over Verbal Abuse: A Healing Guide to Renewing Your Spirit and
Reclaiming Your Life - ISBN-13: 978-1440525803
o Controlling People: How to Recognize, Understand, and Deal with People Who
Try to Control You - ISBN-13: 978-1580625692
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And also on March 4 Karen request for WWII Germans fleeing Russians – It sounded
like a foreign film we saw last year about WWII setting from German Perspective, so I
was able to suggest: This sounds a lot like a foreign film we saw last year called "Lore".
Here is the writeup referencing the book that inspired the film. The film is about the
children, but the rest of it seems very close to your story, particularly fleeing across
Germany from the Russians: “Lore...film by writer-director Cate Shortland (Somersault),
is based on The Dark Room, a novel by Rachel Seiffert about the dilemmas faced by
children of Nazis or Nazi collaborators. But Seiffert, who lives in England, drew
sympathetically on her German grandmother's experiences in the immediate aftermath of
World War II; Shortland, who's Australian, directs a less forgiving gaze on the
eponymous teenage girl trying to steer her four younger siblings through a ravaged
Germany in 1945.”
It is really nice to be able to respond to some of these things, as usually there isn’t a lot I
know from a library perspective. The only concern is that there is just no time to pull a long post
together during the week, so it has to wait until Saturday. Otherwise, great fun.
Fiction_L, March 9 – March 15
An interesting aspect of RA services is turning out to be helping folks with disabilities.
Several times since starting our class there have been requests for books with characters that
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have the same disability as a particular patron. This week the disability request was for a Young
Adult dyslexic character.
Another thing of interest that occurred was that an MLS student wrote in asking for help
in exploring the SciFi genre, which was new to him. Regular contributor Todd Mason jumped
right in with a response that reflects exactly what we’ve been studying to learn to do. He asked
the student to consider what books and authors he already reads and likes in other genres,
because SciFi is such a broad area that there are bound to be SciFi readalikes he will enjoy. It
was a perfect example of the RA challenge - to help patrons find books based on appeal
attributes rather than genre type and story line.
In addition to Todd’s response, the author who’s book we’ve been reading also sent in a
response to the student, which was pretty neat – didn’t realize she was listening in all these
weeks. She first suggested her own book for an overview, but then went on to relate some of her
personal favorites, which was interesting to find out.
However, of the two responses, I have to say that Todd’s response was definitely more in
line with the appeal techniques we have been learning to do in this RA class in order to help
patrons find what they will enjoy. For this to work, however, it would seem that there needs to
be a data base set up somewhere similar to the LOC subject heading classification system. It
seems that early in our course one of the readings proposed this quite emphatically, and I really
didn’t understand it very much then, but am beginning to appreciate the point much more these
days.
Fiction_L, March 16 – March 28
Sometimes it seems no one runs out of steam when it comes to SciFi, and Fiction_L is no
exception. There have been long, long posts coming in for weeks (and still coming) in response
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to the student who is just learning about the genre, and everyone has so many favorites. Another
group now running in a similar bent seems to be those who have had their most beloved
characters killed off by the author, and those lists are still going strong after a week.
Meanwhile, a couple of brief but very intriguing posts came in for someone wanting the
name of a computer program that could train new student employees to shelve their library books
using the Dewey system. It would be interesting to see first-hand how that works. Also Todd,
one of the main posters, noted that a new adventure blog had shown up. Didn't say how he found
it. Otherwise, mostly everything is focused on SciFi lists and lists and lists.....
Fiction_L, March 29 – April 4
An instructor posted that one of her assignments to students was a "secret shopper",
which involved asking a librarian at two different libraries for suggestions based on a favorite
book. The students then made notes on the environment (time, location, signage, etc.) interview
process & tools, feelings about the encounter, the librarian’s match results, and ways to improve.
The class then set up a set of rules for RA, which involved such things as listening technique,
suggestion criteria and quality, librarian reactions to patrons, pointing rather than walking
around, and readers’ involvement in the searches. Interesting project, although one has to
wonder if the subject librarians might not have been appreciative had they known they were the
targets – seems rather sneaky. The final list of rules drew some criticism from Fiction_L
participants for its negativity, and there was a very good suggestion that the rules be rewritten in
terms of that to DO rather than what NOT to do.
Other interesting new topics: Search for a PLA brochure from recent seminar, women
who fall in love with prisoners, and call the Midwife readalikes.