Today in Librarian Confessions: I suck at Readers’ Advisory. A patron coming to the desk and asking “Can you recommend a book?” immediately brings on a cold sweat. It’s that one things all Librarians are supposed to be able to do. Blame it on the fact that I’m a Digital Services librarian (so traditional Library-ish services are not my bailiwick) or the fact that I’ve spent the last decade doing a Fantasy deep-dive, but unless the patron has a passing interest in Fantasy I’m going to be next to useless to them.
I’ve been able to get away with this for years; as I said, I’m a Digital Services Librarian, so the questions I tackle are usually along the lines of “how to I get this *%$&^ eBook to download?” (insert the amount of swearing you deem appropriate); and, I usually work non-fiction desks (despite being even worse at recommending general Non-Fic reads, but fortunately that’s not as common a request). Anyway, I’ve recently been moved to our Readers’ Desk, so now I feel like I really need to tackle this thing I’ve been avoiding for years. So here goes (*sighs with trepidation*)
The Goal: Try to read something new (to me) in each of the fiction genre categories and sub-categories I’ve pre-determined by the end of 2020. Not an ambitious goal, I know, but I’m given to being overly realistic (read = cautious), I need an end-of-the-year type thing, and the end of 2019 is just too damn close.
The Baby Steps to Reach Said Goal: I’m not going to try to write lofty deep reviews. I’m going for a succinct description (I’m not normally given to succinctness. You might have already begun to have realized that), what I like / don’t like about it, and why / who I might recommend it to.
Aaaaaand, go! (*stares forlornly at her stack of TBR fantasy books, knowing she won’t get to them for a loooong time*)
Kat Reads Stuff 