Like elves, or just thoughtful friends, the doughty staff of Montgomery-Floyd Regional Libraries in Blacksburg, Christiansburg, Floyd, and Shawsville offer “Looking for a Good Book?” a personalized reading suggestion service.
By filling out a (completely confidential) form that asks for a reader’s gender, age, reading history and preferences, librarians and staff at MFRL create a customized reading list in about a week.
This long running program, fields between four and 10 requests a week during the summer and about two a month in the winter.
“We’re all soooo [sic] busy this time of year, we can only day-dream of curling up with a good book,” Blacksburg Public Library Supervisor Monena Hall said.
But “Looking for a Good Book?” may help.
Giving the MFRL staff clues, the online form itself prompts a reader to think about what she likes as she shuffles 30 genres into order-of-preference moving “Biography & Memoir” and ‘Short Stories’ around “Adventure”, “Non-fiction” and “Historical Fiction’, and chooses among formats like ‘Graphic novels’ and ‘Audiobooks’.
Importantly, the form offers whole boxes for you to write about “Five of your favorite books and/or authors…” and (ominously, in bold) “Five books you have not enjoyed”.
What happens then? Blacksburg Public Library, Supervisor Monena Hall says that when they get a request, if it looks like the person is looking for a specific genre – that specialized reader that devours a ‘cozy mystery’ or likes cookbooks, Hall will find someone on the staff with a matching interest in that genre.
“I’ve got a person who reads a ton of science fiction, so they will already have ideas and suggestions,” Hall said.
Staff members will mull and consider and then send a title and author list of four to eight books that look like a good fit composing a short description. The books are available at the library, but they also add a link to Amazon.
It sounds like a lot of work, but the service broadens both library-goers’ literary horizons, and edifies staff.
“It’s super fun though. Maybe it’s not your reading comfort zone. It broadens staff’s Reader’s Advisory Knowledge.”
Connecting reader-to-reader and community-to-library, the link to the “Looking for a Good Book” service is www.mfrl.org/goodbooks.php.
