Match Books
Posted by: Kaite Stover
Over on another social media site, The Kansas City Public Library is playing the above game with the Facebook public who enjoy reading.
In celebration of National Library Week, KCPL assembled a crack team of reading enthusiasts to field reading recommendations from the community.
This has been an enlightening, exhausting, challenging experience that has improved the readers’ advisory skills of all the suggestors and helped us see how much teamwork goes into effective RA.
Match Books has also helped us all see how diverse reading tastes are. But the biggest benefit, one of the librarian matchmakers claimed, is finding new titles for all of us to suggest to folks who aren’t using the Internet to find their next good read.
I’m thrilled with two things. First, we mixed in our young adult specialists with the adult services folks. Many of the Facebook posters, as well as the AS staff, are getting great suggestions for teen books adults would like. The ‘big people’s librarians’ wouldn’t typically think to browse the young adult stacks to make suggestions unless a reader specifically asked for it.
Second, I’m discovering new titles that would be suitable for book groups and rediscovering lesser known gems that deserve another chance in the spotlight. Having these titles to work with will hopefully help me prevent “The Help Syndrome,” a book that is so popular it’s not coming off reserve until we’ve almost forgotten it.
But the biggest bonus? I actually learned about a great readalike for The Help. That made up for all the graveyard RA shifts this week. 
If you’re wondering what it is, toggle over to the KCPL Facebook page and see. And check out The Seattle Public Library on Facebook as well. They’re doing it, too! Great minds redux.
May 6th, 2011 at 9:59 am
So, What is the Read-A-like for the Help?
May 26th, 2011 at 10:43 am
Thanks for the shout-out, Kaite!
And here is a read-alike list for “The Help”:
http://goo.gl/4CA9x