Yours truly, the RAT Queen, will be presenting at the upcoming state library conference, KLA/MLA 2015 Libraries Without Borders, being held in Kansas City, MO Wednesday, September 20 - Friday, October 2. It is a joint meeting for members of the Missouri Library Association (MLA) and the Kansas Library Association (KLA) which means double the fun and plenty of programs!
Not sure I was thinking clearly when I submitted them but had two proposals of my own* accepted, a general session program and a poster session and then volunteered (Yes, volunteered!) to be a presenter in two others, the Readers' Advisory pre-conference and a 4-speaker panel presentation about YA Lit. It's going to be a busy conference!
If you are coming to Kansas City, look for me at the following:
50 Shades of Quit Judging: Readers' Advisory, Intellectual Freedom, & Personal Taste (Pre-conference)
Developing RA Skills & Moral: Genre Studies & Team Building (general session) *
Six Degrees of Reading (poster session) *
So Your Youth Has Become Historical Fiction: Talk Up Your Era with Today's Readers (general session)
The full conference schedule is available at Libraries Without Borders. Follow the conference on Facebook and also on Twitter with @KLAMLA2015. You can even track all the readers' advisory programs by using hashtag #raBlitz15
Follow-up posts with additional information about each of the sessions listed above are forthcoming, so keep checking back for more! :-)
On Thursday, October 9th, during the 2014 Missouri Library Association (MLA) Conference, Kaite Stover (Kansas City Public Library) gave a great program called: Readers' Advisory for a New Age of Readers. The Powerpoint presentation and handout for her program can be accessed online at: http://kaitestover.pbworks.com Click on Conference Presentations, then Missouri Library Association for 2014.
During her program, Kaite mentioned an upcoming training which will be provided by RUSA-CODES (Reference and User Services Association-Collection Development and Evaluation Section of the American Library Association). The training will be email based and will begin Tuesday morning, Oct 14 and run through Wednesday afternoon/evening, Oct 15th. This CODES conversation is free and open to any library staff with an interest in readers' advisory.
RA as a Technical Service
A new CODES Conversation begins October 14th and will run through the 15th.
RA does not just happen in the stacks and at the public service desk. It happens in the catalog, in collection development, and in materials processing. Join a community of over 500 librarians interested in all things RA as we discuss how to make sure that the RA service that happens behind the scenes of public service gets the attention and focus necessary to make all of RA as robust and useful as possible.
Some of the topics we will address include:
- How best to calculate, and what factors to consider in setting, holds ratios?
- Genre Headings: How (if at all) do catalogers/patrons/advisors agree to what constitutes a genre? How many headings do we want/need in an age of genre blends?
- What features of the catalog support and enrich RA?
- How can the collection development staff help the public services staff keep up with new titles and genres?
- What use are stickers on books? How do they work with genre blends?
- Should we interfile or have divided collections?
- How do we ensure the best access to paperbacks? And speaking of paperbacks has the format flipped to some degree to ebooks?
***
CODES Conversations are focused electronic conversations on current issues facing collection development and readers’ advisory librarians—or anyone interested in those areas. The free, moderated discussions are open to all - just subscribe to the discussion at http://lists.ala.org/sympa/subscribe/codes-convos, then follow and contribute (or lurk!) as you wish.
The 2014 Missouri Library Association Conference will be held in Columbia, MO starting Wednesday, October 8 through 12:00 Noon on Friday, October 10. I will be posting about the programs I attend so keep checking the blog for updates.
Yours truly, the RAT Queen will be hosting a Table Talk on Thursday morning from 9:15 AM until 10:00 AM. If you are attending the conference, stop by and join the fun!
What's the topic you ask? Here's the full description right from the conference guidebook:
Table Talk: Creating Displays with Whole Readers' Advisory
Looking for ways to promote your collections? Always searching for additional material to include in a displays? Have a bright, innovative idea for a display? Whole Readers' Advisory encourages the use of all formats in displays. Come to the table to hear how others create and maintain displays and talk about your own successes (or failures). Display examples will be available for discussion along with an exercise for working with others to develop ideas. Let's sit down and brainstorm about displays--the more the merrier!
Handout links and (hopefully) a photo or two will be posted to the blog later!
I had a great time at the 2013 Missouri Library Association Annual conference last week. My
poster session about the Six Degrees of Reading technique went very nicely although it was a very fast 45 minutes talking about books and how to use the technique to create an annotated list of six titles!
I even got the chance to create an impromptu list with the cooperation of some folks who stopped by to talk! The list created on the spot consisted of the following titles:
1. Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver - about a woman finding herself and how she belongs.
2. The Life of Pi by Yann Martel - about a young boy who finds himself even while stranded in the ocean with a Bengal tiger.
3. Hatchet by Gary Paulsen - a juvenile title about a young man stranded in the wilderness after a plane crash.
4. Beauty Queens by Libba Bray - a funny take on beauty contestants who have to learn how to survive after crashing on a deserted island.
5. Lord of the Flies by William Golding - the classic novel about English school boys marooned on an island who revert to savagery to try and survive.
6. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad - about the degeneration of supposedly civilized men in Africa. Heart of Darkness is ultimately about a man finding himself which lead right back to Animal Dreams.
'Group think' is a GREAT way to create a Six Degrees of Reading list! :-)
CONGRATULATIONS to the SCCCLD Book Challenge blog for winning the Reading Cup trophy for the third annual Missouri Book Challenge!!! The announcement was made to a very enthusiastic crowd during 'The Joy of Blogging' program at the 2013 Missouri Library Association Annual Conference.
Credit for this marvelous accomplishment goes to Laura Pirondi (Spencer Road Branch), 'Blogmeister Extraordinaire' for all her work on the blog and for encouraging staff to participate!
Credit also goes to the staff who contributed to the blog in 2013, or as Laura
prefers to call them TEAM AWESOME!!
CONGRATULATIONS to one and all from the RAT Queen!!
The 2013 Missouri Library Association Annual Conference is being held at the Sheraton Westport Chalet in St. Louis. The MLA conference begins on Wednesday, October 2 and runs until 12:00 Noon on Friday, October 4. Information about the conference, including PDF links for the Conference-at-a-Glance and the Final Conference Program, can be found at 2013 Missouri Library Association Conference.
Yours truly, the RAT Queen, will be presenting a Poster Session on the readers' advisory topic Six Degrees of Reading. So if you are attending the MLA conference on Thursday, October 3 please stop by the Versailles Foyer, just outside the Exhibit Hall, between 10:15 am and 11:00 am. I would love to see you there.
If you cannot attend, unfortunately you wont get to see the GREAT poster I made but here are links to my handouts:
