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The purpose of this paper is to address a somewhat under‐researched aspect of readers' advisory services in public libraries in North America, namely, readers' advisory for immigrant readers, with a particular emphasis on the readers' advisory interaction/interview.

The argument draws on the review of relevant scholarly and professional literature and the author's experience in working with immigrant readers.

It is suggested that public libraries in North America are not actively involved in providing readers' advisory services to immigrant readers aside from developing and maintaining multilingual collections. This trend in readers' advisory practices is clearly reflected in professional and scholarly publications of the field. It is argued that personal interactions with immigrant readers, in the context of the readers' advisory interview, can be an efficient way to engage immigrant readers in the life of the host society, thus fostering their socio‐cultural integration beyond information needs and basic coping skills.

The paper offers practical insights and suggestions for the enhancement of readers' advisory interactions with immigrant readers in public libraries. It also places readers' advisory interactions with immigrant readers in the broader context of readers' advisory practices, public library services to immigrant users, and the theory of readers' advisory interviews.

The children's room in my hometown library in Marion, Ohio, was a bright, comforting site, with low shelves of colorful books on every imaginable topic and a desk where kids could, under the librarian's careful guidance, use a red date‐due stamp to check out their own books.

At the turn of the twenty-first century, academic libraries revived their tradition of working with readers, which resulted in a surge of publications in this area. However, the nature and thematic coverage of these publications has not changed dramatically in the past 18 years, signaling little advancement in the reach and scope of this professional activity. This paper aims to address the following research problem: What do citation patterns reveal about reading research and practice in academic libraries and do they point to interdisciplinary research and the presence of an evidence base or do they carry a mark of an inward disciplinary orientation?

This is a qualitative exploratory study, also involving descriptive statistics, that uses bibliographic and citation analysis as a method.

The study discovers a disconnect between the diversity of interdisciplinary research cited in the published work on reading in academic libraries and the sameness of respective professional practices; it describes a relatively small community of reading researchers in academic libraries, emerging as leaders who can change the direction and scope of reading practices; and it highlights a preference of academic librarians for relying on interdisciplinary knowledge about reading over building on the readers’ advisory experience of public librarians.

Translating the incredible wealth of interdisciplinary reading knowledge possessed by academic librarians into practical applications promises to advance and diversify reading practices in academic libraries. One method that could aid in this effort is more intentional learning from the readers’ advisory practices of public librarians.

This study seeks to examine, from the viewpoint of 12 adult fiction readers who are members of book clubs, how they go about selecting fiction books to borrow from the public library.

Each participant took part in an individual, semi‐structured, face‐to‐face interview. Using Williamson's Ecological Model of Information Seeking and Use as the conceptual framework, the study examined the role that fiction readers' “internal environments” and “external contexts” played in their book choices.

The selection of fiction books at the public library occurred, to a large extent, outside it. Fiction books were selected as part of everyday life information seeking, influenced by study participants' personal characteristics and circumstances as well as sources from their everyday lives, which typically included family, friends, book club and the mass media. While the public library was the main means by which study participants obtained their fiction books, it was not the first source to which they turned for ideas on what to read.

The study moves from a preoccupation of readers' actions at the public library to examine, more holistically, how everyday life information sources influence their choices of fiction books at the public library. It highlights the purposive and serendipitous dimensions of book selections and also underscores the importance of recognizing trust as a determining factor in book selection.

All personnel in libraries are key to good service. The visibility of library support staff and their important positions of initial contact with library users make their efforts especially crucial. Training programs for support staff often include discussion of the library mission, how library resources connect with users, how to communicate with library users, and how library service can be enjoyable. When managers plan staff training and continuing education programs for support staff, readers' advisory is a very good topic.

The following bibliography is annotated and selected to reflect current information available to readers' advisors. These are examples only, and the bibliography is not meant to be comprehensive. Many “best books” lists have been published, and the number of indices and genre guides alone far exceed what could be included here.

Advising readers has received renewed attention in public libraries, library associations, and programs of library and information science. Writing of their belief in readers' advisory services Saricks and Brown note, “Readers' advisors and proponents of the service subscribe whole‐heartedly to the philosophy that reading, of and by itself, has intrinsic value.” In her essay on new directions for readers' advisory services, Ross characterizes readers' attitudes toward books as providing a “special kind of pleasure that cannot be achieved in any other way,” and summarizes several studies that examine the role of reading in people's lives.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the information needs of one user group, public library fiction readers, in order to reveal a design of an online community at the local level. Examination of user‐generated metadata can reveal new approaches to information architecture.

A literature review into behaviors of virtual communities; surveying public library readers regarding search behavior characteristics – the survey included a sample “tagging” exercise to determine whether public library communities could create meaningful metadata for retrieval purposes.

The use of relevance as an indicator of tag quality is flawed: in a survey, public library readers “tagged” the novel The Da Vinci Code. The resulting collection of tags provided a richer description of the book than did the social book‐related web site www.librarything.com. Tag collections can be broken down into different categories, each reflecting a different “facet” of the novel: character, plot, subject/topic, setting, and genre. Faceted structure to tags enables users to choose the context of the tag to the novel.

This research is relevant in the world of social networking sites, online communities, or any other such system where users generate descriptive metadata. Examination of such metadata can reveal facets, which can guide the architect/librarian in the design of a versatile architecture.

This research resulted in a manifold design for a public‐library‐based online community that allowed for the full expression of users' information needs. This research introduces a faceted structure to current approaches for user‐generated metadata, adding versatility to search terms.

Purpose ‐ This annotated bibliography serves as a guide for collection development and evaluation and readers' advisory tools for librarians and for any interested reader. The purpose of this paper is to locate and describe print and electronic resources pertaining to the horror genre for scholars and patrons, as well as librarians collecting in this area.Design/methodology/approach ‐ This bibliography surveys reference sources published in the past ten years, in order to provide an overview of publications focusing on the horror genre, and serves as a guide to understand this genre.Findings ‐ Reference resources in horror encompass the genre specifically and broadly, usually focusing on classic fiction and short stories in earlier years and fiction novels, magazines and online magazines in recent years.Originality/value ‐ The resources covered in this article survey both long‐standing reference resources as well as newer publications in the field. While not necessarily comprehensive, it provides patrons, researchers and librarians with a survey of useful resources, with factual information as well as a critical perspective in the discipline.

This paper aims to investigate the quality of access to translated fiction published between 2007 and 2011 in six large Canadian public libraries, answering the question about what public libraries can do to help acquaint their readers with international translated fiction.

The article uses the method of bibliographic data analysis based on 2,100 catalog records.

As the results demonstrate, enhanced bibliographic catalog records deliver a wealth of information about translated fiction titles and facilitate meaningful subject access to their contents. At the same time, promotional activities related to translated fiction have room for improvement.

Despite the fact that the study focuses on public libraries, its findings will be of interest not only to public but also academic librarians, any librarian tasked with the selection and acquisition of translated fiction, reference and readers’ advisory librarians in any type of library, Library and Information Science students and anyone interested in access to translated fiction.

While many recent studies have turned their attention to enhanced catalog records and their role in access, discovery and collection promotion, there are no studies dealing with translated fiction specifically. The article also contributes to seeing an in-depth understanding of bibliographic records and cataloging as part and parcel of reference librarians’ knowledge and skill set, which improves retrieval practices and access provision.