By Rachel Holcomb

Monroe Public Library

A common library misconception is that librarians are the curators and gatekeepers of the written word, here to get materials into your hands but largely unapproachable, sequestered behind desks and best left to our own bookish devices. Perhaps when you think of librarians you picture an elderly woman in a cardigan, wandering the stacks (much like the spectral Ghostbusters librarian) or a bespectacled gentleman hidden behind a teetering pile of books, stamping a musty tome. 

Well, we do wander the stacks. And we do stamp books. But we do so much more than that. Perhaps one of the most common misconceptions about librarians is that we prefer to be left alone with our books, preparing them for you, shelving them for you, but never interacting with you. When in reality, talking to you about books (and movies, and music, and everything else libraries offer) and helping you find exactly what you want is one of the things we do best. 

Yes, we can check your items out to you and print off your tax forms and help you with research (and so much more), but one of the major job duties of librarians is to help you fall in love — with books, with authors and with your next great binge. To help you find exactly what you want, even if you don’t know exactly what you want. This is called, in technical terms, magic. I’m kidding. This is called readers’ advisory — a fancy phrase for the way librarians help you find your new favorite book (or movie or TV show. Yes, even though it is called readers advisory, it encompasses much more.) We do this with suggestions of titles based on a readers’ individual interests and taste, gleaned from conversation, research and our (not to boast) often impressive knowledge of what’s out there. 

Another common misconception that stems from the perceived unapproachable librarian persona is the idea that you asking us for help in finding something fun to read is somehow not allowed, that you might be bothering us or wasting our time asking for something so frivolous. But again, this is what we do. This is what we love. Some of us are even trained to do exactly that. Readers’ advisory training is becoming more and more popular, with library staff attending classes and seminars designed to teach us how to better serve you by helping with your leisure reading. We are here to be your book matchmakers, to pinpoint your reading preferences and habits and predict your next obsessions. (Plus, it’s often a chance for us to get to push our favorite books on you, so win-win.) 

Not to give away all our secrets but let’s break down how this works — to find something you’ll love, we often need to talk to you about what you’ve loved in the past. We know it can be hard to articulate why you loved a certain book. Oftentimes, you may not even be sure. You may say, “I just felt good reading it” or “I liked when or where it took place, even though I don’t necessarily want my next book to take place then or there.” You may think this sounds silly, that those sorts of statements wouldn’t be helpful at all — how could telling us how you felt while reading help us pull a title out of thin air to suggest you read next? How could we possibly guess what you might enjoy from such personal, intangible, even confusing or contradictory statements? But these are exactly the tools we use to help you. Tone, atmosphere, setting; these are called appeal factors and they are all things that help us narrow the search and find suggestions for you. (And they are much more helpful than say, describing the plot of a book. Because why would you want to keep reading the same plot over and over again?) Did that last book you loved just feel cozy? Great, that’s an excellent starting place. How about romantic? Did the book feel cozy because you loved how the relationship depicted felt stable and safe and sweet? Or maybe the book was actually about murder. But it still felt cozy to you. Yikes! Well no, actually you probably felt the warm fuzzies because the detective puzzled through the murder case while sitting in a warm cottage, sipping a cup of tea, a fire crackling in the corner, the rain pattering outside ... See — murder can be cozy. All this to say, we librarians use our skill set to infer the intangibles of what you like about something, and then determine what else may strike a chord with you. 

Now, some concrete examples of how readers advisory works. Maybe you come into the library and tell us that you love the haunted house subgenre — you like spooky and atmospheric, but nothing gross or gory. And let’s make sure everyone makes it out alive. We would probably suggest a few titles that focus on likable protagonists moving to big spooky houses, being thoroughly creeped out, but triumphing over fear and escaping in the end. Like: “Craven Manor” by Darcy Coates, “The House on Foster Hill” by Jaime Jo Wright, “The Vanishing” by Wendy Webb, “The Widow’s House” by Carol Goodman, “An English Ghost Story” by Kim Newman, “An Inquiry Into Love and Death” by Simone St. James or “This House is Haunted” by John Boyne. Ta-da! 

Maybe you tell us you’d like to read more about little-known female accomplishments through history. You just loved “Hidden Figures” and know that there are other inspiring stories out there, you just aren’t sure where to start. Books on herstory, if you will, are huge right now and just some of the titles we might suggest include: “Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers Who Helped Win World War II” by Liza Mundy, “Sky Girls: The True Story of the First Women’s Cross-Country Air Race” by Gene Nora Jessen, “The Woman Who Smashed Codes: A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikely Heroine Who Outwitted America’s Enemies” by Jason Fagone, “The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women” by Kate Moore, or “Fly Girls: How Five Daring Women Defied All Odds and Made Aviation History” by Keith O’Brien. We could do this all day. And we want to. This is what we do. 

Please come and “bother” us. Let us help you. There are few things a librarian loves more than chatting up books, searching for books and putting the perfect books into your hands. It is so satisfying to us. One caveat — if at first we don’t succeed, don’t be afraid to tell us you hate our suggestions. We won’t be offended, honestly. And that will just give us more information to work with, so our next picks will be better. Let’s work together to get you what you want. Your library is here to help you, so stop in and let us find your next great read.

— Cover to Cover is provided by the Monroe Public Library and is published the fourth Wednesday of the month.