About

Dun and Red is a readers’ advisory resource which I began after haven taken both a class on readers’ advisory for public libraries and a class which focused upon multicultural literature for children and young adults.  It is a place where I can keep track of what I have been reading for fun as well as hone my readers’ advisory skills.

In August 2009, I graduated with a Masters in Library Science and Information Resources from the University of Arizona  and currently work for Pima County Public Library as a Librarian at the Woods Memorial Branch.  This blog represents my thoughts and opinions, not those of my employer.  Most of what I read for fun has been in the contemporary fantasy genre, but I am actively trying to branch out in my reading habits and enjoy a wide range of books.

Resources -

Determining a book’s appeal factors is essential to performing readers’ advisory.  The book we used for my class was Joyce Sarick’s Readers’ Advisory Guide to Genre Fiction.  This is an excellent guide for learning about various genres and what readers find appealing about them.  The appeal factors I use in my annotations come from this book.

Most often, I look to Pima County Public Library’s (PCPL) catalog for information about subject headings.  This is my local library – where I work and my first source for books.  I also look to WorldCat or the Library of Congress if I cannot find the book in PCPL’s catalog.  Unfortunately, many fantasy books are not cataloged very well by libraries, which can make it very difficult to determine what the book is about and to find other similar books.

EBSCOhost’s NoveList is a great database for readers’ advisory and I value it highly.  Many public libraries subscribe to this database and it is very fun to use.  I highly recommend checking it out if you haven’t yet.  I find Fantastic Fiction to be another valuable resource.

Thanks for coming by,

Sarah Batchelder, MLS

sarahjbatchelder@gmail.com