Secret Shopper Summary

I asked two librarians for a recommendation for a great romance novel. Both were friendly, engaged, and interested in helping me. I was glad to see that they seemed totally unfazed by my question, since I was nervous beforehand that they might not be in the mood, or that they might be in the middle of other things and caught off guard by my question. They did not act that way at all, and it made the interaction pleasant from the beginning.

I told these librarians that I had read basically zero romance novels, and that it’s generally not my cup of tea, but I’m trying to broaden my horizons. I was surprised then that they did not ask me many follow-up questions. As a result, I didn’t provide details about my specific interests. The only specific question they initially asked me was if I liked vampires. I said “I probably could like vampires,” but then another patron approached the librarian, so she was unable to talk with me for a couple minutes.

The other librarian gave me one specific recommendation, and I asked her if it was more of a romcom or a drama. She said comedy, and then asked me which I preferred, and that ended up opening up a bit more of a conversation, which was nice. She then found one more title and wrote it down for me, but she really didn’t say much about the stories, content, or appeals of either book.

The most notable thing about the interaction was that both librarians seemed not to want to suggest anything to me that wasn’t on the shelves. For example, the first librarian said, “Oh I’ve got a great one… shoot, it’s checked out,” and didn’t tell me what it was, so I had to ask about the title. The second librarian had me follow her to several shelves, looking for a particular series, before she actually told me the name of the series, the author, or individual titles.

Overall, I would say that both librarians recommended personal favorites of theirs without making much effort to get a sense of what I might like. In the article we read by Spratford (2016), she says that “Making this leap—from recommending books you like to suggesting ones you may not have even read but are fairly confident that the patron in front of you would enjoy—is hard. And you cannot get there without having the chance to practice talking about books in the first place” (pg 8). My experience illustrated this point nicely, and if I were in the place of either of the librarians I spoke with, I could see myself just suggesting my own favorites.

I enjoyed the whole interaction, and I felt like I ended up with good recommendations. I take this as a good sign, because even though I’m noticing some things both librarians could have done better, I'm still happy with the experience. This helps me feel less pressure to be absolutely perfect at readers’ advisory. At the same time, the experience made it clear to me that it’s crucial for librarians to ask questions and make an active effort to understand a patron’s preferences and specific reading needs.

Reference

Spratford, B. (2016). Talk among yourselves: Jump starting your readers’ advisory.

ILA Reporter, 34(2), 8–10. [Library & Information Science Source]