For years, readers' advisory (RA) librarians focused primarily on matching readers to books based upon the concept of appeal--traditionally considered pacing, character, story line, and frame (setting, tone, atmosphere, etc.). For example, readers who enjoy fast-paced action adventures with series characters may enjoy books by both Matthew Reilly and Clive Cussler. But appeal can take you only so far. The current RA renaissance gives us a chance to rethink this approach. Call it Whole Collection Readers' Advisory Service (see "Whole Collection RA" p. 42), which involves the extension of RA work beyond fiction and appeal-only considerations--and the concept of reading maps.
There is more involved in the reading and the next-reading process than the fiction/appeal construct--the idea that, say, some readers want action-packed drama in straightforward prose, while others prefer lush writing focused on characters or ideas--that created the foundations for RA work. Books have internal lives of their own that readers want to reexperience, and they have additional elements or references that readers want to explore. For example, readers are sparked by the history and decor of Versailles, the causes of the French Revolution, and life in the court of Louis XVI when they read Sena Jeter Naslund's Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette.
The primary tool we have used in the fiction/appeal method of RA is the read-alike, a listing of titles based upon appeal. Read-alikes do not lend themselves well to experiencing the world of a book or exploring its references. But reading maps do.
Reading maps are web-based visual journeys through books that chart the myriad associations and themes of a title via other books, pictures, music, links to web sites, and additional material. Reading maps open up the world of the book for the reader by diagramming the internal life of the book, allowing readers to inhabit the text and its outward connections, and enabling readers to follow threads of interest that stem from any particular part of the work.
To illustrate how to create a reading map, we can look at Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (Bloomsbury, 2004). This long book, perhaps inadequately described as a historical fantasy novel, features a steady but moderately paced narrative, well-developed characters, and beautifully constructed sentences; it has an interesting and inventive story line and a magical and mythic tone that is dark and intriguing. A wonderful book and a unique reading experience, it has few, if any, true read-alikes. For example, Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer's Sorcery and Cecelia; or, The Enchanted Chocolate Pot: Being the Correspondence of Two Young Ladies of Quality Regarding Various Magical Scandals in London and the Country (Harcourt Children's, 2003) (and its sequels) shares the everyday magic but not the tone, style, or density. Likewise, the Harry Potter books, which have even more magic, do not match in story line, character, mood, or point of view. Nonmagical books work even less well, and while Austen and Dickens might combine to create writing somewhat like Clarke's, neither is a read-alike for her.
The more distinctive a title is, the harder it is for appeal to capture why a reader enjoyed it in a way that can help lead to other positive reading experiences. There may indeed be other books that have the same pace, world building, and elegance of language, as well as an inventive story line, but that does not mean that the reader will enjoy them, or, more to the point, experience them in a way that he or she will associate with Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. The very lack of read-alikes is an indication that a different RA approach is required. This is a book in need of a map.
Reading maps can be elaborate and wide ranging; they can be simple and track a journey to one location; or they can be directly connected to one book but branch off in many different directions. Reading maps do not have to be intricate to be effective, but they offer the possibility for almost limitless exploration and, ultimately, for the connection of one map to another.
To create a reading map, you need a place to start. This can be a topic or a specific title (see "7 Reasons To Make Maps" for ideas). The first time you make a map, pick an area you know well and that holds your interest so that the elements will come readily to mind. Also, plan to build a simple map. The Strange & Norrell map (see p. 40 and
Use your first map as a trial run to establish guidelines for the future. Decide what elements you want to include in any map you make, e.g., annotations, read-alikes, book discussion questions, reviews, links into your catalog, links to e-resources, links to electronic texts, and interviews with the author.
Think about the internal world of the book and any major threads. Also consider appeal; although whole collection RA moves beyond appeal, it does not ignore it. Key appeal elements with regards to maps include:
CHARACTER Real-life and mythical characters lend themselves to all sorts of explorations, in both fiction and nonfiction. Made-up characters who have particular interests or connections, such as Will Cooper in Charles Frazier's Thirteen Moons, can be linked to many different resources. In this case, they include the history of the Cherokee nation, the Trail of Tears, and the Civil War as well as real-life characters such as William Holland Thomas, Davy Crockett, Sen. John C. Calhoun, and President Andrew Jackson. Series characters have built-in opportunities for links, including the other titles in the series, occupations, hobbies, and connected fictional characters.
STORY LINE How the book is constructed (including superstructure issues, e.g., Is it action oriented, cinematic, episodic, issue based?) can be pulled apart to set up directions to explore in a reading map. The plot and subplots can be used to inform map content.
SETTING Readers often want to read more about a time and/or location they find intriguing. Use the settings of the book to begin to structure a map. Once the settings are in place, many different elements can be added to each locale--starting a domino effect of maps within maps.
DETAIL When readers are hooked on one aspect, such as the art of Leonardo da Vinci in The Da Vinci Code, they will naturally seek more information on the topic, therefore including links about detail elements is critical in reading maps.
The subjects of a book also often drive the interest of readers and allow for a wide range of branching off (side trips) for a map to trace. Even though subject is not traditionally part of appeal, it is an important element to consider.
For the Strange & Mr. Norrell map, character was very important. The book is peopled with historical characters such as King George III, John Murray, Wellington, and Byron, as well as imagined mythical characters such as the Raven King. For instance, part of the Faerie page includes explorations of the mythical characters, and the Napoleonic Wars and Wellington page includes works on Wellington. The early 19th-century setting is also a vital element in the novel, as the Regency considerations of manner, dress, and Austen-esque style affect the reading experience and the Napoleonic War directs much of the plot. Setting thus became the foundational structure of the map.
Once you have considered the book's appeal, brainstorm about the book (with colleagues if possible). List all the associations from the book--places, historical figures and events, themes, key appeal aspects, read-alikes, ideas--and anything that strikes you and captures your interest. Brainstorm ideas for the elements of the map and directions you wish to follow. Be as free and as wide ranging in your thinking as possible. The goal is to map the landscape of the book as completely as you can. (See the brainstorming session for this map, and the complete map, with the electronic version of this article at
Break the list of associations into working groups and start expanding each group with titles, authors, and ideas. Use the entries in each group to brainstorm other elements to include. Keep expanding the group until you feel you have fleshed out its idea or theme and then move on to the next group. Keep moving through all the elements of what amounts to the book's story board until you feel you have represented the scope of the title.
Now, stand back and look at what you have done. What groups are fundamental to the book? What groups are the most fully fleshed out? Those areas with the richest content, as well as the elements that will be standard in any reading map, should be what you initially include. Focus on these aspects first. Then go back and decide whether to include the areas with less content.
Decide on your opening element. This choice determines what kind of map you will make. All the other elements flow from this first step, so consider it carefully. Find a unifying theme to all the groups you identified and make that your opening element.
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is a book ordered by time and place, thus their prominence in the map. However, the experience of the book is also critical, and therefore the map begins with links to further aspects of the novel.
You can build the map in any manner you like, but try to match the journey to the form of the map. For instance, if you are creating a meandering path through lots of disparate aspects, consider placing the starting title in the center and working outward to represent visually the many directions a reader could choose to follow. However, if you are creating a linear progression through time--the development of the mystery novel or tracing the chain of events of World War II--you might want to subscribe to a more linear arrangement.
Since reading maps are web based, you either need to know how to create a web page or you need to work with someone who does. Once you have a method of production, consider how patrons will access the map. Link the maps from your readers' advisory web page and also link to and from them with the catalog record of each item mentioned in the map. You never know what will lead a reader from one item to another. You want your maps to be available at any point along a reader's journey.
Try to include as much texture and varied elements as you can. Play with font, color, mouse movements, jacket images, pictures, sound files, and video files. Also explore deeper resources such as recipes, excerpts from key works, quotes, and other items you feel will bring visual interest to the page. As you find these elements, ask for permission to use them from the owner and credit sources in your map or use what your library already owns or licenses in terms of clip art and photo databases, jacket covers, annotations, etc. Also consider digital image web sites that allow use of content as long as it is credited, your own (and your friends) photos, local history collections, links to images, and other copyright-free ways of getting visual content for your map.
Reading maps offer librarians a new way to help readers and make our rich collections both more visual and more accessible. They bring form to the theory of whole collection RA and, like that new approach, foster connections between readers and librarians and between one item in our collection and dozens more.
DIAGRAM: THE MAP
By Neal Wyatt
Neal Wyatt compiles LJ's online "Wyatt's World" and is a collection development manager for Chesterfield County Public Library, VA. Portions of this article are adapted from her forthcoming book (ALA Editions) on nonfiction readers' advisory service and from her 2006 Public Library Association program also featuring Nancy Pearl and Cathleen Towey. Thanks to Ann Theis, of www.overbooked.org, for help with coding the map
Maps bring the whole collection together for Whole Collection Readers' Advisory Service. RA really should be about the reader and his or her wide range of interests and not the way we have organized the collection.
Maps help to narrow the gap between formats of materials and types of books.
They provide guidance as to which books to try next, with insight into a vast range of explorations.
They offer patrons the best of the library in terms of resources, expertise, and imagination. Offering readers something so different and intriguing captures their imaginations and can transform how they think about your library and your RA services.
They help the RA librarian contextualize the collection and practice skills on a deeper level.
They are visually interesting, have the potential for high-quality production, are cheaper to produce than paper brochures, are richer in terms of what they can offer, can be updated immediately, and don't take up space on the counter or need special holders.
They are fun!
IDEAS FOR MAPS There are no limits to the subjects or titles that could be turned into reading maps. Get started by creating a map on your favorite title or your favorite trip, select a short poem filled with allusions and map it, or create a map on one of your hobbies. Here is a brief list of topics that are particularly rich in mapmaking possibilities:
Regency England
Shakespeare
The Crusades
The Templars
Pirates
Arthurian legend
Food books
Exploration
Lewis and Clark
Moon exploration
Artists
The development of a genre or subgenre or a reading tour to a genre or subgenre
A reading tour to any location
Programs at your library
Readers' advisory (RA) is in a period of rapid change. New ideas such as reading maps, a focus on nonfiction, working with teenage readers, and expansion of appeal vocabulary are all contributing to a vibrant atmosphere in which invention is fostered and new ways of thinking can take root. Most RA work has thus far focused primarily on the connection between a reader and a novel based upon the concept of appeal (pacing, character, story line, and frame). While this appeal-based connection between one novel and another is perhaps the best way to learn RA service and master its vocabulary, the RA renaissance gives us a chance to rethink that concept and move beyond it as the sole aim of RA service.
One new approach is Whole Collection Readers' Advisory Service. It makes connections that extend beyond appeal-only considerations and includes the entire collection, not just fiction or books, when working with readers.
Whole collection RA recognizes that our collections are richer than a short list of similar titles and that the world of the book is often more complex than the traditional list of three to five suggestions we generally make. Sometimes we don't want a read-alike because it removes us from the internal world of the book we loved. We are fascinated with a particular aspect of the title in hand and want that reading experience to be extended. For example, after reading Debra Dean's The Madonnas of Leningrad, a novel involving art, memory, and the siege of Leningrad, someone might want to read a history of that part of World War II, memoirs of Alzheimer's disease, or learn more about the collections of the Hermitage Museum. Similarly, when reading Jude Morgan's Passion, which views the life of key Romantic poets through the eyes of the women in their lives, someone might want to read biographies of the poets, their works, and more about the women who loved them so passionately.
Whole collection RA moves the service beyond the title-to-title paradigm and the scope of our fiction holdings. There are other elements of our collections--nonfiction, poetry, audiobooks, music, art, movies, and online resources among them. These can be just as effective, if not more so, in supplying readers with material to expand upon the experience of a book. In combination with reading, they create a multilayered approach to the world, holding the reader enthralled. For example, fans of Patrick O'Brian do not have to be led only to the work of C.S. Forester and Bernard Cornwall, or even to the many works supporting the thematic connections of his books, such as all the titles specifically about the series or works on Wellington and Nelson, military uniforms, and ships of the day. We can show them the AV collection as well: the movie Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World and the TV series on Sharpe, which add visual expression to their reading. We can show them a range of music popular both among the characters of the books as well as during the times the books and movies are set. We can lead them to web sites and images that can support their interests as well.
This new approach enriches the experience of the book, gives the reader more to choose from, makes the most of our collections, and teaches us to see RA work as more rich and expansive than a title-to-title match. However, it is not just about collecting and handing over to the patron an armful of resources. Just as read-alikes support the work of traditional RA service, we need a set of tools that match the aims of this broader view of RA work. Tools that provide readers with the widest scope of resources and titles to consider, create guides to the collection that are title specific but rich in form and theme, support the reading interest of highly popular titles in a manner that makes the most of our collections, and help readers explore the fullest extent of their thematic interests. Tools that invite readers to explore outward in ever-widening circles, so that a book like Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell can take a reader from an imagined Regency England to resources on the real Regency England, to Byron, to Jane Austen, and on to modern Regency romances, or from George III to the American Revolution. Two tools that can help us offer this service are reading maps and read-arounds (print versions of reading maps, listing rather than mapping, the widest range of title connections).
We can start out small, scaling this new philosophy to our collections, time constraints, and comfort levels. Simply expanding our thinking to include all of the resources of our collection when offering traditional read-alikes will move RA service forward. If we can experiment with the forms in which we offer RA service, we can take RA work even further. Whole collection RA is one way to take up the challenge presented by the electronic tools we now have, and the multimedia collections we now gather, to provide even more ways of connecting patrons with our collections and the materials they love.
