Reader on Top: Public Libraries, Pleasure Reading, and Models of Reading

This article examines competing models of reading that have been available for librarians to use in their discourse and policy making about pleasure reading. Two models, ???Reading with a Purpose??? and ???Only the Best,??? developed within public librarianship, while the others developed variously in education, psychology, mass media studies, and sociology. These models have differing stories to tell about the power of the text, the role of the reader, and the effect on the reader of what is read. Who is in charge in these stories of reading? Is reading a receptive process of extracting meanings right there in the text or is it a productive process that involves the reader as a cocreator of meaning? What happens during the reading transaction itself? Is the reader empowered? Or is the reader duped, dumbed down, tranquilized, or deceived? Each model of reading makes its own power claims and each has its own entailments. Some models are more appropriate than others for public libraries now that they are seeking to play a more significant role in the leisure structure. The article uses two types of readers as test cases whose reading tastes have historically been denigrated: the series book reader and the romance reader.published or submitted for publicatio

Calling Back the Ghost of the Old-time Heroine: Duncan, Montgomery, Atwood, Laurence, and Munro

Works of realism can, by displacing or parodying patterns of romance, acquire access to mythic levels of human experience. Margaret Laurence, Alice Munro, Margaret Atwood, Sara Jeanette Duncan, and L.M. Montgomery exploit the device of parallel plots and multiple endings to contrast the proper roles for the "old time" and the "new" heroine. Texts discussed include The Imperialist, Anne of Green Gables, Lady Oracle, A Bird in the House, and Lives of Girls and Women

Conducting the reference interview

Find your bearings in the continually evolving hybrid reference environment through proven strategies, advice, exercises, and research from three experts in the field

Communicating professionally

This book offers guidance tips and suggestion for public speaking in a public services. a how to do it manual for library applications.xviii, 298 hlm.: Ill.; 28 c

Communicating professionally: a how-to-do-it manual for librarians

The new third edition of Communicating Professionally is completely revised with new sections outlining the opportunities offered by contemporary communication media