146: Danielle Borasky

Steve chats with Danielle Borasky, Vice President of NoveList, about her path to librarianship, the differences between working at a vendor vs. working in a library, the importance of books and reading, and some powerful features in NoveList.

DanielleBorasky_headshot

As Vice President of NoveList, Danielle Borasky leads a team working to help readers find their next favorite book. For the last 20 years, NoveList has developed innovative solutions for connecting readers, books, and libraries. Prior to her current role, Danielle was the Director of Sales & Marketing for NoveList. And before NoveList, she worked in several different kinds of libraries including public, academic, and special libraries. Even though she has worked in many different settings, she always feels most at home when browsing the stacks with a pile of books in hand.

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120: Becky Spratford

Steve chats with Becky Spratford, creator of RA for All and RA for All: Horror, about getting respect for reviews of genre titles, her upcoming work in IndiePicks magazine, and how to do readers’ advisory in genres you don’t personally enjoy or understand (also, Carrie vs. Pennywise??).

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Becky Spratford is a Readers’ Advisor in Illinois specializing in serving patrons ages 13 and up.  She trains library staff all over the world on how to match books with readers through the local public library. She runs the popular and critically acclaimed RA training blog RA for All and it’s evil twin RA for All: Horror and is on the Steering Committee of the Adult Reading Round Table. She is under contract to provide content for EBSCO’s NoveList database and writes reviews for Booklist and IndiePicks Magazine. Becky is also known for her work with horror readers as the author of The Reader’s Advisory Guide to Horror, Second Edition [ALA Editions, 2012] and is a proud member of the Horror Writers Association who honored her as a special guest of honor at StokerCon 2017 for her contribution to the genre. You can follow Becky on Twitter @RAforAll.

SHOW NOTES:

The Reader’s Advisory Guide to Horror
IndiePicks

Circulating Ideas is produced with support from the University of South Carolina School of Library and Information Science and listeners like you. Find out how you can help here.

53: Becky Spratford

Steve chats with Becky Spratford, author of The Readers’ Advisory Guide to Horror, at the Illinois Library Association annual conference.

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Becky Spratford in YS

Becky Spratford [MLIS] has been a Readers’ Advisor for patrons ages 13 and up for over 14 years at the Berwyn [IL] Public Library. She has taught at the graduate level and trains librarians all over the world. Becky runs two popular and critically acclaimed blogs, RA for All (raforall.blogspot.com) and RA for All: Horror (raforallhorror.blogspot.com) and writes content for EBSCO’s NoveList database. She is the author, mostly recently, of The Readers’ Advisory Guide to Horror (ALA Editions, 2012) and is a proud member of the Horror Writers Association.

29: Nancy Pearl

Steve speaks with Nancy Pearl, author of the Book Lust series, frequent NPR contributor, and model for the librarian action figure.

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Thanks to my successful Kickstarter campaign earlier this year, I was able to attend the ALA Annual Conference this past summer in Chicago to speak with a number of librarians, and the key promised interview was with Nancy Pearl. Nancy was gracious enough to agree to the interview and gave me some of her time to talk about her books, the rise of makerspaces, and readers’ advisory.