STORIES IN MANY SHAPES:

AN ARGUMENT FOR INTEGRATED ADVISORY SERVICES IN PUBLIC

LIBRARIES

EVAN MATHER

LIS 763

MARCH 10, 2014

In the first chapter of Genreflecting: A Guide to Popular Reading

Interests, a watershedi readers advisory textbook in Library and
Information Studies, editor Cynthia Orr enumerates the importance of
story and narrative throughout human development: the increased
educational impact and ability to retain information through narrative;
the added ability for empathy and connection across geographic, cultural,
and temporal divides; and the moral and ethical power that lies within
storytelling. In the same chapter, Orr discusses the evolving attitudes
and philosophies towards Readers Advisory, specifically pointing out
what is known as The Fiction Problem. In the early 20th century, there
was a normative attitude towards library users reading choices, deeming
fiction to be an inferior use of the readers time. Some libraries would
limit the number of fiction titles users were allowed to check out, or even
completely eliminated fiction from its collection all together.ii In her article
Reader on Top, Catherine Ross illustrates just how strongly these tides
have shifted:
Public libraries have repositioned themselves within the leisure
structure as spaces where people can go not just for information
but for community and for story [emphasis added]. Public libraries
now actively court pleasure readers. They have created popular
reading centers, embraced readers advisory services, and
implemented research-based recommendations on how to help
readers connect with books they will enjoy.iii

Orr regards this all with knowing and derisive attitude, though she
does acknowledge that remnants of the old prejudices remain,
particularly regarding genre fiction.iv The rest of Genreflecting, however,
focuses only on the written word, exploring the varying facets of those
genres. What is now ignored and underserved are all of the other formats
in which narrative can be found. Todays library users look for story and
narrative for their leisure and entertainment in a number of forms: film
and television, audio recordings like podcasts and audiobooks (even
music has varying levels of narrative aspects), interactive narratives like
video and computer games, sequential art in graphic novels and comics,
and yes, also within printed books and e-books. The circulation rate for
audiovisual materials has been ever increasing, and libraries are loathed
to ignore that increase, both for their own sakes and that of their users.v
A new recommendation model that breaks down format
boundaries, known as Integrated Advisory, will free both users and
librarians from barriers between mediums and formats, instead of
focusing primarily upon books. In her handbook Integrated Advisory
Service, Jessica Moyer describes this new paradigm as an amalgamation
of the techniques of readers advisory and the multiple media that make
up modern library collections.vi Moyers book is all about building bridges
and breaking down barriers between both format and genre. Integrated

Advisory Service is organized similarly to Genreflecting, with sections

divided by genre, and within each chapter titles of multiple formats are
arranged under types of plots, characters, or key themes. Each chapter
also contains a section titled Making Connections, and discusses titles
that cross over to other genres. Moyer doesnt just try to build bridges
between formats, but also between genres themselves.
Among the benefits to the Integrated Advisory paradigm are in the
expansion of library services and users, as well as a rejection of the old
normative attitudes found in The Fiction Problem of old. Instead of
prejudice against fictional narrative itself, there is a prejudice against
non-print formats. Moyer clearly demonstrates how incorporating
Integrated Advisory services grants both advantages:
Patrons who may know exactly what they want to read next, may
have no idea how to select a satisfying audiobook or find a movie
to enjoy over the weekend. They should be able to turn to a
librarian and ask for assistance in the same way readers ask for
help. Expanding readers' advisory does not mean excluding book
readers or reading I would argue that there is the same value, in
terms of leisure entertainment, in watching a good movie as in
listening to a good book or reading a graphic novel or playing a
favorite videogame.vii
Graphic novels are easily the most embraced new medium by
public libraries; the vast majority are dipping their toes into multi-format
readers advisory by incorporating and featuring comics and sequential
art for their users. (This may be because its format is the closest to

standard print fiction, in both the moniker of Graphic Novel and in its
physical form of printed words in bound paper books, only with the
incorporation of drawn pictures.) Still, interested readers are not always
as easily connected to relevant materials. Part of this disconnect almost
definitely comes from the differences between format and genre, which
can sometimes be confusing. Genreflecting itself misses the distinction:
though it refers to graphic novels as a format, the section is relegated to
chapters otherwise relegated to distinct genres in the handbook.viii This
falls into an all-too-common trap, as explained by Douglas Wolk in his
work on comic theory and criticism, Reading Comics:
One numbingly common mistakeis to invoke the comic book
genre. As cartoonists and their longtime admirers are getting a
little tired of explaining comics are not a genre; theyre a medium.
Westerns, Regency romances, film noir: those are genres kinds of
stories with specific categories of subjects and conventions for
their content and presentationProse fiction, sculpture, video:
those, like comics, are media forms of expression that have few
or no rules regarding their content other than the very broad ones
imposed on them by their form.ix
Fletcher-Spear et al. illustrate the difference between genre and
medium by looking at the diversity within the audiobook format:
An audiobook can be of any genre, for any audience. The content
of audiobooks is variable within the same format. A stroll through
the audio section of any large bookstore will reveal titles by authors
as varied as Elmore Leonard and Yann Martel, on topics ranging
from national security to travel guides, in every genre, for every
age group. Graphic novels, as a format, demonstrate a similar
diversity among genres and topics. It is important, when thinking
4

about and discussing graphic novels, to not confuse the medium

and the message.x
By relegating all graphic novel into a single genre (though divided
among subgenres within the chapter), Genreflecting is giving the
incorrect impression that graphic novels are a distinct genre, but that
there is little commonality between comics and prose books. In fact,
many comics have more in common with other print books, and vice
versa, than they do with other books designated to the same genre. If
librarians providing readers advisory services were as afraid to bridge
such minor divides as Genreflecting seems to be, those interested in the
horror books of Joe Hill would not be steered towards his Locke & Key
horror comic series; fans of memoirs would not be led to Alison Bechdels
Fun Home, Marjani Satrapis Persepolis, or Art Spiegelmans Maus; and
fans of fantasy would never find Neil Gaimans Sandman series or Craig
Thompsons Habibi. The issue of genre itself is an evolving one, as Barry
Trott illustrates in his exploration of the future of readers advisory
services. Trott points to authors like Cormac McCarthy, Michal Chabon,
and Audrey Niffenegger, who use elements of genre fiction in what would
otherwise be listed as mainstream or literary fiction. As genre definitions
become increasingly blurry, readers advisors may be less able to rely on
genre as a defining tool in the practice.xi If librarians shouldnt rely as

heavily on genre as a signifier or limiter for readers advisory, they should

be equally as weary of limiting themselves within particular formats.
Other mediums have often steered library users towards print
fiction, often because of its root as a source material, with the latest
movie featuring literary characters Sherlock Holmes or Jack Ryan bringing
patrons in to check out the books on which they are based. It is
television, though, which seems to be currently drawing in the most
readers, mostly through numerous references to other literary works,
both implicit and explicit. These are opportunities which librarians have
and should seize upon to bring users to other areas of the collection to
which they have not yet ventured. In her article Getting Lost, Andrea
Lau discusses the literary legacy of the television program LOST, and the
proliferation of book clubs which arose to read and discuss the books
references within the show, with titles as numerous and varied as The
Brothers Karamazov, Watership Down, Slaughterhouse Five, and The
Third Policeman. Several arising book clubs and discussions have carried
on far beyond the lifetime of the show itself.xii Even more current is the
television show Orange is the New Black itself inspired by a memoir
which has itself featured a number of books, which has driven some like
the New York Public Library to compile into a reading list.xiii Just within the
past couple weeks, the HBO show True Detective has driven the 1895

short story collection The King in Yellow to a best-seller through its

references to it.xiv
Libraries should not only reap the benefits of these connections,
but foster them, and in fact create new ones, with the connections
between television and the written word being only one example of this.
Users are now getting their leisure entertainment, and exploring and
enhancing the stories and narratives they consume, in cross-media and
multi-format sources. These formats are not in competition, but rather
compliment and support one another. Integrated Advisory services would
increase usage and appreciation of all library materials.
There is value in new formats beyond their ability to connect users
and patrons to the more highly-esteemed format of print fiction. (Perhaps
this prejudice could be seen as the remnants of a more updated Fiction
Problem?) Indeed, each format possesses its own assets and benefits.
The educational value of video games has been incredibly well studied
and documented. Video games increase language and math skills, spacial
cognition and motor skills, and gives reasoning and decision-making.
Social games add a cooperative and collaborative element to these
elements. The fact that this learning is so often tied in to narrative gives
video games an edge over other sources for story. They not only provide
a more immersive form of storytelling than the passive engagement of

video or even reading, but can also increase empathy and identification
with the characters.xv
Immersion and familiarity in the multiple forms that narrative takes in our
culture has additional gains. A well-balanced cultural diet, in contrast to
previously-held prevailing pro-print prejudices, has cognitive benefits to
the human brain. Catherine Ross explains how various formats provide
mental rewards:
The human brain is wired to pay attention to new stimuliit learns
best in the zone somewhere between too easy and too hard.
Computer game designers know thisthe architecture of
successful video games [follow] the regime of competence
principle: As the player gets better through practice and familiarity,
the level of the game played gets harder. In the case of television
and film, there is a media environment of after-markets,
syndication, reruns, and DVD sales that rewards those shows that
can keep the audiences attention through repeated viewing
Christopher Nolans Batman Movie The Dark Knight (2008)
reportedly broke box office records because fans return for repeat
viewings to puzzle out what they missed the first time aroundxvi
Much of this complexity, Ross explains, comes from a growing familiarity
with genre conventions. A growing familiarity with narrative, and all of its
various tropes and clichs, require increased sophistication in
storytelling, which leads to increased cognitive benefits for the user.xvii
The entire previous argument, however, hinges on the notion that the
library and librarian has a moral or ethical duty to provide normative
guidance to the reader, and that various formats or genres should be

encouraged over others because they are better. It is the same

argument originally used as a cudgel against fiction during the early 20th
century, and which was later reversed and used to encourage use of
mainstream print fiction over other formats or genres. Simply broadening
this rationale to justify integrated advisory is still a facile argument. It is
the librarys role within the leisure structure to find the media that best
suits the users entertainment needs at that moment, and disregarding
personal, institutional, and cultural value judgments attached to those
items, be they related to content, author, topic, and even genre and
format. Even if these decisions are not conscious, a librarian being
unequipped to recommend media in all formats is a tacit removal of
multiple titles we are denying the users being served. Ross argues that
the goal can still be to recommend the best, so long as the best is
defined in the context of the particular [user] at a particular time.xviii The
media landscape has long been expanding, as have the formats provided
by libraries to their users. Librarians should be comfortable advising its
users on all of those formats equally, and a move from the formatspecific readers advisory to a more all-encompassing integrated
advisory is an essential step for librarians to help their users navigate
that landscape.

iEnd Notes

Ross, Reader on Top: Public Libraries, Pleasure Reading, and Models of Reading, 634.

ii Orr and Herald, Genreflecting: A Guide to Popular Reading Interests, 311.

iii Ross, Reader on Top: Public Libraries, Pleasure Reading, and Models of Reading, 634.
iv Orr and Herald, Genreflecting: A Guide to Popular Reading Interests.
v Moyer, Integrated Advisory and LIS Education.
vi Moyer, Integrated Advisory Service: Breaking through the Book Boundary to Better Serve Library Users, xii.
vii Moyer, Integrated Advisory and LIS Education.
viii Orr and Herald, Genreflecting: A Guide to Popular Reading Interests, 514.
ix Wolk, Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean, 11.
x Fletcher-Spear, Jenson-Benjamin, and Copeland, The Truth about Graphic Novels: A Format, Not a Genre, 37.
xi Trott, Building on a Firm Foundation, 133.
xii Lau, Getting Lost.
xiii Feliciano, Orange Is the New Black.
xiv Misra, True Detective Has Made 1895 Book The King in Yellow a Bestseller.
xv Mitchell and Savill-Smith, The Use of Computer and Video Games for Learning.
xvi Ross, Reader on Top: Public Libraries, Pleasure Reading, and Models of Reading, 652.
xvii Ibid., 653.
xviii

Ibid., 654.

Bibliography
Feliciano, Stevie. Orange Is the New Black: A Reading List. New York Public
Library, August 6, 2013. http://www.nypl.org/blog/2013/08/06/orange-newblack-reading-list.
Fletcher-Spear,, Kristin, Merideth Jenson-Benjamin, and Teresa Copeland. The
Truth About Graphic Novels: A Format, Not a Genre. The ALAN Review,

Winter 2005.
Lau, Andrea. Getting Lost: Books, Television, and Integrated Advisory. Public
Libraries Online, April 30, 2013.
http://publiclibrariesonline.org/2013/04/getting-lost-books-television-andintegrated-advisory/.
Misra, Ria. True Detective Has Made 1895 Book The King in Yellow a Bestseller.
Io9, February 21, 2014. http://io9.com/true-detective-has-turned-the-king-inyellow-into-a-bes-1528086031.
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Learning. London: Learning and Skills Development Agency, 2004.
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