Secret Shopper

To put it simply I had a bad experience when I went to get a book recommendation. I wanted to see how well the reader’s advisory would be so I started with a broad statement saying that I wanted a Science Fiction or Fantasy book. He did not ask my any questions to clarify what I wanted and then proceeded to recommend an alternative history book which was not what I was looking for. Needless to say, I would not go back for another recommendation. I am unsure what tools he used if any.

There are several things that could have made this interaction better. Firstly, I think that he should have asked me many more questions about what I was looking for when I asked for something new to read. Science fiction and fantasy are broad categories that encompass everything from realistic near future (e.g.the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson) to weird nonsensical magic (e.g. the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett). So only knowing that I want something from those categories is akin to saying I want a fiction book (Sarricks, 2005). Another thing that would have made the experience better is for him to have more of a conversation with me while he was searching for books. This could have been him asking questions or him just talking me through what tools he was using. It would have been nice if he showed me some different tools that I could use to search for books on my own. Finally, I think the experience would have been much better if at the end he checked to make sure that I was happy with my experience and that there was nothing else that he could help me with (Vnuk, 2013). References Saricks, J. G. (2009). The readers’ advisory guide to genre fiction. Chicago: ALA. Vnuk, Rebecca. (2013). Jack of All Trades Readers’ Advisory: How to Learn a Little About a Lot. Public libraries Online. http://publiclibrariesonline.org/2013/05/jack-of-all-trades-readers-advisory-how-to-learn-a-little-about-a-lot/