Moderated by Katharine Phenix, Notes by Tara Bannon

We went around  the table introduced ourselves, where we worked and what we were reading.

Katharine Phenix shared her thoughts about Research Based Reader's Advisory by Jessica Moyer - an excellent book to use as a resource

There were a few questions about the CAL Readers' Advisory Interest Group (currently looking for a new chair) and how often they met. The CAL Readers' Advisory Interest Group will meet next at the ALA Conference in November.

Help is very much needed on the CORA Zone Wiki - Katharine put this together in an evening and much much more could be done with it! The information should be organized in a way that we can find it readily when working with customers and professional looking enough to direct customers directly to it. One of the most popular features on this site is Gimmicky Fun Selection Sources which has the tool gnod, which is very cool.

Several of us are interested in forming a regional readers' advisory group similiar to ARRT (Adult Reading RoundTable) in Chicago and the Readers' Advisors of Puget Sound in Seattle (founded by Nancy Pearl). These groups were born from a lack of continuing education for adults in Readers' Advisory. The goal of this group would be a fun place for anyone new to Readers' Advisory as well as RA experts to come and share ideas about books, bibliographies, displays and other adult services. We would meet monthly (I might suggest bi-monthly) in area libraries (probably in the evening, possibly even at a bar) and share ideas about Readers' Advisory. We would also be interested in putting together a newsletter. Seana O'Grady suggested that we start a forum where we can discuss things even when not in a meeting. She will be looking into several of the free forums online and make a recommendation to us.

Why do we need this other group when we already have the CAL Readers' Advisory Interest Group? There has been some concern about the amount of "process" discussion that occurs at the CAL meetings. The CAL group generally spends a great deal of time sharing information about the Adult Summer Reading Program.

More topics the group might cover during meetings: electronic tools for RA (GoodReads, Shelfari, Anobii, LibraryThing), branding, identifying read-a-likes, etc.

There were some things said about "Hive Mind" I didn't quite catch (I'm hoping another of the notetakers caught this). OK. Katharine found it. Got the phrase "hive mind" from librarian.net. She was referring to ReadMe , a subset of AskMe, I can't quite explain, but it does work for reader's advisory as a kind of "hive mind".

We also discussed other important aspects of adult services: listener's advisory (both for CDs and AudioBooks) and Viewer's Advisory (movies, etc).

We also began the discussion about what this group might be called the most popular idea was:

MARVLL or MAARVLL - Mountain Area Readers Viewers and Listeners League or Mountain Area Advisors for Reading, Viewing and Listening League

Our current plan is to meet on the Friday night after the CAL meeting... more to come.

After things wrapped up yesterday, I kept thinking we should find some way to make the name marvelous. The best I could come up with was Mountain Area Reader's, Viewer's and Listener's Advisory Society (MARVLAS).

Update on free forums:

The best options I've found are Forumotion or FreeForum101, both of which seem to have few limitations and a simple interface. The price of "free" on each is a small Google Ad strip just under the main header. I've reviewed both TOAs and privacy policies and they are pretty standard for free forums. If anyone else has a better solution, please share. I will hold off setting our forum up for a few days to allow for discussion and other ideas.  - Seana 

 I really like MARVLAS, actually.  Clever twist! - Marianne

Katharine here: motion or free whatever is fine with me. and MARVLAS is marvelous...change society to service? Still a work in progress I see. Keep those ideas coming.

 I love MARVLAS; Mountain Area Readers, Viewers, Listeners Advisory Service says it all.   Clever and cute !  Katharine & Tara , I am interested in learning more about the reader's advisory group that is being formed, so please add my e-mail contact (jennifer.rowan@du.edu) to future communications.   I like the idea of meeting once a month in a nearby library (or bar) to share ideas about Reader's Advisory.   I know that ALD has been working on a new reader's advisory service for their patrons called ALDRA ( Arapahoe Library District ).  Joanne Pulcino ( one of their staff members) does an amazing job with  reader's advisory services at the Koelbel Branch, she was doing webcasts too for ALD in which she would read some from new book release.  She loves reader's advisory services and her passion and enthusiasm for reader's advisory is contagious.  I took an Adult Services class at DU and Joanne was a frequent guest speaker, perhaps we can invite her to one of our meetings.  -- Jennifer    

***** The forum is up and running! Check it out at http://marvlas.adoforum.net/forum.htm 

I've seeded it with a few starter areas, but please post your ideas and suggestions. Enjoy!