Revitalizing Reader Service: Assess, Integrate, Promote
5/7/2019
12:00pm 1:00pm

About this Session:
Are you interested in a modern approach to Reader Service Skills? Want to know more about the collaborative endeavour of recommending library materials? Need advice in how to gear library resources towards your customers? If so, join us for a conversation about one of OPLA’s RA Committee’s core competencies: Reader Service Skills!  Members of the committee (from Toronto and Burlington) will share their best practices and explore ways to boost reader service skills for library staff.  
Participants will learn about:
-Assessment: Developing and maintaining an understanding of the needs of customers and potential customers.
-Integration: Developing staff skills to optimize the reader services conversation.
-Promotion: Ensuring reader services and library resources are promoted.

About the Presenters:
Reagan Kapasi works as a Librarian in the Humanities and Social Sciences Department at the Toronto Reference Library. She enjoys talking to patrons about their reading experience, chatting with patrons at the reference desk and running her program Talk About Podcasts. An avid Can Lit reader, Reagan has a special space on her colour-coded bookshelf for Patrick deWitt, Helen Humphreys, Miriam Toews, and Rupi Kaur. Reagan is a member of OLA’s RA Committee, is a children’s book reviewer for CM Magazine, and sits on two TPL committees for LGBTQ+ children’s programming and teen programming.

Emma Primeau is a Community and Programming Librarian at Burlington Public Library’s Tansley Woods Branch and a member of the OLA’s RA Committee. As part of a literature-focused portfolio, Emma has developed a system-wide Readers’ Services staff training toolkit, and is always seeking ways to expand community access to collections and resources through library programming. Emma loves chatting about books and fostering the joy of reading both in the branch and out in the community.