Thanks to Stephanie Miller for inviting me to the December meeting of the Reference Association of South Suburban Librarians (RASSL) held at the Calumet City Public Library last week. I enjoyed our discussion of readers' advisory. I you can see my slides for True Stories into the Hands of Readers online. I enjoyed being paired with Lynnanne Pearson from Skokie Public Library, who spoke about fiction readers' advisory.
Visiting RASSL was a homecoming for me, as I was present at its founding in 1981. I have fond memories of the leadership of Renata Ochsner of the Harvey Public Library and Jim Steenbergen of the Riverdale Public Library. Both were true believers in library sharing. In those pre-Internet days and even pre-shared library catalog days, we put together a guide to the staff and collections of neighboring suburban libraries, so we could more effective referrals to library users. It was a lot of work then and so easily done now.
Thanks also to Pat Coffey at the Calumet City Library who gave me a tour of the busy library. It is a library with a strong sense of mission.