[Publib] 'Viewer's Advisory'

[ash966 at bitstream.net]

> With the dramatic increase in the circulation of DVDs and videos in
> libraries, has anyone else noticed the increase in requests from patrons
> to recommend
> good movies?  Although I read quite a bit I attend movies infrequently and
> I
> find I am really at a disadvantage when being asked for "viewer's
> advisory".
> It's an interesting new wrinkle on our job at the reference desk.
>
> Karen Apland
> Santa Clara County Library


Well, everybody has subject areas they feel more comfortable with. For
example, I see a lot of movies and read a lot about movies, but I must be
the only librarian in the US that doesn't listen to NPR! Thanks to their
excellent web page, I don't have to lean on colleagues too much for those
"I heard it on NPR" questions. The one category of film I rarely see is
middle-brow, middle of the road Hollywood fare, but I read enough reviews
that I at least know a little about these films. The New York Times is a
good source for reviews, and you can get movie reviews for free at:

http://movies.nytimes.com/pages/movies/index.html

Is there a colleague at your job who knows about movies, even a clerk or
page, who could make genre pathfinders? Or perhaps they could do a display
for different genres each month, then write a list of the titles used to
keep in a notebook? There are library subject headings for at least some
genres and interest groups, in our catalog we have "martial arts films",
"film noir" and "lesbians--dramas", not to mention "feature
films--country" for different countries. Perhaps the films at your library
need more detailed cataloging?

We keep reference copies of _Videohound_ and Rogert Ebert's and Leonard
Maltin's guides next to the films so that patrons can browse them. There
is no _What Do I View Next?_ book that I know of, but in a pinch,
Amazon.com has "people who bought A also bought B."


--Andrea Herman
  St. Paul Public Library