Secret Shopper Summary

            For my assignment, I asked a library staff member if she could help me find an historical fiction book to read. I told her I don’t normally read that genre, but that I needed to find a book to read for a class. She began by asking me what I do normally read, and I told her science fiction/dystopia and non-fiction. I told her I do like history, but that I just don’t read historical fiction. She then asked me if I normally like meaty/dense books, and I told her that I do, but that in this particular instance I was looking for something not too long because I have a limited amount of time to read the book. She came up with two suggestions off the top of her head, without using an outside tool that I was aware of. Her two suggestions were “The Alice Network” by Kate Quinn and “The Widow of Pale Harbor” by Hester Fox. She told me she had read “The Widow of Pale Harbor” herself and it was a fun read. She looked up each book in her library’s catalog and turned her computer screen around so that I could read the description of each book myself. I told her I thought either of those books would definitely work for what I needed. I felt that she did a really good job coming up with suggestions, especially since my question had been so general (I told her I could choose any historical fiction book). I think the only thing that would have improved this readers’ advisory interaction would have been if I had provided her with more information about specific historical topics or time periods that I’m interested in so that she could have had more to work with.