On my other blog, Casey the Canadian Lesbrarian, I have a column called Ask Your Friendly Neighbourhood Lesbrarian, where LGBTQ+ people send me emails / tweets / comments about the kind of LGBTQ+ books they want to read and are having trouble finding. I do some research, and then I put up a post on my blog with a bunch of recommendations for them based on what they’ve told me. I’ve always loved recommending books to people and for years some of my friends have treated me and my bookshelves as a personalized recommendation system. I didn’t realize when I started the column a year ago that what I was doing was “reader’s advisory” in library speak, but it is!
Social media can be both a venue for contacting and communicating with people who want reader’s advisory, and a tool for finding the books that those people want. After all, I put the word out about my column and communicated with readers through my blog. A few of the questions I’ve got have been over twitter as well. The awesome thing about putting my answers to these questions on my blog is that I usually get a bunch more recommendations in the comments, which can augment my answer and gives the reader’s advisory experience a collaborative feel. Instead of the librarian (me) being the authority, the only one with book knowledge, the person asking the question can get feedback from a bunch of different people with different experiences and book tastes.
I also use other kinds of social media to find the books people ask me for. Some of the queries readers send me are pretty tough! For example, one reader asked me to find young adult books with characters who were asexual but had different romantic (i.e., biromantic, homoromantic, etc.) orientations. Another reader asked for books with toxic lesbian bad girl characters. I don’t know how I would have found as many books as I did without using social media.
In fact, what I usually do first when tackling one of the questions is go to twitter. I’ve amassed a pretty amazing network of queer literary types, and I’ve learnt about so many LGBTQ+ books from them. I’ve found that directing messages with the @ symbol to people I think would be especially interested or knowledgeable about the kind of books I’m looking for works the best for spreading the word. For example, I always tag the folks at the Gay YA whenever I have a question about young adult books. Often people that I tag in a post asking for help will retweet it and then I get suggestions from people I don’t even know or follow! Sometimes I get authors recommending their own books—they know them best, after all. I’ve used hashtags like #queerlit or #gayya but I haven’t found that they result in a lot of responses. Maybe people just aren’t into queer literary hashtags. Or maybe I’m using the wrong ones.
The second social media site I use the most for reader’s advisory is Goodreads. Actually, I don’t even know why I bother googling what I’m looking for sometimes, because it pretty much always leads me to Goodreads lists. Do you know how many awesome LGBTQ+ themed user-generated booklists there are on Goodreads? I just found a new one today called YA LGBT Books – Not “Coming Out”. Other ones you should check out are: Trans SF/F by Trans Authors, Novels with Bisexual Protagonists, and LGBTQ Children’s Literature. There are lots more! Beside the explore tab at the top of the Goodreads homepage, there’s an arrow icon; if you click on that, then click on listopia and do a key word search, you’ll find a ton of awesome lists!
After Goodreads, I probably consult other blogs the most for reader’s advisory help. For example, I’ve been asked a few questions about books with asexual / ace characters and this was a totally new topic for me when the first person asked. Luckily, I found a remarkable blog called The Asexual Agenda, which turned out to be an amazing resource of not just which books have ace characters, but whether the representation was good or not. I’ve already mentioned them, but the Gay YA is also a really great resource. Don’t be fooled by the name: this site does a great job reflecting the diversity of LGBTQ+ YA books.
Has anyone else used social media for reader’s advisory? Was has worked / not worked? Has anyone had success with using hashtags? Are there any sites I’m not using that would work well for reader’s advisory?
social media lesbrarian 
This post was super informative! I can be really old-fashioned when looking for LGBTQ2S+ books and often end up in Chapters staring at the “cultures and communities” shelf, which is sadly small. It can be really discouraging to search for topics like these in big-box bookstores like Chapters or Barnes and Noble. Small independent bookstores are not always better, either, as they have limited funds and space for diverse genres. One way I find LGBTQ2S+ books with the themes/topics I am interested in is through the my book “recommendations” on Amazon. Again, big company. So I really appreciate your post and will definitely check out the sources you provide 🙂
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Yeah, the “cultures and communities” section at bookstores can have some good non-fiction, but rarely has any fiction I find. At the VPL branch by Davie street they also have a pretty good selection of LGBTQ+ books in one section but again, those are also mostly non-fiction (I guess because it’s easier to know what the content is, then?). Glad you found it helpful! (:
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