The RWA Book Buyer Guide from 2017 also provided insights. More people are turning to Romancelandia folks through book review blogs and sites, authors on social media and blogs, and reader forums than the public library for book recs and romance info. Librarians should know where their users are accessing information so that they can have common ground with their patrons and stay relevant.
Romancelandia also provides more diverse perspectives on the genre than top-down reviewing alone. Social media reviewers come from the readers themselves, are more intimately connected to those who will make up the library’s usership, and are adding a unique level of perspective to the librarian’s toolkit. The consideration of Romancelandia reviews and discussions also introduces librarians to more diverse perspectives in terms of identities and backgrounds. According to anonymous responses to a 2015 survey, 89% of institutional reviewers are white, 91% are heterosexual, and 88% are persons without disabilities. While reviewers on social media sites are certainly not immune to a lack of diversity, librarians can actively choose to follow accounts that supply own voices reviews are written by people who share an identity or experience that closely aligns with the characters and/or author of a particular novel.
This doesn’t mean that librarians have to spend hours scrolling through Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. They can set boundaries that are appropriate to their work time and comfortability with social media and blogs. Consulting Romancelandia isn’t meant to replace traditional sources, only to add to the librarian’s toolkit.
Outside of social media Romancelandia, librarians can keep up with romance fiction through a variety of sites that pull from social media and current trends. If you’re here, then you already know that Frolic exists, yay!! Other sites like Smart Bitches, Trashy Books are invaluable resources for keeping informed.
5. Go to the freaking source:
And last, but certainly not least, I challenge every public librarian working reference and readers’ advisory to read at least one romance novel each year! What better way to keep up with romance than by reading new and current romance??