Secret Shopper Summary

 While my interaction with the library staff working at the reference desk was generally positive—they greeted me, directed all of their attention to me when I approached the desk, and genuinely seemed to want to assist me—the quality of the RA interaction was disappointing. When I asked for a good book to read, they asked me what sort of book I was interested (solid start), but once I requested a horror book it was evident that they did not know much about the genre, or what questions to ask about it. During the interaction, they asked two more questions: "How scary do you want the book to be?" and "Do you want an Adult book specifically?" Ultimately, they recommended The September House to me, which they had read recently. Unfortunately, I requested they recommend books that aren't paranormal (ghost) stories, and The September House is set in and around a haunted house. I have started reading regardless and it is not a bad book per se, but it is not what I asked for. 

The library staff member did not use any RA tools (beyond searching the catalog to see if the book was available). They asked their deskmate for any recommendations and they told me "I don't know anything about horror." Admittedly, before this course, I did not know much about horror either, so I understand this. Still, I believe the library staff could benefit from utilizing RA tools like Novelist, Goodreads, or even just Google, especially when working with genres they are less familiar with. More thorough questioning could also be beneficial, as long as the answers to questions are taken into consideration. As said above, this was not a negative interaction overall, but it was somewhat frustrating when it became evident that the reference staff knew little about the genre and did not use any tools to help bridge that gap in knowledge and familiarity.