Bibliotherapy

Students often come to the library to find "something to read," as they say. Not for a course, just for fun or as a distraction. Finding your next book in a large academic library can be a challenge. Please don't hesitate to reach out to a librarian any time. The following ideas may also help.

What is RecRead? It stands for a collection at Rutgers called "Recreational Reading, " specifically created to meet needs for non-academic reading. Although the books from the Alexander Library collection had been moved upstairs to the stacks, Carr Library on Livingstone has a collection on the first floor, just look for low shelves on the right as you enter the building. The Library of Science and Medicine on the Busch Campus also has a few books for this purpose on the first floor, by the elevator on the left.

• If you know the author and title of the book you are looking for, the easiest way to find out if the library owns it is via QuickSearch.
• In Alexander and Douglass, we suggest browsing the shelves under PR, the call number for British fiction and PS for American.

The Books We Read program is based in the Chang Science Library. It's a project that is built on the principle that books on the shelves of academic libraries can also serve diverse purposes other than resources for courses and research.

The online and on campus programs are complemented with over 165 blog posts with reading recommendations and various other pages, such as resources (ebooks, audiobooks, newspapers, and stressbusters)  and galleries (graphic design, photos, and videos). Guided reading, i.e., bibliotherapy is expanded into creative activities related to reading.

Started in the summer of 2020 to respond to new needs, the Summer Tales Book Club  was created to build  virtual communities for students taking classes remotely. The non-credit course in Canvas provided short mental breaks from coursework through a fool-proof method of distraction: reading short stories and poems and discussing related issues with fellow students.