Traditionally, librarians view readers' advisory (RA) as a public library function, geared toward recommending fiction and focused around genre studies. This paper argues that an active RA program would provide engineering librarians with a tool to help students broaden their scientific, technical, and social perspectives beyond their course and project work. Many colleges and universities require student cohorts to participate in campus reading programs; RA in the engineering library would go beyond these community reads to promote directed casual reading across disciplines. The many techniques explored by public library RA librarians can be effectively translated for use in a nonfiction, technical literature environment. For example, at Linda Hall Library, we have adapted RA techniques and used them for selection of works for our Periodic Roundtable book discussions. In engineering, practitioners implement technologies with intention and consequence to human society. For this reason, we should programmatically encourage casual reading in addition to academic reading as part of the educational process for engineers.
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