Passing parameter to click function from anchor

Passing parameter to click function from anchor

Apologies if this appears twice but my first attempt to post seems to either have been rejected or simply gone into the cyber void.

I currently have a link on a webpage as follows:

  1. <a href="#" id="loadData"><img src="images/bookcase.png" alt="" width="114" height="167" border="0"></a>

which is picked up by  

  1. $("#loadData").click(function()
which then executes:

  1. .load("subgenre.php" ,  function()    etc

What I want to be able to do, however, is pass a parameter to the php script, along the lines of:

  1. .load("subgenre.php?param=" + passedParam ,  function()    etc

Is there a way I can do that?  Sorry if this is a dumb question but I'm extremely new to jQuery so still learning.

Any help or guidance would be much appreciated.