Passively Recommending Books

  May has a variety of traditional and more adventurous reasons to set up book displays. Remember that you should use your programs and local events as inspiration as well.  Here are some suggestions for May book displays:  May Day- There are a variety of reasons to celebrate May day. It's the traditional start to summer. You could use Midsommer (the film) as an inspiration and include some non-fiction on wicca in addition to folk horror.  It's also International Workers' Day which would mean titles about the labor movement and work in general.  Star Wars Day: May the 4th be with you - Don't limit this display to just Star Wars films and titles. Look for other space operas in your collection which could use some exposure and put out some read alikes and watch alikes for Star Wars.  Mother's Day (2nd Sunday)- Besides the more obvious fiction and non-fiction about mother/child relationships and mothering in general, think about a "Bad Mothers" display. Books

  I will recap PLA 2024 at the end but there has been a lot of good talk about upcoming horror novels at the convention. I wanted to remind everyone that Summer Scares, a partnership between the Horror Writers of America, BookList and NoveList, is a great opportunity to promote horror outside of October.  I can guarantee that your patrons don't only think that beach reads are cheery and light. Living near the beach, I see people check out plenty of thrillers, suspense, and horror novels to take with them. Don't prejudge what your patrons are interested in and seasonally limit what portions of your collection that you market to them. There are adult, YA, and middle grade titles selected each year. They are always back list titles that are in print. An author is selected as spokesperson and this year it is Clay McLeod Chapman who is an excellent author to suggest to patrons who think they don't read horror. You can find out more about his books here .  There are free webinars

Day one of PLA 2024 included the panel Anti-Racist Readers Services: Beyond the Basics, sponsored by NoveList, and presented by Becky Spratford (RA for All), Robin Bradford, and Yaika Sabat. Becky has kindly posted the the slides on her blog . Becky and Robin have a course with NoveList called Actively Anti-Racist Readers Services to Readers  if you would like to learn more.  A question was asked about diversity in regards to human bodies, specifically looking for books with characters who are plus size or curvy. There are readers and librarians who have curated lists that you can draw from to create lists for patron and staff use. Even publishers have created lists . The titles can be highlighted on your social media as well to draw attention to the fact that your collection includes titles like this and even that they exist at all. Include them in your book displays and lists.  Take clues from the titles of the lists you do find and improve your search. As you will see, the titles of

  I review horror for Library Journal upon occasion and I am going to start posting my draft reviews here. Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay will be published in June 2024 and it's a stellar book. You can read my starred review here .  Because the book is about an indie horror film from 1993, a display of 1990's horror films would be a great way to use the book for a display or list. You can dig through your backlist to find authors and horror titles from the 90's as well.  Your non-fiction collection may also include books about film making, the history of films, horror movies, and biographies of actors and directors. It's a great book to use as inspiration for programming about indie filmmaking. Look for read alikes to add to a display such as The Remaking by Clay McLeod Chapman,  How To Make a Horror Movie and Survive by Craig DiLouie, and We Sold Our Souls by Grady Hendrix. I would also add book about slashers like Final Girl Support Club also by Grady Hendrix and Final

  Crime fiction includes mysteries, thrillers, suspense, and spy novels. All of these have many subgenres and can easily be their own list or display. Remember that readers who enjoy one often will cross over to read another. If you check out the bibliographic record of some crime fiction titles, you will often see mystery, thriller, and suspense listed as genres.  Again, as with the previous posts, I am going to try to not repeat resources. Keep in mind, many of these resources have information about multiple genres. If you have suggestions, let me know! Crime Reads is run by Literary Hub and focuses on crime fiction and non-fiction. There are a lot of lists, read likes, interviews, and news about upcoming releases. Beyond fiction, they cover TV, movies, and true crime.  One annoying thing is that those who eschew other genres will promote crime fiction, even those who believe themselves to read only "serious" literature. Setting aside the snobbery and incorrect attitude ab

  Romance is in the air - and on the blog! As before, I am going to try to not repeat any of resources I listed before. Note that you can use many of them for a variety of genres.  There are so many romance book blogs! I will list a few here but if you are a fan or have a huge patron base for them, you might want to spend time searching for them.  Harlequin is one of the publishers even those who are unfamiliar with romance know. One of the most useful things on their site is what they call " favorite romance storylines " or what other people call tropes. They also talk about " miniseries " on their site which allow " readers to return to the same town, family or cast of characters to fall in love again and again!" There are non-Harlequin authors who do this. It would be a fun way to market your series fiction - call them a miniseries.  Smart Bitches, Trashy Books has been around for a long time. It includes a blog, book reviews, book suggestions, and a p

  We all have to provide readers advisory for genres we don't read. I have not yet found the high fantasy series that really draws me in. Everyone has those books they can't get into. There is nothing wrong with that - just don't make a big show of how much you don't like reading it.  Here are some sources for news and ideas about fantasy. Science fiction and fantasy are often grouped together so check the post about science fiction for more ideas. The posts about other genres may also have resources you can use for fantasy, you check them out.  For a primer on fantasy subgenres, try this article on The Portalist. Other sites like Book Riot also have them. Searching for any of the subgenres will pull up a lot of ideas you can use.  Goodreads has a page devoted to various genres. They include the most popular books from that genre as well as links to subgenres and related genres. Their fantasy page has new releases, videos, lists, giveaways, and tags that are relate

I will be presenting on readers advisory on the following dates in 2024. If you are interested in having me speak to your library staff about passive readers advisory, book displays, or collection development, please contact me at lila [dot] denning [at]gmail [dot] com. PCI Webinars An Introduction to Passive Readers Advisory Tuesday, March 12 at 10:30 am for Florida libraries Wednesday, March 13 at 2 pm Marketing Your Collection, Services, and Programs with Better Book Displays Thursday, April 18th at 2:00 pm EST  Wednesday, June 5th at 2:00 pm  Past Presentations Love is Always in the Air - Using Book Displays/Passive Readers Advisory to Market your Romance Collection All Year Using Passive Readers’ Advisory to Market Your Colle ctio n Engaging Patrons with Book Displays Inclusive Readers Advisory for Any Library Worker Not Just In October - Bring More Horror To Your Book Displays

This is the first of some genre-focused posts. Rather than start with genres I know more about (romance and horror) I thought I would do the harder ones first so we are jumping off with science fiction. There is science fiction content on my post about general book content so check those sites as well if you are looking for science fiction book news.  Whether right or wrong, the worlds of science fiction and gaming seem to have an affiliation so I've included some gaming sites with book related content.  Also, if you have suggestions here, please let me know! The Portalist : A site run by Open Road Media (which operates other genre-focused sites like The Lineup ) focused on science fiction and fantasy. The focus is on backlist titles. There are a lot of articles with read-alikes and lists based upon a theme such as " Must Read Space Opera Books ." They also cover movies and TV shows along with weird news that will appeal to fans of the genre.  Book Riot has science fictio

Listed below are some sites where you can find information about books in general including lists, reviews, and feature articles. There is content on most of them about the various genres of fiction as well so keep that in mind. Obviously, I haven't listed all sites imaginable but let me know if there is a great one I missed! My suspicion is that I will need to make a part two of this! Barnes & Noble may seem like an odd choice but their blog has great ideas you can use to market your library's collection. Book Riot has podcasts, feature articles, newsletters and more. It's definitely a site many avid readers are using for information. Entertainment Weekly has book reviews  as well as book news and lists. You can also curate a book display by looking at what is popular in other areas of entertainment. "Books to read if you love [popular television show]" as an example.  Esquire has book content including lists, interviews,  and best of the year content for g

  I presented about passive readers advisory for Florida Library Webinars. Below you will find  a list of the websites I mentioned. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out! I will post the slides as soon as possible.   Romance Writers of America- Definition of Romance Beverly Jenkins' interview with Shondaland Brenda Jackson interview   The Ripped Bodice State of Racial Diversity in Romance Publishing RA For All Sonali Dev interview on ContemporaryRomance.org Gibson's Bookstore , Concord, NH Zodiac Bookmark examples on LibrarianDesignShare.org Goodreads Romance Novels with Astrology Signs in the Titles Romance Novels based upon your zodiac sign Sexy books to read based upon your zodiac sign Which Bridgerton character are you based upon your Zodiac sign? from OprahDaily.com Blind Date With a Book Tips and Tricks from DisruptiveLibrarian.com Blind Date With a Book from ProgrammingLibrarian.org A Guide to Romance Abbreviations and Terms Romance Glossa

  The Portalist recently curated a list of 25 Must Read Space Operas . Diving into a subgenre like this is another way to showcase your collections' backlist in a book display or book list. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction defines a space opera as: "colorful action-adventure stories of interplanetary or interstellar conflict." (This page also includes the names of many of the authors who have worked in the subgenre.) These are not books with hard science throughout and may instead include more fanciful ideas of technology. These sprawling, epic adventures can be humorous or have romantic subplots. Goodreads has lists of titles as well a definition and related subgenres. Reactor has tagged their related articles and lists with space opera as well.  There are a lot of series that would fit into this sort of display or list. There is also ample opportunities to promote diverse books and authors within this subgenre.  You can include a definition on signage as well as l

  I've mentioned before that you can use ideas from the emails publishers and other vendors send you to create your own book displays or lists. Simon and Schuster recently sent me an email with a link to the following list: Anti-New Year's Resolution Reads . The idea behind the list is to promote books  "i f you’re done with setting life goals, check out these books filled with  excess, desire, and obsession." This is such a fun idea.  I am not a fan of New Year, New You displays. This would be a fun alternative. The publisher clearly is promoting  their own titles but you can look at the backlist in your library's collection and curate a display from what you own that could use a little more attention and promotion.  There are links to some lists below to get you started. Don't forget to look at your non-fiction especially cookbooks and biographies of those who lived with " excess, desire, and obsession." Also remember that people can become obsesse

You don't have to come up with new ideas every time you change out a book display or create a book list. Use the headlines from all of the marketing emails publishers send you as a jumping off point. Just take the basic idea and use what you have in your collection that is not moving and go from there.  As an example, Off the Shelf from Simon & Schuster offered these list ideas:  12 Addictive Reads You Can Finish in a Single Flight:  6 Upcoming Releases Everyone Will Be Talking About This Year 11 Books That Are Guaranteed Page Turners For the first one, you can add audiobooks or links to your eAudiobook collection. The theme could be a car trip or a single evening/weekend. If you decide to go with upcoming releases, the library's holds/reserve list can be promoted. Add cover images from those titles you want to promote and include a QR code to your catalog where patrons can place a hold. Upcoming titles does not mean those titles that are guaranteed to be a bestseller. Wo