Using the NYT Best Books of the 21st Century List

The New York Times Book Review staff along with 503 novelists, nonfiction writers, poets, critics and others created a list of the 100 best books of the 21st century (so far). As you can imagine, this this is very heavily weighted towards "literary" fiction. The most simple way to use it is to simply take the list, see what is in your collection but could use some more attention to boost circulation and put those on a display. You can print out the information for the title that the NYT has online. Include information about where patrons can find the whole list as well as details about which of the titles are in your eBook collection. 

Another way would be to also look at the read alikes they provide and to promote those titles which are in your collection, physical or digital. You can also find your own read alikes for the books. Focus on the titles which could use some help with circulation. If a title is being checked out regularly, you can skip it and move on to those which could use the spotlight. 

Finally, don't forget the lists that were posted from authors' ballots. My experience is that patrons love to get recommendations from famous people. Review the lists and put them on a display with something that indicates which author made the recommendation. Include information about where patrons can find the information online. 

Obviously, NYT does have a paywall which limits the number of articles that one can read without a subscription which does complicate this but if your library provides NYT access to patrons, this is a great way to highlight that access. Promoting databases and eResources is challenging but this is a fun way to do it while promoting your collection.