Welcome to 2025 - The Year We Unshelve Our Collections

 I am back at home after spending some time with friends for New Year's Eve. While we all re-evaluate what will be different in 2025, I want to encourage you to unshelve your collection more this year. I've chosen that well-used library phrase to describe taking books out of the stacks and moving them around your building to show off what treasures are in your stacks. 

Even if you have a small building and no fancy fixtures to use for a book display, you have a surface somewhere in the building that has space for a few book easels. Even without a sign, you can display books near your catalog computers, service desks, near the printers, on a cart anywhere in your building... Walk your building as if you are a patron and you will find places. 

Take pictures of titles on a theme and put them on your social media or blog. You can even create flyers with book lists and QR codes that link to your eBooks, library card registration information, and website. Partner with local businesses to put fliers in their buildings. Offer to create lists that complement special events or local celebrations. Spreading the word about the great titles in your collection needs to happen beyond the walls of your library. There are still people out there who don't know we offer digital books and audiobooks.  Every new user is a new library supporter who can potentially advocate for the library when it's necessary. 

Don't forget to archive the titles you displayed and put on lists either online or somewhere in your building so that they can be recalled for a curious patron. This idea from Gibson's Bookstore in Concord, NH is one of my favorites. That way anyone on staff can assist a patron who asks about a book that was on display a month ago.

If you would like staff training in passive readers advisory, including genre specific displays, book displays, displays that include passive programming, or passive readers advisory in general - please contact me at Lila [dot] Denning [at] gmail [dot] com. 

Book Display Idea - Using School Library Journal

I'm sure we all receive promotional emails not only from publishers and library vendors but from outlets like Library Journal and School Library Journal. Don't be so quick to delete them and move on. The staff at School Library has some really wonderful ideas that you can borrow for a book display or book list online. 

A recent mailing from them included an article called Reverse Engineering: Taylor Swift Inspired RA Tools in Canva. This February 2024 post from Karen Jensen (Teen Librarian Toolbox) includes several images she made in Canva. The idea of making readalike lists or displays for each of Taylor Swift's eras is one you could use throughout a month. 

Next up was 8 YA Thrillers That Blend Influencer Culture with Page-Turning Plots. While this article is about YA fiction, you could reproduce it with adult fiction as well. If you have non-fiction about influencer culture in your collection, you can add them. I would include some non-fiction about social media in general. 

This October interview by Amanda MacGregor called A ‘Fear Factor’ Rating Adds Spice to the YA Horror Halloween Season, a guest post by Tony Jones has titles you could reference to do a "Chilling Fears" display with YA fiction for post-holiday winter months. Horror has no season and is read all year. With its increased popularity, adding a YA display to draw attention to the horror in your collection for teens is a great idea. Another area to get ideas is this September article called Short Stories, Big Scares: 7 Middle Grade & YA Horror Collections.

If you check their website under News and Features, you will see a variety of articles. The headlines alone can spark an idea and send you out to unshelve your collection to draw attention to the great books that need some help to find their reader! While their audience is librarians who focus on youth, the ideas can easily be transferred to adults. 

I will leave you with another great idea that can be used with your juvenile, young adult, and adult collections - Out of This World: Eight Sci-Fi Graphic Novels | Stellar Panels. As popular as graphic novels are at the moment, I'm sure that you can find titles in all three collections which could use some time under the spotlight. 

Subscription information for School Library Journal is here.