I’m traveling today so I will suggest that you check out Becky’s blog post today:
It’s hard to believe that it’s already time to think about planning for August collection promotions. Exactly which displays, online posts, or other passive readers advisory themes you pick will depend upon your library and patrons.
From Web Holidays, there are daily, weekly, and monthly options. There aren’t any major holidays to consider so that leaves much of the month open. You may have to schedule your displays around the ending of summer reading for youth and adults.
Given that there are many food related celebrations, one option is to group together several of them and set up a display with cookbooks and fiction with the various food types in the title. This would be a great display to mirror with your youth collection. Cookbooks are popular with children in my library when they are promoted with a display.
Romance awareness month is a great time to promote your romances and love stories that need some attention. You can promote romance outside of Valentine’s Day. People may add certain kinds of fiction to their TBR based upon the time of year but fans of a genre read it all year.
You can use the above ideas for a month long display leading up to the start of school and fall. Add smaller displays, up for a week or less, to other parts of your library. Adding some shorter lived displays will allow for more staff to be involved and will create more interest for those who come into your building on a regular basis.
Harriet Quimby day is August 2. This day celebrates the day in 1911 when Quimby became the first woman in the United States to obtain a pilot’s license. In 1912, she became the first woman to fly solo across the English Channel. Beyond fiction and non-fiction books about pilots and flying, include DVDs with the theme. I would expand the display to include titles about women’s firsts in a variety of areas. I would suggest this one for a week because it might become too time consuming to fill in for an entire month. More general ideas work better for that.
International Day of the World’s Indigenous People was established by the United Nations in 1994. Search through your collection for titles related to any of the indigenous peoples in the world. This is August 9th which will take you through the second week of the month.
The next week includes National Thrift Shop Day on August 17. This is a great day to use in conjunction with programming related to upcycling clothing from thrift shops. While teens will enjoy that program, don’t forget adults. Set up displays with books about thrifting, clothing design and alterations. If your library has a blog or uses social media, invite patrons to submit photos of their own thrifted outfits. You could even have a fashion show for attendees to strut their stuff in your library. Partner with a local craft or sewing shop to demonstrate the how to’s of clothing alteration and customization.
For the end of the month, there is an option with an easy passive program. One is to celebrate Find Your Inner Nerd Day on August 23rd. Set up a display about various hobbies and interests as well as fiction about people who have a particular obsession. Encourage your patrons to share what they nerd out about either by having a box or bulletin board or on your social media. This is an easy passive program and may help those who love bird watching, trains, or crochet to find their people
There are some more serious options for the end of the month such as International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition also on August 23rd or Individual Rights Day on August 29th. You could combine these with side-by-side displays to encourage patrons to think about both the crimes and terror of the past while also considering the state of individual rights today. Know your community and library leadership when picking display topics. I think a best practice is to balance weighty and serious displays with more fun and frivolous ones. This may help your message get across.
Please reach out if you have ideas for August displays or if you would like to talk to me about setting up a display schedule for your library!
One question I have been asked in the past is what to do if you are a smaller library without fancy devoted to displays, what can you do to merchandise your collection. There are opportunities within any library to showcase books that need some more attention. If you have interest in a webinar devoted to this, please let me know! I will soon post some pictures here and on my instagram account that smaller libraries can use.
One thing to use are simple wire easels. They are available from library specific vendors as well as mass merchandisers. Here is an example from Demco. You can place these at the end of each shelf and showcase one title. This is something we do at my library & it has the benefit of being fillable by any member of your staff. It’s easier on the book than standing it up without an easel, especially for thinner books with paperbacks. You can do this in every part of your collection, including youth.
Any place in your library with a flat service can be a display. I have used simple bookends & have placed a themed collection of 3-5 books near printers, catalog computers, and on top of fixtures. Place a sign if there is room. Even a small sign that says “Check these out!” Rotate them through each part of your collection. Don’t forget to use space on your service desks.
Add a place near your service desks with small sign that says “Ask me about this book.” Staff who are willing to participate can add a book during their shift. It’s a great way to learn to book talk as it’s a book they have picked and are familiar with. Not every patron will ask but it’s way to promote books throughout your collection. After they become more comfortable, staff may need to bring more than one book with them!
Finally, don’t forget book carts. They can be moved anywhere in your building. I share the recommendation than many readers advisor experts have to bring a book cart into your program. (Don’t forget books for parents in your story times.) You can create a cart with any theme that interests you and place it around your building. You will eventually find the places that get the most attention from your patrons. If there is an event or another reason that the space needs to be used, the cart can be moved.
If you have ideas for small libraries or techniques that you have used, please let me know!
It's not necessary to create great displays out of thin air yourself. Use ideas that vendors and publishers send you in their marketing emails and browse their sites for ideas. Barnes & Noble has a list of Great American Novel Picks From Our Favorite Authors up on their site. You can browse the list of suggestions and find the titles in your collection, add a note with which author recommended them, and watch them get checked out. Library patrons love celebrity reading suggestions which is why I have used Barack Obama and Bill Gates' reading lists to great success. Clearly, B&N knows this as well which is why they have asked a variety of popular authors for their picks. The list is heavy on classic novels like The Great Gatsby.
A more fluid display and one which would be easier to fill would be a display with a sign that reads Great American Novel Picks and have your staff fill it with their choices. The limitation would be that they need to be novels and by an American author. If you ask them to dig into your collection and avoid the obvious choices, you will have created a display that can be up for a month. The idea of a Great American novel is nothing that you need to clearly define. Pick diverse authors and avoid bestsellers and obvious classic novels.
Bring in genre fiction and titles from smaller publishers. Your entire staff, regardless of title can participate. Allow them to have fun and try to not police what gets added aside from watching for diversity and as few obvious choices as possible.
If you want to create something more innovative and a passive program, create a social media post and ask your readers what their choices for a Great American Novel. You can add some of those titles to the display. If you can't use social media for this, put a box up and ask patrons to write their choices down. There will be some degree of excitement as patrons come in to see which books made the display as they discover their next great read. At the end of the month, you can publish the list of entries on your website, blog, social media, or on a sign in your library.
It's midyear and there are many outlets who have published best of the year (so far) lists. This is a great idea to use for a book display for your library. There are a couple of different ways you can use midyear best of lists to promote your collection.
One way is to review the lists and find the titles you own but which could use a spotlight to increase circulation. There is always a good chance that a critical favorite hasn't received the attention from your patrons that it deserves. You can put up QR codes with links to the lists so your patrons can see every title but focus your display on the titles you own but which haven't circulated as well as you would like.
The second way is to involve your entire staff and have them nominate titles for the Best of (So Far) list. Add a sign that indicates that they are your staff's choice for the best of the year. The display can be filled in with any 2026 published title that needs attention. By not adding names and making it very general, the display can be filled in by anyone on staff. Don't forget to include fiction, non-fiction, and youth materials.
Here are some of the lists that have been created:
Attack of the Best Lists 2026: Half Year Check-In (updated w/ NPR Books on 6/30/26) - RA for All
Attack of the Best Lists Posts - RA for All
NPR staffers share their favorite fiction reads of 2026 so far - NPR Books
Here are the nonfiction books NPR staffers have loved so far this year
The Must-Read Books of 2026 (So Far) - Penguin Random House
Reading roundup: Suggest me some of your fave books of 2026 so far! - r/suggestmeabook
The Best Books of the Year (So Far) - New York Times
The Best Books of 2026 (So Far) - Barnes & Noble
Most popular books published in 2026 - Goodreads
The Best Books of 2026 So Far - The New Yorker
Top 20 Books of 2026 So Far - Amazon.com
I will be presenting Looking for Clues - Readers Advisory for Mystery Lovers for PCI webinars on Wednesday, July 8 at 2 pm ET. If your library consortia, state library, or other organization subscribes, I hope that you will join me!
I have embedded my slideshow below as well as my list of resources.
Looking for Clues: Readers Advisory for Mystery Lovers - Resources
PCI Webinars
General Readers Advisory
RA For All (Becky Spratford) – Readers' advisory blog for librarians featuring book recommendations, genre resources, programming ideas, and professional
Library Reads – Books chosen by US library workers
NPR Books We Love – NPR’s guide to books
Passively Recommending Books – My blog which focuses on passive readers advisory
Mystery Awards
Awards of Excellence (Crime Writers of Canada)
Mystery Focused Websites
International Thriller Writers
Malice Domestic
Mystery Readers International
Australian Crime Writers Association
Private Eye Writers of America
International Thriller Writers
Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine
List of Mystery Focused Organzations
First thing is that you should all read Becky (RA for All) Spratford's post here. I agree with her, especially the details that made her angry. I participated in the Library Insights Preconference and watched many of the panels. One thing I noticed is that if you are not involved in libraries post-Baker & Taylor, you can't really understand how much the world of library book purchasing has changed. It would have been helpful to have someone who is working in that area now speak about that, rather than a consultant. There were acquisitions librarians in both public and school libraries in the room.
A panel on what libraries wish publishers would publish emphasized gaps in different age groups. There is an unmet need for young teen lit, with appeal to those roughly 12-15. These books would have shorter chapters and exciting covers. Genres like mysteries and horror (spooky, not scary) are especially popular. There is also a gap in humor, especially that which has appeal to girls. On the other end of the spectrum, there are also not as many books which focus on older protagonists aside from mysteries. These readers want to see themselves and their experiences on the page.
I echo Becky's disappointment with ALA's decision to allow Sharjah Book Authority CEO Ahmed bin Rakkad Al Ameri a spotlight at the opening ceremony. There were other international library leaders in attendance who could have added to the call to end censorship and the restricting of the freedom to read, rather than giving the microphone to someone from a country which actively restricts the press and oppresses the LGBTQ+ community. It's ridiculous to celebrate that community with one hand while giving positive attention to someone who represents a nation where that community is criminalized.
There were no panels on readers advisory that I saw. Becky and I hosted an ALA huddle which was clearly designed for 5-6 people to have a conversation. Over 20 people showed up and some unfortunately left as they could not hear us in the open hallway with a high ceiling. It was a great conversation and I hope that there are some panels on book display basics for attendees. If you are visiting here from that huddle, welcome! Please feel free to contact me if you would like to discuss book display or passive readers advisory for your library.
It was wonderful to see horror authors like James Tynion IV, Tananarive Due, Cynthia Pelayo, and Daniel Kraus at the conference. There did seem to be an emphasis on YA and youth literature at the conference. I did have some meaningful meetings with vendors and learned about upcoming titles but overall, there did seem to be less offerings for those who deal in adult fiction.
Hopefully, I will see many of you in New Orleans next year!
I will be attending ALA Annual in Chicago this year. There will be recap posts with what I saw and learned but I don't have a firm schedule for that.
My appearances will be at Friday's Library Insight Summit and at a Huddle in the ALA Connect Zone on Sunday at 11 am.
I have been looking at events in the ALA Annual app and marking which ones I have even some interest in. There is no way to see everything so I try to make the schedule more manageable by marking anything that I might find interesting. While I sometimes end up with more than one panel or presentation selected, choosing between two or three panels is easier for me than a long list.
Include time to look at the exhibit hall which is huge and will definitely take more than one visit to see what you are interested in.
If you happen to run into me there, come up and say hello!
It's not too late to use Reading Challenges to create opportunities to highlight your collection. Becky Spratford at RA for All talks about the NYT reading challenge which features ten items that are easy to complete. Read her post here. This challenge is a great one to focus on as a book display or online post. As Becky mentions in that post, you should have an adult summer reading program. One way to start is to highlight a variety of reading challenges in your displays and lists. Help your patrons complete or find a challenge.
One thing to note in your signage is that your staff can help find titles to meet a challenge. Libraries should be the place where people come for reading suggestions. Not everyone in your community realizes that we are able to help patrons find their next great read. We need to shout that loudly and often. We know that AI suggestions are not able to provide the service that we can offer. (I have been suggested self-help after reading horror. Likely, this was an algorithm offering up something really popular.)
You can make an interactive display or post by having your readers make suggestions for a variety of prompts. Let your readers help each other.
You can take this sort of marketing tool outside of your library and pair up with a local bookseller. They might have a book challenge of their own that you can help promote. Join with local businesses like a brewery, bakery, or coffee shop and create a local summer challenge in which you pair local fare with certain kinds of books. The businesses might be open to hosting/participating in an end of summer event for adults.
Here are some websites with 2026 reading challenges listed. Pick a few to focus on and add suggestions to the display each month. If you have a website or blog, you can add suggestions there as well. Make sure you link to your catalog and digital collection. Create digital displays, shelves, or lists.
Resolved to finish more books in 2026? Here’s your guide to the web’s best reading challenges. - Literary Hub
2026 Challenge Link Megathread - Reddit
Shelf Reflection 2026 Reading Challenge - Shelf Reflection
If you search for 2026 Book Challenges, you can find a wide variety of challenges which should meet just about every readers' need.
The event that I am most looking forward to at ALA Annual is my huddle with Becky Spratford / RA For All. The topic is book displays! Becky posted about the huddle on her blog. Here are the details:
Connect Lounge Huddle: To facilitate discovery and circulation, how can libraries make their reading collection displays more engaging?
Sunday, June 28, 2026
11:00 AM - 11:20 AM CDT
Location: McCormick Place, ALA Connect Lounge, Hall F2 Lobby
The humble book display is often not used to its fullest as the discovery tool it can be. And we often forget how much it can drive increased circulation. But in a world where patrons use the library as both a physical and digital space, and with an understanding that patrons crave interactive experiences, discussion leaders Becky Spratford and Lila Denning will share their decades of experience as librarians and trainers to help huddle participants break down how to create displays that spark conversation, bring patrons of all ages into the library, and have them leave not only with a few good books to read but also a plan to return soon to get some more.
Moderated by Becky Spratford and Lila Denning
Library workers from any kind of library are invited to come and discuss book displays and share ideas about how to make them pop while also helping your patrons find their next great read. To get started thinking about displays, check out this post with Five Book Display Basics.
It's more than halfway to July! If you haven't put together your plan for July, I am here to help! The easiest one to put on your calendar is the Fourth of July. With the United States celebrating 250 years, I would make several displays or rotate out the type of material on your single display. Make sure you include youth materials, fiction, non-fiction, audiobooks and movies. Also, include the depth and breadth of people who make up the United States. If you can't see your entire community reflected in the items you put on the display, find more in your collection.
July also includes Canada Day on the first. It's a good reason to bring out fiction by Canadian authors, books about Canadian history, and travel books about Canada. Make it an interactive display by asking patrons to answer trivia questions about Canada.
The middle of the month is when Major League Baseball will host its All Star Game. This is another event that can include all parts of your collection. The game this year will be on July 14 in Philadephia.
The 14th is also Bastille Day in France.
There are so many food related days every month. Picking one or two every year, perhaps related to local cuisine, can include passive programming like recipe exchanges or having local cooks or restaurants come in for a tasting/cooking demonstration.
With summer reading, some of your display space should be kept for special events and promoting the themes of summer reading. Have your youth librarians come up with a list of themes for the month. In my area, the local professional sports teams sponsor summer reading challenges so I would try to include them on a display as well. When programming ends is determined by your local school schedules, of course.
How to make a schedule? Start with how many displays you plan to have up and set up a weekly schedule. With pre-planning, you can already have staff lined up to make the displays. The staff you have will also determine the displays. Anyone on staff should be able to participate and have a voice in deciding which displays are set up. When the displays change out should also reflect, what makes sense for you and your library. If the displays change out on Wednesdays, it might look like this.
July 2026
July 1-8
July 4th Display with information about local events [staff member name and location]
Summer Reading Theme [staff member name and location]
Summer Reading Special Event [staff member name and location]
World UFO Day [staff member name and location]
Park and Recreation Month with information about local parks for staycations
[staff member name and location]
Princess Diana's Birthday with materials about royal families
[staff member name and location]
July 8-15
Summer Reading Theme [staff member name and location]
Summer Reading Special Event [staff member name and location]
Baseball All-Star Game [staff member name and location]
Disability Pride Month [staff member name and location]
National Video Game Day [staff member name and location]
National Mac & Cheese Day with recipe exchange and event featuring local
restaurants [staff member name and location]
July 15-22
Nelson Mandela's Birthday/Mandela Day [staff member name and location]
Summer Reading Theme [staff member name and location]
Summer Reading Special Event [staff member name and location]
National Grilling Month [staff member name and location]
Take Your Poet to Work Day. Display filled with related materials. Passive program where patrons suggest their favorite poem or poet. Results displayed in library and online.
[staff member name and location]
National Zookeeper Day Display filled with related materials. Information about local zoo. Partnership where zoo has materials about library programming available.
[staff member name and location]
July 22-31
Summer Reading Theme [staff member name and location]
Summer Reading End of Summer Event [staff member name and location]
All or Nothing Day with materials related to choosing extremes
[staff member name and location]
Take and Make craft for Adults. Display filled with related books and patrons receive kit at service desk [staff member name and location]
Local Summer Festival with information about the festival. Include materials related to the festival. [staff member name and location]
Day of the Cowboy [staff member name and location]
Having a schedule like this available to staff means that anyone can add materials when needed to a display. That divides up the work during a busy time for public libraries.
I have been asked where I find sources for the other holidays I use for book displays. Here are some options. The links are to July but you can bookmark the main page. While there are always many options for each month, because you are making a plan in advance, you can select the ones that work best for your library. Consider your collection and your community.
National Day Calendar
Web Holidays
Holiday Insights
I will include information monthly to help you plan your displays. If you are interested in a program for your staff with more details about how to set up a monthly schedule or help setting up a plan for your displays, please let me know!
The idea of choosing read-alikes, even for favorite books, makes some people more anxious than it should. As I mention when I teach passive readers advisory, there are many ways to approach a book. They are all legitimate as readers will approach the same book in different ways and will find themselves drawn to different parts, characters, or themes in a book. If you are providing readers advisory to an individual, you should ask the reader some questions about what they loved about the book to help find the best read-alike.
An always great display pairs a bestseller that has ever increasing holds with your library's backlist. This way you help the books in your collection find new readers while highlighting your holds service. While a request or hold list is something that library workers live with everyday, not every person who comes into your library or visits your social media or website is familiar with how they work or that they exist. Include a QR code and the URL that they need to add a popular title to their list to the display or post.
If your library subscribes to NoveList by EBSCO, you can use their subjects to find books that will attract someone who has heard of the book or loved the book and wants something else. If you look at the entire list of read-alikes NoveList provides, there are details about why that title was suggested. There are similarities but what they all have in common is that they read-alikes for the selected title even if different facets are reflected.
To demonstrate what I mean by there are different ways to approach a book, I will use a bestseller that has many holds in my library, Whistler by Ann Patchett. From the publisher's website:
When Daphne Fuller and her husband Jonathan visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art, they notice an older, white-haired gentleman following them. The man turns out to be Eddie Triplett, her former stepfather, who had been married to her mother for a little more than year when Daphne was nine. Now fifty-three, Daphne hasn’t seen Eddie for many years, not since the fateful event that changed the direction of both their lives. Meeting again, time falls away; while their relationship was brief, it had a profound impact on them both, and now that they are reunited, they have no intention of ever being separated again.
Whistler is a story about two adults looking back over the choices they made, and the choices that were made for them. It’s a story about bravery, memory, the often small yet consequential moments that define our lives, and the endless stream of loss that in time comes for us all. Beautiful in its simplicity, it is ultimately about how love endures, and how the feeling of being known by one other person, even for a short period of time, can change everything.
Remember that you do not need to limit yourself to books you have read. Marketing the collection is the goal, the entire collection not just what you have personally been able to read. From the publisher's description, you can see that is is about -
Family Relationships
Fathers - Daughters
Choices
Memory
Love Over Time
I would suggest that next you browse readers comments on Goodreads. For a popular book like this, there will be many reader reviews. You will see themes repeated and those that remind you of other books.Here is a brief list:
Authentic characters
Tragic events
Stories of reconciliation
Divorce
Complicated childhood
Stepfamilies
You will come up with enough subjects and themes to fill a display more than once. You might even get creative inspiration. A reader named Ron mentions Patchett's books are like "opening a box of old photographs." Use that as a theme for a sign, add face outs of your read-alikes, information about holds and you have a display. There is enough information on Goodreads, so you can proceed even if you don't have NoveList.
A final place I will suggest to get ideas is Reddit. If you search for Reddit.com and the book title with author, you will find posts in a variety of subreddits. One theme from there is that there is a lot of love for Eddie Triplett, the stepfather. Some readers identify it as a love letter to New York City. The subreddit, suggestmeabook, is a place where readers suggest books to other readers.
Have fun with a display like this, remembering that the main point is to showcase your backlist while marketing a valuable service.
Reach out to me if you would like me to train your library staff in how to use passive readers advisory to market your collection. In the near future, I will be discussing more ideas to harness the power of the bestselling author and book to market your collection. Come back for more ideas!
On June 26, I will be participating in the Library Insights Summit, presented by Foreword with IBPA (Independent Book Publishers Association), BISG (Book Industry Study Group), and NISO (National Information Standards Organization). It is a day-long conference with breakout sessions targeted at publishers, author-publishers, and librarians as well as sessions for the entire group. The registration price does include breakfast, lunch and an exhibits only badge to attend ALA Annual which follows.
I am a participant on a panel called Smarter Marketing for Maximum Library Impact, moderated by Becky Spratford. Kaycie Hoffman Blaylock, Library & Resource Coordinator, Alexandria City Public Schools, and Rebecca Vnuk, Executive Director, LibraryReads, are also panelists. The description, from the website:
As library supply chains and discovery systems evolve, publishers are facing new challenges in getting their titles seen and ordered. At the same time, librarians are navigating a fragmented marketplace to find trustworthy, complete information on forthcoming books. This session brings together marketing and distribution experts to show how publishers can sharpen their strategies, stretch their budgets, and strengthen relationships with this vital audience. Learn how to optimize metadata for library visibility, coordinate publicity with wholesale and discovery platforms, and build long-term awareness among collection development professionals.
I hope you will consider joining us. After Baker & Taylor's implosion, it is vital that libraries understand the publishing industry and update policies so that they can purchase directly from publishers when needed. Many of my local library systems are still dealing with shockwaves from B&T's closure, including adding in-house processing. With social media platforms, like TikTok, driving book sales, there is more of a need than ever to include small press and independently published books in our collections.
For more insight, check out Becky's blog post about the event: Join Me and Others at the Library Insights Panel in Chicago on June 26th
I hope to run into you at ALA Annual as well as the LIS preconference!
StokerCon is the premier horror and dark literature writers conference in the United States. Part of the convention is the presentation of the Bram Stoker Awards with categories including superior achievement in a novel and superior achievement in long non-fiction. The Horror Writers Association presents the conference but you don't have to be a member to attend.
One of the highlights of the conference is Librarians Day which anyone with a ticket to the convention can attend. For more details and resources from Librarians Day, please visit Becky Spratford's blog. She is the co-chair of Librarians Day and secretary of the Horror Writers Association.
The panels this year, just like very year, are very helpful and planned by librarians who work in libraries. The skills and information learned could be transferred to many genres and subject areas. Attendees learned about programming and upcoming titles while also attending a brainstorm session. Every year, I have the honor of interviewing the Guests of Honor, introducing library workers to authors who are shaping the future as well as those who have created works vital to the history of horror. This year the Guests of Honor included :
Whether you are a seasoned acquisitions librarian or just want to learn more about the topic, I encourage you to register! You can find out more here.
This is a very brief presentation that I prepared for a smaller group of librarians. It covers five best practices that I think every library worker should have in mind while they work on their book displays or online lists.
I do have a more detailed version of book displays basics available for presentation. Please reach out if you are interested in starting to unshelve your collection.
It's June and time for displays for Pride to be placed in libraries and on library social media. There will be plenty of online lists and posts with titles by LGBTQ+ authors. Don't forget to check the Lambda Awards and the Stonewall Book Awards for ideas. While you are assembling books for your displays and lists, watch that you are including as much of the LGBTQ+ community as possible. You can use the various flags to identify books that focus on a particular community to help those patrons who are not ready to ask for help. Creating lists and bookmarks with suggested titles that patrons can access online or pick up is another way to support LGBTQ+ members of your community.
History and biographies are popular in displays for any cultural heritage or awareness month but don't forget cooking, fiction, poetry, art, and films. Make your the titles you select as broad and possible and expansive. Remember, as I frequently say, your patrons are as curious as you are so don't sell them short.
Here are some lists to get you started:
Penguin Random House - The Ultimate LGBTQ+ Book List
Reddit - Book rec for pride month?
Brooklyn Public Library - Pride Month Books for Adults
Hamilton East Public Library - A Reading List for Pride Month
Goodreads - Listopia > LGBTQIA+ books to read during pride month!!
UCF Libraries - LGBTQIA+ Pride Month
I have mentioned Novel Suspects, a newsletter from Hachette Book Group, before on my blog. Their lists are great starter ideas for book displays and online posts. Recently, they featured a list they called "Psychological Thrillers Featuring Couples Gone Wrong." While this is a display that could go up at any time, I would keep this idea on my list for February as an "anti-Valentine's Day" display. It would also work for Sweetest Day on the third Saturday in October.
Planning ahead will make changing out your displays much easier and will avoid a panic if you can't immediately brainstorm ideas. Keep a calendar for every month and write down the ideas that you and the rest of your staff come up with all year. This will give you more options along with the holiday and programming linked displays that you likely set up.
Passive readers advisory is an important part of your collection marketing plan. Retail stores plan their displays and marketing in advance and so should your library.
From Wednesday through Sunday, I will be attending StokerCon in Pittsburgh. This annual celebration of horror and dark literature culminates with the Bram Stoker Awards which are presented on Saturday night. It is livestreamed on YouTube so you can watch from home.
The past nominees and award winners are great for featuring on a horror themed display or list. The awards have become increasing diverse and do feature many smaller press titles.
I will do a wrap up post early next week with my thoughts and reflections as well as the top takeaways for promoting your collection.
Don't be afraid to grab ideas for promoting your collection from anywhere and anyone. Recently, readers advisory expert Becky Spratford featured the New York Times's Summer Reading Bucket List on her blog. She does include a gift link in her post so go there first to read it. Becky explains why this recent shift in the Times's book coverage is so welcome. I recommend that you read her blog every day for news, commentary and great readers advisory ideas.
This bucket list is a great summer book display or online post for your library. You can do a ten week series and feature one idea a week with recommendations. Another idea would be to feature staff suggestions for the various entries and to mix up the entries since they are not in a particular order.
Adult summer reading programs are sometimes overshadowed by youth programs and this list from the Times is an easy way to up your collection promotion while giving adults something fun to do!
When I train libraries on book displays, I use an image from a display promoting a program one of my colleagues created. Charlee has been able to gather 100 people into a room to create cat castles. This one slide from my presentation generates more questions and requests for information than anything else. Librarians love their cats.
Using cats as a theme is broad enough to include everything from cozy mysteries with cats to juvenile fiction about cats to non-fiction books about caring for cats. There are also books with cats on the cover as well as books with cats on the cover. An ongoing series of active and passive programs (made with interactive displays) is certain to be popular with patrons of all ages. Partner with rescue groups to increase your community involvement.
I have embedded Charlee's slideshow below which shows the basics of how to create your cat castles. They are also suitable for guinea pigs, rabbits, and other small animals.
On Tuesday, Becky Spratford featured The Best Books of 2026, So Far from the New York Times on her blog, RA for All.
On Tuesday April 28, Becky Spratford featured The
Best Books of 2026, So Far from the New
York Times on her blog, RA
for All. I recommend that you and your colleagues read through Becky’s
blog post. In it, she discusses how the
NYT book section is focusing on prioritizing the reader and what would appeal
to readers like our patrons.
There is nothing to add to Becky’s analysis. However, I would
suggest that you look over the NYT list after you read the blog post. The
titles of the various sections will make great titles for book displays. Several
examples - I want a lush historical novel about sisterhood, I want a fresh
perspective on familiar history,
I want a rivals-to-lovers road trip romance, and I love absorbing
biographies that bring icons to life – can likely be filled with titles from
your collection. Check for read-alikes for the exact titles on their list but
don’t worry about expanding your selections far from what the Times has listed;
the display is to market your collection, not to mirror the Times article
exactly.
I love the idea of just taking “I love” or “I want” and
creating a series of displays to run over a month or so in a library. You can
see what the Times has listed but then create your own. There are plenty of
tropes and plot points that you can select which will draw attention to your
backlist. Something like “I want a new twist on vampires” would have plenty of
recent examples such as The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones,
Reluctant Immortals by Gwendolyn Kiste, and Nestlings by Nat Cassidy.
BookCon 2026 has ended but it did leave us with some ideas
for marketing library collections to readers. (There were also many instances
of ARC related poor behavior. See here, here, and here
for more information about that.) When a big book related event happens, use it
to create displays and online lists.
Take aways? Dystopian fiction and romantasy remain popular. Swag is also something that readers enjoy
so keep putting out bookmarks and perhaps investigate making buttons or other
items patrons can collect. Adaptations of books were also discussed.
Use the bestselling authors who attracted the most attention
to draw attention to hidden gems in your collection by doing read-alike book
displays and lists. Find authors, titles, and series that those who enjoyed the
very popular titles.
Some news from BookCon includes:
BookCon
2026 Proved There’s an Appetite for More Diversity in Black Romance Reads –
From Ebony
Includes Cannon Reads, ‘90’s Nostalgia, Modern Love, and Upcoming Spring and
Summer Releases
New
'Divergent', Dungeon Crawler Carl and dizzying crowds mark BookCon's 2026
return – From USA Today
What
is the best book-to-screen adaptation? Authors reveal their favorites. –
From USA Today
New Veronica
Roth and R.F. Kuang Novels, Rachel Reid Dishes with Jacob Tierney and Other
Biggest BookCon 2026 Bombshells – From People
BookCon
Returns After Six-Year Break: Event Organizer on Reservation Rush, Boycott
Response and Romantasy Reader Demand – From Variety
