Passively Recommending Books

  I have never liked "New Year, New You" book displays. Self improvement does not need to have an implicit or explicit aura of self-hatred. Save the diet books and exercise videos for another day.  Instead, focus on showing patrons how they can "____ something new." They can learn something new, eat something new, make something new! It's a way to showcase some of your non-fiction collection that needs more exposure as well as helping them find something new to focus on. I have some pictures here that showcase a few of the displays I have done in the past.  Think broadly and involve staff from all over your library. Don't forget to include materials from your audiobook and DVD collections. You can even include images and handouts from your ebook collections or databases.  This idea would also work for youth services book displays. There is a gap in-between the holidays and the start of school. You could encourage some learning and crafting from kids who othe

People were thinking about the 20’s at the beginning of 2020 so I obliged them with a book display . First things to be taken from this display were books about fashion. In theory, you could put this up every year until 2030.  Pay at least some attention to what is bouncing around in popular culture; you can mine it for ideas for easy book displays that let you faceout backlist lonely books. 

This is clearly an easier theme for youth departments as there are usually at least a handful of books on every and any holiday.  Because it was in the news, I decided to use it as a way of highlighting titles by Chinese and Asian-American authors. You can search your ILS by subject heading to find titles in your collection. lf you don't have a lot, you have identified a hole in your collection. 

One of my favorites, @RAforAll , asked for a Mardi Gras book display with New Orleans themed titles. I started with just fiction because that was the fastest and easiest. As the display emptied out, I added non-fiction and audiobooks. For non-fiction, some places to check are: biographies, music, cooking, history, and travel.

S t Patrick' Day is a great holiday for children's book displays. It's a holiday when school is in session so those teachers and homeschoolers will be coming for books. For adult books, I use it to highlight books about Ireland, fiction and nonfiction. Your collection likely includes many titles that would fit. Unless it's your only job, filling book displays can't take up all your time. I find it helpful to involve other staff in filling them because they will include books I didn't think about.