Passively Recommending Books

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. 

Quick Neil Peart memorial book display . Fill in with books about drums, drummers, and rock music. Don't forget to add any CDs or DVDs that you have. Include info about digital services like Hoopla that have music available to check out would also be a great idea. 

Regardless of your personal thoughts about Kobe Bryant and his legacy, he was an important figure in sports. A teacher friend told me of young people in her school using "Kobe!" to mean skills... We added books about the NBA and basketball as these were checked out. These don't have to stay up long; I think this one was up for a little longer than a week. But when someone significant dies, they are on the minds of your patrons. Not everyone will ask for help so putting materials in front of them will help your circulation while also being great patron service. 

This is another easy book display that staff created. The titles will be familiar to your patrons, even if they are not readers. Sometimes patrons won't even realize that a popular movie was based upon a book. You can pair the books with DVD copies of the film if you have it. It's also a good idea to include a list of books and films that are in your collection, both digital and physical. 

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. 

This display was put together by staff. It's fairly easy to both assemble and keep filled. One benefit is that it's a super easy way to put books in faceout that may have been overlooked. Faceouts are magical; they can help get books checked out that have sat, unloved and ignored, for years. They can be composed of any kind of material in your building so don't limit yourself.  When the "color of the year" is announced, it's a good time to try to find books that match that theme, both in color cover as well as title. Another idea for this sort of display include your local sports teams' colors - professional, college, or K-12. You could also use colors tied to a particular holiday if you wanted something super easy to throw up. 

Rosa Parks' birthday is a great subject for a book display that combines youth and adult titles.  Don't forget to include books from your biographies, African-American studies, and history books. This display sat away from all of those areas and was a way for patrons to be reminded of books that might not have searched out on their own.