Another day, another Facebook post with reading suggestions. Your community is loving them. Your ebook circulation is off the charts. And you got a personal thank you from the local independent bookstore because people have been ordering books from the plethora of titles you’ve been recommending. So what’s next? All the puns have been made. All the appropriate jokes used. All the memes mined.
Basically, your creativity is tapped out.
At a moment like this, you need five quick places to find ideas.
- Recommended Reads Lists
It’s all in the name — we recommend these titles to you, and you can recommend them to your patrons. Have your graphic novel suggestions been popular? Suggest some of the titles from the Mystery Graphic Novels list. And books from Must-Read Nonfiction will surely catch your community’s attention. There’s a list specifically on Animal Friends. Everyone needs a good animal friend right now. - Story Elements
Have you downloaded your copy of The Secret Language of Books yet? In addition to being your RA companion, this booklet could be your new best friend for RA on social media. Pick a theme and recommend some books with that theme. Or an appeal term. Or a genre. Use the Appeal Mixer to create a list of books that you recommend as “books with authentic characters and sweeping storylines.” Use LibraryAware to create widgets with the books covers that you can easily share on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. There’s enough fodder in the story elements to give you never-ending recommendation ideas for all ages. - Books-to-Movies or Books-To-TV
This one needs no explanation, but here’s where to find it on NoveList: There’s a link to Books to Movies under Quick Links at the top. A quick type of GN “Books to TV” will get you that list. Share a “seen the movie, but have you read the book” suggestion every Friday and make things easy for yourself with a regular and long list of suggestions to post. - LibraryAware Home
Our designers are regularly adding fabulous flyers based on what we are hearing libraries are working on. Browse through the New Releases to see what’s new, scroll LibraryAware Staff Picks to see our favorites, and check out what’s Trending Now to see what your colleagues around the world are liking. Steal our ideas. That’s what they’re there for. - Highly Recommended Books
Have access to Core Collections? With the Core Collections Interface, you can navigate immediately to the most highly recommended books in that collection. Got all the Core Collections? It’s easy enough to limit with Refine Results on the left. You and I both know that any recommendation with the phrase “highly recommended” is going to capture readers’ attention. And don’t limit this idea to fiction. Use the Advanced Search Page to find books that are both Core Collection and Highly Recommended in topics like gardening, self-help, history, and more.
As you’re browsing through NoveList, saving perfect books for your social media readers’ advisory, don’t forget to stash those titles in folders. Create a bunch of folders with different ideas and books for the time your creativity is at a low point. And if you want to know if your library has a book before you add it to your list, NoveList can help you set that up. We can set up local holdings for Core Collections, too. And your folders carry over, so you can add books to a folder in Core Collections and see that folder again while your browsing NoveList.
After you get that post up, might I suggest that you take the time to sit back and admire your work? With little to no warning, under stressful circumstances, and often with children around you, you and your coworkers moved your services online. Your efforts made The Atlantic. Thank you for continuing to be a bright spot through all of this.
Jennifer Lohmann is the Director of Sales and Marketing for NoveList. She wanted something intricately plotted and descriptive, so she’s got a copy of Great Expectations on her nightstand to start tonight.