Hello fellow book lovers,
I just got back from an invigorating ALAMW in Seattle, where I talked with many of you about what NoveList has been working on in 2018 and what we’re planning for the future. Those conversations encouraged me to write this letter with hopes to hear from all of you. We want to make sure we’re keeping your priorities (and those of your community) in mind as we charge into 2019.
Looking back on 2018
Reader-friendly was also the focus of our NoveList Select upgrade. We unburied your most beloved features (especially “the why” statement on read-alikes) and made the whole presentation bigger and brighter. As part of the upgrade, we were able to add Accelerated Reader alongside Lexiles, which we know is important to you and your patrons. But my hands-down FAVORITE thing is our new, interactive story mixer that lets you mix and match NoveList story elements to browse books by the terms that matter to you. It’s fun and addictive to play with!
Finally, libraries have been having so much success promoting their library resources with the email strategies in our white paper that our graphic design team has been creating even more LibraryAware templates to help you let your community know about all the different resources you offer, including LearningExpress and NoveList. Look for more of these coordinated promotional kits coming in 2019.
Looking ahead to 2019
At the tail end of 2018, we invited our LibraryAware users to fill out a survey about how we can make it better for you. We’ve already put some of those requests into practice, like making templates available earlier for key programs and holidays. We also heard that you’d like us to make it easier to find the right template, out of the more than 7,000 we have available. We have work planned to make that easier.
We know how important it is to measure the impact of what you do – data can be a great tool for advocacy because it helps to tell the story of your library. So we’re working on better ways to help NoveList Select customers measure results and gather insights. We have an analytics project in development that I’m excited to share with you in the coming months.
In early January, our entire team participated in a couple days of brainstorming about how we could make our recommendations even better. You’ll see ongoing improvements. We’re continuing to expand our coverage of Own Voices, working on themes for graphic novels, and creating some new ways to see a book’s popularity. Our goal is to keep finding new ways of making it possible to connect readers with the books that are right for them.
One last thing you won’t want to miss is the genre education webinar series that we’re offering jointly with LibraryReads. The first one on science fiction was awesome, and there are lots more to come.
Let us know how we’re doing
Your feedback is important to us. Our mission is to transform lives through reading and we do it by helping librarians and library staff (like you) to do their best work with their readers. If there’s something more we can do to help you serve your community, please let me know.
Sincerely,
Danielle Borasky,
Vice President of NoveList