The NFL Draft and Edgar Awards Collide [Complete List of Winners Included]

Last night I was watching the NFL Draft on ESPN and following the Edgars on Twitter [#Edgars2016] at the same time when this Tweet popped up in both my librarian stream and the Edgars one:

I think I gave away the punch line by saying it popped up in both my curated streams because of course, I was not the only one doing this.  Quite a few bookish people chimed in [myself included] that we had the TV on with one event and the computer refreshing with the other.

I was happy to see this, but it also got me think about a combo bookish/NFL event that happened this week, one I had thought of posting about, but I thought after last night, it was fitting to combine it with my annual recap of the Edgars.

Speaking of my deep love for this award, you can read an entire post about that from last year [one of my most popular posts ever] to explain why these awards are among my favorite RA Tools.

But first, my NFL-book news. I was going to do an entire post on it, but the Booklist Reader got to it first. [Thanks for reading my mind and saving me some time.] Earlier this week, Andrew Luck, QB for the Indianapolis Colts and big time reader himself, started a book club for kids. What is so brilliant about this club though is that he offers books for “Rookie” and “Veteran” kid readers-- so no one is left out. He is also committed to actually being involved in this book club, not just licensing his name to it. That commitment can be seen in the fact that he plans to designate someone else to run the book club during the season.  Click here for the Booklist Reader’s post about it with links to the club’s homepage.

Now on to the main event, The Edgar Awards 2016.  Here is the complete list of finalists with the winners highlighted. But I did want to point out a few things about last night's awards beyond listing who won.


-- I mentioned it above, by I have a lot to say about why these awards are fantastic as an RA tool. Please go back and read the post.  I am not exaggerating when I say I use the Edgar database regularly to match a wide range of patrons with good reads.

-- Remember last week when I wrote about genre blending being the biggest trend in ALL fiction and used The Sympathizer, winner the Pulitzer Prize, as my case in point? Well, it also won Best First Novel at the Edgars. This genre blending trend is real. I love that this novel is now a Pulitzer AND Edgar winner. That combo speaks volumes to the trend and also proves my point that many of the most interesting books out there today are genre blends.

-- As a result of following the #Edgars2016, I also saw this Tweet this morning:

I was quite impressed with Schlow Library. They took each winner and turned it into a Tweet with their catalog record for that item. I let them know I thought they did a good job. Here is their reply:

Well done Schlow Library. While I think doing these types of Tweets on a more regular basis is a good idea, if you want to start doing this at your library, using the buzz around a major award announcement is a great way to get noticed.  To get the most impact, please make sure you use the award hashtag and the link to your specific catalog record.

-- Finally, don’t forget that while your patrons may be rushing in for last night’s winners today only to find that someone else beat them to your copy, the very well organized and easily searchable Edgar Awards database is standing by with hundreds of backlist options, a great many of which most libraries own. You can still send them home, happily, with an Edgar winner today.

Now get out there and start suggesting some weekend reads for your patrons.