I wanted to alert you to two of my favorite "Most Anticipated" lists came out recently.
These lists obviously help you prepare for the coming months. Those of you who do collection development will want to use this list to get their orders in while those who work at the services desk need this information to get ready with their "while you wait" readalike suggestions for many of of the high demand titles and to get ready to promote some promising new voices.
But this post is not only about upcoming books, it is also here to remind you that these "anticipated" lists make an even better recourse after the fact. Let me explain using The Millions and their excellent, long standing, and ongoing "Most Anticipated" coverage as the example.
Use this link to see all of their "most anticipated" coverage, but I will tell you now, The Millions is always doing lists of upcoming titles to be excited about. Vetted by their editors and contributors, these lists feature fiction, nonfiction, poetry, graphic novels, books in translation, literally everything of note that adult services library worker who are helping leisure readers should be aware of. These lists are diverse and inclusive as well. But, most importantly, they are also annotated! This means for every title you have a talking point about it to share with a patron. You don't need to know anything other thanhow to access these lists; then you read the annotation written by an expert.
[Remember you can and should use the words of others to book talk a book.]
Not only are the titles all annotated, you can pull up every "most anticipated" list in reverse chronological order with this link.
Why use the backlist? I mean if you read this blog you should know, but some of you are new here and others need the reminder.
Any title that has appeared on any of their "most anticipated" lists, especially those from 1-4 years ago, make great suggestions. Why?
First, the titles were vetted by experts meaning they are worth your attention at any time, not only when they are new or upcoming.
Second, there is a good chance if they were on lists like this that you ordered them for your collections so you own them and probably have not weeded them yet. 1-4 years means they are probably still relevant as well.
Third, the book talk for you to handsell the title-- verbally or on a list [web or in the library]-- is right there for you on that list. No work beyond knowing where to click to pull up these lists.
Fourth, and this is the most important point, when you suggest titles to your patrons that they could not have found on their own, that's when you shine. Reminding people of the treasures that are in the stacks is fun and useful. We need to show them that we are here to help with their leisure reading needs so that they continue to value and seek out our services. When we recommend great titles they may have missed, our users understand the breadth of our collections and the care with which we have built them, which is something we are not great at communicating to the public.
LitHub has entered the most anticipated market since 2019, and their coverage is also useful, it just doesn't go back as far and it is not as comprehensive. I really haven't found anything on LitHub's most anticipated lists that The Millions did not have. But, it is a smaller universe of titles to peruse, so it will take less time to use it ass a resource, which can also be helpful.
So yes, go look at the bright and shiny list for 2023 from The Millions and LitHib, but also make sure you are also using the backlist of ' "most anticipated" content to help readers all the time.
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