Backlist Gems via a Goodreads Data Crunch

I am on record many times telling you all that the backlist is one of your best resources. Those titles that are 2-10 years old that are great reads but no one can find them. They are hiding in plain sight in your overcrowded stacks. It is much easier for patrons to browse the new shelf and whatever displays you have up than it is to browse the large mass of backlist titles in the stacks.

People will always gravitate toward a smaller set of books. 

I am always reminding you that an older book that was greatly enjoyed a few years ago, will be new to someone today. And, I go out of my way to show you how to access those titles in every resource from best lists to awards lists to LibraryReads and more.

This is why I harp on making sure all displays include backlist titles.

It is also where you and your work will make the biggest impact on your patrons. When someone finds a great read that they would have never known about without you, that's when they remember what you did for them. And it is why they will come back, tell their friends, and support your library when you need it.

Most of the backlist resources I suggest are professionally created, by people in the book world, but today I have a reader created list via Goodreads with their members 76 most popular books of the last ten years.

Look, love it or hate it, Goodreads is the place where readers congregate in the largest numbers in order to share their feelings about books. And again, love it or hate it, Goodreads collects data on every book you load onto your shelves. 

I choose to love it because when the data is crunched and analyzed, I get to see larger trends. A view I need to help you help readers. A reader focused view I cannot get in any other way with a reliably large enough data set.

So today, here is the recently released, Goodreads' Members' 76 Most Popular Books of the Last 10 Years. Do what you want with it, but use it to promote your collections. You can simply make a display of these titles, or use individual titles to make lists and displays of great reads you may have missed from [insert year here] and take the titles from that year and use my other backlist resources [see above links] to fill those out.

Be creative, but use the list as a jumping off point to promote your backlist.