The other day, I saw that Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel is 10 years old. In honor of that, Slate interviewed the author. It's a very good interview because St. John Mandel is asked about her thoughts on the book, the pandemic, the TV adaptation, and her life.
You a read the Slate interview with Emily St. John Mandel here.
This is a book that is 10 years old, firmly in your backlist. but one that because of a real life pandemic happening after it was published AND the TV adaptation being only 3 years old, that is still a great suggestion option. Notably, while it is a "pandemic" story, it also has a hopeful ending. Don't get me wrong, the book is bleak at times, but humanity shines through throughout the story and hope beams its light into the final pages.
Also, to be frank, it stands up to time (not every book does).
But how do I know this beyond the anecdotal fact that I still think about it and suggest it to others all the time?
This is a question I asked myself, and the answer is not only here on the blog, but is honestly, the reason I post all of my reviews here-- to help you help readers. And I include myself in that "you." Even more than this though, I do this entire blog solely for the reason of providing you the best free resource out there for those of you who are working with leisure readers. And, because I have been doing it since August of 2007, I can help you make connections from the past into the present.
Let me explain using Station Eleven as the prime example.
Here is my initial review of Station Eleven from the blog. It has my "three words" [disquieting, thought provoking, character centered] and readalikes. But those readalikes are of books that came out BEFORE Station Eleven, titles I could connect it to in that moment in 2014, so they are 10 years old or older. From that list I was reminded of a book I haven't thought about in a while:
If you liked the quiet look at survival in a world decimated by a horrible flu which also focuses on the intimate connections between people, try The Dog Stars by Peter Heller.
This is fine, but what about books that have come out in the 10 years since, titles that made me think back to Station Eleven. Thankfully, that information is easily accessible with a relevancy ranked search here on the blog (not a newest first results list). Here is a link to every time I have mentioned Station Eleven with that 2014 review coming up first.
That link provides you with MANY readalikes for Station Eleven, for books that are also awesome backlist recommendations. This is because I have continued to recommend this book as a readalike for others. That means if you search any title here on the blog, you will find similar results. Plus, I don't just say a title is a readalike, I tell you why, information that helps you to match it with the correct reader.
But doing this exercise today has made me realize that I have also made a few mistakes as well. I am finding that for books I reviewed only on Goodreads, the titles get cataloged here in a search but the readalikes do not. Take one of my favorite readalikes for Station Eleven, Severance by Ling Ma as an example. The title is searchable here on the blog and a link to the review on Goodreads is provided. However, it is not until you click through to that full review that you would find out that Station Eleven is my top readalike option. That information is not discoverable with a search here in the blog. I use Severance in my RA For All signature, introductory training so I always remember the connection between these two titles, but it is lost to a search here on the blog.
This makes me upset, but it makes sense. I am running this RA database alone and while I work very hard to cross-post, tag, and make as much information discoverable as possible, I am not perfect. I have no one to double check my work and my professional cataloging background and training is minimal.
Now that I know this, I will work harder in the future to make my readalikes discoverable. I have already identified one thing I can do to improve it-- the 32 books a year I review for LJ are only listed here on the blog with their 3 words. Starting with the October 2024 issue, I will include readalikes in that post with the links to my full draft reviews on Goodreads. This will allow these readalikes to be discovered more easily and for chains of backlist titles as a great suggestion to continue in a more seamless fashion. Eventually, I will also go back and fix the backlist of those columns.
I am thinking this will lead to a 2025 goal of strengthening this blog as a resource and possibly giving the entire thing an upgrade. But that will take time and money. And while this blog is the public face of the paid work I do, I do not generate income directly from publishing it. Tangentially, yes, because it connects me to library workers who hire me to train their staff, but not directly.
What did we learn today? Well this blog is a resource and like all good resources, you need to use the search function to find the most information. Don't rely on reading it everyday and remembering. Yes, I help with tags and by trying to highlight the best information in my side bar lists or by repeating important or relevant post. But, I also need to evaluate some of the changes I have made in the last few years, changes that may have made my life easier, but your job harder.
I am truly saddened to find that I may have inadvertently made my access to reviews less helpful as a RA tool. I prioritized sharing the key appeal factors in my three words, but forgot about the importance of sharing readalikes as necessary for discovery through a basic search. Honestly, that is bad librarianship, something I chastise others for, so I will get on it and do better going forward.
We also learned that Station Eleven is still a great read 10 years on. Why not put up a small display that rotates with the title-- Backlist Gems. Pick books at least 5 years old and more. Keep this display up always, constantly replacing titles as they check out (because they will) but slap a note on each book that that tells people how many years ago it came out. It can just be a post-it note, or make branded bookmarks that have titles that stick out from top of the book such as-- "Backlist Gem: 6 years ago" to just have the year-- 6 years ago. Something that clearly calls out that it is from your stacks and you still think about it as a good read.
This should be a small face out display of great reads, in a high traffic area. 6 books or less. You have an entire collection of titles that fit this bill. They can be in any genre; in fact, I would argue that this display is stronger when you have titles all from different genres. It broadcasts that you have a wide breadth of titles available AND it reminds people that the backlist is a strong reading option for them today. The new shiny books are fun, but allowing your patrons to discover a book that they might have missed otherwise-- that is where we show our worth.
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