Today and tomorrow I am looking back on my year of reading and blogging beginning with my top 5 posts of the year, and I think taken together, they reflect what I am trying to do with this blog, today and every day since August of 2007 when I started this RA training site.
In 5th place: "Promote Yourself and All You Do For Your Community Today" which came out in April of 2024 and interestingly pairs nicely with this post from December 23rd entitled "We are Terrible at Communicating Who We Are, What We Do, and Why-- Make a Commitment to Do Better in 2025." And I didn't link to that April one in the December post. But what I like about noticing this, is that it reminds me that this is topic a topic I return to frequently-- reminding us to tell our story better.
In 4th place: My post with my Conversation Starters to Display handout originally posted in April of 2023. This one is satisfying as I spent the entire year doubling down on this handout and concept throughout all of my posts and training programs. I also made this switch from RA as transactional to RA as focused on conversations a goal for 2023. I'm glad you are all coming on the journey with me. I realize for many it is a huge shift in thinking for many library workers and while I have faced some resistance, for the most part, most of you have trusted me to lead you somewhere new.
In 3rd place: "What I'm Reading: Mr & Mrs American Pie" a post from August of 2018. Okay this one surprised me but then I realized something. This novel is based on the Apple TV show-- Palm Royale which came out in March and very clearly noted that it was based on the novel. The largest spike in my views of this post were March-April. I not only reviewed this book, but there is quote from me on the cover of the book as well. Click through to my post to see more about that. While it all makes sense, this is also a reminder of something I always say on this post-- the backlist matters. My backlist of reviews included. Again, I am glad to see that you are all listening to me. You can access every book I have read and reviewed here. Or use the "What I'm Reading" tag.
The top 2 were close and have significantly more views (by over a thousand) than the previous three.
In 2nd place: My review of Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay from April 2024. That was a few months before it came out and this post saw a spike then, throughout the Spring and early Summer and then another spike when it came out in July. But it got traction all year. While this was not surprising because the book was a NYT bestseller in it's first week of release and I am one of the top reviewers of Horror in America, I was still surprised to see how popular my review was. I think this says a lot about how mainstream Horror is becoming. This book is abbot tame in anyway. It is terrifying and devastating but also an amazing feat of literature. Click on the post for yourself to see. Also, boiler alert.....it will be featured tomorrow here on the blog as well.
And in 1st place, something I already divulged in this post last week, "Why Libraries Need to Stop Saying “More Than Books”: a Guest Post by Misha Stone." Like the 5th place post, it is all about how we are terrible at communicating who we are and what we do, bringing us full circle. This entire blog exists to explain, train, and provide resources about and for library workers who help leisure readers. Stone's post is an important part of that larger conversation.
Further down for the year there were multiple posts from 2015, one of the many times I have posted about libraries being prepaid, not free, and even a post from 2021 that was actually a flash back to 2019.
All of it is validating to me as I know in theory that the database of post I have created are a vital resource in the field of RA, but to see it in practice, well that helps me feel ready to tackle anther year doing it for you all again.
Back tomorrow with what is always my final post of the year, my person best things I read post.
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