Collection Development Crash Courses via ALA

Look, I know with the confusion around IMLS funding that a lot of Continuing Education is on hold in most library budgets and especially in State Library budgets (which is how most libraries get their CE) . That is why I want to point you to this ALA Courses option this July as you can get four classes for staff across all of your service areas for less than hiring me to make a virtual visit to your library.

And all four of these people are excellent. I not only know and trust them, I helped to bring them to eCourses for these classes. And, they have done this previously. The reactions were so positive, they are back.

Click here for all of details or use the links below. Please note, you can buy only the classes you want, but honestly, it is a much better deal to get them all and just make sure the correct people at your library watch the one for them.

Webinars and eCourses for Library Professionals Collection Development Crash Course A bundle of four 90-minute webinars.

Wednesdays, July 2, 9, 16, and 23, 2025 2:30 pm Eastern | 1:30 pm Central | 12:30 pm Mountain | 11:30 am Pacific

If you’re new to collection development, it can be intimidating. Responsibility for a library collection has many facets, from assessing the needs of your community to staying current. We’ve assembled a team of four collection development experts for this crash course webinar series, and they’ll take you through everything you need to get started.   This four-part event includes the following sessions (all sessions also available for individual purchase): Developing the Youth Collection with Julie Jurgens: Wednesday, July 2, 2025 Developing the Adult Fiction Collection with Lila Denning: Wednesday, July 9, 2025 Developing the Adult Nonfiction Collection with Stephanie Sendaula: Wednesday, July 16, 2025 Weeding Your Collection with Karen Toonen: Wednesday, July 23, 2025 Each session also available for separate registration Developing the Youth Collection In this webinar, you’ll learn the basics of collection development for kids and teens. You'll also learn about how to prepare for and handle material challenges and how to make sure your collection development policy provides adequate support for these situations. Developing the Adult Fiction Collection Diversity is the key to a strong adult fiction collection. In this webinar, collection development expert Lila Denning will cover how you can grow and diversify your collection to make better readers advisory choices and offer stronger materials to your patrons. Developing the Adult Nonfiction Collection In this event, collection development expert Stephanie Sendaula will show you best practices for developing, maintaining, and weeding the adult nonfiction collection, with an emphasis on staying up to date with trends in popular areas such as memoirs and cookbooks. Weeding Your Collection A truly patron-driven collection serves its community effectively, and with continually increasing demands taxing libraries’ limited resources, every item in a physical collection must justify its shelf space. In this webinar, weeding expert Karen Toonen will cover the challenges inherent to weeding and share tips, tricks, and tools for collection evaluation.

After participating in this event, you will:

• Have a stronger understanding of how to get started with nonfiction collection development
• Be equipped to stay up to date with nonfiction trends that can help you to keep a collection current
• Gain the confidence to purchase books in subjects outside of your usual reading interests
• Understand the foundational reasons for diversifying your collection and be able to reliably discover diverse materials
• Understand strategies for recommending works either actively or passively that go beyond your lived experience or the perceived lived experience of your community
• Recognize the importance of the book atmosphere and how libraries, publishers, reviewers, vendors, authors, bookstores and the public all work together
• Understand the fundamentals of curating and maintaining collections for youth and teens
• Have a list of resources to consult, including where to find reviews and other collection support tools.
• Feel empowered to advocate for materials for youth and teens
• Be able to articulate to internal and external stakeholders why weeding is as important as selection as part of a robust collection development plan
• Be able to revitalize collections, increase circulation, enhance visibility of diverse materials, and highlight materials relevant to your communities with confidence
• Be able to implement logical, rigorous weeding doctrines which will free areas for new collections, promote patron driven collection policies, and create additional space.

Click here to learn more and register.

We are Terrible at Communicating Who We Are, What We Do, and Why-- Make a Commitment to Do Better in 2025

As the working days for 2024 begin to wind down, I wanted to start preparing all of you for my annual posts (coming the first full week of January) assessing my own goals from 2024 and looking forward to the goals I will be setting for 2025. Each year, the goal of those posts is to set an example for all of you. To remind you how important it is to take a moment to look back at the year that was before rushing headlong into a new year.

I am also actively working on the 2024 iteration of my Keeping Up With Books Year in Review webinar. This year it will once again be with NoveList and Yaika Sabat in February 2025. You can click here to read about the 2023 version.

Today I have a goal I think all of us need to consider adding to our 2025 to-do lists, and it is one I talk about every time I give my Actively Anti-Racist Service to Leisure Readers presentation. We are terrible at communicating what we do and why we are important. People outside the library world do not understand how important our work is. They don't even know that we don't just order every single book. And they especially are unaware of the care and professional training it take to craft a collection and serve the public. How we carefully add and subs track titles to make our collections shine. It is one of the main reasons why there are factions that have been undermining us, without much resistance. 

To that end, I want all of you to take a moment as we move from one year to the next and really think about how you are going to communicate your worth and articulate exactly what we do throughout 2025. I want you to start speaking out about how great we are BEFORE people try to attack you. I want you to do it in 2025 but then keep doing it, on a regular basis going forward.

Library workers too often are uncomfortable bragging about themselves (best case) or are afraid to sp-eak out for fear of retaliation by book banners (worst case).

To this I say-- GET OVER IT.

We have not prioritized telling our story. We have ALWAYS let others define us. And when we do try to advocate for ourselves we do stupid things like tell people are services are free. THEY ARE NOT FREE. EVERYONE HAS PRE-PAID FOR THEM.

I have discussed the harmful nature of this messaging many times before, both in my live training programs and here on the blog. Please read that post and fix your language. In fact, I would argue that as part of this commitment to prioritize communicating who we are and what we do--  you should go out of your way to work the "prepaid" language into every interaction you have with people. Again, I have a full post to help you. Use my words. I am fine with that. It's why I write this blog. It gives you no excuse to start being better at communicating.

Speaking of this blog and using my words, on 12/30 I will have a post about my most popular posts of the year, but here is a teaser because it is about communicating what we do. My most popular post of the year was a guest essay by my colleague Misha Stone entitled: Why Libraries Need to Stop Saying “More Than Books” by Misha Stone.

This is all part of the larger-- we are terrible at communicating problem, yes, but I feel like you all know that this is a problem (even though you haven't helped solve it) because you clicked on it so much. So I see this as me helping to nudge you to do the work you know you need to do already.

Again, click here to read Stone's post and use her words to improve your communication and stop the cycle of poor, even harmful, communication. 

But this is not a "Becky is the only person who can help you" post. I also have three very good suggestions for you to use to help you to be proactive in your communication of who we are and what we do.

The first is this article from VOX-- a non-library outlet explaining, very well, what librarians do in the most basic way. It is not perfect, but it gives the general public a sense of everything we do and for such little money (because that is how it ends). Often we forget that the public doesn't know even the most basic things about how their public library works. This piece, not only comes from that place of starting with an assumption that the reader knows nothing, but also it is written in a conversational style that draws the average person in. It is a great entry point to beginning the conversation with our patrons and communities, one we can add to.

The second is this study-- "Libraries & Well-Being: A Case Study from The New York Public Library" Available for free, here is the text from the introduction: 

By Daphna Blatt & Dr. E.K. Maloney, The New York Public Library
Dr. James O. Pawelski & Dr. Katherine N. Cotter, University of Pennsylvania

In today’s society, libraries stand out as among the last truly public institutions. Providing access to resources without financial, social, or physical barriers, public libraries make a unique contribution to promoting individual and collective flourishing throughout the communities they serve.

The New York Public Library’s Strategy and Public Impact team and the Humanities and Human Flourishing Project at the University of Pennsylvania's Positive Psychology Center have released a new report as part of an ongoing collaboration to study and advocate for the role of public libraries in the communities they serve. 

There is much here that you can use to "advocate for the tole of public libraries in the communities they serve." NYPL understands that we all need to do better and in the spirit of library collaboration, they, as the largest public library system in America, took it upon themselves to lead and provide all of us with the information we need.

The third is from Kelly Jensen and is part of her Literary Activism series (every post of which is super helpful, but baby steps). This specific post is entitled "How to Explain Book Bans to Those Who Want to Understand."

This post is important for 2 reasons:

1. It is reminder that we don't spend enough time communicating to those who already like us and use us about what we do. We are so focused on countering the bad actors and how they twist what we do and message it way better than we do. We are not going to change their minds. We have lost them. But good news, the vast majority of American like us. We need to speak to them directly. We need to explain ourselves to those who want to understand.
2. Book bans and censorship in general are the issues whose escalation to terrifying levels-- that we bear some of the blame in. Wait, wait?!?!? Becky, we are trying to stop the book banners. Why are you accusing us of making them happen in larger numbers. Well, quite frankly, our inability to constantly communicate what we do, why we do it, and why it is important in a free, democratic society plays a large part in this issue. If we had been out in front of communicating our worth and explaining ourselves to the general public-- for you know, the century plus we have existed-- we would not be in as bad a shape as we are now. Just think about all of the times in the past when a dumpster of weeded books was photographed somewhere and people went all angry on how we throw out books. We have never solved that problem. It still happens. AND IT IS OUR FAULT. We have never gotten in front of  the weeding controversies-- not even to our supporters. And now.... book bans are the next step.

Use Jensen's article to help you do better on this major issue-- both be proactive and speaking to our known supporters. Use all of the information here today as well. Use it to craft a plan for your library in 2025. Commit to communication.

Back tomorrow and the 27th with some final best of the year lists. 

Sign-Up Now For the Crash Course in Horror from NoveList and LibraryReads

Please see below for a FREE, live event to get you ready to serve your scariest readers brought to you by NoveList and LibraryReads. It is free as long as you sign-up and watch lives or within the limited time window offered after receiving the video. Otherwise it will become part of the Learn With NoveList Platform. Click here or use the links below, directly from the Novelist blog, to access the registration page.

Webinar: Crash Course in Horror

Article by Yaika Sabat. 

Whether you’re a horror genre aficionado or a curious newcomer, this free, live event will give you the knowledge to navigate the genre’s dark and thrilling landscape.

Horror readers seek out thrills and chills within the pages of their favorite books. And we're in a golden age for horror, with a bounty of options!  

There's a horror book for every reader. Whether your readers love a creature feature or real-life monsters, join NoveList and LibraryReads as we give you the latest and greatest the genre has to offer — from small-town horror to vampire menace. If you are scared of working with horror or just want to stay up to date, this webinar is for you. 

Join me and my co-worker Suzanne Temple, Senior Metadata Librarian at NoveList, as we cover:  

Popular subgenres and themes  

Authors you want to know  

How to help readers of horror 

Other helpful resources for this genre  

Click here to register

Some practical details   

We welcome you to stay for an additional 15-minute NoveList Plus training after the webinar. Learn search strategy tips and where to find genre-related information in NoveList so you can provide the best possible service to your readers. 

A free recording of the webinar will be made available for a limited time to all registrants. Afterward, a recording and bonus content will be available for a small fee on the Learn with NoveList platform. 

Meet the panelists 

Yaika Sabat (that's me!) is the Manager of Reader Services at NoveList, where I develop strategies for helping readers and train library staff in the art of recommending books. Before NoveList, I worked in public libraries, and no matter the role, my favorite part of work has always been discussing books. As a lifelong horror fan and member of the Horror Writers Association’s Library Advisory Council and Summer Scares Selection Committee, I work to encourage libraries to embrace the horror genre.  

Suzanne Temple has worked at NoveList for the past ten years, most of those as a Metadata Librarian for juvenile materials and graphic novels. She is a past member of the Odyssey Award committee and GNCRT's Best Graphic Novels for Children. Most months you can find her reviews for audiobooks and graphic novels in Booklist. As a lifelong lover of horror, Suzanne looks forward to sharing her passion with anyone who will listen. 

Moderator Rebecca Vnuk is the Executive Director of LibraryReads. She worked as a public librarian for a decade before becoming the first editor for Collection Management and Library Outreach at Booklist magazine. Rebecca is the author of three reference books on the topic of Women’s Fiction, as well as a best-selling book on weeding library collections. 

Register for Crash Course in Horror

Jump on the "Bestsellers" Bandwagon

I have been mourning the loss of my favorite bestseller list, the USA Today Bestseller list, which was discontinued on December 1, 2022. I loved this list because it gathered the top 150 books that sold in a given week without worrying about what category said book fell in, who published it, and for what age. Literally just the 150 best selling titles. It was an easy way to understand, from one perspective, what the most popular books were in the country at any snapshot in time.

But alas, it is gone.

However, that does not mean you get to stop caring about bestseller lists. Rather, you have to be even more aware because the landscape is fractured. You can use the NYT lists, PW Lists, Amazon lists, Bookshop.org, any and all. But it is hard to follow so many. I am settling on the PW lists as my default because they use BookScan data. 

Here is the hard truth not matter which list you use, it is important not because of the numbers these titles sell but because for many patrons, a book being a “Bestseller” is a genre. Yes I know that genre as we see it had absolutely nothing to do with genre conventions, but....

That really doesn’t matter to our patrons.

For many readers, “bestseller” is a designation that means the book is good and worth their time. It is a way for them to shift through the thousands of reading options and create a smaller universe of books to choose from. They want to know if the book is popular because that will let them know it is worth a try. Others liked it, so I probably will too. 

Look, I know this is frustrating because with just a few moments of their time and a quick conversation, we could find those patrons the perfect read regardless of whether it was a bestseller or not, but again, if the patron wants a “bestseller,” your best option is to have as many types of bestseller lists to cull from as possible.

As I mentioned above, I seek out many bestseller lists on a regular basis both to use as I help readers, but also to give me a sense of the niche areas. What books are popular in certain genres? What authors are getting a lot of buzz? What is popular in self publishing? There are many reasons to know this information, but here is an important example. When patrons first started coming in to ask for Colleen Hoover, many library workers had no idea who she was. However, if those library workers had been aware of the self publishing bestselling charts or even, at that time, followed the USA Today, they would not have been caught off guard because she was everywhere on those lists.

People saw Colleen Hoover on those bestsellers lists, they heard their friends talking about her, and they wanted to know what the buzz was about, so they turned to their libraries figuring if it was truly this popular and bestselling the library was bound to have it. 

Once you become consciously aware of the fact that patrons love the concept of "bestsellers" more than how many copies they sold, you can use "bestsellers" to your advantage by creating your own library's hyper-local "bestsellers" list. Use the word "bestseller" because it will draw the attention of our patrons. It is a word they know and understand. It is a word they trust. And, it is not library jargon;  it is plain language.

So how do you do this? How can you create a hyper-local bestseller list?

Your ILS can easily be mined for useful data here. Running reports on materials is something that is done regularly by most public libraries. But generally these reports are run by the tech services and or circ staff for very specific purposes: missing reports, overdue materials, billed, clearing the hold shelf, identifying titles for potential weeding, etc....

But, we could just as easily be running reports on more positive things like the items that are most checked out, or as we need to rebrand them as-- THE LIBRARY’S BESTSELLERS LIST!

Here are some easy to pull up lists in most ILS:

• General Best Sellers-- most checkout out of the week overall or broken down by each service area; so Adult, teen, kids, fiction, nonfiction.
• Format Best Sellers-- most checked out videos, audio books, streamed, download, Large Print.
• Genre Best Sellers-- as long as you have the genre noted somewhere in the item record be it in a subject heading or in it’s own field, you can easily do this.
• Want to promote the non-traditional things you check out like technology items [Go Pro cameras, Rokus] or maker items like sewing machine, art kits; some libraries do fishing poles and art. Whatever. Do a Best Seller lists of unexpected items. People might not even know that you have them.
• And my favorite.... Make some Backlist Best Seller Lists. For example, the most popular adult items checked out this week which were published before 2000. Or whatever your parameters. These are great to remind people that it is not only the newest 3 James Patterson books that are being checked out.

However, you also need to make sure these lists make room for marginalized voices. So if you pull these lists and find they are too white or too straight, intentionally diversify them with diverse readalike titles as well. But Becky....that would be changing the lists? Yes it would. But guess what? There is no library jail that someone is going to send you for doing this. You are in charge here. Your goal is to get books in front of people in an enticing manner so that they check them out. They are NOT going to fact check you, especially if you are saying...Hey, these books are popular here at our library!

In fact, I would even go so far as to look at those "bestseller" lists and remove the obvious authors-- Patterson, Roberts, King, Baldacci, etc.... All those authors that everyone knows about already. The point of creating lists and displays at the library is to expose people to books they would never have known about without your help. Making them "bestseller" displays and lists that are surprising, that alert them to titles they didn't know about, that's where you will get their attention.

And this is where we get back tot he beginning of this post. Now that the only true bestseller list we ever had-- The USA Today-- is gone, we are left with a landscape of fractured and specialized lists. Let's jump on the bandwagon and add our voice to the bestseller conversation. Apparently everyone has an agenda with their lists and none are 100% true. We can do that as well. And by making the experience hyper-local, our patrons will feel like they are getting more personalized service. 

Everybody wins when you jump on the bestsellers bandwagon.

To see everything I have (and will tag) "bestsellers" click here. 

Resource Alert! NoveList and LibraryReads Crash Course in Science Fiction

On Feb 7th the LibraryReads-NoveList Crash Courses return which time with a refresh of the original Science Fiction webinar.

I love these Crash Courses. They are at the top of my list of my favorite free genre resources, a document which is always available at this link or at the bottom of my 10 Rules of Basic RA page.

And this one features 3 people I know personally and 2 are real life friends. I am signed up. Are you joining us? Details here and below.

Click here for details

No, you have not entered The Twilight Zone. We are revisiting Science Fiction (the topic of our very first Crash Course with LibraryReads!) with new and updated information, media, and titles.

Do you have a go-to readers’ advisory strategy for helping readers of Science Fiction? Whether your readers are fans of space operas or alternate histories, let NoveList and LibraryReads break down the best science fiction has to offer your readers — from first contact to climate change apocalypses. 

Join Matthew Galloway, Collection Development Librarian at Anythink Libraries, and Anna Mickelsen of Springfield City Library as they cover: 

• Popular subgenres, appeals, and themes 
• Current trends and authors to watch  
• How to help readers of sci-fi 
• Other popular media in the genre  

We welcome anyone interested to stay for an additional 15-minute training to share search strategy tips and learn where to access genre-related information in NoveList.  

Tuesday, February 7th, 2023, from 2-3 pm EST
Optional NoveList training from 3-3:15 pm EST

REGISTER

Attendance for the live webinar is free. A recording of the webinar and bonus content will be available on learnwithnovelist.com for a fee approximately one week after the live session. 

Panelists: 

Matthew Galloway is a collection development librarian at Anythink Libraries in Colorado. He enjoys learning new board games and is wild for readers' advisory. His passion for great fiction is only matched by his commitment to bringing great works to his community. 

Anna Mickelsen is the Adult Information Services Supervisor at the Springfield City Library in Massachusetts. When she isn't fiddling with spreadsheets, ordering fiction, or weeding library materials, she fights tabletop adversaries and wrangles cats. 

Moderator Yaika Sabat comes from a background in public libraries and now works on editorial content as part of the Book Discovery team. While she is a horror fan first, she does her best to read across genres and is passionate about diverse representation in books and media. 

RA for All: Greatest Hits: Make Your Own Bestseller Lists

I have been getting more emails in the last year from new readers to RA for All who have asked for me to gather up a few of my "greatest hits" posts to share again. Yes, people know they can search the archives and use my extensive tags to pull things up, but I get it. Some of the most evergreen advice should be easier to access.

So starting today, I am going to be more conscious of doing a series of "greatest hits" posts and tagging them as such. I will try to do one a week, but we will see. I will also create a page for easier access as well. I have had a draft of that page ready for months but haven't acted on it yet. I have even set a weekly reminder to do these posts. I am committed to finally making this happen.

And until I get that Greatest Hits page up and running, you can use the "greatest hits" tag.

Let's begin with a popular Call to Action post from 2017 that is easy to implement immediately. 

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2017

RA for All: Call to Action-- Make Your Own Best "Seller “ Lists

Readers of this blog know that at the end of 2016 I was focusing on challenging the perceived notion of what is “best” in a series of webinars and posts which you can pull up here. But for new readers here is a quick synopsis of that argument from my notes for the PLA Webinar I delivered on the topic:

We are going to rethink the entire concept of BEST lists are and repurpose them as sure bets lists. And we are going to get EVERYONE in on the action. Do not underestimate how much fun it is for staff from all over the building, public service and behind the scenes, professional librarians, clerk, HR people, AND PATRONS to share what they love with everyone. And don’t underestimate how useful collecting these “best” books is for you as you help leisure readers all the year through, 

That is from the intro to my hour long talk on how to crowdsource and collect your library’s “best” lists. During that webinar, one of the tips that I gave very quickly has stuck with me and I wanted to elaborate on it today because I think it is not only easy to do, but it could become one of your best RA  and marketing tools.

And so I am calling you to action to CREATE YOUR LIBRARY’S HYPER-LOCAL BESTSELLER LIST.

I was reminded of this suggestion last week when the New York Times announced that it was going to get rid of a number of their more specific best seller lists. Like many of you I loved those lists. I was able to get an idea of well received titles in a variety of less popular genres and formats like graphic novels.

But this is not a post to complain about The NYT cutting bestseller lists. No, I am not about complaining, I am about offering solutions.

Which leads me back to today's call-- CREATE YOUR LIBRARY’S HYPER-LOCAL BESTSELLER LIST.

The NYT lists were great but they are national and very limited in scope. What you need to help you figure out what is most popular at your library is a variety of best seller list, and I suggest you use the way the NYT used to do it as your model. Plus, it is very easy to do AND it is great way to engage some of your nonprofessional staff in doing next level RA.

Let me explain. By now every public library has some kind of ILS that can easily be mined for useful circulation data. Running reports on materials is something that is done regularly by most public libraries. But generally these reports are run by the tech services and or circ staff for very specific purposes: missing reports, overdue materials, billed, clearing the hold shelf, identifying titles for potential weeding, etc....

But, we could just as easily be running reports on more positive things like the items that are most checked out, or as we need to rebrand them as-- THE LIBRARY’S BEST SELLERS LIST!

Patrons know what best sellers lists are; they already use them to help identify potential books to read. Best sellers are implicitly deemed as “good” by patrons because why else would they be best sellers? I know this logic is not always true, but it is how people think and we need to use that to our advantage.

So, let’s make our own lists about what is “best selling” at the library, especially now that the news is saying there will be fewer best seller lists available. Jump in and fill the void, even if that void is only a perceived one and not an actual one [because seriously, how many patrons actually looked at all of those lists online; we did, sure, but mostly they were used by us and the publishers for marketing purposes, so they could call something a "NYT Best Seller.”] And we can make as many as we want by running quick and easy weekly/monthly reports using our ILS.

Here are some easy to pull up lists in most ILS:

• General Best Sellers-- most checkout out of the week overall or broken down by each service area; so Adult, teen, kids, fiction, nonfiction.
• Format Best Sellers-- most checked out videos, audio books, streamed, download, Large Print.
• Genre Best Sellers-- as long as you have the genre noted somewhere in the item record be it in a subject heading or in it’s own field, you can easily do this.
• Want to promote the non-traditional things you check out like technology items [Go Pro cameras, Rokus] or maker items like sewing machine, art kits; some libraries do fishing poles and art. Whatever. Do a Best Seller lists of unexpected items. People might not even know that you have them.
• And my favorite.... Make some Backlist Best Seller Lists. For example, the most popular adult items checked out this week which were published before 2000. Or whatever your parameters. These are great to remind people that it is not only the newest 3 James Patterson books that are being checked out.

Who cares that there is no “selling” here. Don’t say most checked-out. Patrons know you are not selling the books, but calling the most checked out titles “Best Sellers” lends them more cache, it makes them cooler, and makes the library seem more like the rest of the book world.

Post them in the building and online. Change them out weekly or monthly, but change them regularly. Post them next to other, more well known best seller lists on one bulletin board. Put them at the applicable service desks. Hey, even put them at a desk that isn’t for those items, like the adult Best Seller list at the children’s desk so busy parents can get some popular reading ideas for themselves quickly.

You will draw interest not only to titles that may not make the more traditional best seller lists, but you will be engaging the community by allowing them to see what is most popular without sacrificing anyone’s identity or personal information. When people see what is popular in their library, you will be providing the content for opening lines in conversation amongst people in the community. And isn’t that one of our main goals-- engaging the community.

From a selfish standpoint, collecting and creating these lists will serve you well too. You will have a frequent snapshot of what is circulating the most which means you can work on more targeted displays and “while you wait” lists to help patrons. And if you do collection development too-- you will have more helpful information as you work of adding and deleting items.

Plus, the marketing potential is enormous. People will see how much you actually provide for them, especially if you make a variety of lists. Who cares if number 10 on one of your best seller lists only circulated 1x that week or month? No one needs to know the details. They just need to know that you have it and people have wanted it.

Finally, pulling the reports and sorting through the data to create these lists is a great way to engage staff who don’t normally get to work with leisure readers in person, like tech services. They can now be a part of a vital RA activity that actively assists patrons. They will also be more cognizant of what needs to be included in bibliographic records; for example, diverse books information or specific genres that are popular and are not tagged.

You can also have non-professional staff who want to do more to help readers, but still need more training and experience work on this activity. May be they can’t run the reports, but they can use the data to update lists, make signs and displays of the lists, and then use them to provide suggestions. It will help to create a RA culture throughout the library.

So get out there and start creating you library’s “Best Seller” Lists.

For past Call to Action posts, click here.

2022 Materials Survey via Library Journal [Partt 3 of 3]

Over the last 3 days I have produced an impromptu series to help you better understand the adult leisure book market.

First, I gave you access to the  2022 Book We Love [so far] from NPR Books.

Second, we looked at what titles were selling the most copies so far this year.

Today I we are going to add in a specific library collections perspective before I talk to you about using this data together to better serve all of your patrons.

So today, part 3, is Library Journal's Annual Materials Survey- Collection Rebalance. From the intro:

The findings of LJ’s Public Library Materials Survey show that librarians are focused on the formats readers want and the process of crafting responsive and representative collections 

The state of U.S. public library collections in 2022 is in flux, with librarians considering stacks that need to be studied, measured, weeded, and diversified. Our yearly materials survey highlights the demands of readers for a range of formats and the need to ensure that collections reflect voices previously ignored due to racism and other structural biases.

Using a comprehensive survey of 131 US public libraries, reporting and breaking down the data, this report holds so much useful information.

Here are the headings from within the article: 

• Print: The Backbone of Collections
• Physical Media: Cuts Are Coming
• Change in spending from 2020 to 2021
• Streaming: Budgets and Discovery
• Measuring Demand and Use
• Diversity Audits
• Weeding and Building
• The Work of 2022

Again, click through and read this important piece.

Taken alone, the 3 parts of this series over the last 3 days are all useful, but it is when we look at critically acclaimed, bestselling, and patron usage data all together that we learn the most about our readers.

Too often libraries operate in a bubble and library workers think they know everything they need to know about their patrons and their reading habits. For example, after yesterday's post, I had multiple people reach out to tell me they were surprised to see the bestselling data. And these were leaders in RA and collections across the country saying they were surprised. We need to know what is actually selling because if we don't have those books, and make it obvious to our communities that we do, they won't use the library.

We need to remember that more of our community than not doesn't know the goodies we have available for them, pre-paid with their taxes. Often we are so busy being focused on our purchasing habits and appealing to our known users, that we forget we need to bring new people in as well. 

Second, while the "best of" list will appeal to most of our users, we need to always balance the critics picks with what is selling the most. When I give my signature RA for All training I talk about this at length when I compare using NoveList for the professional point of view on a title vs Goodreads for the reader opinion. It is only when we consider BOTH that we can truly serve our readers to our best ability.

Too often I see library workers disparaging James Patterson or Colleen Hoover. But you know what, Patterson and Hoover bring readers into the library. Patterson and Hoover are getting adults to read, at a higher rate than in previous years. They are your allies here. Those are the authors you need to make sure you are making readalike lists for, having signs to let people know you have great titles while they wait on the holds list. Make it clear that you know what they want so they know you are "listening" to their wants, but also remind them  of all of the other wonderful reading experiences you have as well. 

Same for BookTok. I don't care if you don't use TikTok. But you absolutely need to know what is most popular on BookTok if you want to serve your readers.  Just look at the bestselling data to back me up.

And third, comparing the best vs bestselling and then looking at it in terms of what we carry in our libraries with such a wide lens allows us to craft and promote better collections. The data in the LJ Materials Survey is from  a wide sample and considers the past 3 years. The trends that are emerging are fascinating. For example, remember when everyone said in a few years print books would disappear. Well, guess what?  They re stronger than ever. Again, please read the entire report.

I hope you take some time to look at the last three days of posts at one time and consider them as one resource.

Back Monday with LibraryReads' August list and then Tuesday with some fresh Booklist reviews. 

RA for All on a Wonky Schedule This Week and Nebulas

I am headed East to help my daughter move out of college. Due to Covid restrictions, we have never actually moved her out. She is finishing sophomore year and she has basically boxed up everything and stored it every year so far. Needless to say, there is a lot of weeding to do.

So, I will post when I can. I actually have 2 business meetings while in MA, one involves calling Robin in as it has to do with our Anti-Racist Service to Leisure Readers work. I am very excited about this meeting because I think it will actually go somewhere big and important. More on that soon.

In the meantime, here is the press release from the SFWA with last night's Nebula Award Winners. And here is the link for past winners going back to 1965!

I would like to single out one winner though: 

NEBULA AWARD FOR NOVELETTE
“O2 Arena”, Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki (Galaxy’s Edge 11/21)

Ekpeki was on of the HWA's first winners of the Diversity Grant. We are all so proud of him.

If you are interested in donating to the HWA's Diversity Grant fund, click here and scroll to the bottom. I personally fund 1 award winner a year.

PLA 2022: Wednesday Report

Wednesday at PLA was the first full day of the conference and I did something at every session. This post is a recap of the main points and resources from what I learned today.

The opening session was Luvvie Ajayi Jones, Professional Troublemaker. Ms Jones gave a talk that reminded the group assembled that the things we all must do are way more important than our fears. Here are a few of the things she said--paraphrased-- that I want to share:

• Professional troublemakers disrupt. They don't take it and they challenge people to do better.
• We hear the word trouble and we think it is bad, but we live in a world that is deeply unjust and trouble is required to challenge unjust systems.
• How are we operating in a world where telling the truth is extraordinary?
• Fear often keeps us from doing the things we should be doing. But what are you actually afraid of? What is the apocalyptic situation? What is actually at stake? And can you deal with that worst case scenario?
• Understand the power you bring when you walk in a room.
• When you speak up, when you ask questions to challenge:
• Do I mean it?
• Can I defend it? 
• Can I say it thoughtfully?
• Will my silence convict me?

Anyone who follows my blog or the training programs I give can clearly see that Luvvie was articulating how I function in the library world. I challenge every one and every thing. I speak up at meetings, I call people out even when they are above me. I do not keep my mouth shut. And I make people uncomfortable. 

I mean it, I defend it, and I choose my words VERY carefully. 

And there are many people who don't like me. They all respect me, some only spitefully, but they do not like me. And now I understand why. I make them uncomfortable because I do what they are too afraid to do. 

I know Luvvie inspired many there to start acting, but for me, she helped me to understand why I am often left out on a limb alone. 

Next I went to "Queering the Library," presented by Teresa Miller, Librarian I [she/her/hers] and Rebecca Oxley, Librarian III (she/they). This was a program about how the Prince George's County Library in Maryland created an LGBTQ+ work team to make sure that PRIDE was a 365 day thing at the library because "queer people are queer all year long." Also they found that in neighboring DC and Baltimore, the gay pride events were open to families but not geared toward families, so they filled many gaps by centering rainbow families. 

They talked about a lot more as well, and you can see it all on their excellent slides which you can access here. 

Their focus was very practical, which I appreciated. For example, they approached this work by aligning it with their establish strategic goals and values. They also has a few ironclad points for when there was pushback:

• LGBTQ+ people are part of every service area
• LGBTQ+ content is not inherently "adult" or sexual [This got applause]. 
• Positive representation improves mental health and reduces bullying and hate
• Queer families exist-- the kids need to see themselves and other kids need to see it.

Again, the slides have all of the links to the wonderful things they did. I am not going to repeat it all. You can click through. But I will add one last thing. During the questions and answer section, someone asked the presenters how they handled making sure the straight people were comfortable with all of this and they said...."We didn't have time to worry about how the straight people felt. They weren't important here."

Next, I went to a real life, old fashioned Book Buzz where the publishers were up on the stage and not Zooming from their living rooms. It was so wonderful to be back in a room listening to them book talk the upcoming titles to all of us, in the same room.

I sat back and enjoyed the show knowing that Booklist would come thought with the slides, slides that contain the appeal of these titles and, in many cases, readalikes. And of course, right after the event, this email came:

Booklist's Book Buzz

Whether you weren't able to make #PLA2022 or you got a chance to see the live event, we have all the important information from our Book Buzz!

PowerPoint Slides

Title List

We'd like to once again thank our panelists:

Annie Mazes, Senior Manager, Adult Library Marketing, Workman Publishing

Virginia Stanley, Director of Library Marketing, HarperCollins Publishers

Amanda Crimarco, Library Marketing Manager, Macmillan Library Marketing

Melissa Nicholas, Director, Account Marketing, Hachette Book Group

Margaret Coffee, Director of Sales-Schools, Libraries, and Independent Bookstores, Sourcebooks

And finally, I ended my day with a program I had high hopes for, and it exceeded it-- Removing Bias and Barriers From Your Cataloging, a case study from  the River Forest [IL] Public Library by Megan O'Keefe.

First, here are her excellent handouts and slides:

•  RFPL Audit and Reclassification Project.pdf
•  Meghan's RFPL 900s Call Number Notes.pdf
• Removing Bias and Barriers from Your Cataloging.pdf

This project was based on the fact that there is bias and flaws in common cataloging approaches specifically toward marginalized communities. 

In this case she explained how the 900s are supposed to represent "history" but if you go to the Dewey area for American history, for example, you would never see books on slavery. Why? Because slavery is considered a social science. So "American History" in the DDC version of the world is devoid of slavery. Yeah, this is clearly not okay.

She then explained in plain, how-to language, how she, and it was mostly just she, went through the 300s [but you want to especially focus on 305, 306, and the 320s] doing a digital audit first, pulled the titles to consider moving, along the way weeding those that are outdated and offensive, and reclassifies those that needed it.

The handouts go over the details of what Dewey numbers she assigned and how she decided that. And again, she used her best judgment to make these titles fit. She used cataloging principles to ground her but she did not allow the systemic oppression inherent in DDC to drive her decision making. She used her desire to remove as much bias as she could in her slice of the library world.

I was transfixed by how obvious and easy she made it all seem. She was living what I always say-- you can't dismantle systemic racism by making excuses on how hard it will be, you just have to start doing it. She started with 2 sections 300s and 900s and made real and meaningful change that tries to rectify some systemic marginalization.

A couple of pieces of advice she gave-- begin with the lowest level of authority you need to begin the process. In general she suggested this for any change and I agree.

She also encouraged everyone in the room to use all of her ideas, her handouts, her processes, and make them better, improve them, and let her know so she can do better too.

And finally, and this I think was the perfect cap to my day as it harkened back to Luvvie, she reminded everyone that if they were waiting for all of the Dewey Decimal Classification System to be changed before they could begin fixing the problems, well you would be waiting a long time. But if all you need is permission to start making changes, changes, as Luvvie said, that will challenge our unjust systems, well O'Keefe proclaimed to the room, "Permission Granted!"

This is something Robin and I say all of the time-- Just start acting. Stop making excuses for why you can't. With cataloging, the excuse is always that if you don't follow the rules perfectly, libraries will no longer be standard and research will be impossible. But I am done with this argument. The harm we are doing by upholding unjust systems is too great. It is way greater than the chaos some "rogue" cataloging will cause. 

As you can see, yesterday was a good day of learning. I got appropriately fired up. And I am starting to find my people who are done standing-by. We are coming for you status quo library people. I think there are enough of us now that you cannot stop the progress we are bringing right at you, head on. 

Back at it today. I have fewer sessions but more meetings. Look for today's report to post tomorrow morning.