Interactive RA Idea From a School Library

One the of best ways to stay in the know when it comes to the book news and info that is most relevant to libraries is to read the work of others who are curating it for us.

One of my favorite RA specific newsletters is the Book Riot "Check Your Shelf" Newsletter, compiled by my friend and ARRT member Katie McLain Horner. Click here to sign up for it.

Katie compiles the best of the Internet from a RA perspective 2x a week. The newsletter is broken down into useable categories and there is always something there I haven't seen elsewhere and it also includes many lists and articles that we all could use immediately to help patrons.

Today she linked to an article on Passive RA in Knowledge Quest, the Journal of the American Association of School Libraries. The piece is all about how one school made their library more patron friendly so that the kids could help themselves better and find books they would love.

The entire article has useful info, some of it, things we all know [but reiteration and proof that it is working is always good] and something I never thought about but LOVE LOVE LOVE for any library to use for any age level.

From the article:

Star Stickers 

Inspired by a colleague, I decided to try this simple way of allowing students to recommend books. 

 

This is a brilliant Interactive RA idea! And, I think it would work with adults at the public library too. Simply have stars available at the desk and encourage people to ask for one to affix to a book they loved before they return it.

They can do it in front of you which has many layers of positive interaction. First, you can make sure they are placing the sticker correctly. Second, you can engage them in conversation about why they loved the book [a great way to start a RA conversation]. Third, you get a sense of which books are garnering patron stars [staff should keep a written list informally if possible] so that you can make sure to order comparable titles and promote them as readalikes. 

Even better, if you keep doing this for awhile, soon your shelves will be promoting the books for you! Patrons will walk down the aisles, passing wonderful backlist titles that normally would simply blend in with everything else. But the ones with stars will sing from the shelves, proclaiming that someone, one time loved me, why don't you give me a try too. Sounds like backlist heaven.

Not only does this idea allow your backlist to be promoted by past satisfied readers visually, but it also can be a tool for you to build a display of "patron picks" in the future, a display that is bound to be varied and diverse because there are no artificial guidelines. It is 100% patron driven.

If you do this star thing for at least a year, you should have enough titles that a stroll up and down your stacks should reveal dozens of books to be put on a display. Just pull the titles with stars. Even better, get the entire library to do this and you have a whole collection patron picks display, one with titles for all ages and in all formats. Meaning that display will appeal to just about every patron who walks in the door.

This is a passive RA, backlist marketing tool that provides an interactive experience for your patrons, one that will better connect them to your services and your collections. I hope some of you out there try it.

Thank you Katie for passing this on. Thank you Brandi Bowers for sharing this idea.