September Book Display Ideas via Passively Recommending Books with Lila Denning Plus How to Flex Your Staff's Strength

Lila Denning runs the Blog Passively Recommending Books where she helps you with book display ideas. You can click here for the other times I have sent you to learn from her.

Her ideas are meant to kick start your own creativity with what you display. What I also love about her display ideas is that they are about the books you put out, how you curate better and NOT about the decorations or ephemera. Like me she thinks there should be none. The books are what matter and if you can get them out more quickly, you will have the energy to do more displays, which means more books will go out.

Every month, just a bit before a new month, she has a post on ideas for the next month. Here on my blog, I have been trying to start a new month by reminding you of her ideas. 

As we close out August, here are Denning's ideas to help you plan some displays for September.

But her blog is more than a once a month pit stop. You should check out her blog regularly. I have added it to my "Sites Worth Checking Out" list on the side bar.

For example, in between the August and September ideas post, she had this post which is very close to my RA for All heart: "Everyone in Your Library is an Expert in Something." From the post:

While you are planning out your library's book displays and lists, don't limit input to certain staff members. Allow anyone who works in your library to contribute to coming up with ideas and selecting titles. There could be things percolating in parts of popular culture that you are not familiar with or have not even heard of. Meanwhile, someone on your facilities team or in your business office may have done a deep dive into that thing and could help you assemble something for your patrons. 

Allowing anyone to contribute an idea or theme for a display or list will also expand the parts of your collection that receive attention while also encouraging staff to share their passions. It can be helpful to know what your co-workers are interested in as you work with the public. This is something that we did when I worked for a bookstore. We knew who was the historical romance readers, who loved poetry, and who was fluent in all kinds of space operas. When a customer asked for help with one of those areas, if that staff member was working, they would jump in to share their passion. 

As you schedule your book displays and lists, include room for a rotating staff display. The name of the staff member doesn't need to be part of their display; you are leveraging their expertise to market your collection. Make certain that you spread out the opportunity equally among different departments and give anyone interested a chance to assemble one. Have guidelines available so that the displays meet the same requirements as any one of your displays as far as avoiding bestsellers and being diverse and inclusive. 

Finally, if someone isn't comfortable or doesn't want to contribute, don't require it. There are plenty of other ways for a staff member to contribute to the success of your library.  

I have long been a proponent of getting all staff-- no matter their place on the organizational chart-- involved with your service to readers. Asking people for display ideas. Here is time on time earlier this year when I used a conversation starter question via Reactor magazine to get staff to contribute to a small display.

I will be reminding you once a month (at least) about Denning's book discussion posts. I love how she takes an old standby-- displays-- and injects new life into it. People are always going to gravitate to a smaller collections of titles over the large mass that is the stacks. We need to remember to use the power of the book display to highlight all of the items people would not find without our help. And also, asking for help from other staff members is not a weakness, it is flexing out staff's strength. 

Side note about Denning, she has been ramping up her formal training for library workers on how to create better book displays and has been replacing Robin Bradford (by Robin's choice and with her recommendation) on some Collection Development webinars as Denning works in collections for a FL library. Look for her offerings through PCI, ALA, and more.

 As a result of those programs, Lila has gathered a list of questions and concerns people have about upping their display game and she is planning a series of posts to answer those "how to" questions. I will cross post here in the coming weeks. For example, here is a recent: "Book Display Basics-- Scheduling."

Side note about Denning, she has been ramping up her formal training for library workers on how to create better book displays and has been replacing Robin Bradford (by Robin's choice and with her recommendation) on some Collection Development webinars as Denning works in collections for a FL library. Look for her offerings through PCI, ALA, and more.