The just released issue of Corner Shelf newsletter from Booklist is one you 100% cannot miss. It is filled with lists, articles, a FREE three part, virtual event and more.
This newsletter is always helpful and focused on things you can use in your day to day work with readers, but I have not seen one this chock full of so many things you can use RIGHT now, well ever.
From Susan Maguire's letter from the editor to open the newsletter.
Hello Shelfers,
Corner Shelf sits on the corner of readers’ advisory and collection development, but this newsletter is sitting on the RA side of the street. (Of course, the two are inextricably linked, so there’s plenty for CD folks to enjoy as well . . .). We’re talking about a useful Booklist trick, the appeal of audio, and how we produce a Top 10 list. There are also four Heated Rivalry references, because of course there are. Can you find them all?
We’ve also got some stuff going on outside of Corner Shelf:
A lot of us have a go-to tool for readers’ advisoring, but what makes it useful? That’s the question we’re trying to get to the bottom of with our Readers’ Advisory Tools Survey. If you’ve got a few minutes, won’t you consider taking it? We’ll talk about the results at ALA’s Annual Conference in June. Exciting!
Speaking of RA, our *free* annual workshop series, Readers’ Advisory: Ideas and Practice, is back! On Wednesday, March 18, luminaries from library land will explore the appeal of nonfiction, specifically history and memoir; what the deal is with romantasy; and the four cornerstones of reader interest. Did I mention it’s free? Well, it is. Free. If you can’t make it, or you can’t stay for the whole three hours, it will be recorded, so those who register will have access later.
Happy reading!
—Susan Maguire
Senior Editor, Collection Development and Library Outreach, Booklist
smaguire@ala.org
@booklistsusan.bsky.social
Now I have posted about the Survey and Readers' Advisory: Ideas and Practice before, but this is your reminder to do the survey AND sign up for this valuable, FREE half day event (you can do it all live, some live and some with the recording and even all of it recorded, just get signed ups you are notified).
- Click here to lend your thoughts to the survey
- Click here to register for Readers' Advisory: Ideas and Practice
Yes, those are the headlines here, but please click through to see the entire newsletter because there is more.
In particular, I want to draw your attention to this article by Booklist's Audio Editor, Heather Booth entitled, Trade Secrets: Why Audio?. From Booth's introduction:
Successful reader’s advisory for audio can look a lot different from RA for print. The format comes with its own tech requirements, another entire layer of appeal via the narration, and, often, a very different way of interacting with the book from what one might assume with print. Throughout this year of RA explorations, we’ll look at the motivations listeners have behind choosing audio and the particulars of that choice so that we can better understand patrons who listen and better respond to their reading needs. Avid audiobook listeners share some of their motivations for choosing audio below.
And that is just one of the things from the stacked table of contents. Click through or use the free links below to access it all.
- Booklist Better: Save and Share a Search
- Trade Secrets: Why Audio?
- Reference Roundup: Winter 2025–26
- Top 10: Book-Group Books 2026 (plus Anatomy of a Top 10 List)
- Excerpts from the Experts: Challenges to Materials and Programming
- Essentials: The American Revolutionary Era in Fiction, at Home and Abroad
- From Booklist Reader: Black Writers Tell Their Stories
- Shelf Care: Three Conversations about Reading
- From the Backlist: Sometimes I Trip on How Happy We Could Be, by Nichole Perkins
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