ALA 2026: Wrap Up Post 1 of 2 (updated 7/1 with Read N Rave Titles)

I usually post in the morning but I needed a moment after being at ALA Annual since Friday and having worked 8 days (and counting without a break)

Today, I am going to focus on the things I did where I can share things you can use. Tomorrow I will write about the Opening and closing sessions and link to a few reports from other outlets.

But I do want to let you know, there are a few resources that will be ready in a week or so and I did have some meetings that will lead to more posts and information coming over the next few weeks.

Let me start on Friday at the Library Insights Preconference. The things said on my panel are all things you have heard before here on RA for All. But I do want to talk about this panel and provide the info from what I am calling the most useful handout of the conference-- Tell me What to Publish: What Librarians Wish Publishers Knew:

What are readers asking for—and what aren’t they finding? In our closing conversation, librarians from across the country share insights from their circulation data, collection development priorities, and daily patron requests. We’ll look at what the metadata is revealing about genre trends and where publishers may be missing opportunities. From urban systems to rural branches, these experts will identify gaps in the marketplace, shifts in reading habits, and emerging categories ready for attention. Designed for publishers seeking actionable direction, this session delivers a rare, unfiltered look at what librarians truly wish you’d publish next.

Ann Lehue, Director, Collection and Metadata Development, Ingram

Christina Chatel, School Library Media Specialist, Boulan Park and Smith Middle Schools

Dr. Corinthia Price, President, International Association of School Librarianship

Stephen Sposato, Collection Development Manager, Chicago Public Library 

Click here for more info on the panelists.  

Ann from Ingram Content Group's Library Services made a two sided handout. One side was a great resource for the publishers. It's on how to  maximize sales to libraries and gives them lots of advice on what we like to see and the resources we use. On the bottom, says, "Libraries rely heavily on reviews for their push casing decisions." After that heading it has the link to all of the journals with their age conus and the link to where they submit for review.

The other side is a document entitled, "Publishing Trends and Gaps" and this is what the panel focused on. I have recreated that bulleted list here for all to see for free, with attribution to Ingram.

THIS HANDOUT IS RA AND COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT GOLD!!!!!

Please click through. These are the areas that are in demand at libraries for all ages. Please look through this list and use it to make displays and pass on to your children department and the people who order books. I am also hanging on to this for my end of the year reports. 

I want to link the info on the handout with a few other things I saw at the conference. Publishers (especially Harper Collins) were making sure to mention all of the titles they were now including in Large Print. There are a lot more than previous years. Also, speaking of HarperCollins, they had an entire section at their booth with the covers of audio ARCs available through Net Galley and QR codes to go directly to them. Here is that page. Multiple formats with ease were everywhere at the conference and I know all of that is great for us.

The woman who was one of the co-founders of the Young Teen Lit movement (also in the handout) was on the panel and talked at length about the issue shared their website: https://youngteenlit.com/. Go there to follow them and the authors and books they recommend. After seeing this panel Friday and was primed to notice the books that are being marketed to fill this gap while I was on the show floor. 

You can also read another report from the day here.

Now on to other things.

I want to thank everyone who came to my signing at the S&S Booth. Many of you said you saw it here on the blog. We had 80 books and I had 1 hour to sign them. I never imaged I would have 80 people come, let alone have one of those EPIC ALA links that has to be split by the booth, but I did. I met so many of you and signed those books in 70 minutes. Thank you all. Here are some photos of the line and me signing that Lila Denning took. And thank you to Melissa Croce and her assistant El. who ran the appearance.  They worked hard all conference. I know this because I went back to offer to help them with other things. 

On Sunday, Lila and I had a huddle (mentioned in this post with links to Lila's quick slide show of 5 Tips for Book Displays). Readers of this blog know what I talked about. We had 20+ people show up for a space ment for 6-8, including someone from a display shelving company. The biggest comments were that it should have been a panel. I agree. Maybe next year we will do that. 

Also welcome to my new readers from that event.

I also attended the Booklist/LibraryReads Read N Rave on Sunday. Booklist now has the blog post up with all of the titles here. Please consider voting for them for LibraryReads.

Finally, I got to see Tananarive Due on her LibraryReads panel, Monday. We were able to hug and celebrate our Stoker Award wins and take a selfie for our wonderful editor Joe Monti. I was so proud to see the room so excited for Due's new book--Mazywood. I have turned in my Booklist review and spoiler alert-- it is great and you can read my pre-review thoughts here. But when she spoke about it specifically, she talked about moving from the pain and trauma of writing The Reformatory and how Mazywood leads with joy. It really does, but I will say, joy for Horror people, maybe not everyone's idea of joy, because it both a novel of early Hollywood and the Black experience in it AND a good old-fashioned 1980s survival monster horror story. 

Here are photos from the panel and of me and Due celebrating our joy! Oh and a bonus pic of me and Lila in the audience (early Monday morning.)

That's enough for today. As I mentioned above, I have somethings to say about the Opening and closing ceremony and my overall experience. I will also link to reports from others.

Library People, Strap in For a Fight With the Author's Guild

As regular readers of the blog know, I have been working on a bill going through the IL legislature to stop the publishers and their predatory pricing of eBooks and eAudio for libraries. You can read here about when I went to Springfield to testify on the topic at the State House, including my written testimony.   

The Author's Guild filed with the committee we were testifying for stating they were against our bill to control prices. 

We passed 99-0 in the IL State House and since then, they have turned up the heat and have been actively releasing "data" and lobbying against our bill.

Last week I had this post about larger library groups coming together to fight back against the Author's Guild slander. Go here to read that.

Now they are upping their fight against us by trying to make it look like libraries are part of the reason why authors are not making money.

Here is the news story on the "report" they commissioned. It does not explicitly say libraries are part of their problem but it does lay the gourd world for that argument. Combined with the statements they have made formally against the bills circulating throughout various statehouse (as reported here), their intentions are clear. They are trying to throw us under the bus.

They are not protecting authors here. As you can see in my written testimony, they are protecting the publishers. Authors do NOT get more money when the publishers overcharge libraries for digital books and audiobooks. Remember I am an author as well as a librarian. I understand this issue from both sides, as I wrote about here.

I posted this on Bluesky yesterday and many authors are coming to our defense. Library workers are calling out the fact that this is all th publishers fault. I cannot keep up with my responses. Here is what I said there when I posted this link:

You all-- I never thought I'd see the day, but library peeps, strap in for a fight. The Author's Guild is going after us as the reason why authors are making less money. I don't think they understand who they are dealing with:

Also, authors (of which I am one), the Author's Guild does a lot of good generally, but they are WRONG here. They are trying to turn against us. There are over 12,000 public libraries in America and they are one of the only places reliably spending money on books every single day of the year.

Don't fall for these scare tactics. The best route toward improving our income from writing books is hand in hand with the library.

There is no call to action here for today. But this post is a warning to you all. We need to be aware that the Author's Guild is building a case against us. It has been in the shadows of state houses until now. Slowly they are laying the groundwork to throw us under the bus.  Please be on guard. 

I will keep everyone posted as well. 

Libraries Fighting Back [Together] on Unfair Digital Book Pricing [story via PW]

As I discussed in this post back in March, I have been actively involved in trying to get fair eBook pricing for libraries. I was in Springfield to jet rally support for IL House Bill 5236—The Digital Library Protection Act. From the ILA page Advocacy page about HB 5236:

What is House Bill 5236?

The Digital Library Protection Act, as known as House Bill 5236, aims to prevent publishers from imposing unfair restrictions on libraries when licensing eBooks, digital audiobooks, and other electronic literary materials. It prohibits contracts that would prevent libraries from performing their usual functions, like licensing materials from other publishers, using necessary technology for lending, making preservation copies, or participating in interlibrary loan systems. 

It prevents publishers from restricting a library's ability to determine loan periods, from charging libraries more than the public for the same item, or from limiting the number of licenses a library can acquire after an item is available to the public. The bill ensures libraries can continue to virtually share content for educational purposes and share licensing terms with other libraries in the state. 

In that post, I included my written testimony which was formally filed with the committee.  

Since then, the bill passed the IL House 99-0. It is currently sitting the senate but the Association of American Publishers and the Authors Guild’s denunciation of the passage of Illinois HB 5236. It will probably not get taken up until the Fall session due to the Chicago Bears sucking all of the energy out of the state house, but we are on the right track.

This denunciation by the Authors Guild is what I am currently battling against. They are wrong to oppose this. They are not protecting authors. They are actually hurting them. I talk about it in that previous post. Authors do not get more money when these books are sold for high prices to libraries, and in fact, fewer books by mid-list authors are purchased because of the high prices. 

Our next steps here in IL are to keep the library workers updated (I helped with a webinar on that), and, through me, reach out to specific authors to get them to support us. I am going to have to work to explain why they need to go against the Authors Guild-- which I support normally too, especially as we are connected with them through he HWA-- but in this case they are wrong to side with the publishers. 

Now that IL is making headway, 5 Large Library Organizations are finally speaking out to help those of us in CT and IL who have been going at it alone. We were the test cases and it is starting to work, so now others are reading to jump in and help us fight back. 

PW had this great article that will get you up to speed on the entire issue. From the first paragraph:

On May 27, five public library organizations from the U.S. and Canada released a statement, addressing the Big Five publishers and digital platform providers, in response to e-book pricing models. The Association for Rural and Small Libraries, Chief Officers of State Library Agencies, Canadian Urban Libraries Council, Public Library Association, and Urban Libraries Council all signed on to the letter.

Please click through to read the entire article. It explains where we are on a national lever here. Things are getting serious and we are close to FULL VICTORY. Also take a look at the Joint Statement Letter (linked above as well). From that letter:

Our organizations, representing the vast majority of public libraries across the US and Canada, call on the Big Five publishers, as well as platform providers, to come to the table to work with libraries to identify and implement sustainable solutions, no matter the format.

Mutually-beneficial solutions exist. These include the importance of usage-based e-book models that guarantee our communities actually have access to the materials their libraries have paid for, and the option for libraries to purchase perpetual-use models so we can ensure the preservation of knowledge remains a cornerstone of the public library.

Public libraries protect copyright and invest millions of dollars in curating collections that increase author discovery and promote titles and reading, and our book borrowers are book buyers. We’re important partners for publishers, and have shared concerns including declining literacy rates and fighting threats to intellectual freedom.

It’s time for a new dynamic, based in collaboration and mutual respect, that can build off those shared interests. It’s time to finally address – rather than ignore – this crisis. This helps everyone – libraries, authors, patrons, publishers – thrive.

Thank you to PW's Libraries reporter, Nathalie op de Beeck, for covering this so well. Now everyone in publishing has a clearer understanding of what we are fighting for. I hope authors and smaller publishers begin to understand that the Association of American Publishers and the Authors Guild are not fighting for them like they may think they are.

Feel free to use any or all of my letter to the IL House, in tandem with the PW article and the Joint Statement Letter, to do your own advocating.

NYT Shares How A Book Gets on Our Library Shelves Considering Post B&T Collapse Issues and Why This is All Part of Our Inability to Communicate Who We Are and What We Do

I talk at length about how bad we, as a profession are at communicating with the general pubic. I have a longer, more general post about that here. But I also have a tag for "communicate better" because whenever there is a big library issue, we DO NOT GET AHEAD OF IT and that hurts us.

My most recent example (before today) is the eBook pricing issue that I have been working on fixing here in IL-- for years, but it is finally going somewhere. Click here and here for that. That second link includes my letter that was filed as part of our hearing for the House. We got through the IL House with a 99-0 vote and are awaiting the Senate to move on it. 

When we communicate our needs and how our processes work clearly, people listen. Even when they are frustrated. And today I have a perfect example, except it was not US who stepped up to communicate it was the NYT.

Let me back track. 

As we all know, last year, B&T imploded. Yes I know many of you were too busy scrambling to communicate what was going on to your patrons, even as it led to delays in books getting on the shelf. This was our first mistake, to not designate someone to get the word out far and wide using the same energy we use to get the word out about a program we want to succeed. This is our bread and butter. The books we collect on our shelves.

Putting that aside, even though I should not. I need to call everyone out a bot further here because every single one of us who used B&T has known for years that there were serious problems with B&T. Yes some was from when they were hacked during the pandemic, but they were doing badly before that and it never improved after. Yes it was shocking when they simply shut down and stop serving us with no warning...BUT, come on, it was not like they were fulfilling our orders in a timely fashion, and forget about seeing new books for months if you used their cataloging services.

We should have not only been ready for them to implode, but we should have also been hiring staff to help us process what books we did get and shed their shoddy service.

But I digress. 

Months later, many libraries are still struggling to fill the hole. And look, I am not trying to minimize how devastating this was to libraries everywhere and of every size. BUT we have stayed silent about what it looks like on the ground. As libraries are dealing with book challenges, a call to provide more and more community services, so many other things, our inability to get the bestsellers people want on the shelves- that we stayed silent about.

This was our chance to make it clear that we are doing our best, that what it takes to get a book from ordered to on the shelf is complicated. We did not do that, and as a result, people who would have been our supporters, have been angry that they aren't getting our books. BECAUSE WE STAYED SILENT. BECAUSE WE DID NOT TEL OUR STORY FOR OURSELVES. We lost a chance to garner more goodwill. 

But thankfully the book reporters at the New York Times worked with Iowa City Public Library to tell our story to a wider audience. 

Here is the excellent, clear, and full of photos article they published. I have provided a gift link for you all.

And the article goes above and beyond the basics. For example, they explain in clear and easy language, how B&T was not just a place to order the books, nor was it only the place to order and have things processed, but also many libraries used their suite of services to help them get the right number of bestsellers on the shelves, whether that was predictive ordering or even standing order author plans. 

When I did collection development we had the 250 standing order author plan. Those were 250 authors (we updated it each year) that I never had to even think about. Their books just came to my library. Now, libraries have to remember to order every single James Patterson, Stephen King, Nora Roberts etc...

I have heard library people tell me that some of these more nuanced things are too complicated to explain to the public. Well, this article just proved that argument wrong. 

Please, please, please...I am begging all of you, as a library, prioritize communicating who we are and what we do with your community on a regular basis. Share how the sausage is made. Make it a part of your normal marketing. Again, use the same strategies you use to get people to come to your biggest program. Be clear, open, and communicative with your community and they will be hairier with our services while we will get taken advantage of a lot less often.

Thank you to the NYT for telling a story all of us needed to be shared with a wider audience.

Tana French Readalikes From a Variety of Humans as an Example to Help you Find Readalikes for Any Author

Tana French is one of those authors we library workers love to suggest for a variety of reasons.

First, she writes well constructed, twisty crime stories with great characters. There are so many entry points where a reader will get hooked by her storytelling. This means we have a very wide swath of potential readers to suggest her books to. Seriously, when in doubt or when I am stuck, to the FRE shelf I go.

Second, this ability to easily suggest French is also aided by the fact that except for three books in the Cal Hooper series. All of her other books do not have to be read in any order. Yes the Dublin Murder Squad books are numbered, but they are all related stories in the same world, it does not matter in which order you read them. This means, most days you can confidently go to the shelf and find a Tana French book there for a new reader to discover.

Third, not for nothing, they are also always great on audio. Again, another place where you might find a book available immediately. For example, on my Libby, there are currently 8 French titles without a wait on audio. And one is the first Cal Hooper, the rest are various Dublin Murder Squad.

Over the years, I have not been alone in going to French when I needed a sure bet title for fans of crime, literary fiction, psychological suspense, thrillers, suspense and honestly, those who had no idea what they wanted to read as long as it was a "good read," especially for those going on vacation. The success we have all had suggesting French, means that we are starting to see readers who have exhausted all her title.

It is a good problem to have, right? We have helped to make her a must read author. 

Since the last Cal Hooper is out and there are holds lists everywhere, and because many of those on hold have already read everything else, today I am sharing some HUMAN created resources for you to use to find new pathways for French readers to follow. But I also want you to understand, these specific resources are here for you to use as an example of a pathway you can take to help any reader find readalikes for their favorite authors while they are waiting for a new title.

• Love Tana French? Read These Books Next via the NYT (gift link): What I love about this extensive list is that it probes all of the different appeal entry points who why a reader might like French and then provides books that will scratch all this different itches.
• Five Reddit lists of Tana French readalikes: Click that link and a google search will run of results from different Reddit threads across various Reddit boards. What I love about these threads is that the people all write about WHY they like French. You can really narrow down a great option for a variety of different readers.
• If You Like Tana French via Seattle Public Library: anyone can access the title list, but only their card holders can place a hold. Also this is a library example. There are many. Search the largest library near you to see if they have a list you can use to build tour own.
• Goodreads Members Who Read Tana French Also Read, a list: Not as nuanced a list but it is crowdsourced info from real reader habits. One thing I have learned, readers' brains do not follow a plot-able algorithm. Sometimes they just like what they like, and this list showcases that fact with suggestions I have not seen on other lists. Sometimes we can try to match appeal factors all day, but people just like what they like and seeing some data that supports that is enough of a reason to make the match.
• Tana French herself recommends: Author recs of other authors is one of my 5 Resources you cannot live without. Here is one example (via Elle magazine) which I found via a Google search for  "Tana French recommends"
• Click here for a Literature Map for Tana French. The closer someone's name is to hers the more likely they think it is the reader will like them. These maps are created by users in a Pandora style of gathering recs and clicks. I love to try the authors on the fringes in these cases because they are your wildcard options. There was at least one reader who made this connection. Why not explore that one with your patrons. It will give them an outside the box suggestion that they never could have found without your help. In this case, I really like the Celeste Ng option. I never would have thought of that, but I know more than a few readers who which it is SPOT ON.
• And if you have NoveList access, don't just pop the author's name in and go with only the readalike authors that come up first. (I mean you should do that first, but you can do more.) You should also play around with the appeal factors, click on a few, and see what results you get. This will expand the search from the top author hits. And then you can narrow down further from that expanded list as well.

This is just a short list of options, but I made sure to pull them from completely different spaces; from resources that use a different method, but all of which rely on human input. This way you can see the range of ways you can find readalikes as well as providing you with resources for French specifically.

Apply this logic and this breadth of human created resources to help your readers find a readalike for their favorite authors. 

New Pew Research Report on Reading Habits Is Great, Yes, But Don't Sleep On All of Their Reports

The Pew Research Center is a great resource for information about how American interact with their world on a variety of topics, and their reports are always FREE. From their "About" page:

Pew Research Center is made up of intellectually curious people from across many fields, places and backgrounds. For decades, our expertise, best-in-class methods and commitment to high-quality, fact-based research have made us a trusted resource for leaders and everyday people around the world.  

Our mission

We generate a foundation of facts that enriches public dialogue and supports sound decision-making. We are nonprofit, nonpartisan and nonadvocacy. We value independence, objectivity, accuracy, rigor, humility, transparency and innovation. 

What do we mean by nonprofit? We are funded from charitable dollars. All our resources serve our mission. We do not do any work for hire. 

What do we mean by nonpartisan? We maintain strict impartiality and never align with any political group, candidate or ideology.

What do we mean by nonadvocacy? We study people’s views and behaviors without an agenda. We don’t make policy recommendations or offer solutions. We design our work to explain the public, rather than try to persuade.

Read more about our mission.  

Our research

We study a wide range of topics.

We decide what to study based on questions people are asking, changes happening in the world and gaps where clear information is hard to find. We focus on areas where our expertise, resources and intellectual curiosity can help people better understand the world around them.   

We take our responsibility to inform the public seriously. Every step of our work goes through multiple layers of review to ensure it is high quality and fact based. We share our data and survey questions so that all can see the process and how we arrived at our results.   

Our methods

We ask thousands of people of various ages, ethnicities and backgrounds to share what they think in a survey. We listen to what they say about jobs, politics, religion, education, health and more. We bring those voices together and summarize everything we hear. Before we publish anything, our work goes through several rounds of careful review to make sure it upholds our commitment to high-quality, fact-based research.    

Read more about our methods. 

Click through to read the entire page.

They have frequently turned their inquiries to topics surrounding books and reading, and this month they released one of those reports entitled, "Americans still opt for print books over digital or audio versions; few are in book clubs" at this link.

Please click through and read the entire report because there is A LOT you can learn here, and quite honestly, only you know which parts speak to your local experience, but a few highlights include:

• Print continues to be the only book format used by a majority of Americans.Roughly two-thirds of adults say they have read a physical book in the past 12 months, according to our October survey.
• Much smaller shares say they have read an e-book or listened to an audiobook in the past year.
• While most Americans have read at least one book in the past year, how many they read varies widely. As of October 2025:
• 38% of U.S. adults say they read one to five books in the past year
• 13% read six to 10
• 10% read 11 to 20
• 14% read more than 20
• And 25% of Americans say they read none.
• [Becky addition here: this is sayin 75% of Americans read 1 book!]

Note: Here are the questions used for this analysis, the topline and the survey methodology.

Please click through and especially look at the analysis and methodology which I linked to immediately above this line. It is at the end of the report. 

And finally, don't sleep on the older reports they have done on books and reading. You can access some of them in the right gutter of the report. But also use the menu bar to explore many of their other reports. Remember, we are serving readers and their likes and interests in general are driven by more than their reading habits. Since the Pew Research Center's reports are driven by intellectual curiosity and then focus on human behavior, there is a lot you can learn from many of their reports*

Don't keep your head stuck in a book. We need to be intellectually curious in order to best serve our patrons, to anticipate things they might be interested in by exploring the world outside of books. Go visit the Pew Research Center to stoke that curiosity, find out what Americans in general are thinking about, discover how they act, and then use that knowledge to think about how you are delivering your RA Service in a way that reflects actual behavior.

*This is also why AI cannot do our job. I wrote about this in more detail here.)

How to Predict the Buzziest Books via Book Riot Podcast and How to Help Patrons via Booklist

The April Book Riot new books podcast is all about how to try to predict what the buzziest book is going to be BEFORE it comes out. You can access the podcast and read more at this link, but here are the criteria they came up with to try to make these predictions: 

• Art – Is it good?

• Acclaim – Will it contend for awards and best-of lists?

• Sales – Where’s the money?

• Zeitgeist – What’s the buzz?

I found this list and their discussion about these 4 pillars fascinating on its own, but it also reminded me of  one of the presentations from last month's Booklist Ideas and Practice event: Four Cornerstones of Reader Interest by Heather Booth and Susan Maguire

I posted about the entire event at this link. But for short cut purposes:

• Access the recording at this link
• Access the slides at this link

Booth and Maguire listed the 4 cornerstones as Mood, Availability, Appeal, and Zeitgeist. This idea of buzzy books addressed by Book Riot above is very similar to Zeitgeist which they quickly defined as "The interest of the greater world, the community, friends, media, and more. If you scroll down here on slides you can see a few specific slides for Zeitgeist. And again you can click here to watch the recording and hear them expound on Zeitgeist and how we use it to help readers.

I really wanted to write about this presentation specifically after listening to the Book Riot podcast. The two things taken together really help to demystify the process of us helping readers when they want the buzziest books, especially when those titles seem to come out of nowhere (I'm giving you the side eye,  Theo of Golden).

I hope pairing these two separate but tangential resources helps you as much as it helped me.

Becky Goes to Springfield [IL] to Support House Bill 5236-- The Digital Library Protection Act.

As I mentioned on Bluesky, I spent yesterday going back and forth to Springfield IL to support House Bill 5236—The Digital Library Protection Act. From the ILA page Advocacy page about HB 5236:

What is House Bill 5236?

The Digital Library Protection Act, as known as House Bill 5236, aims to prevent publishers from imposing unfair restrictions on libraries when licensing eBooks, digital audiobooks, and other electronic literary materials. It prohibits contracts that would prevent libraries from performing their usual functions, like licensing materials from other publishers, using necessary technology for lending, making preservation copies, or participating in interlibrary loan systems. 

It prevents publishers from restricting a library's ability to determine loan periods, from charging libraries more than the public for the same item, or from limiting the number of licenses a library can acquire after an item is available to the public. The bill ensures libraries can continue to virtually share content for educational purposes and share licensing terms with other libraries in the state. 

If you live in IL, please register to attend our update tomorrow about everything that happened yesterday here.

Before I get to my official statement in support of the bill, I wanted to share a very short recap on what happened yesterday.

Click here for photos.

We were appearing in a show of support for this bill to move from the Consumer Protection Committee to the floor of the IL House. We did move forward with a 6-3 vote. This results what our lobbyist said would be a huge victory (it means we got one republican to vote for us in committee).

But I need to thank all of you who filed witness slips because while the bills that went before us reported that they have 5-10 witness slips in favor we had over 2700! The committee was impressed. But I also need to share that the anti witness slips were from places like Penguin Random House, the Authors Guild, and the American Publishers Association, so we need all the support we can get, especially from you PATRONS.

They noted in the hearing that most witness slips supporting were librarians. As we move forward we need to see the public get involved.

Please go to this page to follow our progress and see how you can educate your patrons to speak out in support. 

Right now our focus is on gathering the 60 votes we need from the IL House to pass this bill to the Senate. We need those in place and secured in 8 business days from today which is 4/9. (there are some closed dates around Easter).

What we need is for you to call your IL House Reps and talk to them about voting yes here. Now after the webinar tomorrow we will have updated advocacy scripts and advice. I will let you all know about that but it will all be here on the ILA's page with all of the info as linked above.

As my colleague Robin Bradford (and IL native) noted on Bluesky yesterday, "When you spend more money, your buying power shouldn't DECREASE. Someone is getting over like a fat rat and it ain't the people. Not the authors, either!"

Which leads exactly into the witness testimony I was asked to provide as Big 5 author, librarian, and trustee. It was officially filed into the record. I am sharing it here with all of you because no matter where you live, you can use this to advocate for this issue. In IL, I will be contacting reps outside of my district to speak as an author and as a former elected official myself. (Don't get me started as to how mad I am that the Authors Guild is against this bill, a bill which hurts every author, but they are doing what PRH tells them to do here. They are not fighting for us.)

CT has passed this legislation. We are moving to the House floor and NJ is right behind us. (which for me is poetic justice, the state I live in and the state I am from are leading the pack here.) If a few dominos fall, the Publishers will be forced to give up and make the rules fair for all libraries. Don't think for a moment what happens here in IL is not going to help every single library in the country. We are doing the work for all of you and we are happy to do it. I just wish Springfield wasn't 3.5 hours away. But with teamwork and carpools we made it happen. Again, check out the pictures here.

I hope to see of you at the webinar tomorrow as well.

My official witness testimony ends this post. Please feel free to quote me or just borrow the language to use for yourselves. And a huge thank you to Robin who provided the real time numbers for purchasing my specific book.

Submitted by Becky Siegel Spratford, Librarian, Author, and recently retired 24-year, elected Public Library Trustee for La Grange Public Library (Cook County).

I would like to thank the Consumer Protection Committee for giving me, and my colleagues from across Illinois, the opportunity to speak to you today about House Bill 5236—The Digital Library Protection Act. I am speaking to you in support of this bill and its aims to prevent publishers from imposing unfair restrictions on libraries when licensing eBooks, digital audiobooks, and other electronic literary materials. 

I would like to begin by sharing my personal experience as the author of WHY I LOVE HORROR: ESSAYS ON HORROR LITERATURE which was published in September 2025 by Saga Press, an imprint of Simon and Schuster. The print version of my book retails for $18 while the physical CD of the audiobook is $34.99. Consumers can buy a digital copy of my book from Amazon for $13.99 and digital audio for $13.02, via Amazon.

However, if a library would like to purchase my book for their library collections the cost of the ebook is not only inflated to $59.99 for one use at a time, but also that purchase is only for 24 months. After that time, the book simply disappears from the library’s collection and must be re-purchased again for that same price with those same terms. The digital audio is inflated to $69.99, again for one use at a time, for only 24 months.

In my opinion, this is the definition of price gouging, and since libraries are using tax dollars to purchase books for their collection, the victims are our citizens, the very people this committee is responsible for protecting. 

I want to be clear here, because I have been asked about this before, Simon and Schuster is not crediting my author account for sales dollars above and beyond the list price of my book when they make a digital sale at those inflated prices to a library. And again, unlike my print book, which can circulate as many times as possible, the libraries who purchase the digital versions of my book, only “own” them for 24 months from the date of purchase.

As of this writing, the print, digital audio, and digital ebook of my title are checked out from my library. But in less than 24 months from today, the print will still be on the shelf while the digital book and audio will disappear. Access will be denied to those who want to read it. As a librarian, I am not sure even if I would make the choice to reorder this book digitally at those prices, especially knowing the print is there for people— and let me stress, this is my book I am talking about. 

Now, multiply this financial decision about my book by thousands because as you have heard from my colleagues today, my book is but one example of this extremely unfair and, quite frankly, unsustainable system.

However, my irritation and anger as an author and librarian is eclipsed by how unfair I know the current system is for our citizens. I worked tirelessly as an elected Library Trustee to give the citizens of La Grange, IL the most efficient and effective service for six full terms, from May 2001-April 2025. The current system puts Library Trustees between a rock and a hard place. 

On my board we were regularly briefed on how popular our digital materials were, while we were also told about the price disparity between digital and physical copies. We always wanted to use our taxpayers’ dollars efficiently and effectively. We weighed the cost versus the need. We made sure the staff had access to enough money to give our patrons the titles they wanted, in the formats they wanted. 

But even for a well-funded library like La Grange Public Library, this was not easy. We had to get creative with our budget and we even used grants to help bridge the funding gaps. Many of our fellow libraries across the state don’t have the financial resources we did, however, and their patrons (citizens who give their tax dollars for their library’s collections), are forced to go without digital access to many of the books they want to read in those formats.

As you can see, I am engaged with this issue from all sides. I care deeply about making sure readers have access to the books they want from the public library, whether I have written that book or not. I also want my book in the public library. I want readers to be able to find my book on the shelf, be that a digital shelf or a physical one. I am proud that people can find my book at their public library. But I am saddened that in order for a library to have my book, they have to pay through the nose, and even after making that choice and paying those steep prices, they don’t even have access to it after two years.

This is most unfair to the consumers. Yes, the literal consumer is the library here, but really, since we are using taxpayer dollars, the consumer is our citizens. Even worse, they have no idea that they are being price gouged. 

As an author for one of the largest publishers, I also understand that we need to make money—the publisher and myself. But in the current price structure system, I am not making any more money, the library is paying a lot more, the taxpayers are being price gouged, and only the publisher is profiting.

I am so thankful that you are hearing testimony on this important issue. I hope my testimony can help you move House Bill 5236 on to the full House.

Thank you for your time and attention.

Flashback Post: Allow People to Dislike the Books You Suggest

Today I am reposting something from 2017. There are a few reasons why I am doing this.

First, I know there is a lot of good content buried on the blog, content that I use in my live training programs, so I think more people are seeing it than they really are. I need to be better about pulling out older content that is foundational to everything I teach.

Which leads to second, in 2023 I debuted the idea of using "conversation starters" as the basis for all of your service to readers but again, the foundation for this goes back much further. Here is one of those examples of where I worked through these ideas in real time with all of you.

Third, I get new people on this journey with me all of the time. By pulling out older posts, you can see examples of what is there to find if you dig through the archives and use the tags to guide you.

So here is today's flashback post.

Call to Action: Allow People To Dislike The Books You Suggest

For today’s Call to Action, I want to remind you of something very important, something that can derail library workers as they begin to help more readers...

If patrons don't like every book you suggested to them, that’s not only okay, it is actually a good thing!

Failure in general teaches you way more than success.  But in particular, why is getting a book suggestion wrong a good thing in our work with leisure readers? Well, honestly, we learn so much more from patrons when they don’t like something. They share much more detail about what they want to read and why when they are talking about what they did not enjoy. Think about yourself. It is much easier to articulate why you disliked a book than why you liked it. And, this information helps us to fine tune future book suggestions.

Take the example from my own reading that I include on my staff reader profile exercise:

Just about every single RA resource [from computers to people] has told me over the years that I should like Outlander, but I don’t. Understanding this nuance as to why I did not like it, has helped me to not only understand how to find better books for myself, but it has also made me more aware of the intricacies in helping readers. It has also allowed me to understand that everyone makes a bad suggestion now and again and no amount of research can stop that from happening because working with people is never predictable.

Now, while failure is both inevitable and leads to more information we can use to help our patrons better, there is actually a larger, more overarching reason why getting a suggestion wrong is helpful. In general, the biggest missing piece in established RA Service in America today is feedback. I know this from my personal experience and from the hundreds of library workers I encounter in my work.

More often that not, we suggest a book or two or three to a patron and we never hear back about how we did. Many times patrons come to us over and over for suggestions without ever letting us know what they have liked or disliked about our suggestions. We can’t even get them to tell us which methods of book discovery we are providing they like the most. Now, over the years, I have worked intensely with a few patrons [I still continue to work with one from my former library, weekly] to get very specific and detailed responses to every book I suggest. This non-scientific research has been time consuming, but I have learned a few things I want to share with you.

The best way we can encourage feedback is to make time and space for conversation at the library.

People are afraid to tell us that they didn’t like the book not because they think we will get it wrong again; no, that is not what is going on at all. I have found that more often than not, they are afraid to tell us we got it wrong because they are worried that we will have hurt feelings and won’t help them anymore.

That’s right, they still want our help when we get it wrong. This fact alone should free you up to accept more failure. They don’t want to lose you, their book discovery tool. They care much less about how much they liked your suggestion than we think they do. Add to this that we, as a group of library workers serving leisure readers, are starved for more feedback and you can begin to see one of our biggest hurdles we have to taking the next step toward more robust RA Service.

So how to stop this vicious cycle and create the space to fail on a suggestion but win at RA Service overall? One of my favorite tools is to make sure every time I suggest a book to a patron that I tell him or her something like, “Based on what you have told me about the books you have enjoyed in the past, this seems like a good option. But, if you aren’t enjoying it, bring it back and let me know. I have thousands of more options. We will find the right book for you. Besides, it’s no skin off my back, I didn’t write it.”

This mix of humor with a gentle reminder that not only do I not mind criticism, but that I have so many more books that I can substitute this one “dud” with, goes a long way toward enraging feedback and creating a space where the RA Conversation can not only live but flourish.

Of course, you don’t have a physical interaction with every patron; therefore, why don’t you start including statements like this on your digital and paper lists and bibliographies, or even stick a note at the end of some of the books. Have a statement like the one above. Something like, “Let us know if you loved this book, hated it, or fell somewhere in between. We want to know so we can help you better!” Have an email address, your phone number, your Facebook page-- multiple places where feedback can be given, but you have to make sure you are letting them know that negative feedback is okay.

When we make the RA conversation-- a truly honest back and forth sharing of ideas and preferences-- our priority and stop making the book we suggest our ultimate goal, then we are encouraging the RA journey. When you encourage the journey it doesn’t matter if your patrons love every book you give them. What begins to matter is HOW they felt about the book-- positively or negatively. Then we learn what our patrons want to read and why-- each one individually and overall as a population we are serving as a whole.

When you encourage the journey and do not put the focus on yourselves [or your employees] to get every suggestion right, you encourage the feedback we all desperately crave.

Now don’t worry about having to force a failure in order to practice this Call to Action; they will come.  The more RA work you do, the more you will get wrong. And, the more you help a specific patron the more he or she will feel comfortable telling you the honest truth about how much they liked or disliked a suggestion.

Get out there and make suggestions. Don’t be afraid of failure; in fact, let the patrons know you might get it wrong and encourage them to come back and work with you more. Let them know how helpful it is for them AND you to have the most feedback-- positive and negative-- possible. It will  help them get access to the perfect book for them and it will help you to help even more readers.

For past Call to Action posts, click here.

Making Book Recommendations By Thinking Like a Reader NOT a Librarian

One of the biggest problems we cause in our service to readers (yes, you read that correctly, "we cause"), is that we approach our interactions with our readers as if they are as plugged in to the entire book world as we are.

Yes library patrons do know more about the book world than you average person off the street, but they are not as aware as we are. We often forget that they haven't read all of last year's buzzy books let alone those from a few years ago. They barely remember the 2025 busy titles and they don't even remember those from 2024 or later. Most of us barely do. But they are all great reads.

Yes they are hearing about the newest books like we are, but they need us to remind them of the great books they missed. As I have said here and in my training programs many times before-- our job is to let people know about the books they would not find without our help.

This is something that BookTok gets correct by the way. Yes it is annoying when there is a book that we had forgotten about, maybe even weeded, that goes viral on there, but most of the time, the books those reader/influencers are "discovering" is a backlist title that we know about but have forgotten to promote to our readers in a while.

The vast majority of the books we have in our collections are NOT on the new shelf. I know this sounds obvious but admit it, you forget about the gems in the stacks in favor of the new shelf all the time. 

And honestly, our patrons tend to care about the newest books for 2 reasons. 1. They are a fan of that authors and are excited for a new title. 2. Those are the books everyone is talking about so they figure, these titles must be worth a try. And 2a. it is very hard and overwhelming to find a good read in the shelves and shelves and shelves of titles to choose from. Where do they begin? Oh look here is a shelf of books that came out in the last 6 months. I'll start there.

So how do we help them consider all of their options when looking for a good read. Well one way to begin is something I also talk and write about all of the time-- conversation starters. We should be helping people find books based on natural language questions, vibes, or very wide appeal factors. This is how we can connect people with books they will enjoy overall without worrying about what happens in the books. Again, another thing I write and talk about all the time-- we need to focus on why someone would like the book, and not focus on what happens in it.

And here is a great example of how to do this from Goodreads' Blog entitled Personality Picks! 136 Book Recommendations for (Nearly) Every Type of Reader. From the introduction.

What kind of reader are you?
 
That’s the thesis question for our Personality Picks collection of book recommendations, an experimental new sorting technique that we’re developing here in the Goodreads Labs. Our editorial team is constantly researching better and more efficient ways to turn a big pile of books into lots of littler piles of books.
 
As such, the categories below are based on common reader types we’ve observed in the Goodreads ecosystem and in the wild. This is a carefully curated collection and can be useful in a couple of different ways. If you think you know your reader type (or the reader type for whom you are buying a gift), then just jump to the appropriate header below: the Eternal Optimist Reader, for instance, or the Vibes Reader.
 
On the other hand, you can work backward and just scan below for the books you’ve already read or that you want to read. If you find a significant cluster, then scroll up to see your reader type. You may discover that you’re an Avant Garde Reader, or a Snug-at-Home Reader, or maybe an "I Just Listened to an NPR Segment About That" Reader.
 
We’ve also thrown in a few playful categories as we work out the proper taxonomy system. The Random Hyperfixation Reader, for example, may look hauntingly familiar. 

Click here to see the lists. But notice, these are natural language categories that include a variety of titles from multiple genres. That is how readers think.

You should use them to make some displays and lists. Idea-- use the title from Goodreads and put post-it notes on the books identifying the personality type. Mix them all up in one display. Or post the Goodreads link to your online spaces and ask people to leave comments as to what they would add to the lists.

You can also make up your own "personalities" and books to add to the mix. All of this show your community that you are thinking like a reader, trying to connect your collections to their interests in a way that prioritizes finding them a great read that they could not have found without your help.

Most of the work is done for you here, but you can also take it a step further and get your patrons involved as well. Go here and follow my conversation starter to displays advice and learn how to get them to suggest books and personality types to you so you can make them a part of your displays and lists.

But, and this is the but that will get you off your butt to do this extra step....while gathering patron input is fun and shows them that you are listening to them, this "reader personality" version of my Conversation Starter to Display exercise is extremely useful to plan your collections and service to readers. Why? Well because when you ask your readers what their "reading personality" is (especially when you give examples to get them started thinking about it) you are actually asking them to tell you what their favorite appeal factors are! 

Appeal factors are how we library workers think, and "reading personality" is simply a way to ask this in regular person language. When we do this we are thinking like our readers. And the resulting answers we will collect will give us a glimpse of what they like to read and why. This allows us to make better purchasing choices and provide displays and lists to help them navigate all of the books we have already under our roofs; titles they would love if only they knew about them.

This post is an example of how I think you should be working with your readers all of the time. For some, this is a huge change in direction, but it isn't hard because we are all readers too. Connect with your own inner reader and I promise, you will have happier patrons.