RA for All Off Until Monday

 I am taking a long weekend and will return on Monday with the May LibraryReads List.

Super Library Marketing 2023 Guide to Social Media

Angela Hursh of Super Library Marketing has a set of best practice guides for using social media in libraries, completely updated for 2023. She has one for:

• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• TikTok
• YouTube
• Instagram
• Twitter

Each post goes into well researched and tested detail about how to use the specific special media for your library in the most efficient and effective ways.

I have used her advice in the past and will be sure to update my practices going forward.

Trust me, she knows better than you. Everyone has something to learn from these articles.

New Booktalking Exercise Worksheet: Conversation Starters to Display

My Booktalk Your Way to the Friendliest Library in Town program has been on my slate of "basics" programs for years, but over those years, it has gone through a huge transformation. It used to be all about talking at patrons with prepared statements and now it is about encouraging impromptu conversations. You can click through to see a recent version of that presentation.

The key to that transformation is conversation starters. I have many posts with conversation starter examples here. But recently, I have added an exercise as well, to take it all a step further and turn your conversation starter questions and conversations into displays. In other words, taking the work you are already doing and helping it help you serve patrons more efficiently and effectively.

Here is the link to that form. I have also posted its content at the end of this post. I will be adding it to the 10 Rule of Basic RA page as well. 

The idea here is that you can use these questions in small groups of staff to practice sharing books with readers through natural language questions. This allows you to have a conversation, and removes the instinct to make the RA interaction all about a transaction. I always suggest trying it out in staff only groups a few times first though because it is different. Not having an end point or a prepared statement about a few titles is a bit disconcerting at first. But it doesn't take long for staff to realize that talking about books without an end goal is literally why they became a library worker.

Also, using the same conversation starter with different people illustrates how the same questions can lead to completely different interactions. 

Once staff are comfortable, they can move on to trying out these conversation starters with patrons.

The more conversations we have with patrons, the more relationships we build. Relationships lead to more checkouts and engagement. That goes a lot further than putting a single book in a readers hand when they ask for something to read.

Conversations with different people also ensures that we get a side array of titles mentioned and suggested. Relying on the same 4 staff members to always come up with the ideas makes for stale and receptive displays, lists, and suggestions.

Setting up the expectation that the library is a place where people come to talk about books, book news, what they are reading, what they want to read, etc.... will also lead to more RA questions.

Once you practice among yourselves, you will not only see how focusing on having a conversation makes your RA Service better, but you will also have a list of titles that you can confidently suggest to others. 

This is what I teach when I offer my Booktalk Your Way to the Friendliest Library in Town program. I put people in small groups while I am there in person, and then send them off with the the form to ask patrons as well.

But we don't only have to ask verbally. Turn these six questions into books marks, with one question on the top of each. Leave them out on your displays, at the end of rows, on your desk. Also, put them in every book on the holds shelf. Place a note at the bottom to have them return it with their item. Gather the answers and turn them into the displays with the titles I suggest below.

Ask your staff as well. Get as many people involved as possible. Keep a spreadsheet of the answers and mark when books show up multiple times because not only will these titles make for great displays, they will also be excellent suggestions when you are in a hurry. And if a book is mentioned by a wide swath of readers, you can suggest it with more confidence.

And these questions are not specific to any service area. You can make a list for children and teen as easily as adult. The same questions will serve all service areas.

Remind patrons that their answers will be used to build displays and make lists (you can note that on the bookmark as well). This is very important because it goes toward the conversation leading to relationships as I mentioned above. Patrons will come back to the library to see a book they mentioned on a display. No you won't be noting who suggested it anywhere on your displays or lists (in fact, do not ask for names on the bookmarks to ensure privacy), and some books will be mentioned by multiple people, but when a patron sees a book they mentioned on a display, they will know you heard them. They will see that you truly want to be in conversation with them.

And, they will tell their friends. Don't underestimate this. I have seen it happen. I have seen patrons bring a friend to show them a display where a book they suggested is featured. This not only solidifies your relationship with that patron, but its is the start of a new one with the friend.

Feel free to use this exercise sheet with your staff or patrons. And if you have success (or questions), let me know. I can feature you here on the blog. 

1. What book made you forget you were reading? 

   Turn answers into a "Get Lost in a Good Book" display/list 

2. What was the book you had the most fun reading?

   Turn answers into a "Fun Reads" display/list

3. What book do you recommend to everyone you know? 

   Turn answers into a "Sure Bets" display/list

4. What was the book that most surprised you?

   Turn answers into a "These Books Surprised Our Readers" display/list

5. What is your  favorite “Under the Radar Book”

   Turn answers into a "Forgotten Favorites" display/list

6. What is your favorite type of story?

   Use the natural language answers to come up with fresh list and display ideas.

Mystery Writers of America Symposium: Free On YouTube

Later this month the Edgar Awards will be announced. For those who do not know, the Edgar Awards are given out my the Mystery Writers of America and are the most prestigious crime fiction awards.

This year, the MWA hosted a virtual symposium consisting of panel discussions, one for each category of the awards. The nominees had hour long discussions together with a moderator.

Click here to see the full playlist.

This videos are a great way for the MWA to honor all of the nominees, giving each a chance to shine in their categories. These videos are joyful. Everyone happy for each other and the share in their acclaim. 

They are also a great resource for us. We can learn more about each book and the authors who wrote them. We can use that information to help make further reading suggestions. And we can also direct our crime and mystery fans to these videos for their own enjoyment.

Click here to watch the videos

Start your week off right with some joy and learn about the very best titles in one of the most popular genres in your library. 

Passover Reading via The Jewish Book Council

Passover is the most widely celebrated Jewish holiday, especially in America. It is a time of reflection and celebration. It is a holiday that is celebrated at home and is extremely participatory, including every member of the family, not matter how young or old. It is a celebration of our people's freedom after years of bondage. And most importantly, it is a holiday that focuses on joy!

This 2011 transcript from NPR is still  one of my favorite explanations of the holiday. Entitled, "Passover 101," you can access it here by reading or listening.

I realize more of you are not Jewish than are, but making some kind of display or sharing a list is a good idea. It's being mentioned in the news piquing interest. Anticipate that interest by having a display of books right in front of them when they visit. 

But, how do you do that when you are not aware of the best titles or not that well versed in the holiday itself? What we always do in libraries-- use resources.

The Jewish Book Council is my go to recourse for all new related to Jewish Books, Awards, Notable Books lists, and information.

In honor of Passover, they asked ten Jewish writers to share Passover reading recommendations here. Take these two books and the ten authors and put up a display, make a list for online use, or just share the link on your digital platforms. You can also use this link to pull up every post they have ever done tagged Passover, including kids' books.

What you should NOT do is pull books about the Holocaust or historical fiction that is set during WWII, most of which is written by non-Jews.

This is one of the main points Robin and I make in our Anti-Racist training programs, do not only put out books that reflect stereotypes. For example, as Robin shares, Black people don't only want to read books about slavery and Jewish people do not only want to read books set during the Holocaust. [But those who do not identify as either want the trauma titles which is a larger issue, one I don't have time to delve into here but do in our training programs. You can also read Read People Love Dead Jews by Dara Horn and apply it to Blacks as well. Very unsettling but totally true.] 

Passover goes until the middle of next week, but you can keep the display up through the week. In fact, in general, for displays that are about holiday, you should always get them up before it starts AND keep them up after. People will still be thinking about a holiday right after it ends and you want to still have materials available.

Have a great weekend. If you celebrate a holiday this weekend, I hope you have wonderful time. 

Using Awards Lists as a RA Tool: National Book Foundation's 5 Under 35 List

This is part of my ongoing series on using Awards Lists as a RA tool. Click here for all posts in the series in reverse chronological order. Click here for the first post which outlines the details how to use awards lists as a RA tool.

Click for more

Every year one of my favorite lists is the National Book Foundation's 5 Under 35 list. It's not that I think you have to be young to be a great writer, but I love how writers who have won National Book Awards and even some who have have this honor get to pick the new class each year. More about the honor and its mission here.

I also love this list for its RA Service implications and for what you can learn and use from the backlist. Below I explain why you should like and use this list all year long too.

[Click here to see the 2023 list of 5 Under 35 and which author chose that person.]  
 
First, this list is awesome. It is not just the young authors who are being highlighted, the established authors are also a great resource. You get 10 suggested authors from this 5 person list. 

Which leads to second, the established authors are your conversation starter and readalike stepping stone. So when you see: 

Morgan Talty, Night of the Living Rez
Tin House Books
Selected by Karen Russell, 2009 5 Under 35 Honoree

You can confidently suggest Talty to fans of  Karen Russell. This fits in with one of my "5 Resources You Cannot Live Without" from my 10 Rules of Basic RA page-- Author Recs of Other Authors. Click here for a longer post where I explain why authors recommending other authors is a near perfect readalike option. 

Third, the backlist is amazing. Seriously. Even more amazing than backlists usually are, and many of you know how excited I get about the backlist in general. You can access the winners and the authors who chose them going back to 2006 from the main 5 Under 35 page (scroll the bottom). I scanned many of the lists and WOW, did they identify some amazing authors who are household names now. Karen Russell above is one of those examples. Yes, there are a few who never broke through, but it is amazing how many have. You can easily use the backlist list of winners to help readers identify good under the radar reads, especially for your literary fiction and book club selection readers. You can also make a display of current and past winners.

I know some people will say, Becky these authors are emerging and at my library I can barely afford to get the established authors. But it would be a mistake to ignore these "emerging voices" for many reasons-- 3 of which I gave you here. 

Don't sleep on new voices. They will have wide appeal  on their own AND you can use establish  authors to  book talk them to your readers.

Backlist Author Suggestions

[Ed note: Yesterday, I mentioned I would need a few days to get back on track, but it turns out I only needed yesterday.]

Recently I was working on this review and I thought, "You know who would be a great readalike for this? Hannah Tinti." When I had that thought, I stopped what I was doing and immediately went  to see if she had something new. She does not. But it had me getting nostalgic for how much I loved her first 2 novels.

Tinti's books captivate me. I literally cannot get them out of my head. They are slightly askew, creppy, unsettling, and immersive. They overlap with so many genres that they also appeal to a wide range of readers. And, they have received critical acclaim, so you probably have them on your shelves. I could go on and on, but instead look at all of these times I have mentioned her on the blog, many of those mentions as a readalike to something else.

This got me thinking about reminding all of you about Tinti specifically, but also of backlist authors in general, especially  those who haven't had something new in a while. Their backlist titles fall off of our radar when new books aren't coming. And in this case, they should not. These are great reads for a wide audience. 

As I say frequently, we are here to help get the books into our patrons hands that they would never find without our help. I have a much longer post about this from February here. One fun way to discover backlist gems is to go peruse your own reading logs from years ago, best lists from past years, or even old LibraryReads lists because they are 10 years old now!

So today, I am encouraging you to take a trip in the wayback machine and find a gem that you used to love and suggest to everyone. Revive that title. Put it out on display. Suggest it to a reader for whom it is new to them. Ask others to look for titles and authors that fit this category for them. And turn it all into a "Backlist Gems" display in your building, on your websites, and social media. Our backlist is our biggest asset. We have way more backlist books than new ones. It's a huge investment and it is hiding literally gems. Let's get to work.

To help you get started or to at the very least give you one backlist author you can suggest with confidence, using my words if you want. I have links below.

The Good Thief

• Here is my original review of the book in October 2008
• It made my Best Books I Read in 2008 list. 
• Here is the book discussion report from when my old library book group read it in 2010

The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley

• Here is my original review from April 2018
• It made my Best Books I Read in 2018 list.

The Appeal of Locked Room Mysteries via CrimeReads

I am coming off of a week away, and am catching ups on a lot of work, so the next few days, I am passing on posts I think you need to see.

First up, from CrimeReads: Why Audiences are So Captivated by Locked Room Mysteries.

This is written by author Gigi Pandian and it is perfect for library workers who help leisure readers of any age.

She breaks down the appeal of this specific subgenre of Mystery. It is a great read to educate yourself on why this subgenre endures over time, and I would agree across all ages of readers. But also, you can use her reasoning as interview questions as you help readers.

It also includes a link to this Locked Room Mysteries Starter Guide.

Tomorrow, I will have a similar post before I get back to more regularly content Thursday. But I will say, for a quick post this article has a lot of content for you to help readers, add to your collections, and make displays right now.

RA for All Off Today

I'll be back tomorrow. 

What I'm Reading: The Ferryman and Evil Whispers

It's a busy publication month for my reviews. Yesterday, my April review column dropped. Click 

Today the April 1, 2023 issue of Booklist is live and I have 2 reviews, one by a Lifetime Achievement Award winning Horror authors and the other a long awaited new novel by a best selling authors. Both are great.

Below I have my draft reviews with extra info and of course, my three words.

To begin, I have Justin Cronin's brand new, eagerly awaited new book, a stand alone dystopian novel that well, read the review....

STAR
The Ferryman
By Justin Cronin
May 2023. 560p. Ballantine, $30 (9780525619475); e-book (9780525619482). 
First published April 1, 2023 (Booklist).

Fans of The Passage series have been waiting for a new book by Cronin since 2016, but thankfully, it was worth it as he delivers a chilling, original, and immersive standalone science fiction tale perfectly rendered for our tumultuous times. Proctor Bennet lives on the island of Prospera, where everyone is protected from the horrors unfolding on the mainland. The people of Prospera are healthy and wealthy, everyone spends their time pursuing their passions, and when their time is up, they retire to the Nursery, an island where they are “reiterated,” their minds erased before being reintroduced back into society. As the head “Ferryman,” Proctor is in charge of this journey, until that is, he is called to the home of his estranged father to facilitate a rare forced retirement, and this unsettling and sinister dystopia begins to implode. At its heart, however, this is a novel about storytelling, a meticulously built tale that begs the reader to allow themselves to be swept away, greatly rewarding those who surrender and trust the designer to sail them to the finish. A  great option for fans of the accessible, compelling, and thought-provoking science fiction of authors such as Blake Crouch, Cherie Dimaline, and Neal Stephenson.

Further Appeal: 

A line I had to cut: While Proctor is the reader's guide, the narrative is greatly enhanced by the perspective of a few more key characters, so that as the unsettling and sinister dystopia begins to implode, every character and even the reader face an emotional moment of reckoning. 

I liked how Proctor is the only first person narrator but we get the perspectives of others. I liked it while reading and after the twist it makes even more sense. 

Even people who don't love dystopias will enjoy this because at its heart, this is book about storytelling-- the strengths and weakness of storytelling, the issues present author and reader and characters interact. But it  is also a highly entertaining well paced dystopian story. That interplay is very cool.

This is highly unsettling Science Fiction, a dystopia but with a bit more, and yet, firmly rooted in the genre tropes while still pushing their boundaries. Original and totally immersive, with so much to think about once you finish. But again, just read it. Don't try to figure it out; Proctor's confusion is our confusion. There is a puzzle to figure out and we only have the info that Proctor has. Trust Cronin to make it worth it.

Finally, the words designer and sail in the review above are key. This is not a spoiler before you read it, but after you read it, you will appreciate the word choice. I get 200 words, so I have to make them work double duty.

A few more random notes from while I was reading:

• The less you say about plot here the better, not because it will give anything away, but because it is getting lost in the storytelling that will allow you to love this book– very much like Blake Crouch– who readers trust to take them to the finish. Don’t try to figure it out. JUST READ. Old fashioned in that sense and yet, the story is very much driven by right now. 
• Takes on so many social, economic, and climate issues, without feeling like it is doing to much. Storytelling!
• Original, thought provoking, and immersive, but most importantly, accessible, Cronin has delivered a standard bearer, a Science Fiction tale for our times, once that seamlessly incorporates many themes and concern of our very best stories. 
• Unsettling from the opening prologue, setting itself up as a recognizable sinister, dystopian novel, 

Three Words That Describe This Book: compelling, immersive, thought provoking

Readalikes: Anything by Blake Crouch but especially Recursion w/ a touch of Seveneves by Stevenson and The Marrow Thieves by Dimaline. 

A few more readalikes: Paolo Bacigalupi, Never Let Me Go by Ishiguro, Wendig’s Wanderers, Margaret Atwood as well. Some have said Westworld and Lost as TV watch likes but I think those are not as wide in scope and themes as this novel.

Now for something completely different, a well executed. old fashioned, pulp horror novel, but with a twist.

Evil Whispers

By Owl Goingback

May 2023. 300p. Cemetery Dance, $18.99  (9781587678745); e-book, $4.99  (9781587678851). 

First published April 1, 2023 (Booklist).

Robert, Janet and 10 year-old Krissy, have come to central Florida for a vacation at a remote fishing camp. On their first canoe trip, they discover an eerie swamp, a swamp that readers know, by way of a visceral and terrifying prologue, was the home of an evil Voodoo priest who was defeated but not destroyed in 1831 by the Seminole Tribe, setting in motion a tale of a vengeful ancient evil, the solitary Semiole Indian who has been left to protect the world from its return, and the young girl who is sucked into the horror. With multiple points of view and a strong sense of place, Goingback adds nuance to what could be stereotypical portrayals, all while the pacing and dread uncomfortably increases, until it bursts open in a horrific finale. Evil Whispers stands as proof that the classic, pulp horror storytelling style can not only remain vibrant but that it can also pay homage to its inspiration while actively casting off the racism and cultural appropriation that anchored so many titles from the Paperbacks from Hell era. 

Further Appeal: Owl Goingback is a HWA Lifetime Achievement Award winner, a Native American writer who paved the way for so many while writing award winning classics pulp horror. I love how he always takes the recast Native American trope and turns it on its head. Click here for a list of his awards and a bio. Goingback will be a Guest of Honor at StokerCon 2023 and will be appearing at Librarians' Day. Click here for more on that.

In terms of this book, it has everything great pulp horror has-- fast pace, shifting point of view (even to those about to die and only for that moment before they die), a complex and terrifying monster. Speaking of that monster, the reader knows exactly who that is with the terrifying prologue. 

Jimmy is the hero, he has agency, and he knows more than everyone else but everyone dismisses him because Native, even though his entire job is to protect the entire world from the "monster."

Speaking of that monster, the reader knows from the start in the prologue, who the extremely evil villain is and that he is in the swamp. We know what is coming as readers, an we can't wait to watch it all play out.

The pacing also harkens back to classic pulps: compelling in part 1 to set up setting and intrigue and danger and faster and faster pedal to metal in part 2.

Three Words That Describe This Book: strong sense of place, revenge, steadily increasing terror

Readalikes: Easiest to begin with the Valancourt line of Paperback From Hell and of course, Grady  Hendrix's Paperbacks from Hell. 

Also the old Leisure books line titles. I will use Brian Keen's Castaways as the example here. 

But really the appeal here is in the pulp storytelling from the marginalized perspective; adding new life to this fun storytelling style by allowing new voices to give it a try. The results are AWESOME. Other great examples:

• Mayan Blue by Sisters of Slaughter
• Queen of Teeth by Hailey Piper
• Anything by V. Castro but the best match here is Goddess of Filth
• Jackal by Erin Adams

If you take those last 2 suggestions and smoosh them together, you've got a perfect tonal and thematic readalike for Evil Whispers.

I know I have had a lot of reviews to end the week, but look at it as a windfall for  your collection development, not as an attempt to topple your TBR.

I am taking Monday off, so see you Tuesday.