I think the best way to market anything is by word of mouth. Personal recommendations, tailored by someone who knows you and how you go about furnishing the inside of your brain, are the way to go. A dedicated reader’s advisory librarian who is allowed to spend time talking to people and keeping up with what people like to read would fit the bill. Before I began to think of taking classes in library science, a friend of mine who was a librarian often magically found me books I loved and it was such a godsend, and a gift. Saricks’ idea of the signs pointing to the desk of a librarian with RA duties (Saricks 2005, p. 139) is a cheerful idea to me.
However, I sincerely doubt this to be practical. Having moved so often during my lifetime, I dislike having to do all the groundwork of getting to know staff before I find the book I’m looking for, and often staff has no time to spend with me as a reader. Sometimes librarians are quite simply not approachable people even though they may be technically very efficient. So perhaps passive programming is the way to go.
Bill Carrol’s presentation on passive readers’ advisory is inspired (Carroll, n.d.). And in the absence of a dedicated, personable RA librarian, these are the things that work on me as a reader. I surreptitiously take all the bookmarks and read my library’s social media feed on several platforms. I browse displays for seasonal material.
Of course, I do hesitate to generalize my experience to the general public, even a specific population of patrons, but assessing/evaluating the types of passive programming that work in your particular library could be a good set of data to keep an eye on.
References:
Carrol, Bill. (n.d.) Don’t Talk to Me: Passive Readers’ Advisory. Retrieved from https://www.statelibraryofiowa.org/ld/c-d/continuing-ed/iloc/copy_of_iloc-2016/handouts/dont-talk-to-me/donttalktome.pdf
Saricks, J. (2005) Promoting and marketing readers’ advisory collections and services. In Readers’ Advisory Service in the Public Library. Chicago: ALA. 136-160
Great prompt response! Word of mouth can be huge, especially in a small community! Great ideas :) Full points
ReplyDeleteThanks!
DeleteDisplays of librarians favorites are also a great way to get the word out about great books. Anytime we have a "staff favorites" display the books get checked out super fast!
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