Whose (First) Line Is It book display

Our new YA librarian is redefining the teen area in the library. In the course of listening to her plans though, I remembered a display our previous YA librarian had done that I thought was pretty neat.

It looks odd, but she covered popular books with a blank sheet printed with the first line of the book. Partly to gamify the display so people could guess what book it was, but also just as a novel and eye-catching way to get people engaged with books they may not otherwise have picked up.

Also: looking at these photos on flickr, I realized I took them in December of 2015 - oops. Still, it's a cool idea.

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Display Idea: What Your Neighbor Is Reading

A reader of this blog, from the Wayne County Public Library, sent in a pretty awesome display idea that I wanted to share:

At Wayne County Public Library we have a display by the checkout counter called "What Your Neighbor is Reading." We just place items recently turned in on a cart with a "What Your Neighbor is Reading sign on it that has an image of Wilson (from "Home Improvement") on it. Previously, we used an image of Gladys Kravitz (from "Bewitched"). Our patrons enjoy seeing the pop culture figures and they like the convenience of being able to check books out so close to the register.

How cool is that? Just putting the little local spin on it and identifying them as something their neighbor is interested will definitely draw peoples' attention. Very similar to "Recently Returned" shelves, but more fun.

She also mentioned that they place a colored slip in each of the display books that is removed at checked out, and have a sheet at Circ they use to track stats on displayed items. Another great idea.

I hope you find this as neat as I did and can use it in your library. Thanks, Gigi!

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Readbox – Red and White and Fun All Over

A friend of mine sent me a link to this:

Pretty neat, and not too difficult a display to make. Good job, whichever library this is. Thanks Chris.

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This Is Why I Like Working In A Library

My library's One Book Chelmsford selection this year is Townie, by Andre Dubus, and the kick-off event was last weekend.

To promote the book with patrons, we decided to hang up a punching bag right next to the circulation desk, so it's the first thing people see when coming into the library. Pretty neat, huh? Plus, since we didn't want to permanently attach it to the wall or ceiling, they let me build a stand for it:

It's nothing fancy, but I like woodworking and carpentry, and any excuse to use power tools is a good one. The wood and hardware cost about $30, and we bought the bag itself on Craigslist for $15, so it's not too much money for a pretty eye-catching display. And in how many other jobs would I get to do something like this?

Patrons seem to really like it too - especially kids. We encourage people to try it, and I'm pretty sure it won't fall over (we tested it). We still haven't decided what to do with it afterwards, but we've got a few months. Who knows - maybe we'll just catalog it and add it to the circulating collection for people to check out.

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The Christmas Tree of Knowledge

My sister-in-law takes my niece to their library frequently, and last week she texted me this photo:

This is in the Sandusky (OH) Library (where I grew up), and I think it's great. Slightly less massive than this one, and it makes me wonder if the staff marked all those volumes as "Display" in their catalog.

Anyway, this also serves as my annual "don't expect to hear from me for awhile" Christmas post - hopefully when I'm visiting my family in Ohio, I'll be able to stop into the Sandusky Library and check out their tree. Happy Holidays everyone.

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Displaying Circulation History in the Catalog

My last post and peoples' comments got me thinking about displaying the circulation history of items, and how it might make items more interesting.

I don't know how many library patrons consider the fact that other people have used an item before them (unless, of course, they find some evidence of that use). But if we started showing the cost-per-circ, it might prompt some people to wonder about the X number of people who also were interested in the same thing as them.

Obviously, libraries couldn't cross any privacy lines, but I do think there are ways to highlight the "shared resources" aspect of the library, and to emphasize a sense of community among our patrons.

Some ideas for what could be shown:

• Detailed stats on cost-per-circ (including a breakdown on the library's cost for that item - price we paid for it, processing cost, etc) - and, as Walt said, this would be particularly interesting for databases
• Number of local checkouts vs. ILLs and network transfers (along with current number of holds)
• Along with number of checkouts, calculate the popularity ranking vs. total library items checkouts
• Date the item was added to the collection, and date of last checkout (and check-in)
• Some catalogs by default have an opt-in reading history for patrons; they should also have an opt-in way to make their checkout history public, on an item-by-item basis
• Some catalogs, and some third-party plugins (like ChiliFresh and LibraryThing for Libraries), allow patrons to include their review and rating for items right in the catalog record
• Ebook readers should be able to leave comments and notes in the ebook, which subsequent patrons could either turn on or off depending on if they wanted to see them

Some of this information is available in our staff view, and I use it all the time - why not make it available to the public, too?

One drawback to making this kind of item information available is that we might get a lot more "weeding suggestions" from patrons, on items they don't feel have provided enough value to the library (or that have been used too much). Of course, I get this to some degree already, so it's just a matter of having - and employing - a good collection development policy.

Does anyone's catalog include features like these? How do patrons like them?

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