Week Fifteen Prompt Response - Promoting Collections

There are, of course, a large variety of ways to market a fiction collection and no one way will fit every library. Each library has its community and readers that have their preferred ways of finding reading materials. So these are just a few of the ways we can promote our collections. 

Social Media

While it may feel a little passive at times, social media is an excellent way to promote a fiction collection. My library has a number of things they do on their social media pages to market these collections. They regularly post a "What are you reading?" prompt to invite patrons to share about the books they're reading and interact with each other - many will often share a little of what it's about or what they like/don't like about it. For National Library Week, they posted about fiction titles that revolved around libraries while linking to staff lists on the library's catalog site. Other staff lists are often shared, as well. They've recently begun working on getting more staff picks involved in the creation of social content (I was semi-forced into making a silent reaction video for TikTok about fantasy romance novels (the pains of working next door to the communications department and being friends with them)) that has garnered attention from patrons for more content like it. They'll also occasionally do a "give us a book and we'll give you your next read" type of posts, involving librarians and giving patrons a glimpse into readers advisory. 

Week Fourteen Prompt Response - Separating Collections

For this prompt response, I play a little bit devil's advocate, knowing that what I have to say is likely going to be very different from what most people say. Because determining where to place collections like Urban Fiction or LGBTQ+ into the collection as a whole can be a very tricky subject. At the library I currently work at, Urban Fiction titles have their own call number and all shelved separately (but directly next to) from the regular fiction at nearly every branch (some smaller branches do interfile because of space). For LGBTQ+ titles, some branches have specific displays or sections and some don't; but the titles do not have any sort of labeling delineating a title as LGBTQ+ in order to protect patrons safety, if needed, which is something I strongly agree with - I see no reason to separate LBGTQ+ titles beyond displays because that is not a genre. 

For a separate library, I think I would argue for something similar, while also arguing for room to change how its done in the future, especially if patrons and the community want to see it! If at our core, libraries are to provide access for our patrons and communities and they want something that we can actually offer them why not do it? This of course does encounter a roadblock when some parts of the community want something different than other parts. But the key, is community input. If we make decisions on things for our community without them telling us what they actually want, are we ethically making those decisions? Or making them because we feel like that's what they should be because of institutional and systemic racism?

Week Thirteen Prompt Response: YA and New Adult

The idea that adults shouldn't read young adult or new adult books is one that, frankly, frustrates me. The idea that anyone should decide what is acceptable for others' to read borders on, or often is outright, censorship. I have read a large number of young/new adult novels in the past couple of years, often not realizing the book is even considered that until I've already fallen in love with the book and realized the characters are all 16-19 years old. These novels are the ones that got me back into reading in the first place. After years of not reading a thing, I decided to reread The Hunger Games series and I haven't looked back. Jennifer L. Armentrout's Blood & Ash series introduced me to the concept of "new adult" books, and I haven't looked back from that yet, either.