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. 

Programming 

Programming is another excellent way to promote the fiction collection. Because of the broad range of types of programs, this allows for libraries and librarians to really curate how they promote library materials. Children's story times can focus on specific themes with librarians having books on the theme available for families to check them out. Book clubs can focus on all types of fiction titles, or even be narrowed down to specific genres or "classics." Even programs that are focused on computer skills or yoga classes or website design or healthcare can have fiction collection items displayed or promoted where the program topic is a theme or main focus of the books. 

Branch Displays

For week six, we discussed ways to promote horror or romance works in our libraries and a common theme was in-branch displays. I discussed using book displays for romance novels that include an interactive "vote for next month's theme" type of display, and I believe this would be useful for promoting all types of fiction. There could be similar types of "what do you want us to put here next" so the patrons feel involved with what they see in our libraries, while giving us the leeway to curate what goes in those displays. 

There is of course the monthly themes many libraries already set up displays for - Pride, Black History Month, Women's History Month, Halloween, Dia de los Muertos, Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month, etc.. I myself have picked up books from these kinds of tables. When my library has the seed library up and ready for the Spring and Summer, I've seen displays for books about gardening - which always include fiction.

I've also seen clearly labeled sections in libraries where it is all new fiction titles to the branch, so if patrons want to quickly find the new materials, they know where to find it. 

I truly believe passive programming like book displays work because people do not always feel comfortable asking us for books outright and these displays can take the pressure off. The idea of having semi-passive displays with the option to interact with it and ask for something else to be put there, gives a little bit of power to those patrons that do not want to ask outright for something.