Archive for the ‘PubYac on promoting Y/A Materials’ Tag
Compilation of suggestions from PubYac on Promoting Y/A Materials
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Leave a Comment I sent a message to the Pubyac list-serve as follows:
To: pubyac@lists.lis.illinois.edu
Subject: [PY] Promoting Y/A Materials
Hello Pubyac!
I am an MLIS candidate and I am working on a project for my Y/A class
about promoting Y/A materials. I’m wondering what all of you in the
real world do to promote Y/A. Can you tell me the one thing you’ve done
that you felt was most successful?
Thanks in advance!
N.
–
Nancy Bertolotti,
Hons. B.A., M.A.
M.L.I.S. Candidate
University of Western Ontario
London, ON
nabertolotti@gmail.com
These are the responses:
I have found the best way to promote YA materials is to let the
programming do it for me. That is, scheduling programming that teens
like and then slipping the books to them without much fuss and overt
promotion. Videogame programs push game guides and techie books pretty
easily. Drawing classes tend to push the manga and anime drawing and
story collections. Etc
Casey A. Nees MLIS
Children’s Unit Manager
North Regional Library
(919)560-0234
If you can get your hands on a copy of Invitations, celebrations : ideas and techniques for promoting reading in junior and senior high schools, by Fay Blostein, she’s got loads of fabulous ideas. My favorite three ideas from her book include the single book bookmark – this has a heading like An Adventurous Bookmark then has one or two sentences to promote the book and ends with the title and author. Another idea she had that I liked was a horoscope bookmark – each of the 12 signs had a one-line “horoscope” which emphasized some aspect of character – the horoscope for Cancer went something like this: You are a romantic and listen to your strong intuition before you listen to reason. Then under each sign’s short horoscope was a list of 3-4 books that fit the description – so the Cancer sign would have books along the romance/friendship/relationship line. And my third favorite idea from Blostein’s book is a jumble of book promotions that are written like ads in the classified section of the newspaper. A couple of examples I wrote included a listing of items for sale: one right shoe size 6M, pom-poms, … and the book title was Izzy, Willy-Nilly, by Voigt about a girl who loses her right leg after riding in a car driven by a drunk friend after a party. Another example to promote a collection of short stories about vampires read: Feeling a bit old? Want to permanently regain your youthful energy and appearance. Call VAM-PIRE. Evening appointments only.
Have fun!!
Karen Lucas
Youth Services Librarian
Madison Public Library, Sequoya Branch
261-9807, 266-6385
One of the most successful phenomenons I’ve seen is the “If You Like…”
booklist! It’s nothing more than a readalike booklist for a popular YA
title/series, but when you keep them in plain sight immediately
following the release of a hot new book, you can’t keep enough printed.
Our “If You Like Twilight” booklist was fantastically popular *and*
an awesome way to introduce teens to other authors they would enjoy. It
also helped stave off heartbreak for those discovering that the wait
list was in the hundreds — something great to read in the mean time!
Circ on those titles (even the hidden gems that hadn’t gone out in a
while) skyrocketed.
Courtney Grant
Young Adult Librarian
Beaverton City Library
Beaverton, Oregon
www.beavertonlibrary.org
My first and foremost suggestion is to READ as much YA lit as you can! And then read more! The more YA books you read, the better able you’ll be to booktalk them to teens (& their parents, who are often concerned about content), and to hand them a book that fits their need.
Kris Chipps
Teen Programming Specialist
Arapahoe Library District
12855 E. Adam Aircraft Circle
Englewood, CO 80112
One on one booktalking. And I push my YA books on adults too *grins* 1 -
2 sentence book ‘hooks’ so rock.
Example: The Morganville Vampires series
Morganville, Texas is a sleepy little college town, the townies minding
their own business, not getting involved with the students… much…
unless they’re hungry.
Carol Erkens, aka Wolfie
Omaha Public Library, Benson Branch
cerkens@omahapubliclibrary.org
One thing that I do to promote the literature is put the audiobooks in the teens hands. They think they are getting away with something by listening to a book. Plus they like the idea of listening to a disk a day for approximately 1 hour and can be done with a book in less then a week. Once you find something that they like most times they will come back looking for something similar. I also like that we have added something called playaways to our collection. The teens love being able to shove an MP3 player into their pockets and listen to their books that way as well. Here is a link http://www.playawaylibrary.com/shop.cfm.
The biggest marketing tool that I have discovered with the teens in anything that you are doing with them is being out on the floor and making yourself visible. Do lots of readers advisory, and always invite the teens to your programs. Once they start to see you out on the public floor on a consistant basis you can start to form a bond that will bring them back over and over again. Ask their opinions on just about anything. You don’t necessarily have to do whatever their way but by making the area theirs as much as possible is a huge draw. And get yourself in good with the teachers. Whether they know it or not, they can make or break your program/teen area.
Let me know if you have any questions or what not. I am always willing to share information.
Cassie
Cassandra E. Rondinella, M.L.I.S.
Young Adult Librarian
Stark County District Library
Lake Community Branch
11955 Market Ave North
Uniontown, Ohio 44685
330-877-9975
crondinella@starklibrary.org<mailto:crondinella@starklibrary.org>
www.starklibrary.org<http://www.starklibrary.org>
Booktalks have been really successful for promoting our YA books. You just
need a cooperative english/language arts teacher that is glad to have you
come visit for a day!
Laurel Rakas
Coordinator of Youth Services
Pemberville Public Library
Nancy,
I’ve found that the best way to promote YA materials is to go to local schools (jr highs and high schools) and booktalk. Whenever I do this, at least 50% of the books I booktalk are checked out by the end of the week.
Another promotion for YA materials we have been trying in our library is to have a whole library theme for the month (aka music). An are in the library is designated the display are, and each department selects some books to display, so while patrons are looking at all the music books, they might see some YA books they wouldn’t have otherwise noticed.
The other thing we do with YA books is to display the newest ones on top of the YA shelves. Our YA section is on the path to the computer center, and more than once I’ve seen an adult stop at the shelves and look at books after their eye was caught by one of the displayed books.
Hope this helps!
Jenn Winston
Santa Maria Public Library
Youth Librarian/Teen Services Coordinator
(805) 925-0994 ext.821
Booktalking and displays are among the best I’ve found. I also blog but unless you have a very popular page it seems like a ot of work for the amount of attention it gets.
Valerie Chism
Young Adult Librarian
Baldwinsville Public Library
33 East Genesee Street
Baldwinsville, NY 13027
315-635-5631 x 208
There is an opinion piece on the Feb 16 issue of Publisher’s Weekly
about getting adults to read and then help promote YA. It might be an
interesting addition to your research.
Rebecca Donnelly
Youth Services Librarian
Loma Colorado Main Library
505-891-5013 ext 3032
rdonnelly@ci.rio-rancho.nm.us
I saw your request on the pubyac listserv about promoting YA materials and thought that I could be of some assistance. I’m a recent grad of Western’s MLIS program too, and was lucky enough to land a YA librarian job in St. Catharines.
In my time here, I’ve tried lots of different things to promote the YA fiction collection.
Book bins (different themes/genres) and book marks tend to work particularly well for our fiction collection. I also have a “new book” display in the “teen area” that tends to make our new arrivals go pretty quickly. For my last “Twilight” program, I gathered up some vampire read-a-likes from the collection and put them on display in the room. Many of them were checked out at the end of the night. I’ve done the same thing with Banned Books and Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.
Booktalking YA fiction has never seemed to fly in this Library. We’ve tried a “Books and Popcorn” program where staff and teens share recent fiction that they’ve read, but attendance tends to be low or non-existant. I’ve also tried various book clubs for teens (ie: Graphic Novels) but we usually have to cancel them due to lack of registration.
To sum it all up, the books that are displayed tend to be the books that move. The more interesting the display, the more attention it attracts!
In the summer, I design a summer reading program for teens that is different from the TD program for kids. Last year the teens were encouraged to read a book from a different genre every week. They filled out a ballot for every book read (either online or in person) and enter a draw for a weekly prize. I had to refill the book bins every few days!
We’ve also experimented with putting a “top 5″ list in our monthly newsletter. Not sure if this has had any impact on circulation, but its one way to let teens know about cool titles.
Lastly, I wish that we had a blog or even a teen web page where we could showcase and review some of the newer teens titles. Hopefully we can achieve something like this once we get out TAG group up and running (this April!!!)
Julianne Brunet
Young Adult Librarian
St. Catharines Public Library
54 Church Street
St. Catharines, Ontario L2R 7K2
905-688-6103, ext. 225
jbrunet@stcatharines.library.on.ca
Put new stickers on the new books and displayed them on a separate shelf. I know, sounds really basic, but when I came here NONE of the new children’s or YA materials were being displayed, or in any way marked. I did have a suggestion box for a while and got some good suggestions which I posted up (you suggested, we listened and then whether or not we were getting it) but the box got vandalized so much I had to take it down.
Jennifer Wharton
Youth Services Librarian
Matheson Memorial Library
LibraryJeanLittleLibrary (worldwide)
http://bookmooch.com/inventory/jeanlittlelibrary
http://www.librarything.com/profile/JeanLittleLibrary
http://jeanlittlelibrary.blogspot.com/
I read your post to PUBYAC about promoting YA materials. One of the simplest, no cost ways is to place books face out on the shelves. You’ve probably already thought of this, and it really does work for all ages. Think about how book stores sell books! People really do judge a book by it’s cover.
Sally
Sally Warburton
Youth Services Librarian
Pulaski County Library System
Pulaski, Virginia
