Unexpected Finds: Passive Reader's Advisory

I love doing displays. I love passive reader's advisory. Any sort of passive programming I can implement into my teen department is a positive thing for me -- being part-time and juggling my responsibilities for teen stuff with being on the reference desk is a challenge. Through passive stuff, it's possible to do a little more with a little less.

My former co-worker and I had an idea back last December to implement a little more passive reader's advisory into the teen department but with a lot of changes happening in the workplace, it was impossible to get it done right away. And then with summer reading club, it became even more challenging to implement.

But finally, ten months after the fact, I got the project done and I am thrilled with the results:

I'm going to talk a little bit more about this over on STACKED later this month (we're doing an entire week of reader's advisory posts) but the project was to make shelf talkers for YA books. 

We purchased these holders from Gaylord, and there are ten in a package. I think that was the perfect number for our collection size and layout. My co-worker and I had written our book descriptions out, and I had the chance finally to format them and print them out. 

I sent an email to the rest of the adult services department after I got the talkers up, and I didn't think a whole lot about the value those talkers would have to the staff. I'd mentioned that if they had read anything in the YA department and wanted to write a talker, to type up 3 or 4 sentences at most and shoot it my way so I could do the formatting, printing, and displaying. But I got a wealth of thank yous because it helps make their jobs a little easier too -- it's a starting point for those teens who want a good book to read but approach a staff member who might not be as familiar with the YA books. 

The element of surprise for YA readers to discover these while browsing is what maybe excites me the most.

My goal is to swap out the titles every other month or so. I'd like to do it monthly, but time and other projects might make it hard, unless I do get flooded with contributions from other staffers -- and I have a feeling I'll see some more contributions, too.