[Michlib-l] Summary of responses to New Book Alerts

Melissa Huisman mhuisman at hudsonville.org
Fri Mar 2 09:50:53 EST 2018


Hi!  I received a lot of responses!


·         Almost all libraries post some version of the New York Times or Publisher’s Weekly lists.


·         Some make fancier signs that are showing what they have received or will be receiving.   A few with color title covers – some with just text.


·         A few subscribe to Book pages for patrons to read, have 2nd copy or “Express” books or used to use slides to visually show the titles.


·         If you want to pay a bit, you can subscribe to Wowlibrary.  This talks to your ILS and pulls out your new books for your patrons and more.  It is really cool.  Here is a link:

·         http://www.wowbrary.org/nu.aspx?p=2855--GEN&combine


·         One library’s tech team wrote a program that uses the cover art from Syndetics to display the titles across their webpage and are clickable to the catalog:  https://www.tadl.org/books/

·         (Wonder if we can get them to sell us their program?)  cheaply of course.


·         Last of all – some lucky people have the Apollo ILS system that does this already for them:  https://eauclaire.biblionix.com/catalog/

Hope I didn’t miss anything – but it is all pasted in below and attached.

Thank you very much!

Melissa Huisman, Library Director
Gary Byker Memorial Library of Hudsonville
3338 Van Buren Street, Hudsonville MI  49426
Phone:  616-669-1255 X 5   Fax:  616-669-5150
Email:  mhuisman at hudsonville.org<mailto:mhuisman at hudsonville.org>
Ways to advertise “New” books

Original question:

How do you let non-computer savvy folks who like to just drop in and browse know about brand new titles that have come out?  Most of the time the best sellers get whisked away to fill a long hold list and they never get a chance to see it.

We have an odd system now where we keep the book on display for a week before we fill holds – but it seems like a shame to make folks wait.  All I can think to do is make a color copy of each book cover and put it on display in place of the book – but this seems like it would take a lot of ink.

Does someone at your library make a flyer each week showing a list of the new books with smaller cover art?

Any other ideas?


Melissa Huisman, Library Director
Gary Byker Memorial Library of Hudsonville
3338 Van Buren Street, Hudsonville MI  49426
Phone:  616-669-1255 X 5   Fax:  616-669-5150
Email:  mhuisman at hudsonville.org<mailto:mhuisman at hudsonville.org>

We keep a copy of the best-seller list for the current week at the circulation for patron use.

Margaret Bentley
Adult Services Librarian
Shiawassee District Library--Owosso
502 W. Main Street
Owosso, Michigan  48867
989-725-5134

😁We have a blog and a New Item area.( Also, when it comes to Patterson, there is always a new book out.)


Donna Janke djanke at cromaine.org<mailto:djanke at cromaine.org>

Hi Melissa,

That's exactly what we do at Belleville -- make a flyer every week with new and interesting titles.  One of our circ staff (who also processes the DVDs and CDs) puts it together for us every week.  I think she loves getting the chance to be creative with it. It's a text list broken into categories, but she also adds cover art of items she thinks will be of particular interest.  Plenty of regular patrons stop to check the list and then put holds on what catches their interest.

We also have a scrolling list of new items on Enterprise, but the popularity of the paper list hasn't diminished.

Hilary Savage
Assistant Director

Belleville Area District Library
167 Fourth Street
Belleville, MI  48111
(734) 699-3291

________________________________
Hi!

This is Barb from the Southgate Veterans Memorial Library. What we do every Monday is print out a copy of the New York Times best seller list and tape it to the circulation desk. We do this just for the hardcover fiction and hardcover nonfiction, but they get good results. Oftentimes it's the older crowd who looks at it, and I'm guessing that goes directly hand-in-hand with the non-computer savvy folks, too.

Hope this helps!

Dear Melissa Huisman,

When I worked at a public library, we would make text only copies of best seller lists (fiction/nonfiction) to give out when asked. With some popular romance titles/series, we would have about 5 patrons that would get put on automatic hold for some series because of a request. If someone knows they are a Patterson fan and you are willing to do that, they could get first dibs hold for those types of items? I do not think we did that with our more popular fiction authors. I know it can be frustrating to be 147th patron waiting on a book. There was never a book display in a way that was holding new books before allowing them to checkout. Hope that is helpful. We do not have this issue here as students seem to have little time for leisure reading.

Sincerely,

Saxony Betts

Digital Technology/Reference Librarian
Email: sbetts at kettering.edu<mailto:sbetts at kettering.edu>
Phone: (810) 762-7815
1700 University Avenue ~ Flint, MI 48504

Melissa,

We have a chalkboard that lists the title and the author of our brand new titles and those who are deemed "hot new releases". Our older patrons find it helpful to have the visual of what is available.

Alycia McKowen
Director
Seville Twp Library
Riverdale, MI 48877
P: 989.833.7776<tel:989.833.7776>

seville.michlibrary.org<http://seville.michlibrary.org/>

Melissa,

Once a week I print two NYTimes bestseller lists - the hardcover fiction and hardcover nonfiction.
I print only page 1.
I highlight titles we own and write down their shelf location, e.g. BIOG, Lucky Day, etc.

--
Karla Gibson
Adult Services Librarian
Wixom Public Library
49015 Pontiac Trail
Wixom, MI  48393
248-624-2512


I think one of the greatest things we ever did at Herrick was create an express collection or marketplace/bestseller collection where we buy multiples of hot titles and exclude them from holds. Obviously that requires and investment, but the idea is that you can always walk in and find an abundant selection of bestsellers. We started with money from the Friends of the Library. We turn over the books to them when they're not super hot anymore and they resell them in their shop. So we minimally process them to keep them nice. We have express for fiction and feature movies. Works really well. Kelli


Kelli Perkins
Collection & Digital Resources Manager
Herrick District Library
300 S River Ave, Holland MI 49423
616.355.3718
kperkins at herrickdl.org<mailto:kperkins at herrickdl.org>



I post what's on order, so patrons can check for upcoming titles from favorite authors (see attached)

You can also post the New York Times Bestsellers list each week,

“A day of worry is more exhausting than a week of work."



Lisa L. Wood

Branch Manager

Quincy Branch Library

11 N. Main Street

Quincy, MI 49082

517.639.4001, ext. 401; 517.278.2342 (fax)

At my previous library we used automatically yours from baker and taylor. I would take the arrival lists and dump into a spreadsheet which could then be sorted by arrival date. It worked great for folks who wanted to know what was coming up. We highlighted the titles as they arrived, so patrons would know what was now available, but not on the shelf ;)
It didn't have fancy book covers or anything like that, but it was simple and worked well for our dedicated (not tech savvy) patrons.
Good Luck!


~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Andrea Ingmire
Library Director
Peter White Public Library
(906) 226-4303 (office)
(906) 250-0080 (cell)
(906) 226-1783 (fax)

We print out the New York Times Best Seller List (Hardcover) from Sunday's paper each week and highlight the books we have and put it on display on the New Book Shelf.  This may not cover all of those with a list, but it covers most of them.

[cid:image001.jpg at 01D3B20B.F27366F0]
Arlene Wall
Support Services Manager
arlene at salinelibrary.org<mailto:arlene at salinelibrary.org>
734-429-5450

We make copies (pulled off the internet) of the cover.  Then place them on the book ends by our new book section. The patrons can see what titles are new (we keep five months but you could cater to what works for you).


Tera Talaska
Manager
Presque Isle District Library
181 E. Erie St.
Rogers City, MI 49779
989-734-2477 ext. 223
We have a display of new (this month) items in the library and a separate shelf space for new (6 months) items, but, as you said, this is just for items currently available.  Our new ILS, Apollo, lets patrons sign up for automatic holds on new releases by their favorite authors.  They're really loving it and so are we.  No more "hey, hold this for me when it comes out" lists.  But, without that, we didn't really have anything.  We don't have the staff to generate a handout like that and too many items anyways.

Good luck!  I'm looking forward to seeing what responses you get.

Cynthia Stanczak
Library Director
Albion District Library
501 S. Superior St.
Albion, MI  49224
(517) 629-3993

Once a month we send our an eNewsletter and introduce new books and other items. We also put a slide on our website with new items.

Cindi L. Place
Reference & Technology Librarian
Boyne District Library
(231)582-7861
placec at boynelibrary.org<mailto:placec at boynelibrary.org>
cindiplace at gmail.com<mailto:cindiplace at gmail.com>

We print a list of titles that are on order and will be released the following month. So the holds can be placed ahead of time and the books circulate as soon as they are released.   no cover art. it's two sided sorted one side by author name and the other by release date


Patti Skinner pskinner at mcdlibrary.org<mailto:pskinner at mcdlibrary.org>

We are going to be switching over to Apollo next month and are looking forward to using their automatic holds on favorite authors but we also use Wowbrary! which is a weekly newsletter/Facebook posting that automatically inquires into our ILS to find our new adds on Friday night and creates an email that shows what’s new at the library and also lets us put news and event postings into it and then it is sent out Saturday morning. Patrons subscribe to the email but it also automatically updates the link on our website so people can view the weekly posting from there. We are also sent an email on Saturday from the Wowbrary! providers that gives us a link to put up a Facebook post with all the cover art already preformatted. Here is a link to last week’s posting: http://www.wowbrary.org/nu.aspx?p=2855--GEN&combine
We have several patrons that will put items on reserve Saturday and others that come into the library inquiring as to what they saw on the email so we print out a copy Saturday morning so it can be referenced by patrons at the circ desk.
It is a great service that we have used for several years and we love it.
We pay $500.00 per year and I don’t remember if that is based on our library size or not but it’s worth every penny. For the luddites we have the weekly printout at the desk. ☺

Mark Morton markmorton at lelandtownshiplibrary.org<mailto:markmorton at lelandtownshiplibrary.org>

Dear Melissa,

Our Tech team wrote a program to pull newly added titles for display on our website<https://www.tadl.org/books/>. Most cover images are provided by a service called Syndetics<https://proquest.syndetics.com/>. This could then be made into or added to your OPAC screensaver

https://www.tadl.org/books/

We post the current NYT Best Seller list with our "Hot Title" collection. This collection goes out for two weeks is not holdable and is $1/day if late. There's generally at least one regular copy for holds for each "Hot" title. We have 10 copies of the new Danielle Steel on order, 7 regular for holds and 3 "Hots" for grab and go.

We get copies of BookPage magazine to distribute to patrons.

A catalog record is created when items are ordered so reserves may be placed before the item is available.

If you are on any standing order lists you could make a poster or calendar with the author title and release date. I think Baker & Taylor won't accept orders earlier than 60 days before stated release but I don't deal directly with ordering so that may be off. Unless you're prepared to maintain spreadsheets you would probably not want to take holds more than that anyway.

Regards,

Katheryn Carrier
Reference

Traverse Area District Library
610 Woodmere Avenue
Traverse City, Michigan  49686  USA

231-932-8502 Reference

Melissa,

We have a dedicated ‘new item’ section close to the front service desk.  All new items (they are considered ‘new’ for a year) are shelved there.

We also post the New York Times Bestseller list weekly near the front service desk.  We have both the fiction and nonfiction lists and highlight what we own.  That way, people can peruse the list and know what’s new even if it’s not on the ‘new item’ shelf.

Hope this helps.

Holly Hentz
Director
Hamburg Township Library
10411 Merrill Rd.  P.O. Box 247
Hamburg, MI  48139
810.231.1771
Hamburglibrary.org

Hi Melissa,

We print out copies of the New York Times bestsellers list for Hardcover Fiction, Hardcover Nonfiction, and  How-to, Advice, & Miscellaneous each week.  We put one list on one of the shelves in the New Book area in our circulation lobby and one at the reference desk on the counter top.   We also do the same with Young Adult Hardcover Fiction and put one at the reference desk and one in the Teen area.   In the Teen area, I also post pictures of book covers on a bulletin board as new Teen books come in.  I don’t get as a high a volume of new Teen books as the adult department does, so this isn’t too onerous a task.  I imagine it would probably be more difficult trying to keep up with the new “hot” books and bestsellers for the Adult Dept.

[cid:image002.jpg at 01D3B20B.F27366F0]

Mary Rice
Adult/Teen Services
Librarian
Waterford Township
Public Library
5168 Civic Center Dr
Waterford MI 48329
p. 248.618.7683

mrice at waterfordmi.gov<mailto:mrice at waterfordmi.gov>

Hi Melissa,
Our circulation system (Apollo) does a scroll across the top of the online catalog, with cover art of the titles recently added to the system.  You also have the option of looking at a list of "What's new" with drop down menus for the GMD, and the options of 1 week, 2 weeks, 1 month, 2 months.

With regards to your heading, Patterson ALWAYS has a new book out.  We joke that there is at least one Patterson book in every box of books that we receive.  :-D

Ann
Eau Claire District Library

We post a print of the weekly bestseller lists in the new book area. May be old school for some but we have folks who really appreciate it.

Donna

Donna Olson dolson at ssldl.info<mailto:dolson at ssldl.info>


Hi Melissa!

We copy the Publisher's Weekly bestsellers page and put it on display in various areas around the library.  There is no cover art that I know of, just the lists of titles.



Tammy

Tammy Turgeon

Director

Sterling Heights Public Library

40255 Dodge Park

Sterling Heights, MI 48313

586-446-2640



Director

Suburban Library Cooperative

44750 Delco Blvd

Sterling Heights, MI 48313

586-685-5750

Hi Melissa,
We put small colored cover art for the titles expected soon based on our standing order plan/recent orders. See the attached – you can have multiple copies of the base poster or a larger base poster depending on your space for display.   We allow patrons to request titles before they are released/received, if you don’t, you might want to limit your cover art to titles that have arrived. ☺
We used to create a new flyer with approximately 10-15 titles every month, that worked OK, but now we have the laminated base poster and just switch the cover art!  Easy and great for our patrons! ☺
Megan

Megan Buck meg at dcl-lib.org<mailto:meg at dcl-lib.org>

Another thing we did ... but no longer do is to load book cover jpegs onto an electronic photo frame. Staff loved it. Some patrons did. But when it went down for a couple days, no one noticed. It's gone and the paper remains.
Donna Olson <dolson at ssldl.info>

I put together "Coming Soon" flyers each month when I order new books. The flyers list the new titles by the most popular authors. We're a smaller library (I order about a hundred titles a month, total), so it doesn't take more than about 30 mins to put them together (one each for fiction, large print, and audio books), and they seem to get a lot of use.

Hope this helps!
Chelsea

Our system is not high-tech at all, but works pretty well: we generate a list of high-demand books, give it a lick and a polish with some color or graphics, and post it at the desk.  This is generated monthly and includes both “new” and “coming soon”.  We do a second list for AV.
Absolutely! I have attached the fiction and large print versions from last month. We don't order a ton, so I usually include two months out. I change up the template colors with the seasons.

Chelsea

Hello Melissa,

We post a list of the best sellers from Publisher's Weekly on our new book shelf area and we also have copies of BookPage that they can pick up.  The Friends of the Library pay for the subscription to BookPage which lists new books coming out and gives reviews of them.  Our online catalog has a scrolling display of the book jackets of new books the library has just added to our collection also.
I hope this is some help.

Francene Sanak
Library Director
Trenton Veterans Memorial Library
2790 Westfield Rd.
Trenton, MI 48183
phone 734-676-9777
fsanak at trenton.lib.mi.us<mailto:fsanak at trenton.lib.mi.us>
________________________________

Hi Melissa,



I work at a small branch of a system, but at my branch we keep a copy of NY Times Bestsellers, and highlight the titles which our branch owns. It may not always list all of our newest titles, but it covers the major releases at least. That way, even if it's checked out they can easily see we own a copy and ask to be added to the holds list.



Marla
Hi Melissa,

I previously worked for a library that ordered extra copies through lease and then a certain number of them were placed on a “New & Hot” shelf. It would be the books with the high demand, high holds list, etc. This “new & hot” shelf would have different rules for circulation, patrons couldn’t place holds on these titles, the books checked out for a shorter time frame and couldn’t be renewed, they were just on a first browse, first get basis. It helped with titles that had really long hold lists, but also helped satisfy the browsers.

Best,
Pam

Pamela Seabolt
Community Engagement Librarian
Midwest Collaborative for Library Services (MCLS)
1407 Rensen St, Suite 1, Lansing, MI 48910
(800) 530-9019 ext 123
seaboltp at mcls.org<mailto:seaboltp at mcls.org>

Hi, Melissa,
Here at the Mackinaw Area Public Library we make a printout of the current New York Times Bestseller list, highlight the titles we have, and post it near the New Book Area. This lets patrons know which current bestsellers they can get on the wait list for, at least.

-- Ted Gregory
Mackinaw Area Public Library
mackinaw1 at gmail.com<mailto:mackinaw1 at gmail.com>



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