Chapter 17, Fall 2021
Shine a Light On: Your Next Great Read (YNGR) Terzah Becker During the sad spring of last year, after our physical libraries abruptly closed and staff started working from home, patrons needed good reads more than ever. But they couldn’t come in to browse or get in-person suggestions from our friendly librarians. The solution? Former Patron Services ace Johanna Dadisman and I, both on the virtual Social Media team, put our heads together…and Your Next Great Read—identical to a program BPL’s early Social Media team used pre-2010 to boost our following—was reborn in early June 2020. Now, more than a year later, it’s still going strong. In 2020, we helped 253 patrons find books via the program, and through August 31, 2021, we are on track to pass that handily, with 203 patrons helped. How does it work? Every Thursday from 1-3 p.m. you’ll find as many book-loving staff as have time hovering over the “Recommended Read” channel in Teams, waiting to hear which books patrons are telling us they loved. Rachel Garfield-Levine looks out for patrons commenting on our Instagram, and I watch Facebook. We post all requests to the Teams channel—and staff riff off of each other’s suggestions, often trading funny comments and revelations about what we ourselves have loved (and hated) reading as we build a list we think that particular person might like. Once we have that list, we post it as a reply to their comment.
One of several images used on social media channels for the YNGR program. Here is a real exchange from our August 5, 2021, Facebook post: Patron: Circe, The Hummingbird’s Daughter, and Queen of America. (Thank you!) BPL: You are so welcome! Try one or more of these and then let us know what you think: Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia; Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks; Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi; A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes; Ariadne by Jennifer Saint; The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker; and the translation of The Odyssey by Emily Wilson. Patron: What a brilliant list! I just read Year of Wonders and adored it. And now I can’t wait to try the others. Thank you so much!
22
