It’s Valentine’s Day. Love is in the air.
We can’t provide our patrons with a candlelight dinner or a beautiful bouquet of flowers, but we can give them a
little touch of romance with the help of some construction paper, a black
sharpie, and a whole bunch of romance novels.
Blind Date with a Book brings the spark into the patron’s
reading experience. Carefully selected romance novels are wrapped in
construction paper so that the patrons can’t tell what they are. A brief
description of the novel is written on the construction paper such as:
“Hi. I’m a historical romance novel featuring a dashing
sailor. Will I make it back from sea to save my true love? Pick me and find
out.”
(We could be even more vague if we want.)
When patrons bring the books to our desk to check out they
will get (as a little bonus) a special Valentines card and a Dove chocolate. We
will also create a separate display close by for non-romantic novels so that
people who don’t want a romance novel this Valentines season can still play
along. Maybe we’ll include a few horror novels. Additionally, we will put
special Valentines Day bookmarks in favorite novels in the stacks that have a
romantic bent. It’s a fun, easy way to promote our romance collection.
(As fate would have it, this is actually a program we did for
the first time at my branch this week. It was a big success both in terms of
circulation and bringing awareness to the collection. It also was a great
conversation starter!)
This is a great idea to get readers to try something new, the element of surprise is also fun! I think this display idea would draw people in to come look at the display and like you said it is a conversation starter and you might be able to convince them to check out one of the books and see what they get. I just did a teen Valentine's Day display where I work, it was interactive, but in a different way...I had love story and anti-love stories on display and little hearts where they could write their favorite love/anti-love story down. Interactive displays are great in order to get patrons involved more!
ReplyDeleteThis is a super fun idea, but I kind of wonder how this fits with "integrated advisory" which incorporates more than just books. Do you add music, audiobooks, or romantic movies to your "blind dates"? How would you integrate other items in the library collection? Ha ha, I just thought of something: it would be fun if a book "dated" its movie version! Or maybe the book and the movie could each vy for patron affections... "you'll love me more"... kind of a play off your "single and ready to mingle" sign, which is wonderful!
ReplyDeleteFantastic idea! I loved your little teaser with the sailor :) full points!
ReplyDelete