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On Display: Blind Date with a Book

by Liz Svoboda on 2021-03-16T15:11:00-04:00 in Fun Reading, Library Programs & Events, On Display | 0 Comments

We held our first ever Blind Date with a Book program in February to celebrate National Library Lovers Month. Blind Date with a Book programs have been part of library programming since at least the late 1990s (Alberge, 1997), but there has been a resurgence in the past few years with crafty librarians creating eye-catching displays to entice reluctant readers to take a book home with them.

With so few people visiting our building in the time of COVID, we adapted the program to an online environment using a Google form to ask participants about what they would like to read:

  • fiction, nonfiction, or poetry, 
  • favorite fiction genres, 
  • favorite nonfiction subjects, 
  • length of book,
  • preference in their author's identity (i.e., BIPOC, LGBTQ+, woman), and
  • any specific topics to avoid.

A few brave souls chose the "Surprise me!" option, meaning they had no say in their book except to choose between getting a link to an ebook or picking up a physical book at the library.

Although the program ended in February, we wanted to share the books we sent out on blind dates (all links lead to ebooks unless noted otherwise):

Cover ArtBird Box by Josh Malerman

Cover ArtThe Great Scandinavian Baking Book by Beatrice Ojakangas

Cover ArtMeet Me in the Future by Kameron Hurley
Cover ArtNorth and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
Cover ArtStiff by Mary Roach
Cover ArtThe Story of Life in 25 Fossils: Tales of Intrepid Fossil Hunters and the Wonders of Evolution by Donald R. Prothero

Sources: Alberge, D. (1997, November 3). Readers urged to flirt with a library blind date. The Times.



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