‘The Librarian Is In’ at The New York Public Library This Holiday Season
Librarians to offer the public free reading recommendations on Twitter, via web form, and in a special booth at the landmark 42nd Street building
DECEMBER 4, 2015 – The New York Public Library is playing matchmaker this holiday season, helping members of the public find their one true… read.
The Library’s Readers Services department will offer personalized, one-on-one book recommendations throughout December at a booth located in the Fifth Avenue lobby of the iconic Stephen A. Schwarzman Building on 42nd Street. Librarians Lynn Lobash and Gwen Glazer will staff the booth—called “The Librarian Is In”—during select hours on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from Dec. 7 until Dec. 23, helping anyone find the perfect book for themselves or as a gift.
“Reading is a very personal thing, and the whole key to enjoying it is to find the right book, the one that gets you excited and interested and unable to stop turning pages,” said Lobash, manager of the Readers Services division. “Finding that book and experiencing that joy is a real gift. We’re here to help. This is what librarians do.”
The Librarian Is In booth will be staffed between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. on Mondays and Wednesdays. It will be staffed between 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. on Fridays.
For those who can’t make it in person, the Readers Services team offers recommendations in a host of other ways, including:
- Twitter office hours: Every Friday from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m., Lobash and Glazer give book recommendations live on Twitter via the @NYPLRecommends handle and the hashtag #TheLibrarianIsIn.
- “What Should I Read Next” Web Form: Readers can log in here at any time of day, share some basic information, and get a personalized recommendation of three books emailed back in about three business days.
- Curated Browsing Tool: Once every three months, Lobash, Glazer, and other NYPL librarians recommend 100 books, which are placed in an interactive web tool. Visitors to the tool answer basic questions, and the tool immediately recommends books from that top 100.
- Book lists: Every week, a team of NYPL librarians creates multiple subject-based lists, which can be read here.
Below is the latest list created by Readers Services—the “top books” of 2015 in not-so-traditional categories:
Adult Fiction & Nonfiction
- Best Book about Alan Turing, Pilgrims, and Realistic Robot Dolls: Speak by Louisa Hall
- Best Book about the Worst Thing Ever: One of Us: The Story of Anders Breivik and the Massacre in Norway by Åsne Seierstad
- Best Novel about a Box of Email: Among the Ten Thousand Things by Julia Pierpont
- Best Cover If You're in the Mood for Something Horribly Painful: A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
- Best Deeply Creepy Short Stories: Voices in the Night by Steven Millhauser
- Best Book about Everything in the World Because It Is So Amazing and Seriously Just Stop Reading This and Go Get a Copy Right Now: Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff
Young Adult
- Best Book Featuring Possessed Deer: The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness
- Best Graphic Novel Featuring Possessed Deer: Lumberjanes, Vol. 1 by Noelle Stevenson
- Best Book Involving Drag Queens Singing Dolly Parton: Dumplin' by Julie Murphy
- Best Book to Inspire You to Carry Purell in Your Bag Actually Go Wash Your Hands: Terrible Typhoid Mary: A True Story of the Deadliest Cook in America by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
Kids
- Best Picture Book about an Amphibian Using Landscaping Equipment: McToad Mows Tiny Island: A Transportation Tale by Tom Angleberger
- Best Book on Ben Franklin Infuriating Magicians in the 1700s:Mesmerized: How Ben Franklin Solved a Mystery That Baffled All of France by Mara Rockliff
- Best Book about Absolutely Nothing but Involving Cute Animals: Waiting by Kevin Henkes
- Best Middle-Grade Book about a Transgender Kid Who Is Really Great: George by Alex Gino
Media Contact:
Angela Montefinise | angelamontefinise@nypl.org
About The New York Public Library
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