In their own words

I have enjoyed this course and would recommend it. It provided a fresh approach to Readers' Advisory and the hands-on exercises made me slow down and think about why I was making the choices I made. I feel that I've gained some new tools to use going forward. Thank you.

I found this course very interesting and would recommend it to others. It has really made me think about how each display looks and how it might entice patrons to pick up and borrow different books in the collection. It also offers insights into how we can make the library more appealing to a variety of users and the hands-on assignments give confidence in setting up displays.

I really enjoyed merchandising the bookshelves course. I particularly enjoyed the creative tasks of merchandising a particular part of the library, for example: the teen fiction section which often gets forgotten about.

Coming from the school of social work, I didn’t learn visual merchandising in library school – so this training is new and I found it refreshing. And even if I had experienced it before, I would still keep an open mind and trust that I will learn something new and interesting! After all, we work in an industry that gives evolving, updated information regularly – and this is what this course is about - a refresher for the evolving, curious minds and something new, for someone like me!

I thought the course was fantastic. Thinking like a retailer really make a lightbulb come on. I 'dared' to redesign a space I hadn't touched for years and learned about making our shelves more attractive. Best course I have done with the library.

I enjoyed this course – it gives simple and applicable approaches to merchandising the library with immediate effects. The information was easy to understand and to apply, the interactive elements were fun and I found I could use what I learned from the course immediately in my work.

I just wanted to let you know how useful I found the training. I have only worked at the library for four months and in that time have learnt a great deal from my colleagues, who are very friendly and supportive. However, this training gave me a great insight into many new things. Firstly, it reassured me that I am doing some things well, particularly in relation to welcoming customers with a smile, but the training also helped me develop my customer radar, in particular considering how many customers would rather approach a staff member away from the desk and tailoring any advice and support to their needs. I have learnt a great deal about creating the perfect display and the best ways to showcase our books. I also thought that the format of the course was clear and easy to follow.

Your course is excellent! I loved it. Our library has been trying to merchandise our collection before and we have had in house training. This course reinforced our library guidelines and my previous experience with displays in the library. The way your training was organized was very thoughtful and logical. It was easy to follow, fun to experiment and full of inspirational ideas and encouragement.

Oh my goodness, I am absolutely LOVING this Opening the Book course! It's expanding how I think and look at the work environment, and seeing libraries through our customers' eyes. I try to do that anyway, but this course is great!

This course is very thorough and has really forced me to consider how to make positive changes by taking the reader's perspective. I have adopted so many useful suggestions and ideas: making better first impressions to visitors; using all my senses to create changes to our landing strip; and I have decluttered and refreshed the 'space worth thousands'. Our collection is comprised largely of textbooks but now, based on what we've learnt, we are rearranging our stock, making it easier for students to find what they need.

The course is clear and easy to follow. It was easy to log on the first time and the instructions were clear. I've enjoyed working through the tasks - the course is not too long and it can be tackled in small chunks. I liked the fact that my place was saved each time and I felt I was able to adapt my learning as I went on. As a library worker, I found the content to be appropriate and supportive to my work.

I enjoy selecting books for Opening the Book displays (virtual or otherwise) as it gives me several hours to browse our library (or online) and find some hidden gems that warrant promotion.

The course was excellent. It has made me feel connected to my job and our readers and has given me renewed enthusiasm. I think the course was written and presented in a user friendly way which inspired personal involvement - it made me think!

I really enjoyed Managing first impressions; the practical tasks were interesting to undertake and I am now looking at our library in a very different way. It is very satisfying to see the changes I have made making a positive difference to the library and the customers.

I really enjoyed this course! It's an eye and mind opener, and I love the creative licence you gain! I feel excited by the thinking behind the creating of powerful promotions and look forward to putting my ideas into practice!

I really enjoyed the course and found the books that might appeal to men and the under 45s’ activity fun to do. It also was fun to research online, through blogs, and from family members and friends for their insight into what books to recommend to read. I did all my learning by using my knowledge of my own library and seeking insight from friends/family and colleagues on some of the questions.

It was a great chance to reconnect to books, and to really consider book over design. The course was well structured culminating in the virtual display exercise, which was absorbing and illuminating. I enjoyed the philosophies that were expressed, and especially the idea of offering our customers a reading experience.

The course did a really good job of challenging the ways that we do promotions. I feel very attached to the old style of doing it as it's fun and creative to make big, silly displays with lots of decoration and hyper-specific themes. This course convinced me that I shouldn't be doing that! Everything I learnt makes sense and I look forward to shifting some more books because of it! I would recommend this course to others. I'd say that it's a good way to change your perspective on library displays and could ignite some excitement in this area if things are feeling a bit old and stale.

The highlight of this course was the ability to have mini assessment style interactions. I felt like I was learning more and able to see the result when I chose the best covers in the selection. There is so much helpful information, and along with the interactive sections, it really gives people a chance to try and have immediate feedback on their choices. It will help staff bring a fresh frame of mind for their display choices - and understand the patron's point of view. The final bookcase tasks were so fun!

I enjoyed the course, it gave me the opportunity to review and look at how we promote our stock and to talk with customers and staff about how they choose books. This taught me the skill of thinking about promotions outside of work, when I am not with customers and the day to day running of the library. Thinking about promotions when you have some quiet time does help with being more creative.

I do relief library work in several community libraries in a rural area so was able to visualise different libraries and book collections during the exercises. I thoroughly enjoyed working through the course, it was not an arduous task at all if you love books and working with readers. Well laid out and easy to use, not technically challenging. Good practical ideas to use in our own libraries.

Our displays have been stuck in a rut and staff have resorted to jazzing them up to grab attention instead of letting the books do the talking. Following this course, I can now see growth in the library team and we have been able to talk and share thoughts and ideas. This has already created more diversity in our book displays.

One thing I learned from this course is what makes a library appear cluttered opposed to a comfortable open space with interesting nooks to investigate. I also learned about the importance of remembering to look over your library critically from an outsider's or visitor's perspective in order to make sure that the library presents well and that displays do not appear to look monotonous or stale. I found the advice on creating showcases to be particularly helpful in achieving this goal!

This course has helped me learn the importance of display unit position, as well as how to configure a showcase of books. Moving forward, I will ensure that I merchandise books and use my training to really consider what I'm choosing to display and why. I think completing the practical work in the training has helped me create eye-catching displays which borrowers have engaged with, and it has also shown me which areas of the library are interacted with the most.

I really enjoyed learning new ways to put together eye catching book displays. I especially liked learning how to make an attractive showcase by using contrasting colours and grouping the same size books together to give a more streamlined look. It seemed to be popular with the customers too as I had to restock a few times during the day.

This course made me think more about what the customer sees and wants when they come into the library and their point of view of displays and interactions with us. Also, that displays can be a collaborative thing; I never would have thought about letting the public add to and take away from a display. I think this adds another interactive element and enjoyment, as well as reinforcing the sense of community in the library.

What's the old saying? ‘every day is a learning day’. That's for sure. This course reminded me of how each reader is an individual and the time they spend in the library is very precious to them so we should try our very best to enhance their experience.

Working through this course, I found a new perspective on how to use displays to develop people's reading experience. Also – not to be afraid to plant some books on the returns trolley. I look forward to experimenting further and reflecting regularly on what works and why.

This was such an interesting training course. I didn’t think that there was so much involved in displays and recommendations. It’s definitely made me more aware of the needs of readers and library visitors alike and has given me some valuable information and insights I can use going forwards. Thanks a lot.

After taking this course, I am now equipped with more conversational tools so that I don’t feel like I have to know about all the books in the library.

Even though I have always talked with readers and encouraged them to tell me about their reading journey, I now have an arsenal of new questions to ask that I hadn’t thought of myself. Also I look at the way we display books differently now.

The reflective nature of the information was really thought-provoking and the case studies were great – they really got me thinking about applying the knowledge. I found having discussions with my mentor really helpful and it made it a more personal experience.

I have absolutely loved this course and everything I have gained from it has been so valuable. Thank you for the brilliant feedback. I learned a lot from my mentor and I would feel a lot less confident, even on completing the course, if I hadn’t had their guidance and suggestions.

The personal feedback on this course is very in-depth and has provoked a lot of thought about how to approach each task.

I have really enjoyed the experience of the Reading for Wellbeing course – thank you so much for your feedback and encouragement! I’m sure the practice will inform our projects, especially in terms of how we prepare to engage with a wide audience of people from different backgrounds/situations/issues and encourage them to read without making them feel intimidated.

The tasks were interesting and cleverly designed to encourage you to think latitudinally, looking at different options and considering the development of the reader. The course introduced new ideas gradually and gave you opportunities to apply them practically. My mentor offered timely and clear advice, giving me areas to think about without spoon-feeding the ‘correct’ answers.

I found the input of my mentor really useful, partly because I have not completed this 'type' of training for many years, it was interactive and autonomous, very different from the usual.

Mentor feedback on this course was incredibly helpful. In terms of putting collections together, my mentor provided me with an objective perspective that helped to strengthen the focus of the collection, and thus its power. She was a great combination of supportive, objective and encouraging.

This course was really enjoyable and I learnt a lot about curating new collections to increase reader engagement. It also made a refreshing change to be able to focus on developing my stock knowledge (which isn't strictly part of my day job). I liked having set tasks to complete, but with the ability to bring my interests and love of reading to the table. Thank you for letting me be part of the course and for the support I've had from the mentors along the way. I'm a little sad it's over - as I'm a sucker for learning!

This course has made me challenge my thinking on traditional stock promotion. I am now planning displays in a different way to try and engage with a more diverse audience.

I feel the course was very well-structured, and having the feedback from a mentor was extremely useful and supportive.

Thinking about age and genre signifiers in book covers was interesting. I hadn't thought much about age signifiers for adult books except for the difference between adult and YA or children's books so this gave me a lot to think about. Having a personal mentor made me think more deeply about the content of the course. Thank you very much for everything.

I found the clear language and explanations in the course very helpful and I enjoyed the activities relating to my own personal reading. In Module 2 – the activities on book covers and the guidance on feelgood books for the final task were stand out. Working with my mentor was fabulous – thank you for all the great feedback.

I changed my face-out display this week to a bigger range of returned books and carefully arranged them on the shelves to have maximum impact for each cover. The result? Loans more than doubled. 50% ignored the display before the change, and only 25% ignored it after the change. Before, 7.5% of customers walking past took from it, and after the change, 17.5% of customers took from it. I have more: before the change, 15% of people who noticed the display took something from it. After the change, 23% of people who noticed the display took something from it.

We used to take great pride in our pretty book displays which combined a book theme with associated props, which were sometimes elaborate indeed! Despite using a variety of library stock, nothing was borrowed and the display remained pretty unused. We speculated that perhaps our displays were too pretty and that customers thought they were for show only. So we decided to remove the props and display the same themed items without the embellishments, just a snazzy looking sign and carefully selected tempting books. This shift in presentation resulted in about 70% of items being borrowed and before it would have been no more than 20%. We discovered that attractive library books advertise themselves and that we only needed to provide a face-out display to showcase them.

This comprehensive course challenged me to step outside of my comfort zone and supported me to do so. I received good encouragement and appreciated the insightful feedback from my mentor. The elements of trying to target a particular group and focus on their needs has been very enlightening. I can see that unexpected information can come from this process – and that just assuming what groups of people may want or need is not always going to result in a suitable event or project. It’s all a learning experience and you can gain knowledge by just giving things a go.

My mentor helped me analyse every single part from the research to the feedback phase. That was great!

The biggest takeaway for me was it expanded my mind when thinking of a target group. It made me more open to making reader connections based on the real positive impacts it could have to these readers, rather than just approaching it from a library point of view of getting people through our doors. I thought the course was well set out and I enjoyed doing it. Thanks!