Student Shoppers (or the lack thereof)

In my last post I mentioned that we were running a contest at McMaster to find ten students to help us refresh our Popular Reading collection. Over the last two weeks we visited Titles, our campus bookstore, and Bryan Prince Bookseller, a local independent bookstore that the Library regularly works with.

Let me jump immediately to the moral of my story: if we do this again, I’ll invite everyone who expresses any interest.

Things started off promisingly enough, with 50 or so entries in the first week and a few more trickling in after that. We ended up with around 60 entries in total. From that list I sent invitations to 25, expecting that there would be scheduling conflicts and such. Most I never heard back from. When it came time to shop, a grand total of four (yes, that’s four) actually showed up: two on each bookstore trip.

Timing is likely part of the poor showing. Running it earlier in the term (and before Reading Week) would probably have helped. We picked up some good titles, but I ended up doing as much or more selection as they did, which really wasn’t the goal. I was also the only male involved and being (somewhat) older than most of our students, wonder if we chose any titles that will interest a twentysomething guy. It’s a tough demographic to attract.

Still, good lessons for next time!