Blind Date with an eBook

Almost every library in the United States has a Blind Date with a Book (BDWAB) display this February.  Why wouldn’t they? It’s a great idea and patrons love it. If you don’t know, the basic concept of BDWAB is patrons check out wrapped books that have been selected and displayed by library staff. Patrons don’t know what they’ve got until they get home and unwrap the book, hence why it is called a “blind date”. Some libraries mix it up by adding short descriptions or “personal ads” on the wrapping or they might offer an incentive to check out the books. Regardless of optional pieces of flair, BDWAB encourages people to read outside their comfort zone and that’s always awesome.

I decided to see if this could somehow translate to the ebook world. For our digital library’s Facebook page, I created images with three-word descriptions of an ebook. Then I uploaded the images with a shortened link to the corresponding ebook on our OverDrive website, that way our Facebook fans don’t see the title until they actually click the link and go to our OverDrive site. I used Bitly as my url shortener, because I love Bitly and it’s an easy way to keep track of how many people are clicking the link. I plan to post an image a day throughout the whole month of February. So far, there hasn’t been much response. Our Facebook page is relatively new, so we don’t have a large fan base yet. Also, I started the campaign on a weekend and Facebook engagement is typically low on weekends. I hope to see more engagement as the month goes on. Even if the response remains low, it’s a fun experiment.

Check out the gallery below for the images I created. FYI, I used PicMonkey to make these.

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