Bookstores are doing it, Etsy alone seems to have an entire cottage industry devoted to it, and libraries are doing it – the “it,” for those not up on the latest internet craze or marketing trend – is “Blind Date with a Book.”
It started in bookstores, including larger chains such as Barnes & Noble. Shoppers would encounter tables, usually in the fiction section, where a table would feature books wrapped in brown paper, with a clue about the book inside written in fancy script.
For “The Wizard of Oz,” on might imagine a clue like, “Midwestern girl needs a better weather forecaster.”
Hanson Public Library’s program, is called a Mystery Box, which many online retailers have begun to take to dizzying heights.
“Truthfully, it’s not my program, it’s Julia’s [Nee] program,” said Adult and Youth Services Librarian Hanley Callahan a recent college grad who started in November. “She’s no longer with us, but she spear-headed it from the start. It’s been really popular. We get 20 out of 20 sign-ups every single month.”
Circulation/Customer Service assistant John Carrozza said Nee has always had a talent for coming up with concepts of things that people might like after doing some field research.
“She visits libraries and wherever I go I try to visit libraries and try to get ideas,” he said. Carrozza and Nee borrowed one of the more popular visual puns in the library – a handful of books on a rafter labled “Books for Tall People” – from the Truro Public Library.
At Whitman Library, Senior Library Technician Mary Casey, said a “Blind Date with a Book” will be offered as part of the library’s Valentines Day programming in February.
But Whitman’s promotional project through April is the Non-fiction Reading Challenge, which is taking something of a literary Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride through the Dewey Decimal System.
“We’re going through each category – from the 100s to the 900s, including biographies – and for each category that people read, we give them a raffle ticket and there’s a prize at the end,” Casey said, noting that it is aimed at bringing more attention to the non-fiction titles as Library Technician Petra Reitz conducts the lengthy regular process of “weeding” those shelves.
“That’s what spurred this,” she said. “I think we’re also so programmed with our phones, it leads you to the next read. I wish we could move the Circulation Desk to force people to walk through the collection and look around. The serendipity is no longer there.”
The hope is that the non-fiction challenge pairs off people with something they might not ordinarily read – just as the “Blind Date” and mystery box programs are designed to do.
Casey said more people come to the library in winter anyway, and they are seeing an uptick in use of the study rooms, especially post-COVID if they work from home and want a change of scenery.
The library’s Head of Youth Services/Assistant Director Stephanie Young, is also conducting a children’s reading challenge with two gift card prizes to be awarded.
“Ideally, somewhere in the future, I’d love to be able to extend it,” Callahan said about Hanson’s Book Box program.” “Instead of 20, maybe 25 or 30, as more people become familiar with it.”
Any patrons interested in donating items for inclusion in a month’s boxes, would certainly be welcomed to, she said.
Libraries, however, have focused on the idea as a way to bring more patrons to the library while introducing readers to new writers, while throwing in a bookmark and a craft or two.
“There’s mystery box these days for any interest,” said Julia Nee, a former staff member at Hanson Library, now working as director of the Pembroke Library, who introduced the program at Hanson. “There’s a seasonal one for fashion or jewelry and there’s monthly ones for kids’ events with different craft projects. I can’t remember the library that did it first, but it seemed such a good idea to combine a book and a craft and other fun stuff for readers.”
Nee said her intent was to put a Mystery Box program together that could also be done for free, especially since library budgets can’t support some of the more elaborate offerings in the retail arena.
“We tried to do fun things,” Nee said of her work in Hanson. “It’s the little things. But I also love picking out books for people or recommending books, so that was already a fun part, too.”
While some online vendors still favor brown paper packaging, others go in for fancier paper, often color-matched to the page-marking sticky notes, highlighter or pen for making notations, stickers galore, a reading list to fill out, a tea sachet or packet of hot chocolate, a bookmark and sometimes floral decorative touches. More deluxe sets might include soft, fuzzy socks, a bakery item, special water bottle and perhaps some under-eye patches for a mini-spa treatment while you read.
Then there are the deluxe boxes, which can run $100 or more and include candles, a small cheese board, makeup samples, a bigger assortment of treats and more.
The idea has, from the beginning, been to entice readers to read a genre they might not have considered before. But questions have cropped up.
“Is it really just a marketing ploy to get rid of unpopular books?” some critics have wondered. Is it too good to be true? Aren’t you taking a risk ordering them online sight-unseen?
The answer to all these is – yes. While one can end up with a really interesting book – or one you may have already read, as is similar to the risks of a human blind date, but there are also rip-offs lurking in the internet, so buyer beware.
Online vendors’ order forms usually ask what genre – fiction, romance, thriller, historical fiction and the like – and some may ask an open-ended question for a few lines about what people like to read about, just as Hanson Library does. They are honest about the fact that most books, while new, were overstocks in an effort to save them from landfills.
“I stick with brand-new books,” Nee said. “It was a way to get a book that you didn’t even know that you wanted yet. When people sign up, they tell me what they’re looking for in terms of genre and up to a paragraph about what they wanted. Some people did that, some people didn’t, and there were people who did that month after month and I kind of got to know what they are gravitating toward.”
Hanson Library still offers the Mystery Box program, with the first boxes distributed last week to the 20-or so people planned on to sign up.
Nee, who said she doesn’t recall where she got the idea – the internet, a bookstore or another library, but the program began during COVID, when a lot of libraries were looking for virtual or distance programs. It was a natural extension of the take and make craft kits they were already offering in Hanson.