This idea originally came from Sara at Bryce Don't Play. I took her original idea, made it fit my building, and added some new twists.
We have a set of display shelves in my department that nobody ever wants to refill. I decided that we would let the customers do it themselves and we would fill in where needed (and monitor it). I started with an empty plastic jar and labeled it the "Awesome Jar". I put out slips of paper asking for a person's first name and an awesome book that they have read. When books are low on the shelves, I raid the slips in the jar for more titles.
This was our display when I set it up.
To get more mileage out of people's recommendations, I am also tweeting them out every so often. If you check the hashtag #cmplawesomejar, you will see a couple of our titles so far. Now that people are seeing these recommendations and the display, the jar is filling up!
I love this iteration! Just so everyone knows I was not the originator of the Awesome Box-- That was started at Harvard. Here's the link: http://librarylab.law.harvard.edu/blog/2012/05/17/awesome-box-pilot/ I, however, had the opportunity at my library to make it completely analog and YS-oriented!
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