Matt Prosser

Star Learner Matt Prosser is part of a cohort of Essex Libraries staff completing Understanding book appeal. The aim of the training is to build stock knowledge and boost staff confidence to work creatively with books and readers in their libraries.

It was evident throughout Matt’s work on the Understanding Book Appeal course that he was committed to getting the most out of the material and the practical work. His work on the course was imaginative and thorough and he was careful to apply the course material to his own collection and his own library.  Matt has a creative approach to display and used the course to widen the impact he has made.  His conversations with readers quickly allowed him to understand the appeal of parts of the collection he didn’t know well so that he was able to speak positively about them to readers who wanted a recommendation.

Matt demonstrated particular skill at decoding and analysing book covers to gauge the appeal of books for readers across the library collection.  He showed how to use quick and creative ways to learn more about books and crucially to use his insights to get the right book into the hands of the right reader. Matt plans to take his work further in selecting a range of reads to open up choices in the Crime genre to create a reading promotion in his library.

Matt is experimenting with using face forward display in non-fiction to introduce variety and surprise into different subject areas.  This has the potential to introduce surprise, but also to help readers find something relevant – mixing a travel title into world cookery books for example.  He is also looking at different ways to promote narrative non-fiction with a wider appeal for the curious reader away from reads designed for experts and students.

Matt audited the library collection of Graphic Fiction and Fantasy very comprehensively.  His work on the course will make a valuable contribution to the work of all his colleagues who are following this course and will be able to share his experiences to contribute to the wider conversation right across the service.

Matt says:

“It has been interesting looking at various book merchant websites, as per the instructions of the course, to see what the most popular books are in a section and then attempting to assemble displays of similar looking books that we already have, to see if that had any effect on them being borrowed. I also found the section in the course interesting that suggested pairing books in different categories but with similar themes (pop-art books with graphic novels, for example).

I would recommend this course to anyone interested in learning how important front facing book displays are in attempting to entice readers to borrow books, and especially in borrowing something they might not have tried previously.” 

Matt can be contacted about his experience with this course at Matthew.Prosser@essex.gov.uk