Dear Reader

This is from memo 2009-184:

On Monday, June 15, we will make the Dear Reader service available to customers through the BCPL web site.

Dear Reader is a service that will allow us to provide four additional readers advisory features for our customers:
• E-newsletters. Customers will be able to subscribe to monthly e-newsletters that highlight selected titles in 21 different genres including new and bestselling fiction and nonfiction, mystery, romance and science fiction.
• Online Book Clubs - Customers can subscribe to one or more of 12 online book clubs featuring genres including fiction, nonfiction, romance, and teen. New titles are selected each week and customers receive five daily emails (Monday through Friday) with selections from the book. The goal is to give customers enough of a taste of the book to encourage them to check it out from the library.
• Next Good Book - Customers can set up a profile which will allow them to make and share comments about titles that they have read in an online forum.
• Book Lists - The Dear Reader service also includes a large number of prepared online book lists. These include best seller and award lists. Each of those include cover art for each title, a summary and links directly into the BCPL catalog.

The first two features allow us to reach out to customers by delivering book recommendations directly to them via email. The others allow us to provide a richer experience for customers who visit our web site.

When the service is made available for customers on June 15, we will also launch a redesigned Books and More section of our web site. These pages have been substantially edited to offer greater visual appeal and to take advantage of the pre-constructed book lists that Dear Reader provides. The Books and More menu on the left side of each page will be updated to reflect the changes to this section of our site.

Please become familiar with the new Books and More pages and sign up for one or more of the Dear Reader newsletters or book clubs. By gaining knowledge of these new features we will be able to demonstrate and recommend them more enthusiastically to our customers.