Lists give us an opportunity to curate subjects and interests for our customers. The title, description, type, and annotation of resources are the essential tools for making your list valuable to our customers. Be clear about the function of your list and why you chose the titles you did. Learn how to create a list in BiblioCommons.

What makes a great list

• Use clear descriptive title. what function does this list provide? Don’t worry about adding the name of the library; your username already clarifies that information.
• Include a detailed description. Let users know what the list is about.
• Annotate the items. Let users now why this title/website made the cut. This is the most useful feature of lists.

Additional tips

• Add ‘tscpl’ to the end of the description. This will make it easy to find lists made by TSCPL staff when searching.
• Create lists based on what you know. Don’t worry about covering every topic, it’s more about providing specialized lists rather than covering every topic.
• Create lists bases on user demand. Use a reference interview topic and turn it into a list of the resources gathered!

Be creative with lists:

• to respond to personalized reading requests (or reference requests).
  (check out Tulsa’s Your Next Great Read (YNGR))
• for reference guides, and to add related databases or other weblinks with annotations.
  (check out Santa Clara County’s Investing Pathfinder. & Central Rappahannock K-12 Guide to Civil War Food)
• to highlight items of local interest, or around a specific local event or anniversary.
  (check out Seattle’s Repertory Theatre Conan Doyle tie-in & Hamilton’s Art Gallery of Hamilton Film Festival.)
• to catch patrons searching for popular items with character based lists.
  (check out Edmonton’s What Would Don Draper Read?)
• to promote upcoming programs by sharing the link at the program/or as a the program-related handout.
  (check out Daniel Boone Regional Library’s locally relevant Civil War annotated list as an online complement to their Civil War exhibit and they link to this list via their online Civil War subject guide.)
• to get well-known community members to contribute.
  (check out Chicago Public Library’s ChiPubLib_Celebrities, featuring lists from Mayor Rahm Emanuel.)
• to highlight individual items of interest in databases.
  (check out Greenwich Library’s list of “weird, rare, or obscure” LPs available on Hoopla.)