Public Library Impact on Discovery & Consumer Sales

The Panorama Project advocates for purposeful cross-industry collaboration and transparency to more accurately measure the role public libraries play in the book business, while partnering with publishers and libraries to measure and analyze the impact of library marketing and events on discovery of specific titles and authors, and sales via local booksellers any beyond.

KEY INITIATIVES

  • Panorama Picks provides local booksellers with quarterly lists of popular fiction, nonfiction, and young adult titles that are in demand at public libraries beyond their initial promotional windows—optimized for local interest via regional groupings aligned with the American Booksellers Association’s (ABA) regional associations. This unique program uses aggregated, anonymized hold list data from public libraries across the United States to identify recently published titles that have notably longer wait times for local library patrons—unmet demand that can help activate inventory, and identify opportunities for author events, read-alikes, and special promotions.

  • The Immersive Media & Books 2020 Consumer Survey is a comprehensive market research initiative measuring immersive media consumption and buying behaviors across key formats—books, film, TV, and gaming—and platforms, in partnership with Portland State University. The Consumer Research Committee includes representatives from the American Library Association (ALA), Authors Guild, Book Industry Study Group (BISG), Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA), and PubWest. The survey was launched as a pilot project in 2020, establishing a methodology and process to transition to a longitudinal study for ongoing research and analysis.

  • The Library Marketing Valuation Toolkit identifies best practices for producing and marketing a variety of author and book-related events at public libraries, and offers customizable templates librarians can use to measure and communicate the monetary value of the various marketing tactics they employ to champion books and authors in their local communities.

  • The COVID-19 Impact on Public Libraries Survey—a joint effort with Library Journal—gathered feedback and insights from public librarians in May 2020 to learn how the COVID-19 pandemic and social distancing mandates were impacting their circulation and programming decisions.

  • The Library Events & Book Sales Survey gathered insights from public librarians into the various book-related events—author visits, literary festivals, book clubs, and other experiential events that directly connect readers to books and authors—they produce for their communities, how they market them, which partners they work with, and how they measure and report on the impact of these events.

  • The Reader’s Advisory Survey measured how public libraries help patrons discover books and get recommendations, and gathered insights on indirect (one-to-many) recommendations, and their author events.

  • The Community Reading Event Impact Report researched and analyzed the impact of a public library-sponsored digital book club campaign on discovery, author/brand awareness, and retail sales of first-time author Jennifer McGaha’s memoir, Flat Broke With Two Goats (Sourcebooks, 2018).

NOTE: If you’re a publisher and would like to partner on specific title or category research projects, please contact our project lead, Daniel Albohn.