BookTok Trends in the Library, by Lisa Krok

BookTok has surged lately with many books and trends showing up in both public and school libraries. To find many of these, all you need is a TikTok account and appropriate hashtags to search for. Some of these include #BookTok, #LibraryTok, #LibraryTikTok, and #LibrariansofTikTok. We recently ventured into the land of Tok a few weeks ago at my library. It was reasonably easy to learn the basics, and now we are moving on to some “fancier” tricks and transitions.

Library teens most likely have been following Noodle, the pug who predicts the day’s mood by standing up (Bones Day) or lying back down in bed (No Bones Day). Noodle is owned by Jonathan @JonGraz, where followers can see the daily Noodle report. This display has been super popular and is filled with both adult and teen selections from our department. BookTok also has fun ideas like putting googly eyes on books with faces and adding in a little Rockwell to tie it in.

View No Bones Day Tok                                          View Somebody’s Watching Me Tok

Another clever trend is Killer First Lines from books. Librarians can also find ways to highlight specific parts of the collection, such as novels in verse.

  View Killer First Lines Tok                             View Novels in Verse Tok

I have also used Canva to create different BookTok themed posts for social media. This was a recent one from Black Friday weekend:

                                             View Holiday Gift mp4 here

These are just a few ways to use BookTok to engage teens. Check out the hashtags mentioned above on TikTok to find new ones daily, and follow us @morleylibrary if you are so inclined!

Lisa Krok, MLIS, MEd, is the Adult and Teen Services Manager at Morley Library and a former teacher in Cleveland, Ohio. She is the author of Novels in Verse for Teens: A Guidebook with Activities for Teachers and Librarians (ABC-CLIO). She reviews YA for School Library Journal, blogs for Teen Librarian Toolbox, and her passion is reaching marginalized teens and reluctant readers through young adult literature. Lisa has served on both the Best Fiction for Young Adults and Quick Picks for Reluctant Reader’s teams. She can be found on Twitter @readonthebeach.

Filed under: BookTok, TikTok