Introduction

Humans are social creatures. We derive pleasure from sharing moments of our lives with one another and creating community. Thanks to social media, we have been able to transcend physical boundaries when pursuing community. Today, there are many different social media platforms and each has different strengths that benefit their users. Twitter, for example, allows users to create short Tweets (280 characters) and is most popular with 25-34 year olds (Dixon, 2022). Instagram, most popular with both 18-24 and 25-34 year olds (Aslam, 2022), is more focused on visual content in the form of curated photos with captions that can hold up to 2200 characters whereas YouTube focuses on videos that can range in length from five seconds to a few hours (Lo, 2020). Users create communities on these social media platforms, and one that has translated particularly well to each of these platforms is the reading community. While many platforms have become homes for bibliophiles across the world, one of the biggest communities of readers has emerged on the app TikTok and is referred to as ‘BookTok’. This chapter introduces the concept of BookTok and explores how BookTok can influence the management of public library collections. We begin with an overview of the different forms of book-related social media, introducing TikTok as the newest and arguably most influential platform. BookTok, a sub-community on TikTok, has an impressive influence on book popularity and book sales. Due to this, books made popular via BookTok are highly sought after at public libraries, leading to increased circulation, more holds, and longer wait times for those titles. This can have a myriad of effects on how a public library develops its collection. We also explore the challenges and associated responses related to the BookTok phenomenon as well as provide sources for further reading.

Background and Current Content

Books and Social Media

Although reading can be thought of as a solitary activity in which one sits and peruses a book on their own (De Léon, 2018; Collins, 2010), there are many social aspects that have long been associated with reading and book culture (Birke, 2021; Thomas, 2020; Rehberg Sedo, 2011). Examples include discussing thoughts about a new novel with a friend, participating in a book club, and sharing book recommendations. Social media platforms give readers another place to engage in bookishness with a massive global community. They can share their reactions to works they have recently finished, find recommendations from others with similar book preferences, and even interact with authors and publishers in novel ways. The creation of social media networks such as YouTube, Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram has enabled users to translate and expand upon the existing social culture surrounding reading by cultivating virtual communities revolving around their shared love of all things books and reading. As Dorothee Birke (2021) writes, being ‘bookish’ means “being a person who regards reading, not only but often particularly reading printed books, as an integral part of life” (p.150). Bookish sub-communities on these platforms rose to popularity with literary lovers, resulting in BookTube (YouTube), Bookstagram (Instagram), Book Twitter, and Booklr (Tumblr). As of December 2022, over 83 million posts on Instagram were associated with #bookstagram while one of the original Booktube channels, polandbananasBooks, has almost 430,000 subscribers. #booklr on Tumblr has over a million followers while the Book Twitter community has thousands of members and has spawned numerous influential hashtag-based movements, such as  #ownvoices and #WeNeedDiverseBooks (Lo, 2020). These expansive bookish communities spread across each different platform, with varying levels of influence, meaning that book publishers had new marketing avenues to explore.

Trade publishers have benefited greatly from the arrival of book-specific social media communities in many ways. Due to the demographic and content differences between platforms, each offers access to a different niche that can be targeted with specific marketing. Publishers can do so by interacting with existing and potential audiences directly through their own accounts and sharing news about book releases, sales, or events (ErinNickCarlyBridie, 2017; Hyrkin, 2015). Creating and sustaining relationships with readers on the various platforms helps those readers feel “engaged” (Crisswell & Canty, 2014, p. 353) and encourages them to share their thoughts, generating buzz for new releases and backlisted titles alike. Additionally, publishers can also enlist the compensated or uncompensated assistance of content creators on the various platforms (Lo, 2020). Many publishers receive largely free promotion of their titles from the labour of content creators, something initially thought to help level the marketing playing field between big publishers and independents although this has not necessarily been the case (Nolan and Dane, 2018). With different platforms falling in and out of fashion as social media and the culture surrounding it evolves, publishers and authors also have to keep up with user trends to maintain relevance. In 2023, that means creating a TikTok account.

A Short Introduction to TikTok and BookTok

In 2017, one of the newest social media platforms, TikTok, burst onto the international market (Fannin, 2019). TikTok focuses on short form videos that generally run between 15 and 60 seconds (Fannin, 2019). Users of the platform can post their own content as well as share, like, and leave comments on the videos of other users. With over three billion downloads worldwide, TikTok has quickly become one of the most popular social media platforms in the world and as of 2021, the app boasted one billion active users (Shepherd, 2022). Of TikTok’s active user base from the United States in 2021, nearly 50% are between the ages of 10 and 29 while 61% of active users identify as female (Shepherd, 2022). Approximately 25% of TikTok users reported “purchas[ing] or research[ing] a product after watching TikTok” (Time Well Spent: Users on TikTok stay longer, engage often & feel happier, 2021), indicating that the app is a powerful marketing tool that many businesses have taken advantage of in a multitude of ways (Fannin, 2019). Businesses can pay for ads to be shown on the app, create their own accounts to post materials and interact with potential customers, or hire existing creators to advertise their products (Fannin, 2019).

One thing that creates a distinction between TikTok and other social media platforms is the algorithm used to suggest new content to users. On TikTok, every user has a personalized feed filled with videos entirely tailored to their preferences by an AI-powered algorithm that ranks videos based on variably weighted indicators (How TikTok Recommends Videos #For You, 2020; Fannin, 2019). This differs from  Facebook or Twitter which simply suggest posts on top of what users subscribe to (How TikTok Recommends Videos #For You, 2020; Fannin, 2019). Additionally, TikToks are much less polished in nature than a perfected Instagram photo or a fully edited YouTube video. The “unfiltered” (Lamont, 2020) nature of TikToks lends itself to the community building aspect of the app.

Akin to other platforms like YouTube or Instagram, a bookish subculture has also emerged on TikTok known as BookTok. Mainly young and female (Wolfe, 2022), BookTok creators focus on short book reviews, sharing their reactions to recently finished books as well as lists of favourite titles and works that fall within specific literary niches such as dark academia or what is affectionately referred to as ‘smut’. As of January 2022, BookTok content racked up almost 36 billion views (Kaplan, 2022). Due to the nature of the TikTok algorithm and the massive amount of users, the demand for books that go viral on BookTok is astounding. Book retailers have taken to setting up ‘As Seen on BookTok’ tables while publishers see a sustained increase in sales for viral titles (Harris, 2021; O’Sullivan, 2022). British publisher Bloomsbury saw a 220% increase in profits which the owner partially attributed to BookTok (“Word of mouth; Books and social media”, 2021). Meanwhile, the U.S. print book market sold 825 million copies in 2021, 125 million copies more than what was sold in 2019, also thanks in part to BookTok (Kaplan, 2022). Even backlisted books, such as Madeline Miller’s 2011 novel The Song of Achilles, have been making the rounds on BookTok just as newer, highly anticipated books have, such as Xiran Jay Zhao’s The Iron Widow (O’Sullivan, 2022).

Social Media and Libraries

Traditionally, the studied relationship between public libraries and social media has been unidirectional, with libraries using social media as a tool for marketing their collections and services as well as engaging with their users (Maturure & Rakemane, 2020; Petit, 2011). There are instances of users “talking back to the library” (Petit, 2011, p. 253) through Facebook and Twitter to initiate requests for specific materials. However, there is a gap in the literature addressing how book-centered social media affects collection development in libraries. Book-centered content on platforms such as YouTube and Instagram have likely influenced the circulation and collection of titles at the library.

It is worth noting that libraries have dealt with surges in the popularity of books due to external forces for years before the evolution of social media through platforms such as Oprah’s Book Club. The phrase “The Oprah Effect” was coined in response to the sheer amount of influence wielded by Oprah Winfrey when endorsing products (Rosenfeld, 2021). The Oprah Effect also occurred for books chosen for the Oprah Book Club. Author Toni Morrison’s 1970 work, The Bluest Eye, sold 800, 000 copies after it was selected for Oprah’s Book Club in 2000. As a result, libraries faced huge surges in demand for titles vetted by Oprah.

However, the phenomenon that is BookTok transcends the impacts of its predecessors. The skyrocketing popularity of certain books and authors on TikTok means that libraries have to contend with an exponential influx of demand for those titles. As a result, holds and associated wait times for viral titles increase drastically. For example, TikTok sensation The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid has over 500 holds on 58 ebook copies at the Edmonton Public Library (EPL) at the time of writing. EPL is a multi-branch library located in a major Canadian city and it is one of the top five public libraries in Canada.

Not only do BookTok trends influence the circulation of certain titles, but they can also influence the collection as a whole (Bogan, 2021). Many public libraries allow patrons to suggest titles for acquisition. As long as those titles meet the selection criteria and budget constraints, patron recommended materials are usually purchased (Fulton, 2014). When books go viral on BookTok, patrons are likely to request those titles. Actively purchasing materials that patrons request has an array of benefits which include cost savings, increased circulation, and the identification of titles that may be missed by other methods of selection (Fulton, 2014). The longevity of BookTok’s influence on library collections remains to be seen as there are multiple countries exploring options to ban the app due to privacy and security concerns, with India having banned it in 2020 (Maheshwari & Holpuch, 2023). In Canada, TikTok is banned from use on government devices as of February 2023 (Wendling, 2023) while the United States government is considering federal legislation that would ban TikTok nationwide as of March 2023 (Maheshwari & Holpuch, 2023; Espada & Popli, 2023). Despite the possible lack of longevity, challenges associated with BookTok and public libraries have already arisen. These challenges will be explored in the following section.

Challenges to Collection Development

This section explores two main challenges that BookTok causes for the collection development of libraries, using examples of books that have become popular on BookTok and affected library collections. These challenges include the struggle of maintaining diversity in the library collection due to the abundance of white heteronormative themes in many popular BookTok books and what can happen to a library’s collection when a book gets suddenly popular but later loses traction.

Maintaining Diversity in the Collection

Quite often, a consequence of having a collection curated by patron suggestions can result in a certain type of book dominating the library’s collection, which can then cause an imbalance in the collection (Costello, 2017). In the case of BookTok specifically, books that become very popular often fit a white heteronormative narrative due to the users and themes that are promoted by the app (Wolfe, 2022). This can cause library collections to be less diverse, since books featuring people of colour or members of the 2SLGBTQ+ community are not promoted on the app as often. One example of this is the author Sarah J. Maas, who is a very popular author on BookTok (Stevens, 2022). Maas’ novel, A Court of Thorns and Roses, became extremely popular on BookTok, reaching the height of its popularity in the summer of 2021, despite being published in 2015 (Stevens, 2022). Maas has since been criticised for her failure to represent people of colour and members of the 2SLGBTQ+ community with her characters (Ames, 2022). When authors with these kinds of criticisms get popular on BookTok and their books start being in such high demand in library collections, it can make it difficult to maintain a diverse library collection.

Unfortunately, this is not a new issue. The lack of representation for historically excluded groups goes far beyond BookTok and other forms of social media, as it is also very prevalent in the publishing industry (Price, 2022). An analysis done in 2020 by the New York Times indicates that the publishing industry is biased toward white authors and against authors of colour (So & Wezerek, 2020). Their study looked at English language books between 1950 and 2018 that had been widely read and published by one of the major publishing houses. During the study, they were able to determine the race of the authors of 7,124 books out of the 8,004 they had initially selected. Out of these 7,124 books, 95% of the authors were white. Even in the most recent year of the study, only 11% of the books were written by people of colour (So & Wezerek, 2020). This bias in favour of white authors being a systemic issue makes this an even bigger challenge, as it is not necessarily up to BookTok creators or library collections employees to fix, but rather the entire publishing industry. However, libraries are often the places where this kind of change can begin to grow as librarians can be strong advocates for changes in the publishing industry (Price, 2022).

Due to the popularity of controversial authors such as Sarah J. Maas and the bias within the publishing industry, it can be very difficult for books with more diverse perspectives to get their well-deserved time in the spotlight. Non-representative authors and the reality of the publishing industry cause diverse books to become overshadowed and not get the attention they deserve. Another possible reason diverse books and books by diverse authors may become overshadowed by those with less diverse themes and characters is the demographics of BookTok users. The individuals creating content on BookTok are largely teenage girls and young women, with the majority of them being white (Wolfe, 2022) and those who do not fit that criteria are not being promoted by the TikTok algorithm at the same rate. The app itself seems to promote more white voices and many users are criticising it for the lack of promotion of BIPOC and 2SLGBTQ+ creators (Wolfe, 2022), who are more likely to promote books with authentic BIPOC and 2SLGBTQ+ themes and characters. This is not new in the world of social media, as the same thing happened to BookTubers when YouTube was the more dominant social media site for users to share book reviews. It is very difficult to find Black BookTubers, as they lack the exposure and promotion received by their white peers (Doggett, 2019). Along with a lack of promotion, the TikTok algorithm has also faced criticism for removing or demonetizing the videos of BIPOC and 2SLGBTQ+ users with the claim that they violate community guidelines (Bacchi, 2020; Gassam Asare, 2020). If the main voice on BookTok is one of white-centeredness and heteronormativity, it only supports the already present issues in the publishing industry and will further contribute to a lack of diversity within library collections. Maintaining diversity in library collections is an ongoing challenge in collection development that precedes the advent of TikTok, with the social media platform exacerbating this issue. Another challenge that is caused by the introduction and use of this platform in the library community is the phenomenon of books having sudden, colossal surges in popularity which may require additional copies to be purchased, which can also create collection gaps. While surges in popularity are not a brand new occurrence, as stated previously, TikTok has significantly increased the frequency and intensity of these surges.

Sudden Increase and Decline in Popularity

Due to BookTok, many books are suddenly seeing a surge in popularity despite already being out for years. One example of this phenomenon is It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover, which was first released in 2016 but became more popular after it was featured on BookTok in 2021 (Stewart, 2021). For example, at the time of writing, It Ends With Us had 280 holds on 76 print copies and 560 holds on 52 electronic copies at EPL. When this sudden increase in popularity occurred, public libraries such as EPL likely did not have enough copies to accommodate the number of hold requests they were receiving. This sudden increase in hold requests requires the libraries to purchase more copies to be able to keep up with the demand for these viral books (Jensen, 2022). It is not a completely new phenomenon to have a popular book with many holds, but usually these are new releases by already famous authors or in currently trending genres. This gives time for libraries to anticipate the want for these books and prepare accordingly. One highly anticipated new release in 2020 was A Promised Land, the memoir by Barack Obama (Obama, 2020). The excitement surrounding this book’s initial release allowed The New York Public Library (NYPL) to properly prepare for the number of people who would want to check it out. They ordered over 1,000 copies in various formats in preparation for release (Gross, 2021). When a book starts trending on TikTok, it happens more suddenly than a highly anticipated new release. Librarians have to know how to react to these trends and prepare for the oncoming rush and order enough copies to fit this need, and then sustain steady circulation for anywhere from a few months to over a year (Jensen, 2022). While it has been shown that many books that gain their fame through BookTok have a lot of staying power (Stewart, 2021) and can maintain their popularity for well over a year in some cases (Jensen, 2022), interest in these titles will eventually decrease. When this happens to a book, libraries will likely have an abundance of copies that are not circulating due to the drop in popularity of the book. Going back to the example of A Promised Land, the majority of the copies at NYPL are not in use at the time of writing as the book has lost its popularity two years after its publication (New York Public Library, n.d.).

Books that are not circulating take up space in the library and create an imbalance in the collection. If the library is full of the requests of TikTok users, the collection becomes skewed in favour of a specific group of people, causing the library to be less able to support the entire community which is a requirement of public libraries (Blume, 2019; Costello, 2017). While initially the library is doing what it is meant to do in providing patrons with what they want to read, eventually these books are no longer being circulated and therefore no longer fit the needs of the patrons. Due to this, a deselection process for these books is absolutely necessary. Many libraries may already have a deselection policy that considers this as surges in the popularity of books is not new. With the newness of TikTok, however, it is likely more data will need to be collected to develop policies that can respond to the immense scale of this phenomenon caused by BookTok. This creates a challenge when considering what librarian responses to this issue would be, however, there have been a few articles that provide helpful suggestions on ways to combat the challenges that TikTok presents and use it to the advantage of the library.

Responses of Librarians

In this section, we take the challenges previously discussed and provide possible responses to them. Managing diversity requires attention to the collection and possible gaps and to any diverse books trending on BookTok. To deal with shifts in the popularity of books, librarians can keep an eye on BookTok trends, and have well-developed deselection practices for when books lose popularity.

Maintaining Diversity in the Collection

Librarians have a responsibility to maintain a diverse collection and advocate for the authenticity of diverse literature (Davis, 2021) as is explicitly stated by both the CFLA and ALA in official statements and policies made by both organizations (Canadian Federation of Library Associations, 2008; American Library Association, 2022). Therefore, it is important to combat the white heteronormative books that are prevalent on BookTok and support diverse books and authors. This task is difficult, as a main cause of a lack of collection diversity is the lack of diversity in publishing and in the profession itself (Price, 2022; Mortensen 2019). Despite this issue being more system-wide than solely confined to social media, BookTok is an area where libraries can begin making progress in promoting more diverse materials by finding those that break through the bias. While it is very common that non-diverse books are often the ones that become the most popular on BookTok, resulting in a lack of diversity in the collection, it has also been seen that diverse titles can break through and become immensely popular. For example, Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao is a sci-fi novel with a Chinese-coded cast of characters that also features a polyamorous homosexual relationship (Zhao, 2021). Iron Widow was advertised before its release on TikTok and through this advertising, the number of presales for the book skyrocketed (Singer, 2021). This book example shows that diverse books are also able to become popular on BookTok and therefore become highly requested books from a library collection. While it occurs less often, the evidence that diverse books can become very popular as well indicates that libraries may not have a hard time maintaining a diverse collection when maintaining the demand from BookTok, but it is an area where attention is necessary.

While it is possible for diverse titles to break through and become more popular on BookTok, as we have seen before, these titles tend to face more struggles. This caused specific hashtags to be created for minority groups to promote their books and authors (Wolfe, 2022). Using social media as a means to find diverse literature is a good strategy for developing a more diverse collection (Davis, 2021), and using these hashtags is one way in which librarians can use BookTok for this purpose. Librarians can use these hashtags to find books for the creation of displays in their libraries. “As Seen on BookTok” has become a popular idea for book displays in both bookstores and libraries as a way to bring in younger readers who recognize these books from videos they have seen on TikTok (Jensen, 2022). These displays can be altered and used in a way to promote diverse authors, characters, and themes in books by promoting the more diverse sections of BookTok. They can use the hashtags created for diverse communities to be able to create displays for books by Indigenous authors, books featuring transgender characters, or those describing the struggles faced by people of colour.

Decline in Popularity

Librarians will be facing high demand for certain books due to their popularity on BookTok and they are going to need to know how to react to this demand. It will be beneficial for librarians to be able to prepare for incoming demand for specific books to not face many issues of people waiting while more copies of a book are being ordered. To have this level of preparation, the library should ensure that they are keeping on top of BookTok recommendations by having a staff member keep an eye on articles, social media posts, and videos about what is becoming popular on the app. Another method would be to include patrons in the research process, by asking them where they heard about a book they are checking out. If the patron replies with “TikTok,” the librarian would likely want to stock up on a couple more copies to keep up with a likely surge in demand (Jensen, 2022). Once the book is losing its popularity, librarians need to develop strategies for deselection of these items which will require some further data that is not yet available due to the newness of TikTok. Deselection processes often call for the weeding of books that have been unused for the last three to five years (Larson, 2012), but with TikTok causing these surges for books that have been out for years, there are some important questions to ask during deselection. Mainly, how likely is it that in a few years, a book will become popular once again and repeat the same process? If this is to happen and libraries have removed the excess books from their collection, they will need to be purchased again. A possible solution to this issue is the purchase of non-perpetual ebook licenses, as was done by the NYPL with the release of A Promised Land, the memoir of Barack Obama (Gross, 2021). Due to the anticipated popularity of this book, the NYPL purchased physical copies, audiobooks, and both perpetual and non-perpetual ebooks. There was an understanding that eventually the excitement for this book will die down and some of these copies will no longer be necessary so there was a benefit to purchasing non-perpetual ebook licenses that would be removed after a specified amount of time. The possibility of purchasing ebook licenses to account for surges in popularity would depend on the specific library and its budget, as ebook licenses can be expensive. The benefits and drawbacks of various ebook pricing models are discussed in the chapter “The Ebook Pricing War”.

Librarians will also need to develop some strategies for when every copy of a popular book is checked out and people are asking for it. These strategies could include using the reference interview process to determine what about the book is making it popular and using that to suggest similar books that have not been receiving as much attention (Jensen, 2022). This could also be done by creating displays of books that are similar to popular BookTok books. These strategies for recommending similar books are also a good way to promote more diverse books that have similar themes to the popular BookTok books.

Lastly, librarians will need to know how to keep the collection properly balanced when a significant number of similar books are being purchased due to BookTok. Blume (2019) suggests three strategies to ensure library collections are balanced when patron suggestions are used to develop the collection. These strategies can be modified somewhat to adjust for TikTok-specific acquisitions. First, the number of copies of BookTok famous books can be limited to ensure they are not overpowering the rest of the collection. Next, since this kind of acquisition is likely to create gaps in a library’s collection, data should be collected to regularly address these gaps and purchase books to fill them. To avoid the creation of these gaps in the first place, librarians can purchase diverse and inclusive books at the same time they order BookTok-famous books which they can then promote and recommend to users who are waiting in a long line of holds.

Conclusion

Social media, and TikTok especially, can cause massive sudden surges in the popularity of books. This can then cause libraries to be unprepared and end up with a large amount of holds on an item of which they own only two copies. There are a few ways in which libraries can combat this phenomenon, such as anticipating surges, ordering more books when they notice a spike in popularity, or redirecting interest to similar books that are not as popular. Currently, research on TikTok as a catalyst for book popularity is scarce. Once there is more data that libraries can use, they can better react to these surges.

Sources for Further Reading

Jerasa S. and Boffone, T. (2021). BookTok 101: TikTok, digital literacies, and out-of-school reading practices. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 65(3), 219-226. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaal.1199

“BookTok 101” was published in the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy in 2021. In this article, Sarah Jerasa and Trevor Boffone give an introduction to TikTok and, more specifically, BookTok. This background is then used to explain how the app and community shape the literacy practices of teenagers and provides readers with “agency, community, and digital literacies” (Jerasa and Boffone, 2021).

Jensen, K. (2022). As seen on #BookTok. School Library Journal. 68(2), 28-31. https://www.slj.com/story/as-seen-on-booktok-inspiring-young-readers-tiktok-is-a-boon-for-books-libraries

Published in School Library Journal in 2022, “As Seen on #BookTok” describes how TikTok influences the popularity of books and goes on to describe how school libraries can respond to high demand for TikTok-famous books. While this article specifies strategies for school libraries, these methods can be used universally.

Birke, D. (2021). Social reading? On the rise of a “Bookish” reading culture online. Poetics Today, 42(2), 149–172. https://doi.org/10.1215/03335372-8883178

Birke gives an excellent overview of book culture and its migration to social media by exploring BookTube. More specifically, she looks to subvert the generally binary thinking around social media and the way it lends itself to more of the social aspects of reading. This article provides important context for understanding why social media users create “bookish” communities on social media platforms, including TikTok.

Jerasa S. and Boffone, T. (2021). Toward a (queer) reading community: BookTok, teen readers, and the rise of TikTok literacies. Talking Points, 33(1), 10-15. https://doi.org/10.58680/tp202131537

This article discusses how BookTok has the ability to build communities for people with similar interests or who are in similar situations. Specifically, it brought 2SLGBTQ+ teens together when their communities were historically erased in institutional spaces. The article uses this information to promote queer-inclusive classrooms, which can also be applied to libraries.

Harris, E. (2021, March 20). How crying on TikTok sells books. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/20/books/booktok-tiktok-video.html

Written for the New York Times, this article discusses popular BookTok creators and explains how their short videos are used to convey the themes and emotions of a book without giving anything away. It specifies that people are attracted to books that will elicit an emotional reaction and highlighting the feelings reading brings out causes books to fly off the shelves.

Chaudhry, A. (2022, February 3). How BookTok is changing publishing with new voices and influence. The Observer. https://observer.com/2022/02/how-booktok-is-changing-publishing-with-new-voices-and-influence/

This Observer article explains that BookTok has caused an exponential growth in publishers using influencers to sell books. This practice has been done since the birth of social media, but BookTok took it to the next level. While it has helped publishing companies promote their books, it also allows self-published authors to find success promoting their books as well.

Bogan, K. (2021, November 3). #BookTok: 5 Things Librarians Should Know. Don’t Shush Me! https://dontyoushushme.com/2021/11/03/booktok-5-things-librarians-should-know/

This installation of Kelsey Bogan’s blog series, “Librarians on TikTok”, delves into the ins and outs of BookTok and its effects on the publishing industry as well as how librarians can utilize BookTok for collection development and readers advisories.

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Bogan, K. (2021, November 3). #BookTok: 5 Things Librarians Should Know. Don’t Shush Me! https://dontyoushushme.com/2021/11/03/booktok-5-things-librarians-should-know/

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Davis, J. (2021). From cultural traditions to diverse superheroes: Strategies for building inclusive youth collections. Advances in Librarianship, 48, 67-77. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0065-283020210000048008

de León, C. (2018, July 31). Meet the YouTube stars turning viewers into readers. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/31/books/booktubers-youtube.html

Dixon, S. (2022, March 29). Distribution of Twitter users worldwide as of April 2021, by age group. Statista. https://www.statista.com/statistics/283119/age-distribution-of-global-twitter-users/

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