Every month the team in technical services selects their 5-10 favorite book jackets. There is no selection criterion; it is up to each person to decide what makes a book jacket worthy.
At the end of the month, the book jackets are displayed for the whole library community to look at and vote on. The community could and should include student assistants. The book jacket with the most votes becomes Book Jacket of the Month.
This process continues for a year by which time there are 12 candidates for Book Jacket of the Year.
A beauty pageant is organized. An emcee and panel of judges is selected. Members of the library community (at least) are invited to BE the book jacket, model the book jacket and answer questions about why this jacket should be Jacket of the Year (“Because I’ll promise not to let anyone judge me by my looks.).
The judges vote and present their tally to the emcee who announces the winners from 5th to 1st. The winning book jackets gets a tiara, a photograph and an explanation of why it won; this might be displayed on the library web site or an intranet.
There is an assessment to see what worked and what didn’t and then the process either repeats as is, with modification, or archived as a good try.
(My thanks to colleagues at Research Libraries Group, Inc for creating the prototype for this with the Fish of the Month contest.)
And the nominees for April, 2023 are: https://lithub.com/the-13-best-book-covers-of-april-2/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Lit%20Hub%20Daily:%20April%2027%2C%202023&utm_term=lithub_master_list
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