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Monday, March 18, 2024
March 18, 2024

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Take a chance on loving a book

Library’s ‘blind date’ has allure for daring readers

By , Columbian Science, Military & History Reporter
Published:
5 Photos
Carolyn Tchoe wraps a book for a Valentine's Day-themed event at Cascade Park Community Library. In "Blind Date With a Book," staff members wrap books they like and write a few words on the wrapping paper to attract potential readers.
Carolyn Tchoe wraps a book for a Valentine's Day-themed event at Cascade Park Community Library. In "Blind Date With a Book," staff members wrap books they like and write a few words on the wrapping paper to attract potential readers. (Natalie Behring/ The Columbian) Photo Gallery

You can’t judge a book by its cover … particularly when the cover is hidden by layers of wrapping paper.

Sometimes it’s fun to just rely on a friendly recommendation and take a leap into the unknown. After all, what can you lose?

That’s the principle behind “Blind Date With a Book,” a two-week event that Cascade Park Community Library is using to celebrate Valentine’s Day.

Library employees were invited to pull some of their favorite books from the library’s shelves and wrap them up in Valentine-themed paper. Then they wrote a little something on the wrapped book.

If You go

 What: Blind Date With a Book.

• Where: Cascade Park Community Library, 600 N.E. 136th Ave.

• When: Through Friday, Feb. 19.

“We don’t put down the title, but we write a tantalizing little hook,” Laura Clark said during a recent book-wrapping session.

Seventy or so books were stacked on a display table near the front of the library.

While this particular promotion is timed for the period around Feb. 14, it does reflect a familiar aspect of library work.

“Often when we’re at the desk, people will ask us what we’ve read that we like,” Bonnie McDonald said. “People get excited when you get excited” about a book.

“It’s a way to turn people on to new authors,” McDonald added.

No peeking, by the way.

“We make it very clear: You can’t unwrap it at the library,” Teresa Torres, Cascade Park community librarian, said. “You have to take it home.”

Since it’s wrapped, the borrower can’t walk over to the counter and have a library employee check the book out. The patron has to use the automated checkout system, which scans an RFID (radio-frequency identification) chip in the book to process the transaction.

There can be a possible spoiler factor there, if the borrower chooses to print out a due-date slip, which displays the title. Even then, Torres said, “The title might not mean anything.”

Torres likes to put something on the blind-date table herself, and was thinking about wrapping up something by Kate Morton.

Morton is “kind of a mysterious modern-day Daphne du Maurier,” Torres said.

This is the third year the library has served as matchmaker for the blind-date event. Torres isn’t sure where it originated.

“Libraries steal from each other all the time,” Torres said. “It’s not an original idea, but it’s a fun idea.”

Feedback from readers has been encouraging, staffers say. That includes one borrower who was attracted by the handwritten “tease,” but then set the book aside after unwrapping it.

“She had already read it, and she had liked it,” Clark said. “She said, ‘No wonder it sounded good.’ “

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Columbian Science, Military & History Reporter