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I have a thing for wine—I love it. I love learning about it and trying different varietals, though I’m hardly a connoisseur. My favorite weekend activity includes going to local wine shops and asking the professionals for suggestions. I tell them what I like, what I don’t like, what I want to spend, and they help me find a few bottles that they think I’ll enjoy. The best part is they never laugh at my lack of proper wine jargon or judge my laughably low price point. This whole "asking for suggestions from the pros" thing has rarely, if ever, failed me.

Here at Skokie Public Library, I consider our Readers' Services team to be book sommeliers. Sommeliers—also known as wine stewards—are trained and knowledgeable wine professionals; and we’re trained and knowledgeable book professionals. Sommeliers use their deep knowledge to suggest wines that best complement food and their customers’ palette; we use our deep knowledge to suggest books that complement our readers’ tastes and pair well with our readers’ moods.

We take a lot of pride in what we do and we want to share our knowledge with our patrons. To make it easy, we created BookMatch. It's been around for a few years now, but we recently revamped it and want to show it off. So what is BookMatch? It’s kind of like a concierge service for books. You fill out a survey telling us what you’re looking for in a book. What do you like? What don’t you like? What are you in the mood for? The more information you give us, the more personalized and spot-on our suggestions will be. And please, please please be honest with us! We never judge books or their readers. Besides, chances are there is someone on our team who likes the same “guilty” pleasures that you do (though truly, there is no reason to feel guilty). Once we receive your survey, our team of book stewards works together to come up with a list of titles that best suits your reading tastes. And with such a large number of book stewards at your service, you’re guaranteed to get a list of titles perfectly suited to your tastes.

Stop by the Reader Service desk and fill out a paper survey, or better yet, get started now with our online survey.