Director’s Thoughts – 9/25/24
How do you get people in the door? It’s hard when there are so many things vying for people’s attention these days. And when Amazon can deliver to your door, what can a public library offer that makes people want to visit?
This is a question my staff and I are constantly asking ourselves as we try new and different ways to encourage people to walk through our doors. Some of these ideas are nothing new, while others may be simple new ideas that you can try and see what happens at your own library! We have noticed that a lot of these fun ideas have encouraged people to participate in the library environment beyond coming into just browse for books.
Programs
Obviously, the first and probably the most obvious is to offer programs that your community is interested in. We have had HUGE success with things like storytime (of course), but also a Bridge Basics class for adults, and an occupation exploration program for middle school students. While these are all very different, our community loves them!
Depending on your thoughts about celebrating holidays in your library (we celebrate a variety of diverse holidays), we’ve had great success in offering a Diwali Celebration that brings over a hundred people into the library with a storytime, drop-in craft for elementary school age kids, vendors, and a full presentation of singers and dancers celebrating the holiday. We have a large Indian population in our community and they truly appreciate celebrating a holiday that reminds them of their home country and their community here in the U.S.
Passive Programming
Passive programming is a completely different idea from your typical program in that you don’t have a set day and time, rather this type of programming is available at all times your library is open. We’ve had a lot of positive feedback from patrons and a lot of participation in our passive programming both in the adult department and in the children’s department.
This or That
This was something so simple that my reference librarians came up with and it’s literally one thing versus the other and people can vote for their favorite. We’ve done everything from summer vs. winter, bear vs. mouse, alien vs. dinosaur, pretty much anything is game. Each month, the reference desk chooses two things to compete against each other and creates one inch square votes. We leave them at the counter across from our circ desk and anyone walking past can vote for their favorite by putting that image into our very official voting bucket. We don’t care how many or how often, it’s just a little something that we have available. At the beginning of the next month, we announce the winner and announce the new competitors. Silly, and yet very effective!
Scavenger Hunt
We’ve had a lot of success in our children’s department by posting a scavenger hunt that changes out a few times a year. We print out 10-15 different images based on a theme and tape them all over the department. The only other thing you need is a check-off sheet for kids to track what they’ve found. We do all the prep work in Canva and it’s so easy to make a template that can be easily swapped out for each theme. I love having activities like this in the department that allow kids to explore the library in a fun and safe way that also keeps them entertained while their caregivers are searching for books or helping siblings. Don’t forget to post an answer key for a little help when needed!
Match the Image
This is another activity we’ve offered in our children’s department – we print out 20-30 images again, based around a theme. Each image has a number and the kids have to match the image with what it is on a matching worksheet. For example, we’ve done Disney characters and the kids have to match the character to their names on the worksheet. We’ve also done celebrations from around the world, book characters, and many others!
Grab & Go Activities
These activities were started when we re-opened after COVID when programming was still sparse. We started in the Children’s Department with less than 50 bags per month. These activities are simple crafts or STEM experiments that are provided via a brown paper bag and include all the supplies needed to create the craft. The only rule is that these activity kits are to be used at home, not in the library. They’ve become so popular that we now make 100 bags every month in the children’s department and even more during the summer. And, we’ve started offering grab and go activities in the adult/YA departments as well with 50 kits being created there. I honestly think there would be an absolute revolt if we ever tried to stop offering these activities. This year, we’re on track for offering 2,300 grab and go kits for our community!
Displays
Finally, think about the types of displays you highlight in your library. We have some face-out shelving at our desk that we’ve started tying into our This or That challenge. We pull out a bunch of picture books and because they are perfectly at kids’ eye level, a lot of these books get checked out during the month.
Before the This or That challenge, our staff were posting a different color each month which really made a pretty image when you came into the library. It’s also fun because it highlights a wide variety of books that really have nothing to do with each other except the color of their covers. I know of families who would come in just to see what color the books were for the month!
Share Your Thoughts
What are ways that you bring your community into the library? What are things that have worked so well for you that you have to share? I’m always looking for new and different ways to bring people into the library in ways that are sometimes unexpected! Share your thoughts!
