How to save a library??

[MrsReber]

I went to a meeting tonight at our local library as a friend had invited me. There were six of us there. This group tries to come up with ideas to increase usage of our library. I learned a lot tonight. Apparently the library will lose $60k in funding next year. They have the lowest usage of any library in the county system, which doesn't bode well for the future. The library is a branch of the county system and it's near and dear to the hearts of me and my children and some of our close friends.

They have a summer reading program which we enjoy each year. I think part of the problem is that when the kids are back in school, they take books from the school library and nobody visits the town library.

I know that there is such a wide variety of people here so I thought I'd send out an SOS to see if anyone had encountered a similar problem.

How does one increase usage of a library? How do you get the kids excited about checking out books? Any ideas??

Thanks!
Susan

[Loremma]

Our library has a mini Starbucks like store and reading area that the kids love to use for doing homework after school. Or just meeting up with friends. I think they feel grown up getting their snacks and sitting in a separate area of the library where the snacks are allowed.

They also have authors come in to read and do Q&A sessions. Plus the book clubs and movie nights.

My local library has just started a $5 million renovation and I know they are adding lots of computer areas. I'll have to check it out more thoroughly the next time I'm in the temporary building.

Hope that helps.

[Peweh]

Maybe you could get some local businesses to donate prizes and have some kind of Read-a-Thon to help spark the kids' interests? That would help in the short-term. I like the previous poster's idea of making it a 'cool place' to hangout, almost like a Borders bookstore with a cafe. Does this library offer internet/Wifi access? I live in a pretty small town (pop 7000) but every week when I visit the library there are several people taking advantage of the half-dozen computers, and a couple others with their own laptops are camped out enjoying the Wifi - and Air Conditioning!

I LOVE the library. It's so sad when a community is faced with losing such a valuable resource. Being in a small town with relatively low commercialism, we have relatively HIGH taxes compared to the rest of the state... since we have no kids and aren't using the school system, I sometimes feel like the library is 'all' I'm getting for my tax money, so I milk it for all it's worth :p (I know, we do get police/fire/road maintenance... but the library's my own 'value-added' service)

[applecrisp]

I'm also a huge library fan and always saddened to read when some branches close or drastically cut hours.

Perhaps focus usage for both kids and adults. If more adults went to the library, perhaps to take out DVDs for movies, books etc, might result in an increase in circulatioon overall (some adults might have kids in tow when they go, which might cause some kid browsing).

I remember reading an article in my local paper and it said that many don't know the resources the library offers and how things have changed over the years. In my area, you can order books online, if my local branch doesn't have a certain book but a library in the consortium does, they willl get it from the other library (love that), check out mags and DVD's etc.

Just thinking out loud, if you have a special event at the library perhaps local merchants will display a flyer etc. If the event is focused on kids, if you have kid stores in town they would be a good fit.

Perhaps check out the website from other librariies to see what they offer/promote etc.

Oh, my local library had some free seminars on job hunting/resume writing etc -- and had a great respoinse. It was helping to fill a need for many locals and the seminars were given by Outplacement/HR types. I thought it would have been a great idea if the library made a bit of a display with some "Job Hunting" books --- so attendees could easily check out a book or two on their way out. I think free seminars, author readings are great PR and increase traffic.

Good luck.

[syzygy]

Susan, here's a link to our little town library (http://www.hudsonpubliclibrary.com/children.html). We're not all that big but the library gets a lot of support from the town and is well utilized. Hopefully it might give you some ideas...

[LaraW]

My mom is a librarian, and her library system was chosen to be part of a test market for a group that is supported by the Gates (I think) Foundation. It is basically a way to raise awareness in the community of the value that the library offers to you in your everyday life, so that people will feel that value, and be more willing to vote for tax increases to support it, etc.

Here (http://www.geekthelibrary.org/) is a link to the group, maybe there will be some resources for your library there.

Do you have a "Friends of the Library"? Our "Friends" group has an ongoing booksale, where people donate their used books, and they are sold and that $$ goes to support the library. They do some other fundraising too, but that is one of the ongoing projects.

[MrsReber]

Thanks for the ideas and links. Our town is quite small, too. The library is in the old elementary school building so there's no way to expand it, nor any money to do so. There are some extra rooms, though, that they might be able to use for a cool "hang out" spot for the kids. I don't know if they'd use it, but it'd be worth a shot.

This group that met last night is a Friends of the Library group. I told them that they need to get the word out. Though I knew there was a group, I had no idea when it met or what it was all about. They don't really tell people that. They send out flyers for events at the elementary school, but there's not much info on that, either. Apparently, they used to have a group of about 50 people who went crazy getting donations and such. The Friends is a registered 5013(c) so all donations are tax deductible. I'm wondering if the local businesses know that or not. They're good at getting out info for events, but not so good at the continued support.

They have high speed internet, which is huge here since we're in the boonies and not everyone can get high speed - for most, the cost is too high and DSL and cable barely exist. I use dial up myself and go to the library when I need to do something that requires a faster connection. They have had resume and job search classes, too. They are trying to change their focus to what the community needs.

The point about reserving books from the other libraries was brought up, too. Someone thought people might not know you can do that. I just reserved a book online and when it comes back in, I'll be able to pick it up at my local branch. As for the dvd's, the problem there is that rentals seem to be down overall since anyone with satellite can choose from many different movies and not have to leave the house. Also, the movies at the library seem pretty limited. We take some home, but we've seen a lot of them already.

The librarian is funny- she said we should just check out all the books and put them in the drop on our way out the door! They track the usage by computer usage and check out.

Unfortunately, I lost my own job a few months ago, but the good news is that I can become more involved in this and maybe find some new ideas. The people in this group have been doing it for a while and the librarian was happy when I came to the meeting. She said the others may be getting burnt out and need some new blood for new ideas. Plus, most of them are older and don't have kids at home, so they may not understand what kids want.

I asked DD (8) on the way home and she said reading contests. She suggested a contest where you put your name in for a drawing- each book you read is one entry, so the more books you read, the better your chances at winning. That way, you only need one prize. I might suggest that since it came from the target group.

Also, they used to have pizza parties for kids who read so many minutes each week (I think it was 10 or 15 minutes per day because of other homework committments). They'd have the party each month and that was a big hit, but the parties were about $100 each and the money's just not there.

Thanks again! I'm going to check out those links. I knew someone here would have some ideas! :)

[mrswaz]

This may be a small idea, but do you have a local paper? About two years ago, our paper started a weekly column written by the head librarian. Each week she tells about a feature of the library or talks about an upcoming event- it's really worked well at informing our small town about what the library actually offers.

For the kids, there is the summer reading program which is always huge. During the school year they have storytime one day a week in the morning for parents of little ones. Most times there is a small craft or activity to go with the story- that is always packed, and then the storytime bunch migrates over to the library afterwards and goes home with lots of checked out material.

DVD's, Books on tape, and Computer Programs are huge at our library. A year or so ago, the library encouraged people to drop off their gently used DVD's to add to the collection, and it's amazing how many people made donations. The collection probably doubled.

Ooh, I thought of another. Last year, the library teamed up with some high school students and offered beginner computing one night a week. The class was designed for older citizens who maybe have never gotten into computers, emails and internet because they were never taught. The class was packed, and quite successful. After the class was done, there were two high school students who volunteered two nights a week to be at the library to tutor or assist anyone with computers.

[LakeMartinGal]

I was just talking about this yesterday! I see you already have a Friends of the Library group. Ours sponsors book sales of donated books a couple of times a year. They also keep a "sale area" of books donated in a separate part of the library, and they get credit for each person who comes in as a user of the library. Also, we have a book club that meets at the library 6 times a year to discuss a book, and we keep track of how many come to that, as well, for credit toward the use of the library. Local authors come for readings... lots of the same things that were suggested above. I'm always surprised at the offerings at our tiny library! And the library is closed on Wednesdays! This town keeps the country ways!;)

[blazedog]

I would try to find out whether the closures are going to be based on usage statistics or financial constraints.

I'm not sure how a library can "lose" money since it's non-profit unless they do a whopping amount of fines.

I would set up a meeting between delegates from the community and whoever is going to be making these decisions -- along with whoever at the local level has clout -- that would depend on who your local government is organized.

Then you can tackle it in terms of attempting to meet the criteria they are using.

You can work on increasing usage but you might also have to provide a certain percentage of the operating budget as well -- if so, there are various fundraising schemes available. One can also look at ways of decreasing the budget -- e.g. staggered operating hours - in LA some libraries open at noon several days of the week.

[MrsReber]

We do have story time on Monday, with a craft. This is for children from around 3-6. I took my son there before he was in school and there were about 5 kids on average there. Then they have the rock-a-bye readers which is for babies and toddlers, and they even have stichin' chicks- women who come to knit or crochet and visit. I don't know if they still have a book club or not. They do have book sales and a rack of books available for sale (I bought a few from there myself.)

Blaze, the library isn't losing money, it's losing funding due to some changes in the town. It's a county system and with our main town looking to change it's official standing (from "city" back to county, from what I understand), the funding to all the libraries will change. Our local branch is the smallest and least used within the system. Though we can fight for it on a government level, that could prove to be a waste of time with the size and usage of the library. They could look at is as we have a main branch in town, why bother? We'll be competing with all the other branches for funding, and those other branches are in bigger towns. There aren't any town meetings, everything appears to be done at the county level.

The focus is to try to get people into the library. They do base funding on that. Donations are great, too since they pay for anything over the regular annual funding-- for instance, chairs and tables for their activity room and the summer reading program.

Our branch is also closed on Wed and is only open late (till 7:30) one night each week. The other nights, they close at 5:00, which doesn't help too much when people are at work and kids are in school! They made the schedule based on the usage and just recently changed it.

I like the idea of a basic computer class geared toward older people. They were looking at an aluminum recycling drive with 100% of the profits going to the library, too.

Thanks for the input!

[blazedog]

So it's somewhat like a chicken and egg situation -- funding is based on usage. If you increase usage you might decrease the budget gap since more funds would be provided.

However, you still have to provide donated funds to close whatever gap remains.

So you need a two pronged solution -- increase patronage and raise money.

It still might not hurt to find out how is making the decisions and put some pressure on. If you can get together some kind of presentation as to unique needs of community you might still squeeze some additional funds out of it.

How many people are in the community that is being served?

[MrsReber]

Well, it's a pretty small community- probably well under 5,000, but they do somewhat serve the next town, too, which is also a very small town. But then again, most of the towns around here are very small.

Yes, you're correct we need to raise usage and contributions. I've never done anything like this before, but now that I'm out of work and have some spare time (going to school, so not too much spare time!) I figured I could maybe help out. Plus I love books and we do love this little library.

Since it was my first meeting, I don't know the history of what they've tried before. I probably need a bit more information on that. I know they're trying to figure out what it is the community wants and how they can adjust the services to meet those needs.

[KristiB]

One cool and extremely popular feature our library systems have is culture passes. They're limited and on a first come first serve basis but they are for free admission to local museums and events.

I don't know if there's anything like that in your area. Really it benefits the library and the museum/event as they both get traffic.

Altough, they did have to send an e-mail asking people not to rush the door and fight over them :rolleyes:

[MrsReber]

Kristi, did they just give them away at the library or was there some sort of library event that day? I was thinking along those lines if we could get local businesses to donate things (someone else mentioned that, too, in an earlier post). We have a nice science museum with planetarium and a brand new art museum.

We're thinking of asking another mom we know to become involved with Friends of the Library. She used to always bring her son there for story time and now she home schools him. My thought was that the home school kids don't have a school library so they shoud be utilizing their local libraries. I don't know if this mom belongs to any home school groups or not.

[applecrisp]

One of my local branches also offers movies for seniors (lots of seniors in that area), and movies for teens.

As another posted mentioned, a few different branches near me (different towns/cities) also offers tickets to museums etc. I think they might have been free in the past. I know some are at a pretty significant discount.

Here's a LINK (http://www.brooklinelibrary.org/what/museum) to one of my local branches ... gives some scoop about tickets, movies and other things they do.

Good luck -- keep us posted.

[KristiB]

Kristi, did they just give them away at the library or was there some sort of library event that day? I was thinking along those lines if we could get local businesses to donate things (someone else mentioned that, too, in an earlier post). We have a nice science museum with planetarium and a brand new art museum.



The passes are available for check-out like a book. There's a stand for them and you have to have a library card.

Both the Scottsdale and Phoenix libraries have them and here is a web page on how they work

http://library.ci.scottsdale.az.us/events/culture_pass.cfm

and an article

http://www.azcentral.com/thingstodo/galleriesmuseums/articles/2009/03/19/20090319culturepass.html

[MrsReber]

Thanks, Kristi and applecrisp! That's interesting about checking out the passes. I wonder if that'd work around here. It is kind of an odd area. They were telling me a bit of the history. Apparently they had a library which closed sometime in the 80's. When they went to open a new library here, some people actually fought it! Not just this one, they fought the opening of a few of the county libraries. This one opened in 1999. They just had the 10 year anniversary earlier this year. Over the summer, they were packed for all the programs- they have some really good ones each year.

I got in touch with the 2 other women I know (one of them recruited me). We may have a brain storm session on our own to see what we, as moms of grade school children, can think up.

[Home Chef]

One of the things our library did this summer that didn't cost money for the library was to have a Teen Baking Contest.

They had 3 categories - cookies, pies, cakes and had 26 teens sign up. The day of the judging 17 teens actually brought a dessert for judging. There were 3 judges from the food industry (I was a judge) and there were prizes of restaurant gift certificates donated by local businesses.

The newspaper was there, took pictures, had stories, showed the winners.

It was the first time they tried this and were very happy with the response. After the judging, the teens, parents, siblings, library people, ate all the goodies.

That could get some traffic. You could do it with adults maybe too,

I've also been doing lots of cooking classes at libraries this summer. I do get paid, not tons, but I know you said there was no money. I know the money came from grants, Friends of the library, some county funding.

The programs have been very successful with adults and kids. People like cooking.

Hope this helps some. Our library also has the passes for various activities around the area.