Christie Hansen has an interesting opportunity:
Our church highlights a ministry each month, or so, in our Welcome Center on Sundays with representatives from that ministry and a coffee and snack bar. It's a great oportunity for our congregants to meet and mingle with each other and the ministry leaders/teachers to ask questions and get more information on upcoming events/studies.
An added blessing is that our church library is usually invited to be a part of the "Coffee Cart Fellowship" by displaying part of our collection that supports or goes along with that month's ministry focus. This is a great way for our library to connect with the varous ministries on ways that we can support them and the topics of study that they are exploring. It also is a wonderful way to keep the library "in front of" our congretation since our collection is housed in the basement and is removed from the usual pattern of foot-trafic.
This brings me to my main topic of conversation. Our church library is the ministry that is being highlighted and focused on in just a couple weeks. I chose the timing so that we could be close to "National Library Week" in order so that we could remind everyone that we are a relevant resource alongside, or instead of, their public libraries.
I'm wondering if anyone has any information or statistics on church libraries in recent years? Or any articles or stats on the impact of church libraries as ministries? And also, has anyone ever done a table display or something similar with National Library Week in mind? How do you promote your library in this season? Is there anyone that might have some experience that they are willing to share or encouragement to help me in my planning this event?
Thanks!
Christie Hansen
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