Let's share ways to increase the circulation of our collections. Got any great tips for today's churches and their libraries?
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Let's share ways to increase the circulation of our collections. Got any great tips for today's churches and their libraries?
You need to be a member of Church Librarians Network to add comments!
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One thing that helps us is that in the hallway right outside the library, we have a large rack which has on it books which are "new" - that is, they were added to the collection in the last three or four months. This used to be a tract rack, built for the church, which was no longer needed for that purpose. We were asked if we could use it of course we said yes! It is built in such a way that books are placed on it with the covers facing outward. Sometimes people don't have time or come in and just peruse the rack; sometimes a book will catch their eye as they walk past. Our check-out station is also right there, so it's easy and quick. (It also helps us in that the library itself is not very large and we don't have space for the rack or the check-out station inside!)
Word-of-mouth - some of our readers talk to others about what they are reading, which brings those people in to check it out ...
Our pastor mentioning books in his messages and encouraging the use of the library
Summer Reading programs bring people in, at least for those seven weeks ...
What do you do for a summer reading program?
We have designed five different programs, and we rotate between them. This year we will be doing Book Bingo, which is probably the simplest of the five. We created Bingo cards (on a regular-sized sheet of paper) for each of the following age groups: PreK-gr. 1; gr. 1-gr. 3; gr 3-6; Teen, Adult. The Teen and Adult have 20 squares (4x5) and the others have 5x5. The squares have assignments like "Historical fiction", "mystery", "classic", "animal story" etc etc etc - tailored according to our collection. One of our two main goals is to get people reading outside their usual genre preferences (the other is to promote our library, so all books have to come from it).
When they complete a row or column, they receive a small prize (coupon, or candy, or something similar). They also track how many pages they've read and at the end, the top three in each age group get some sort of bigger prize.
Our other programs all have the same two goals, but are packaged differently, to keep it interesting!