Does anyone else here put out a library newsletter? What kinds of things do you put in it? We started one last October, which has grown in scope quite a bit and I'm interested to know what others are putting in theirs.
You need to be a member of Church Librarians Network to add comments!
Replies
I had access to clipart books and thousands of fonts since I worked in printing for about 40 years. However, I have several hundred free fonts I've collected over time. One website I visited often was dafont.com. Just check the usage licence for any free font you want to download. Keep in mind some artistic looking fonts are designed for brief headline use only. If the size you use it at is too small it will be difficult to read, and certainly not legible for text. I tried to somewhat correspond a font to the subject of the article it headlined. Also, long blocks of text are burdensome to read in italics or all caps, and try to keep background colors light if black text goes on top of it.
As for clipart, there are websites that offer free clipart, just make sure that the image is high enough resolution for print. Vector art is preferred to an raster format like jpg, etc when the image is at 72dpi, unless it is for digital display. Images used for the web like those will generally print blurry on paper especially when enlarged. If you are looking for photos of books, one of the best resources is christianbook.com because their zoomed versions of a book are often higher quality.
For me the key to putting a christian newsletter together was to pray that God would use it for His purpose and His glory.
Bob, You rock!!! Love your one page newsletter!! All in the name of Glory to our God! I am a new Church Librarian, volunteered late last fall and have been at the helm ever since. My article in the newsetters are various in length but love your take on it, I also report some statistics as they like to hear this stuff but it is only a paragraph.
Thank you again for showing us what a one page version looks like!! I have Publisher and am going to see about using it as my article is usually the insert page in the newsletter, therefore she can just print it off with no moving over into the body of her part!
Blessings,
Melanie McKenzie
Westville UMC
Thanks Melanie. My wife, Sylvia, and I always believed that the library and it's outreach was a ministry, not just a room with books in it. We thank God that He allowed us to take part in the work He was accomplishing there.
Publisher should work well for you. With all the great resources in the library, it's a blessing to have the opportunity to have an insert in the church newsletter, though even a paragraph in church announcements would help people to be reminded of what potential treasures were available to them.
One other thing we tried was a survey handed out to the entire congregation that asked questions as to their interests in a church library. It helped us decide what areas we needed to concentrate on improving.
Hi Denise. Thanks for the compliment. Praise God He could use these newsletters for His glory. I didn't have a template, just made them up. You could copy designs similar to these or find a layout you like online and duplicate it. I worked at both a christian ministry and a secular printer, so the software (InDesign) I used is not readily available, though apps like "Pages" on the Mac would work just fine. We hoped that even if church members didn't come in to pick up a featured book/video, the newsletter would at least somehow minister to them. That was most important, but also the info in it would make them aware of the many varied resources the library had when they might later be searching for a specific interest. If you need any other input, let me know.
I'd like to receive the newsletter too! It's wonderful!
kjodon@chapelwood.org
We printed a newsletter for a number of years starting in 2003 at our library in California. The first ones were 8-pages once a month, which were too time consuming and too expensive. That morphed into two page handouts, and finally just a page in the church's newsletter. We had various strategies over the years, from simply showing the book cover, to adding captions, to longer descriptions with excerpts. We felt the added text could minister to newsletter reader even if they never checked out the book. Here are some examples of the single page versions and what we included in them.
Thanks to all who have asked to be added to our mailing list! I have done so and you should be receiving the August edition soon.
Debbie
I just had a chance to see your library newsletters. Wow, these are great! We had a printed one years ago, but we'd love to create one for our church's website. Thanks for the "samples." Please add me to your list to receive future issues: library@scbcweb.com
Linda Draper
Love your newsletter. Please add my email to your list. Mlsjms3@gmail.com. Thank you.
Debbie,
Please add me to your newsletter list. We appreciate your sharing with us.
Blessings,
Janet Fordham, CD Librarian
jkfordham@att.net
Trinity Bible Church, Richardson, TX 75080
Richardson, Texas 75080
-
1
-
2
-
3
-
4
-
5
of 6 Next