Our tiny church library team (sometimes 1 person, now there are two) has been working on the rejuvenation of our library for the last two years. . Our library is in a tenuous position, as we do not have strong support from our staff. I realize that we have held on to our church library much longer than other churches, but the pressure from the nay-sayers makes it difficult to move forward with any optimism. We have removed over 2000 books and CDs from our library shelves, resulting in more open shelves with room to display books with the face out. It is noticeably more attractive.
However, we have been told that we need to remove more books and both double-sided bookcases in the middle of our square room so that there can be a sitting area with chairs and a table. Our church building has no spare room, and all rooms are being looked at as being dual-purpose. I am also wondering if we clear out this much floor space that it will become a Sunday School room, where it would interfere with people coming in to check out books.
I am trying to get a concept of a vision for the library. I think we are going to have to set a certain publishing year as our cut-off point and let go of books which are published, as an example, anytime before 2010. I plan to keep the classic, solid authors. Although I want the library/discipleship center to feel fresh and new, I am currently feeling like we are losing the purpose of a library to remove that many volumes from our collection.
Has anyone made this drastic a change before? How did it work out? Did you see more people coming in and checking out books? We are needing some encouragement or some examples of other libraries who have made big changes and are thriving. I am now vacillating between feeling God's call to work hard to entice our congregation into the library to the opposite side of caving in and letting it die. I can't imagine! Please share your thoughts .
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I am so sorry to hear you are struggling at your library. I am fortunate to be a paid librarian at our church. I have been here since 1993. We circulate 70-80 books a month. Before the pandemic we had 3 bookclubs. Perhaps you could started a book club in person or virtual, to get folks interested in reading. Our denomination (Congregational) has a strong background in reading and education, having founded Harvard and Yale as well as Pomona College. I think that long history works to our advantage in the library.
I took over as librarian of my church library in August of 2022, after the death of the previous library attendant. As I began to update the collection, I quickly realized I needed more space so I opted to weed the adult fiction part of the collection based upon each title's review rating on Amazon. I used 4.6 as the cutoff rating; anything below was removed unless it was part of a series that had that rating for the others and the one in question was really close to 4.6 (4.4 or 4.5). It has taken me quite awhile to do this weeding but it's been worth it because it's opened up quite a bit of space. Because of its success, I will start working on the adult non-fic section next.
I have used one wall to put bookshelves that I've Thrifted from Facebook marketplace. It is opened up the space to where we can do Bible study or classroom. I have a double room so we can do a table classroom style or the sitting area with the sofa, chairs I hope the attached pictures help
I kept being told there is only a small percentage of people that want to read books or learn anymore. I'm praying and praying for God to do something with our empty library. Empty, as in no people in it. Most of them don't know it has reopened after the original librarian retired and moved away. So, here I am with this empty, quiet space and most people don't realzie they can use it.
He's given me a vision of the library becoming a teaching center for those that want to learn, for those that have the questions, for those that don't know how to even study their bible. Now I'm preparing and praying some more based on the vision God has given me so far. I will just keep praying and doing what he shows me. I sure hope you are praying behind all of your library choices. Pray and Wait on the Lord is the best thing to do. Pray and ask God for supportive staff members, ask for fresh ideas, ask for direction, just ask.
We reimagined ourselves as a Resource Center. This allowed us to drastically cut our collection and point patrons to online books, websites, church ministries, etc. Brochures were written to target various needs, ages and issues. Here is a link to the brochures....
Life's Challenges - https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B4y-qwGmWJh4cWhqVzEtQ0lvd3M...
Life Stages - https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B4y-qwGmWJh4RWd5dWFHRjNRVU0...
Faith Milestones - https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B4y-qwGmWJh4clA0ZlZ4THB1Mmc...
Building Faith - https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B4y-qwGmWJh4eU54NkVfVGU2aXc...