We have recently renovated our childrens Sunday School Wing of our church and there is now an extra room that we potentially could use to house the children's section of our church library. Does any one have a separte Children's Library in your church. I am looking for ideas to decorate and display media, special promotion and programs, etc. We currently get little traffic for childrens books and we feel this has the portential to be a great ministry as parents bring and collect their children from Sunday School. Any ideas are welcome.
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Yes, we have a separate Children's Library in our church. The Adult Library is in one building and the Children's Library is in another building, in the Children's Center. We started this several years ago and put the children's books where the children meet for Sunday School, Sunday evening and Wednesday activities. We also put the parenting books there because the parents of the children hardly ever get to the building where the Adult Library is. We have two librarians who staff the children's library. They decorate, promote, man, etc. We use the Concourse computer program and have a license that lets us have two stations. So both computers can be used at the same time in different locations. The data base shows at which location a book is located. We enter items and patrons only from the adult library, but check-out and check-in is done in both libraries. Hope this helps.
I have a question. Where is the ADULT library in conjunction with the children's library? If they are next door to each other, I see no reason to promote the new children's library. Maybe even put a door between the two rooms. Yet, I have found that if the adult and children's library are in one room, that option affords the parents to browse in the adult portion of the library while the children look for children's books. Iin the majority of public libraries, the two areas are on separate floors and areas. But I like the "welcoming" feeling of having the children and adult together. But like I asked, keep in mind the proximity of the children's room to the adults. Maybe put some footsteps on the floor leading the children to their library from the adult room.