Vote Yes, part 2

Vermont libraries are embracing the video! The Mount Holly Town Library urges townspeople to Vote YES on Article 7 in a YouTube video created by two high school students at the local public access TV station. Like the Manchester videos, Mount Holly has users like parents, a painting group, and an audio book listener speaking on behalf of library services. Great year for pre-town meeting publicity in Vermont!

Vote YES in support of the Library

Manchester Community Library is using Vimeo to encourage voters to Vote Yes on town meeting day, to support the public library. Take a look at their Channel to see what they’ve created.

The videos are displayed on the MCL website, in newsletters, and of course at the MCL channel on Vimeo. The campaign includes stickers and a strong message, Vote Yes on March 1. Not voting is the same as voting no, a citizen tells us– and that means cuts in hours and services.

The messaging in “I’m cheap” is particularly appealing– a senior citizen who lives on a fixed income supports the library because he likes to save money. While walking and driving around Manchester, our hero talks about the library and how he saves by attending lectures, borrowing magazines and books, and taking his grandchildren in. He  calculates what the Library cost him in taxes– $47, or less than a dollar a week.

The scripts for these videos are carefully written to appeal to many audiences, parents, seniors, small business owners. The images are appealing– happy faces, the clean new library, the cafe where people have their heads together. Each video is well-edited and short, with “I’m Cheap” under two minutes.

Why Vote Yes is a page on the MCL website that gives the numbers– what the Library costs and how it’s been used this year. The total amount from town taxes is increasing; the share of the total library budget is dropping because of other sources of support. The usage statistics are easy to understand: people using computers. Nice job!

–More than 1,300 brand new members joined the new library.
–Over 50 community groups held meetings at MCL.
–Over 800 preschoolers and their parent/caregivers attended story times.
–People logged on to the public computers nearly 6,000 times in the first year of operation.
–More than 300 members took advantage of free 1-on-1 tech tutorials, eager to take advantage of enhanced their understanding of technology.

Annual Report as Infographic

Take a look at Fletcher Free Library’s FY 2014 statistics— in a great format. Director Rubi Simon appeals for engagement in current planning and financial support.

Advice for creating free infographics is plentiful.

Town Meeting Highlights

Jaquith Public Library in Marshfield, VT hosts a laptop slideshow during town meeting. They put together a tri-fold display and this year, plan to hand out magnets with the library logo, contact information and hours. The display has “Patron Pics,” photographs of patrons with their favorite authors and books underneath.

Guilford Free Library does the PowerPoint slideshow as well– mostly featuring kids doing things at the library. They sell tickets for a restaurant raffle, and draw the winners after town meeting lunch.

Mug Shots and Wooden Nickels

Norwich Library is using a prison theme to draw attention to the ideas behind Banned Books Week September 21 – 27, 2014. Proud library users can have a mug shot taken that includes their favorite banned book.
Norwich is also putting up two jars for voting with wooden nickels. Library staff are asking patrons if they’d go to jail rather than see books pulled off the shelves.

“We’ll display a list of 20 most banned books and 2 clear jars. One jar is marked “I’d go to jail to protect these books”, the other “I’d rather not!”. People will be able to put a wooden nickel in whatever jar they want. Should be interesting!”

Sounds like fun– and two tactile ways to engage users.

Extra mileage from the newsletter

Ilsley uses large screen to promote programs

The Ilsley Public Library features two inhouse displays of the library newsletter. The more traditional is a large plexiglass holder with the enlarged newsletter displayed.

The local public access TV station also programs highlights from the newsletter onto a big screen. Standing in the library, people see coming programs, photos and services proceeding across the screen. In the shot above, parents are advised to borrow “Get Well Bags” to take home, instead of bringing sick children into the library.

Ilsley posts the newsletter inside the library.

Post a Selfie @ Brooks

Selfie of librarian at Brooks Memorial Library

Brooks Memorial Library in Brattleboro came up with a new wrinkle for National Library Week 2014! Here, from the e-newsletter:

Celebrate National Library week (April 13-19) and show the world how lives change at libraries by posting a Brooks Memorial Library selfie on your social media sites-or ours. Here’s how it works:

Take a selfie, alone or with friends, in a favorite spot at Brooks Memorial Library. We recommend filling out a National Library Week thought bubble to include in the picture.

Suggested places to post include Twitter and Facebook. Not sure what a selfie is or how to take one? Brooks staff have iPads in the library and will help.

Selfie librarian with DDC book open at Brooks Memorial Library

Pop Up LIbrary at Town Meeting

Wilder Memorial Library in Weston came to town meeting this year. Here, In librarian Kerri MacLaury’s words:

Last year we had a table to register new library patrons and we were able to register 50 patrons (which for our town of 566, that’s a big deal…and it was our first month with LibraryWorld up and running).

This year we decided to not only register patrons, but I took all of our newest DVDs, fiction and nonfiction books to set up a display table. What we did differently this year was brought our laptop and scanner so we could circulate materials from Town Meeting. It was so much fun! About 15 items went out today and people who had items on hold were able to pick them up at Town Meeting too.

It was a great way to show what the library had and to get items into the hands of people who don’t come through our doors too often. People were also blown away by the mobility of our library and they really saw how much of an effort we are making for our town. Several conversations were sparked on how we could bring our library to other places and I think this summer we are going to bring a table of books to our local rec center and check books out to kids there! Maybe even throw in a Story Time. Imagine all that fun brainstorming with citizens, town leaders and board members!

It was such a fun experience and I would recommend it to any library working with a cloud-based system like LibraryWorld. Just make sure you have a wi-fi connection! That’s the only catch. It’s library advocacy in action! And there wasn’t a question about our budget when it came up for approval! Phew!

Trustee Punch Card

Bradford Public Library encourages trustees to get comfortable with library services. Each trustee gets a punch card to document what they’ve done. Here are their punches:

Attend a library program
Borrow a library kit
Join the Friends
Try Mango to learn a foreign language
Experiment with the Vermont Online Library
Set up a Bradford Public Library account
Take a Universal Class

Here’s a PDF of the punch card:
Trustee Punch Card

National Library Week raffle

Tenney Memorial, up in Newbury: tell us why you love the Library by visiting or emailing, and automatically you’re entered in a raffle for a $25 gift certificate at the Woodsville Bookstore. Each written response counts as an entry.