September was Library Card Sign-Up Month, and my library promoted it, as did many of yours, I\u2019m sure. ALA offered several promotional aids, downloads, and materials for Library Card Sign-Up Month. This year\u2019s honorary chairs were the Teen Titans. Cool, huh?!<\/p>\n
Some libraries partner with local businesses to offer discounts when you present your library card. The Crystal Lake Public Library in Crystal Lake, IL (my home library) is one such library. Businesses they have partnered with include both national and locally owned shops and restaurants including Wendy\u2019s, Chili\u2019s, Dairy Queen, and Jersey Mikes.<\/p>\n
My library offered small gifts for both patrons signing up for new cards and for people who just showed their cards to desk staff. We also offered a limited edition Teen Titans library card. What was extra cool, in my humble and nerdy opinion, was that patrons (and staff) could exchange their current card for the Teen Titans card. I jumped on that offer!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/teentitanlibrarycard-278x300.jpg\")
Since I have my cool, new card propped up at my desk, I see it every day, and it inspired this month\u2019s blog post. In the random wanderings of my thought processes, I saw the totally awesome new card and then wondered how many of our patrons got the new cards, and then began to wonder how many of my friends and acquaintances have cards. This led to me creating a poll on Facebook. I asked one question: Do you have a library card?<\/p>\n
Less than 3% of respondents answered with an unequivocal \u201cNo.\u201d Another 2.86% were unsure if they had a card or not. The vast majority have a library card.\u00a0 Roughly 81% of my friends and acquaintances answered with a simple \u201cYes.\u201d\u00a0 The remaining 13% either had a card a one point, or had a more complicated answer involving family members, geographic limitations, and lost cards.<\/p>\n
I received a lot of interesting feedback from my friends in regards to the survey. Several mentioned that they wished they could have a library card, but lived outside of district lines and therefore don\u2019t have library privileges without purchasing non-resident cards. Others explained that, while they had a card, they don\u2019t use them because of the frequently long wait times for holds on popular titles. Both topics that can be addressed at another time.<\/p>\n
Some shared that they and their kids, or that an entire family have cards; that the library is \u201cmy happy place\u201d; and some listed the multiple cards they hold. One childhood friend has four different valid cards. A couple of friends mentioned that they have cards but purchase most of their books, and then also use e-readers, and other online resources.<\/p>\n
I feel the need to share not just with patrons, but with my own friends all the benefits of having a library card.\u00a0 This will be my next covert social media campaign \u2013 sharing with my peeps everything they can access with their cards.\u00a0 Just in case having a superhero card in one\u2019s wallet isn\u2019t incentive enough on its own.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
September was Library Card Sign-Up Month, and my library promoted it, as did many of yours, I\u2019m sure. ALA offered several promotional aids, downloads, and materials for Library Card Sign-Up Month. This year\u2019s honorary chairs were the Teen Titans. Cool, huh?! Some libraries partner with local businesses to offer discounts when you present your library card. The Crystal Lake Public Library in Crystal Lake, IL (my home library) is one such library. Businesses they have partnered with include both national and locally owned shops and restaurants including Wendy\u2019s, Chili\u2019s, Dairy Queen, and Jersey Mikes. My library offered small gifts for both patrons signing up for new cards and for people who just showed their cards to desk staff. We also offered a limited edition Teen Titans library card. What was extra cool, in my humble and nerdy opinion, was that patrons (and staff) could exchange their current card for the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":258,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[1104,36,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alexa-newman","category-slice-of-life","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/258"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16707\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}