My Favorite Programs At My Library (Ft. Organized Chaos)

In case you haven’t heard, libraries are these mystical, magical places filled with fun, chaos, other worlds, and sometimes serial killers. In the fictional sense, of course. I may be just a teensy biased in this assessment, though, seeing as how I work for one.

Yes, it’s true. I’ve worked in this small, rural library for about three and a half years now. It is every bit as much of a dream job as you might imagine it is. Also, it’s extremely hard. Not the job part. The “being surrounded by hundreds of books you’ll never have time to read but definitely want to read part.”

If you haven’t been to a library lately, they’re so much more than books. In particular, most modern public libraries host programs. Since I have the fancy title of Assistant Director, this means that I basically get to be involved with coordinating or helping pull off pretty much any program I want to (and some that I don’t want to, but hey, that’s part of the job).

Since I’ve enjoyed these programs so much, I thought I’d share them with you! They took a lot of staff (and sometimes community) effort to pull off, and they deserve to be bragged about, darn it.

Plus, if you haven’t checked out the programs that your local library provides? I highly recommend you do so. You might be surprised with how creative and fun they might be! One of my favorite things to do as a librarian is to steal ideas from other libraries (which is pretty much a pastime for most librarians, to be honest). So for any librarians out there . . . I give you permission to steal any and all of these, and if you reach out, I’m more than happy to provide more information!

(Small note: I’ve protected the identities of anyone that isn’t myself and, basically, the one author with a public persona, for obvious reasons. Thanks for understanding!)

Bookopoly

I thought I would start this one off with one that I actually stole from the blogging community: Bookopoly. I’m sure this looks familiar to many of you! As it turns out, there are a lot of people in my area who are not part of the blogging community. Super weird, right? I know! So this was an entirely new concept for them! The patrons who participated loved it and had a ton of fun! We actually have giant wooden dice, which they were able to roll on the floor any time they completed the prompt for the spot they were in. Moving around the board as well as completing spaces earned them Book Bux, which they could spend on prizes.

Unfortunately, this was run during COVID, and the day this started, our library ended up closing again for curbside, which we stayed at for the entire month-long program. Our participation was pretty good considering that, but it definitely made it much harder and we received a lot less participation than expected. Looking forward to being able to run this again at some point!

Earth Day

Our annual Earth Day program is one of our biggest each year. We normally have a local group of therapy dogs come to the celebration, which has been a tradition for years. Last year’s Earth Day, we decided to remix it a bit, since we noticed attention on the dogs came in waves, and they and their handlers spent a lot of time just sitting there. So, we made it a special corner where children could come read to the dogs. The dogs then “signed” their book (we had a pawprint stamp that the handlers would use, then sign the dog’s name), and the child got to keep the book.

This was a huge hit with both the participants and the handlers! We were impressed with the fact that even teenagers were asking to go read to the dogs. The group enjoyed the interaction so much that they’ve already requested the same spot and a similar program for Earth Day this year! And you know what? I can’t wait. Because who doesn’t love reading to good doggos?!

Christmas Parade

This isn’t technically a program. I believe it falls more under community outreach. BUT STILL! I’m going to count it, because it’s hecka freaking fun. So what does the town’s yearly Christmas Parade entail? Well, how nice of you to ask. Basically, the town comes up with a theme each year and they tell everyone. Then, we at the library, being the super creative bunch that we are, spend approximately two weeks moaning and whining about the theme and how we’re never going to come up with a way to decorate the Bookmobile as a float and dress up.

We wait until two weeks before the parade and get everything made in a mad fever dash. The day of the parade, nothing is ready, everyone is stress, ZOMG WHERE IS THE THING WE NEED TO GET THIS DECORATED, and “we are never doing this again” is uttered at least ten times from different employees at varying levels. (Spoiler alert: We’re definitely doing it again.)

When all is said and done, what ensues is an hour of walking in the cold, throwing candy at children are probably the most excited to see librarians that they’ll ever be, and waving at people who are way too excited to see us (followed by wondering how we’ll ever get our big heads to fit back in the library doors at the end of it).

This picture is actually from last year’s theme, which was a rockin’ retro Christmas. Minion rocked the poodle skirt, and I went 1950s wraparound dress. Yes, that is a tree photo bombing us with bunny ears. I will have you know that’s my boss. We are 100% professionals all of the time. *cough*

Cupid’s Arrow

My library has tried multiple iterations of the “wrapped book” idea, just to switch things up and keep patrons from getting bored every Valentine’s Day. The program itself is so popular that we don’t want to scrap it, but we want to keep it from getting stale. I actually can’t remember exactly who came up with Cupid’s Arrow this year (I think it was me, but I also don’t want to take credit for someone else’s idea, and by gosh, it was almost a year ago!). In any case, this was very much a group effort to get the board made, pick different things for each number, and also run this anytime someone came in.

TL;DR: Yes, we totally let patrons come in and shoot a nerf arrow at the wall to get a piece of chocolate and a mystery book or DVD to check out. Oh, and if they hit cupid directly, they got a heart made of Hershey kisses!

Is this highly recommended? Nah. It’s probably not even lowly recommended. Did patrons love it? YES. Oh gosh, we had repeat customers galore, who would finish a book and come in for another. We had children dragging their families in to participate because someone told them about it. My favorite was one of our board members told their grandsons and brought him in to play, and then the grandson insisted our board member had to participate, too. Then proceeded to critique his technique because he couldn’t get the bow to work. xD Little kids are brutal sometimes.

Coding for Kids

This is a program that’s a little near and dear to my heart, as a minority female with an undergrad in technology science. STEM is so important, especially in an area like where I live, which has a high poverty rate and very few opportunities to get practical, hands-on experience with different technology and science concepts.

We used a variety of tools for this program. For the younger kids, we played with Coding Critters, which they loved building routes for and connecting paths together and sharing. For older kids, we used Botley 2.0, which was a bit more chaotic and time-intensive, but which they absolutely loved. They’ve been a huge hit! For one program, we made an obstacle course and let them try to get the Botleys through it. We even mixed the two together and let them play around with Scratch. We weren’t sure if the younger kids would understand, but the youngest we had was a six-year-old, and she absolutely rocked it! It was super fun seeing what they each came up with, since they were so different.

Unfortunately, this program was incredibly hard to sustain, because I was the only one with the background and know-how to run it, but I don’t always have the time to run regular programs. There were issues with the time we were holding it, too, which made it hard for people to come. In the end, the program unfortunately fell by the wayside as a regular program, since my programmer hated it (which is fair . . . it takes a lot of practice and prep!). I was really excited to break them out again for a recent fourth grade visit, though, and the kids really enjoyed them!

Pokémon Party

In case you didn’t know, Pokemania is still very much alive and well. We underestimated how much so when we, with the best of intentions, decided to host a Pokémon Party celebrating the release of Violet and Scarlet. Naively, we asked for RSVPs and planned for around 60, figuring our 30 RSVPs would be low. We had 167 people show up!!! It. Was. CHAOS. My staff and volunteers looked shell-shocked, bless their hearts.

So what did we do with all these people? We had stations throughout the library which included: Pokémon Go (with lures dropped for the whole event), make your own Pokémon sticker sheets, Who’s That Pokémon, Pokken Tournament battles on the Switch, Pokémon painting, and Pokémon furikake tasting. Out of everything, the terrariums were the most popular!

This program went way better than we could have imagined. We received participants who had never stepped foot in the library or who hadn’t been for years. Many families stopped us to tell us how much it meant to them that we would have something like this that their kids were so excited about and engaged with. At the end of the day, we had a blast, despite the chaos, and we got a lot of great feedback about it!

Reading Dragons

Speaking of both Pokémon and stealing programs . . . Reading Dragons! This is something that was developed by Dover Public Library and which they generously shared with other libraries! This program has been amazing. So many kuddos to the amazing librarians who developed this and made it possible (and we are so very thankful for their willingness to share it!). Basically, Reading Dragons rewards kids for every 30 minutes they read for giving them Reading Dragon cards, which start as eggs and level up to adults via reading.

We actually took DPL’s program and remixed it for our setting. We release five dragon lines a month with at least one special adult dragon each month, which are limited-edition cards that are only obtained through special occasions. The one pictured above is our Apple Pie Dragon, which was only available for two days last year during our local Apple Festival by stopping by the library’s booth. We’ve got several local artists who are working with us on this, as well as some librarians brushing up on their digital art skills (or learning digital art skills!) just to be able to play with making different dragons.

The best part? We were able to partner with two of the local schools to get this program to the kids who can’t come to the library, and it’s been a major hit! We’ve gotten so much feedback about the success so far. One teacher commented that he had several students who refused to read and actually started asking to stay inside occasionally to read to get their dragons for the month. Parents have said similar things, with (now regular) patron saying her son refused to read and now demands to go to the library every week, and they can’t miss a Friends’ book sale because he needs his books to get more Reading Dragons!

Oh, and as a bonus? These cards can actually be battled! We have a monthly battle for them, which is very popular with all ages. We have a children’s bracket and an adult bracket and prizes for each. The competition is real, and a little (friendly) smack talk ensues every month, but it’s always fun!

Clay Dragon Eyes

Remember that whole Reading Dragons thing I mentioned? (If not, check above.) Well, we had a class come into the library who participates in Reading Dragons. We were supposed to have them for 45 minutes for a movie, but due to illness and weather, their previous field trip destinations in town cancelled. Which means we had them for three freaking hours. Which we found out about maybe five days in advance. Cue the chaos and panic.

I definitely stole this idea from the Programming Librarian Interest Group, which I can’t recommend enough for anyone working in libraries. This is legit a treasure trove of amazing ideas. Since we had 68 kids, it was actually pretty cost-effective, too. Bits of bakeable clay (not air dry!) already pre-packaged (because, you know, they would arrive super late and who has time to pack that many?!) and a bag of glass dragon eyes.

These kids were so creative. I was extremely impressed with what they came up with, and everyone’s dragon eye looked a little different! Popped them in the oven while they did something else and let them take them home when they left (after they had cooled, of course).

Murder Mysteries

This was horrible to plan, but so worth it when it came together. Thanks to a grant, we were able to run two murder mystery dinners and go all-out with them. Which meant inviting authors to speak! So I read The June Boys by Court Stevens, wrote a murder mystery inspired by the book (but without spoilers) about The September Sisters, and we were able to get Court Stevens to come give the teens a talk. By the way, Court Stevens is a phenomenal speaker, and I would highly recommend booking her if you ever have a chance! I have no stake in this and no incentive to say this, other than I have rarely seen these kids so engaged as they were during her talk and when asking her follow-up questions.

Teens (and tweens) are a really hard group for us. It’s difficult to convince them to come to the library for about anything. Our teen murder mystery was our biggest teen program in years! We’ve had people ask when we’re having another one. Like this? Probably never. It was exhausting (and expensive). We can’t wait to do more murder mysteries, though! Just maybe sans dinner and a speaker.

What was your favorite program you attended at your library, if you’re a patron, or your favorite program to run at your library if you’re a library worker?! Would love to hear them! Definitely not to steal them ahem.

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