Engaging with your users is the real measure of success

Connecting with our users through Spooky Stories Week

 

In the Library we celebrate 4 key events each year in order to connect with our students in a fun-filled, informal way. These are included in the School Calendar so they are widely publicised.

 

In Term 1 we have Library Lovers Week. Term 2 is Library & Information Week and Term 3 is Book Week of course! Which brings us to Term 4, where we are currently enjoying our annual "Spooky Stories" week.

 

 

 

Like many schools, we don't acknowledge Halloween but the themes and merchandise associated with it, provide a wonderful opportunity for promoting the supernatural and ghost books in your library collection.

 

We now have an active MSM Readers Club (who I'll blog about in another post) made up of students in Years 7 - 9 and they have provided many of the ideas for Spooky Stories Week. They suggested having an Addams Family theme so the library has been decorated with this in mind.

 

 

 

 

On the counter we have a number of "Treat" buckets and the students can win one of them by writing their own Spell or Magic Potion. 

 

In the middle of the week we'll be conducting a Maker Space activity called "Creepy Craft" where they can make their own ghoul, vampire, ghost etc. using the materials we bought from a Bargain Shop's Foam Doll Set! We'll give each girl the basic doll template and then they can cut out the foam pieces to make capes, fangs etc.

 

 

 

At the end of the week, we'll be playing the Addams Family movie during lunch time, which is rated PG and students can come into the library in costume if they wish.

 

 

These type of events provide opportunities for marketing and promoting the library as a place that's fun, upbeat and welcoming to all.



Overdrive our Digital Library Connection

Our Overdrive Experience

 

Our school was one of the early adaptors of eBooks and audiobooks and made the decision nearly five years ago to purchase the Overdrive digital library platform. In the beginning the content was heavily American but now we are able to find a lot more popular and relevant Australian material. I don't have any trouble spending the $2000 credit each year (The annual subscription fee is $4000 - of which $2000 is allocated for the purchase of eBooks and audio books.)

 

The Overdrive marketing department provide you with a plethora of promotional material which they will adapt for your own school's needs.

 

This year 107 audiobooks and 1026 eBooks have been downloaded.

In the last 30 days (which includes the Term 3 holiday break) there were 169 checkouts.

 

These statistics reinforce the importance of school libraries being able to offer content to their users in both digital and print format. We are very happy with Overdrive and would recommend it to other school libraries who have a generous budget allocation.