ASRT Meeting Minutes
Thursday, July 17 via Zoom
Topic: Adult Passive Engagement
Attendees:
Shannon, Hoover
Tamara, Irondale
Ellen, Avondale
Sarah, Center Point
Romellia, Titusville
Olivia, North Avondale
Lynn, West End
Daniel, BPL
Erika, Powderley
Tara, Vestavia Hills
Ashley Bertram
Royce, BPL
Our next meeting is Monday, September 15th at the Hoover Library for our Annual Adult Program Swap! 10 am at the Hoover Library or we will also try to include a Zoom element! Bring your ideas to share, your contacts to share, and your open mind!
View the full video (in case I missed an important nugget of info!) 50.02m
Ideas from around the web:
Welcome to Sarah who has been hired at Center Point Library as the new Adult Services librarian! We hope to provide you with some helpful hints and tips for moving forward in your role.
Today's meeting is to discuss a variety of passive ways to engage adults without breaking the bank or taking too much of our time. We can take a lot of ideas used from Youth librarians because they are always thinking up great ways to keep kids active and distracted. Hey, that should be the tagline for this: Active and Distracted!
The Avondale library already does many things on a regular basis such as take-and-makes and in-house activities. Our Teen Department at Hoover has also utilize "Stick Together" posters (first picture above) that I think adults could enjoy as well. These are black and white outlines with blank squares - then patrons fill in the colored stickers to form a picture. Check them out. We also have a very active Puzzle Exchange at Hoover and I know several libraries are doing that. Tamara noted that they had regularly a puzzle out on a table for patrons to assembly at their leisure but invariably a child walks over and destroys the whole thing. Frustrating! I suggested perhaps getting a taller, maybe bistro, table for puzzles so they are higher up and possibly inaccessible to kids but good for adults. An active ongoing puzzle is a great idea though.
I have tried once at Hoover to create a wall size crossword puzzle that stuck on the wall (during summer reading kickoff) and within 1 hour it had been defaced by teens. I guess that is the gamble we have to face!
Sarah told us more about Center Points ongoing "Spice of the Month" takeaway. They buy bulk spices, then make the individual packets to give out with perhaps a history of the spice along with a recipe. This is an awesome idea! It could also be a way to highlight certain cookbooks in your collection. The idea might not work for a busier library but feasible for smaller audiences. Make up some, then when they are gone, that's it. We also tried to think of other things that could be done in this manner: chai, tea, perhaps coffee -- all with recipes & history. You could even utilize QR codes to direct people to more information.
I read about a library that did "Warm Up Wednesdays" where they (specifically during the winter months) had coffee and tea for patrons to make - perhaps some chill activities could be paired with these warm up mornings. Might not work if your library already has a coffee service or cafe. We did a program last December that was astonishingly successful for Jolabokaflod, Yule Book Flood, which is an Icelandic tradition during Christmastime. What we did for the adults was create a cozy sofa area with Squishmallow pillows and blankets and a big TV showing a roaring fire. Off to the side we had a full hot beverage station for tea or coffee or hot cocoa with all the trimmings. People came through all day on a Saturday and we got fantastic reviews for it! (I also had a passive Christmas craft set up in a meeting room.)
Tara talked about their Tiny Books - they keep a number of the reject books and they also have a book cutter (more savage than your average paper cutter!) to cut pages. She creates take and makes for patrons that have instructions and book covers. Link to Take and Makes via Sharepoint. These are extremely cute and popular. Here's a Christmas take and make she created in Canva for a tiny book ornament.
Libraries got good at Take and Makes during the pandemic but the daily grind might have made some of us lag on being creative in this way. Lynn shared with us a webinar called "The Candy Corn Question: Passive Programming That Pulls People In" where more of this is discussed. Thanks for sharing this, Lynn!
Don't forget that there are several helpful books in the county's collection that can be useful to kickstart ideas. Two from Hoover are The Passive Programming Playbook: 101 Ways to Get Library Customers Off the Sidelines by Paula Willey and Andria Amaral and Librarian's Guide to Passive Programming by Emily Wichman.
Ellen from Avondale shared lots of their ongoing ideas and their philosophy of getting folks engaged. She took us on a visual tour of some items they have out. They utilize a lot of free things and copying on regular paper - to make things easier and cheaper. She also said they take advantage of sales to buy things in bulk for future ideas or take and make kits. For instance, they bought these cute watercolor painting bookmark kits (like this on Amazon) when they were cheap - once they are gone they are gone! Avondale also shares pictures of their Grab-and-Go kits on their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/AvondaleBranchLibrary/
Here are some items Ellen shared - pictures of the adult activity kits:
And here are examples of the constellation luminaries and book page roses:
She showed us a gorgeous constellation luminary - she printed the constellation on the printer and patrons prick tiny holes and put a tiny light inside. Very cute and if you add a QR code you could teach them about the stars! She also had some great summer fans that patrons could assemble too. They also had book page roses kits - complete with a QR code to a video on how to make them. Very smart!
Avondale adult activity kits - this month theme is artists. (They've been putting them out on a different theme almost a year now.) They put together a packet that contains a variety of activities ranging from crosswords, word search, coloring sheets, also utilizing QR codes to link to things like the Craftsy app or how-to videos or additional resources at the library on the month's theme. I've fully credited Avondale and their staff for my version I have in process for an activity kit that will go on our Bookmobile and with our adult outreach team, hopefully celebrating Jane Austen's 250th birthday in December!! When I asked Ellen if they would start fresh once the year was over, she suggested they might keep the theme for the month but change up the information within the packet - for example in September of 2024 the theme was Agatha Christie but maybe they could do "Cozy Mysteries" this year. You never want this kind of thing to become a burden so keeping it fun and fresh can be something to look forward to.
Print out your own Origami paper designs and include folding instructions! Easy & cheap. Community/temporary art projects might also be something to look into for adults or possibly inter-generational. (Like Yayoi Kusama dot art!) Or hang black paper up and give patrons sidewalk chalk to create a mural. Perhaps have a box with rocks for patrons to paint and create a rock snake outside the library. Ellen has also created tiny art kits, then asked for posts on social media and a show inside the library - what fun! They had about 30 submissions up in the atrium.
Tara mentioned, not passive programming but still very cool, Vestavia Hills had artist-in-residence this summer with a partnership with the Arts Council. They had weekly artist demonstrations talking about their process - these have been well attended.
Links found on passive programming:
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