Community Collaboration: Houston Book Bike
The Houston Public Library is determined to join in the growing trend of libraries across the county who are taking their collections out to the public via a Library Book Bike, a project which ties in perfectly with our Summer Reading theme this year of health, wellness, and exercise. After a disappointing Summer Reading Program in 2015, with registration numbers on the decline and circulation numbers for school-aged kids following suit, we conducted a written survey of parents regarding their thoughts on Summer Reading. One of the most clear pieces of information that came back to us through the survey was that parents feel overwhelmed by their children's complicated summer schedules and believe that they do not have the time to get their kids in to the library on a regular basis over the summer months. The obvious solution is therefore to take the library directly to them at events in our community that are popular and well-attended. As a direct result, we therefore are planning on bringing our Book Bike to Summer Recreation practices and games, to our weekly Wednesday night Music in the Park events at the Houston Bandshell, to the new public ballpark on the east of town, as well as participating in Houston's Hoedown parade, etc.
We are fortunate to have a library patron in town who is a gifted artist specializing in sculptures and working bikes made of recycled bicycle parts. When approached with this project, he eagerly agreed to create a Book Bike free of charge, offering to provide his labor at no cost to the library and the majority of the parts needed as well.
1320 participated
We will be able to measure
1. the number of outings we attend
2. the number of people who approach the Book Bike at any given event (whether to ask for information, check -out items, get a library card, etc.)
3. the number of items that are checked out during a Book Bike outing
4. the number of new library cards issued by Book Bike staff
These measurements will allow us to evaluate how well we meet our established goals for this project:
1. to demonstrably reach out to new and current patrons for the library at local events
2. to promote existing library services and programs outside of the confines of the library walls in a fun and unconventional manner
3. to lead by example when it come to our 2016 Summer Reading theme of health, wellness, and exercise
4. to partner with other local organizations by participating in and supporting their outdoor summer events.
5. increase circulation numbers compared to last year
6. increase both registration and successful participation rates from last year's Summer Reading Program.
Our target audience will be kids, infants to 6th grade, and their families. We are aggressively working towards getting a library card in the hand of every child in our community and the Book Bike will allow us to find new ways of reaching kids and their families.
Our goals were to:
1. to demonstrably reach out to new and current patrons for the library at local events
2. to promote existing library services and programs outside of the confines of the library walls in a fun and unconventional manner
3. to lead by example when it come to our 2016 Summer Reading theme of health, wellness, and exercise
4. to partner with other local or local organizations by participating in and supporting their outdoor summer events.
We met every one of these goals! In addition, people LOVED the library Book Bike! Hands down one of the most popular programs we have instigated here at the library over the years. In particular, people loved the fact that we were making books accessible for kids outside of the library walls and library hours (number one comment). We also got compliments on how creative this project was, how community minded it was. I cannot say enough good about the positive impact this had on our image in our community.
Our Book Bike went out into our community 20 times this summer, which was slightly less than we had anticipated. Weather (rain and heat) got in the way. Vacations got in the way. The end of the city of Houston's Summer Rec in late July limited our options.
With one staff person operating our Book Bike at any given time, it was hard but not impossible to keep track of the number of people who came up to it with questions, etc. We also found out from the SELCO helpdesk that we cannot pull circulation numbers from the Book Bike separately from our general circulation. Still, our circulation for June through August was up 13.23 % from 2015 to 2016. We believe that the Book Bike helped promote the library and get kids in to it, in addition to adding directly to our circulation numbers, however slightly.
We also know that 168 different people who used the Book Bike this summer signed up to win a Fitbit in a drawing sponsored by the Friends of the Library. A huge success!
This was one of the most fun projects I have ever worked on in or out of the library! The comments from the public in person or on Facebook were unanimously positive. People thought we were so creative (although we did not invent the Book Bike phenomena) and so willing to go the extra mile to make books accessible for kids. This project did us a WORLD of good in terms of public relations, our image, etc. Priceless!
Houston Public Library, Nate Bailey, HARC, Friends of the Houston Public Library, SELCO