One Book, One Community—A Night to Remember

As a tie-in to the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, A Night to Remember was selected as the book to read. Additional Titanic materials were purchased by the library to serve as back-up materials. In all, 369 books were given away through the library and our community sponsors: Mutch’s Hardware, Indulge Salon, Curves, Mark’s Belgrade Barber Shop, Walgreens, Plaza Garibaldi, and South Central College (as well as East and West High and Dakota Meadows Middle School). The program began on April 16th, the anniversary of the Titanic sinking, with a book distribution to North Mankato City Council members. From that point on, we used Facebook, our library web page, utility bill stuffers, and word of mouth to get the message out about the program. Several of our community sponsors did an outstanding job of promoting the program, repeatedly calling for more books for their sites. Three programs related to the book took place during May. The showing of the documentary, Death of a Dream had 21 people in attendance. The discussion of the book, led by former English teacher Beth Christensen, was quite lively and packed the room with 25 people. The culminating event, Dr. William Gerberich from the University of Minnesota discussing why the Titanic really sank, attracted 30 people. We were pleased with the turnout at all three events. The talk around town about the Community Read was gratifying and the connections we made with local business partners will extend into the future. All in all, this was a very successful program. Due to the extreme demand for copies of the book, the ACHF funds originally to be used for advertising were used for book purchase instead.