Community movie night
I spent this evening with the branch manager working at a neighborhood movie night. I wasn’t sure what to expect going in (I love those days when I show up to work not merely unprepared for but in fact completely ignorant of what’s about to happen), but it turned out to be an event hosted at the local elementary school. A bunch of businesses and other local organizations had booths set up, several of which were passing out free food; boxes were set up to take donations for the food bank; Boy Scouts were hanging around trash collection areas with buckets for compost, trash, and recycling. I saw a few churches, a few local businesses (mostly of the food-selling variety), either Seattle Tilth or a similar pro-composting organization, a gardening club, a local veterinary hospital, etc. We jury-rigged a little table that we borrowed from outside a classroom to hold up the Seattle Public Library banner, then put out a variety of summer reading materials and booklists and whatnot.
And then, the stickering. Hundreds of “I love the library!” stickers were distributed to people young and old. Highlights of the evening included an eight-year-old jumping up and shouting gleefully that she loved the library when I offered her a sticker. Indeed, my friend, indeed. Also pretty spectacular were a couple of toddlers who grabbed an uncatalogued paperback each (one of them got her hands on a Laurell K. Hamilton, which was hilarious in its own special way) and then proceeded to march around the parking lot waving the books and going “Wead! Wead! Wead! Book! Wead!”, pausing every so often to flump their diaper-clad bottoms down on the blacktop and flip through the book (correct orientation optional) while continuing their chant. Wead! Wead! Book! Wead!
I got to talk to a lot of people I’ve seen come into the library, and it was really nice to be able to do so outside the library walls, in a much less formal setting, in between bites of hot dog and brownie. A woman told me about her daughter who’s doing an exchange program in Ghana, another asked for Latino book lists (we didn’t have any with, but we do have some at the branch), another woman wanted some British mystery recommendations, and the “I loved Twilight! Now what?” booklists went like hotcakes. (Side note: it is always faintly awkward to be asked if I loved Twilight. Cause um. Yeah, I didn’t. I must find a diplomatic way to say this that still validates the asker’s enjoyment of Twilight.)
I would do a couple of things a bit differently next year – I’d make sure to bring more uncatalogued teen books because we had a ton of interest; I’d make sure to bring some uncatalogued board books for all the babies wandering around; I’d have worn better shoes AND not missed my bus and had to walk to work (long story; street fairs wreak havoc on my orderly bus-catching); and I’d have better targeted my book list selection to the people attending. I’m not very familiar with a lot of Seattle neighborhoods, so it’s hard for me to anticipate who will be at events; I’d picked up book lists for African-American teens, Asian-American teens, queer teens, and Latino children (as well as lists advertising our Begin with Books kits, the aforementioned Twilight-themed list, funny books for kids, picture books dealing with self-confidence, and one other one for teens that I can’t remember). We got more interest in Latino book lists than I had anticipated, and so it would have been better to have a few more of those on hand, as well as some for adults looking for mysteries and some more of the “sensitive issue” booklists, which I think a lot of people just don’t know about.
It was also a little awkward walking around offering stickers to people (mostly kids). I tried to approach kids who were with their parents and who looked receptive—sometimes it’s hard not to feel creepy (Psst. Hey, kid….wanna “I love the library” sticker? First one’s free. Heh heh heh.) even when acting with totally clear intentions.
Still and all, I got to make some really great personal connections with people, talked up a bunch of our programs for the summer, and had an awesome time. I think it’ll be nice the next time I see them inside the library to not just be the person behind the desk but the person who was out at movie night.
Librarianing is fun! (But my feet hurt.)