Hi everybody, By now you've heard on Hasafran and on AJL's blog about Library Snapshot Day, a fun way to bring positive attention to all our libraries. I'm already planning my own Library Snapshot Day and I wanted to tell you about it. I hope it will inspire you to plan something too, because the whole thing only works if we get participation from lots of people! The point of the project is to generate big, impressive numbers about how much use Jewish libraries are getting as a group, and then to use that info for advocacy. I hope lots of AJL members will do it, because every participant will make a difference.
So feel free to steal my ideas for how to celebrate Library Snapshot Day, or come up with something completely different! I'm planning to: · Take pictures of people in the library all day. I'll offer them props to make the pictures more fun, including puppets, funny hats, giant books, and one of those funny standup cardboard pictures you stick your face through (from the Upstart catalog). I might put the pictures onto a private Flickr group and give them the password, so they can access their pictures. I will certainly send the pictures to AJL when I'm done! · Give away library related tchotchkes to all visitors, and offer special patriotic themed tchotchkes to anyone who comes in wearing an "I voted" sticker (I'm doing this on November 2 which is also election day). I'll get stuff from Upstart or Oriental Trading Company for this. · I'm going to order Upstart's name badge stickers that say "HELLO, my favorite book/author/character is" or "HELLO, I like to read about" and invite people to fill in the blanks and wear them. I think they'll be good conversation starters. · Serve refreshments, of course. · Ask visitors to say something about the library, either by writing on paper, or by letting me audio record (or video record) them. · I am planning to create some kind of online guest book so that people who can't make it to the library that day can still leave the comments. I'm thinking of using Voicethread.com for this, which allows commenters to type or use a microphone or webcam or phone to leave their comments. · I'm going to set up the game Lightning Librarian on my computers and invite people to play it. It's a free online game at http://resources.kaboose.com/games/lightning-librarian.html. · I'm going to invite the local Jewish Journal to come take pictures too on that date, and to do an article. I think the national/local combination of the event will appeal to them. When I told the senior staff about Library Snapshot Day they were very enthusiastic. The rabbi asked me to have his secretary schedule him to come into the library that day so he won't forget, and the religious school principal scheduled classes to come in and have their pictures taken. So it's already having a positive effect within my own organization and it hasn't even happened yet! If you're considering doing Library Snapshot Day, please let everybody know. The more we can help each other plan, the better! Heidi Estrin Feldman Children's Library at Congregation B'nai Israel of Boca Raton, FL he...@cbiboca.org
