Sunday Shelfie

 

Happy Sunday! 

Here’s a #sundayshelfie from my library’s outreach collection. Let me explain a bit about what I do as an outreach librarian. My library maintains small self lending library stations throughout our county. These stations provide community members who may not be able to visit the main library with books. We have outreach stations in nursing homes, senior housing complexes & senior centers throughout the county. One of our most used stations is in a hardware store! We also share books with four small community-run libraries in the county. We help the county’s early education agency by providing children’s books for the preschool program. We also bring books to the county jail. 

The books in the outreach collection rotate through each outreach station. For example, I’ll take 30 new books to the hardware store. I’ll pull out 30 books that have been at that station the longest. Then I rearrange the books placing the new books on the top shelf. I take the books I pulled back to the library for check in & then check them out to & delivery them the next outreach stop. We use traditional library cards in pockets for community members to “check out” a book from the outreach station. Each book has a pocket & 2 cards in it. One card keeps track of stations the books goes to. The other is for the patron to sign or initial. This helps me know how many books & what genres circulate at each station. I pull children’s books from the main library collection for the preschool. I’ll also pull from the main collection to fulfill any specific requests. One of the small libraries we serve asked for some CoHo books, so I pulled a few titles for them to borrow. We also supply books on cd and any dvd requests. A goal this year is to implement a books my mail system to provide books to any home bound community members. 

Outreach programs at other library systems are different than what I do. But the goal is the same- provide access to books and library materials to those who can’t always visit the library. I’d love to hear from other outreach librarians about your programs! 

QOTD: any library related questions you’ve always wanted to ask but were too afraid to? I’ll try to answer them! 

#sundayshelfie #library #librarylife #libraryoutreach #libraryoutreachprogram #librarian #librarianlife #outreachlibrarian #librarybooks #booksbooksbooks #librarycollection