How to increase circulation from Tom Kemp

[Laurie Mahaffey]

This is a message from CTLS-L. Selecting "Reply" will send a message to the originator. Selecting "Reply to All" will send a message to the entire list. --------------------------------------------------------- I met Tom Kemp, a librarian in Connecticut, at the TLA Conference in Houston. He posted the following information about marketing at libraries to increase circulation. I thought it was so good that I asked his permission to send it out. He granted it. Try these ideas at your library! Laurie   Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 14:52:43 -0400 From: "Tom Kemp" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: [Publib] Declining Circulation   Here is the "one" idea that worked for me when I was the Head of the Turn of River Library (Stamford, CT) in the early 80's. Even though we were a branch ... had limited hours ... we turned it into the largest circulating library in CT.   The "secret" was displays. 1. Point of Purchase displays ... at the circ desk. This small rack of 10 or so books included timely items; books to catch the interest. Titles like: Whatever Happened to... (series); books that tied to a current TV show; play or buzz. Old and new titles would fly off this rack.   2. In the New Fiction area: We would stack copies of the earlier works by a current best selling author. Patrons would go for the current title and the back titles. This was huge for us. We were restocking these all day long.   3. Make sure you have plenty of copies of best sellers. Reserve lists that aren't filled for months is a guarantee that the patrons will take their library business to Barnes & Noble.   4. Put up interesting book displays on the tops of counters, shelves. Make sure these are high interest ... no displays on "Global Warming" -- or "Poetry" ... tie the display to current news ... popular biography etc.   5. Put a display on home repair; building decks; gardening by the front door. No, people won't walk off with them ...  but in our case the men would wait for their wives at the front door ... the displays would bring them in and very often they would ask their wife to check out a handful of them for him. Sometimes we could even get him to come in to the library   6. Buy plenty of popular health; travel; and best sellers. Key idea: buy travel books beyond the series guides. Buy the travel books that are published and sold in New Mexico for people who live there… Having these titles brought a stream of patrons in from neighboring cities (Darien, Greenwich etc.) because they knew that we had titles that no other library had. In CT your library card is good at any CT library.   7. Give service!!!! We walked with them to the stacks ... carried books to their cars ... saved items just for them, etc. The personal touch.   8. Related to this is to "open up" children's programming. I eliminated the artificial limits on story hours "12 kids" etc. We made it unlimited ... programs started to draw over 100. The children's room circ went through the roof.   Bottom line ... we loved the work and it rubbed off on the patrons. Have fun with it.   Tom [EMAIL PROTECTED]     Laurie Mahaffey, Deputy Director Central Texas Library System, Inc. 1005 West 41st Street Austin, Texas 78756 512-583-0704, ext. 18 [EMAIL PROTECTED]