Good Programs Start Small: Embrace the Ripple Effect!

Feeling disheartened by program attendance?  

In a recent post on Programming Librarian, entitled Good Programs Start Small: Attendance Doesn't Equal Success, Montour Falls Library, in rural Schuyler County, New York and Wright Memorial Public Library in Oakwood, Ohio share their experiences with programs that may not have seen a large number of attendees, but made a significant impact in their communities nonetheless.

"At both libraries, efforts that started small have created a ripple effect as community awareness of the library’s efforts grows."

Click HERE to read the entire article.

To quote Anne Hamland, library rockstar and the person to thank for sharing both the article and the following nugget of motivation, "Success is NOT attendance. Success is whole-person librarianship."

(adorable comic by Andrés J. Colmenares of wawaiwacomics.com)

Perspective

Katie in Illinois post this on the YALSA list-serv. At first, I wizzed by it. But I didn't delete it. And now I've read it again. And POW! Right between the eyes.

Just reading this month’s VOYA and the following quote from Brandy Danner really struck me as something we all need to hear sometimes.

“It’s easy to view our unsuccessful programs as personal failures, but consider what you learn from them. You may have adapted a game on the fly for a smaller crowd. Maybe you connect with one particular teen. As long as you’ve put aside your own goals and helped your teens accomplish theirs, your program didn’t fail – it just succeeded at something else.”

Words to live by, especially if you’re disheartened at your low attendance numbers sometimes

like I am. You might be making a difference in a different, but still important, way.

Happy summer reading!

Kristin