Engaging your community is a common--and important!--goal of every library. But how can you do that when COVID-19 limits your opportunities to interact with one another?
One solution that we came up with at
Aram Public Library in Delavan, WI was to create a Summer
Storyteller Series: each week, we'd feature a guest reader--or readers!--in a video series on the library's Facebook page.
Now, the first thing to do was to secure our arsenal of readers. I put out feelers to a multitude of local entities, including some of the more expected sources, such as the local schools and/or city departments. It was important, however, that a wide variety of our community was represented. To ensure that this was the case, I also reached out to local businesses and different clubs, including some of the local restaurants, the nearby UW-Extension office...even a local motorcycle club!
Once I had my list of interested folks, I provided them with some basic information and offered to either: a) contact the publisher of their preferred read or b) send a suggested list of possible titles, if they didn't have a specific title or author in mind. Additionally, I let folks know that, if they needed assistance filming, that could be arranged.
As the submissions began arriving, I scheduled out the posts for the summer. While my extraordinarily talented coworker created some opening and closing credits to use for each installment of the series--ensuring that our patrons would recognize it as part of the Storyteller offering--I set to work alerting the publishers of our intent to read their titles online.
In order to allow viewers to participate as though it were live, I'm scheduling the videos using the Premiere function on Facebook. I also made a point to announce our guest readers, the author, the illustrator, and the publisher, tagging their social media account whenever possible.
Our Summer Storyteller Series officially kicked off today, with our guest readers, the members of the
Rustic Road Riders!
Creating Community Fun YSS blog COVID-19 series
