WebJunction

Here at Olympia, even with our media coverage, we didn't have a huge turn out but it was definitely a quality over quantity kind of program! We think that attendance will continue to grow as we host more Living Library events.

Our event happened to fall on a gloriously sunny Saturday afternoon (which is pretty rare in our extremely gray and rainy part of the country). We assume this contributed to our low numbers and we decided to hold our next event in the Fall or Winter.

I also met a woman at our event who teaches cultural competency at our local community college and at a local state college. We talked about aligning our next event with one of the first weeks of one of her academic quarters because she is used to doing a similar program with her students. This way, we would have a guaranteed audience of her students and the event would still be open to the public at large. So for your first event, you might want to consider partnering with a professor or high school teacher (who could assign the program as extra credit, for example) to ensure a certain number of participants.

I spoke with many potential readers who were very interested in the program but too shy to actually check out any living "books."
That said, even reading through the catalog is a pretty powerful experience and I think those individuals benefitted from doing so.

If you have any questions about any of our documents from Olympia or about our event, don't hesitate to email me at spete@trlib.org!

Sara Peté