And I'm so excited to welcome our presenter for today, Cara Romeo comes to us as the assistant library director and community services librarian at the K.O. Lee Aberdeen Public Library in South Dakota.
And we're so excited to have you here, we are Ceally looking forward to hearing -- we are really looking forward to hearing your library program for adults center start to finish, and I'm going to go ahead and hand it over to you.
Welcome, Kara.
>> Thank you.
It's great being here.
I know how challenging programming can be for adults and actually for anybody in the library.
I'm celebrating 20 years of being a community services librarian, and the assistant library  director, and I do all the programming and publicity.
I do publicity for the entire library, but I do mostly just adult programming.
And I always say, I have the funnest job in the library, but we all know it's probably one of the most challenging jobs as well.
So I hope you just come away with some really -- some tips and just something that can help you do your job better and serve your community.
That's really one thing I always stress every time I talk to any group or any other librarians.
It's very important that you're serving your community.
That is really what we do, and serving your patrons.
So meeting their needs is probably our top priority.
Well, so it's always -- you hear from boards, your library board, maybe a library foundation, people in your community, these days with libraries it's more, more, more.
But with less money.
And I always thought with more, does that mean more as in quantity, more programming, or does it mean diversity?
Different types of programs?
And we were fortunate enough, we've been in a new building for a year.
We just had our one-year anniversary of being here, and it was amazing.
But we were doing a lot in our tiny, small building, in between flooding situations and different things like that, we we were doing okay.
But our community needed a lot more from their Public Library.
And of course when we moved into a new library and we had all this space, we had like twice as much space.
And it was just fabulous for us, it was fabulous for our community, we were so excited that our community really supported a library to build a new building.
But there's no more -- there wasn't extra funding for more staff, or anything like that, or more materials.
But our community needed more, and wanted more.
So you know, one thing too with funding, we also didn't have more staff, so we had less time  planning.
There were a lot more things, I know every size library can understand that the more you do, the more that it's expected.
We are now not just working with books and different things, we've become technology librarians, we are also sometimes the first point of contact with maybe some homeless situations, and different ethnic groups and things like that, so we're doing so much more, com is wonderful, because you are trying to meet the needs of your community.
But that means it's less time planning for a program, less time planning for advertising, and things like that.
So hopefully you can come away with something today that will really help your life, help make things a little easier and maybe clear some things up, too.
So one thing I want to keep very -- that I think is very important, think about this, every time you Google public library programs.
It's very important to remember that how is this going to work for your library?
I know a lot of times I'll be looking for different ideas, and I see these huge libraries, they must have an amazing budget, and maybe a lot of staff.
But one thing I always think of, okay, so they did this program, how would it work in our community?
And how can I change it, tweak it, either make it something that I can handle, or maybe make it bigger.
Some of -- sometimes I go to a library site that's a very small community, and maybe they could  be -- have the little programs that are maybe a little more intimate, and I -- how do I make that for my community?
And so I think it's just great.
And it's wonderful that librarians are so quick to share.
They love to share, they're really excited about programming, and love to say, hey, I got this great idea and this worked really well, or oh, this wasn't so great.
But I would change it this way.
So I like to also point out that marketing, all those things cost a lot of money.
And if you do have a little bit of money for a program, sometimes you don't have enough for  printing, or for designing, but everything has become a little easier with Google and different things, and there's a few things, a few places, links that I use a lot, and I use a programming librarian.org for a lot of different programs, but then also to make posters, and just different things that I can use with social media is postermywall.com.
And that is really so -- such a good resource, and it's free.
You can have a free subscription.
Also can va, pic to chart, those are really great for posters and they also have different formats for all different types of social media and those are free.
And I really suggest people to take advantage of those things.
All right.
So if we get into programming, one of the first things I tell people is, can get to know your community, your patrons, the people that you serve.
So understanding really who do you serve, and how do they live?
How do they not just use your library, but how do they live?
I think that is maybe one of the best ways to become successful with your library programming.
I have a few questions I always ask myself.
I always ask about a program, how is this going to fit?
So I'm hoping these questions about help you get thinking about your own community.
So I always like to ask, what other type events are happening in your community?
In my community, we have a lot of arts.
Even though we're a rural farming community, we are a good two or three hours away from larger cities.
So a lot of things happen here, we have a huge community that loves the arts, we have an  award-winning cultural center, we have our own ballet dance company here, very active civic symphony and community theater, and for a town our size to have five very active art galleries is quite phenomenal.
So I do have quite -- there's certain part of the public that that is what they love to do, and so this is something that they really support and find very important.
But we also -- I think I went too far.
We also have a lot of sports and outdoor activities.
We are in South Dakota, we are in the northeast part of South Dakota, so typically -- today it's 50 degrees, which I cannot believe, but typically now it's at least five below and we're shoveling snow every day.
So when we do have sunshine, our community, we are out and about, everybody has gardens, and we have amazing walking paths, and bike trails, and hiking, and things like that.
So here I'm just showing that we do have a lot of winter activities, we have a curling team, everyone ice skates, and hockey is huge here.
But even when the weather is nice, we are out and about and we're living outside.
So that's something I take in consideration when I'm Planned Parenthooding summer reading programs for adults and things like that.
So it does have an impact.
That's something you need to know about your community.
For us, we are used to snow, we're used to different things like that, so it's got to be pretty bad weather before someone is not going to come to a program.
But I also used to live in the south, and when it snowed, guaranteed, no one is coming to your program.
So again, you just have to kind of decide, ask yourself, what type of events happen in our  community, and when do people participate?
Also, what type of cultural activities happen in your community?
We have -- I don't know if you would really call us that diverse, but for our population, we do have a lot of Native American associations, we do powwows, but we also have celtic faires and a large Somalian population in our area, so we have an African-Middle Eastern restaurant, we have Asian population as well.
And then again, I said we are a farming, ranching, rural area, so it's very diverse, but we do like to celebrate that diversity.
There are a lot of activities, cultural events that happen throughout the city, so that is something that I always take into consideration.
And then I always ask, what is your community look like?
In terms of who is attending all these events?
Are they -- is it a mostly families, is it young families?
Is it a lot of single people, the 20-30 somethings or millenials?
Do you have a population of mostly s senior citizens?
We have a University and a college, so we do have between September and may probably 10,000 people here that we normally wouldn't have in the summer.
So our demographic kind of changes then.
Also that's when activities change.
This town really supports both of the college and the University as far as sporting events, or their theater, that type of thing.
I would never have an event on a night that the theater is having their big show, because the people who are going to come to maybe a concert here, or an author talk, are also going to be the people who buy their tickets to support the community theater.
And so they'll be going there.
So it's something that I always have to keep in mind.
And our community, there is a large senior citizen population, we have a lot of assisted living facilities and some beautiful townhouses that are really geared toward the retired senior citizen, but then again, we do have the colleges, so we have a pretty good demographic.
So it just depends on what type of program I'm bringing in, and I try to bring in programs that everyone will enjoy.
And you can imagine that's challenging.
So I'm going to click here, it's sort of a template.
It's really difficult for all of you who do programming, to know that this is a template, and you just fill in the blanks, and the goal will be at the end, and everything is wonderful.
We all know that never happens.
And -- but this is a guide, just a guyed to go to, to say, you know, sometimes gee, I have this question, or these are the things that I know I have to fill in.
These are -- this is the box, or this is the check mark that I have to have.
And so what I always ask is, what is the purpose of this program?
So the program that we're going to do, we want something beyond book clubs.
Like, 20 years ago I started our first book club at our library.
And it was really when book clubs were really starting to gain some traction.
And it was great, and it was so successful, in fact it's still going on today.
But libraries have grown so much since then.
Communities expect so much more from libraries, and librarians.
So I just think, what is beyond the book club?
What else can we possibly bring to the library?
And so the purpose of the program is to increase awareness of maybe a certain collection, or just the library in general, or maybe an exhibit, or something like that.
Or is the purpose of the program just to increase community connections?
Or to bring your community together?
I always tell my larger groups that the reason why we have these different types of programs is to really bring the community together.
We're giving them an opportunity to come together and to share their stories, to share their -- the things that they have in common, but also we find out what we have that are differences, and it really brings us together.
And we learn from each other, and then maybe we're not also scary to each other, too.
So I always tell people that it's bringing people together, this is giving you an opportunity to learn about your community.
And I also -- one thing I learned is, in this town, most programs have to be at 7:00.
I don't know if it's because you get off work and feed the kids, and then we finally can get out of the house at 7:00, but most of the town, sometimes even when I have a program of 100 people, it will be 10 to 7:00 and people are just starting to show up.
And I always get a little nervous about 10 to 7:00 if you don't see cars coming into the parking  lot.
But from about 7:00 it's kind of when -- in the evening when things happen.
Unless it's food related, and then it's always 6:00.
And I don't know if that's because we're an old farming community, if that helps too, but -- so  timing is sometimes the best -- to figure that out, it will save you a lot of grief, maybe.
Also if you have a morning program, afternoon program, or different seasons.
For instance, maybe your town has a really big football season, and everyone is following the team, you're not going to have a program maybe on the football night, you know.
And -- or like I said for us, it's sometimes football, community theater, or hunting.
We have a lot of hunting, when I was bringing in some -- an author one time we were lucky enough to bring in a larger-name author, Jamie Ford came in and I told him, well, it has to be before October 15th, before the middle of October, or we're going to have to wait until maybe  spring, because of weather and things like that.
Even though we have an airport, and everything here.
And he said, why?
I said, you won't get a flight in because of hunting season.
So that's kind of funny, but it's very true, and it's about our just knowing our program.
Also when to have a program, many people -- and I learned this the hard way -- I would not give enough time for when the program was going to be, and enough time to publicize it.
Publicizing, I mean, bare minimum would be two weeks, and usually we like to of course know things almost a season ahead, because we have to know if we're going to -- what we're going to pay for and things like that.
But you really need time to publicize and kind of get things together there.
Excuse me.
Also the budget.
How much money do we have?
It's never enough, of course, but if you have no money, and -- how do you -- can you just say no, we're not going to do any programs because we don't have any money?
We wish we could say that, but that is not the case.
So I do have some ideas of -- excuse me -- I do have some ideas of no money, and no money programs, even if you don't have money for publicity or anything like that, and what kind of  partnerships, sometimes to find those groups in your town who have maybe but maybe they don't have a facility, that type of a thing, those are a dime a dozen.
To try to get somebody like that.
But also grant money.
Everyone says oh, write a grant for that?
We all know it's not that easy.
And so also I -- a lot of states or communities, they have a humanities council, or art council, those grants are a lot more realistic as far as applying for them, and them having money for something that would be library related.
Sorry about that, I have a tickle in my throat.
So a program plan.
These are questions that if you answer them I think it will help guide you towards a little more successful programming, and it's something to learn from.
These are questions to answer after you've done a program where you're like, yeah, this was great.
But no, this didn't work.
So what type of program do you want to offer?
What is kind of your -- is it going to be -- like what format, that type of thing.
Also, what specific topic might be really hot or popular in your community?
And really since we're more globally now, maybe not just what's in your community, but what's going on in the United States?
What's happening right now that is something that everybody wants more information about, or a type of entertainment, that type of a thing.
I know health, literacy, and wellness is a very big thing.
Globally, but it also is very popular thing in my community.
So we have sometimes geared a little differently, it used to be more digital literacy, which I think will always be an ongoing issue, but five years ago digital literacy was where every program was going.
And now it's almost like, yeah, yeah, digital literacy, yeah, that's expected.
But health literacy, and financial literacy seems to really be kind of the hot topic now.
And what format?
Hands-on class?
Is it going to be a demonstration?
More of a seminar?
Is it going to be more like an entertainment type of a program?
What I learned here is hands-on classes, first of all, sometimes you might be very limited by your space.
So do you want something that 20 people can come to, or only five?
Because if you have a hands-on class, sometimes you can only have five people.
A demonstration, a lot more people can watch, you could have one person doing something and maybe 30 or 40 people watching.
I will say, we've really been lucky, we know we're very fortunate, we have a library kitchen.
It is a full functioning kitchen, and then it's open to a very large space.
And we can fit about 55 people in there with chairs.
Chairs and tables, 30 is about it.
And we have a camera, and it's just perfect for demonstrations.
So what we learned, though, is a lot of people, they don't really want a hands-on class, they want a demonstration.
They want to learn how to make pretzels, they want to watch somebody make pretzels and they'll take the recipe home and do it themselves, but they don't actually want to do the work.
So that is something we kind of had to learn the hard way here.
And what goal does this satisfy?
Is it part of a strategic plan?
Does your library board have a goal for you, does your department have a goal?
We're a city library, so our city has certain goals to serving our community, and how does the library fit into the large scheme of things?
So that is something that you might want to satisfy.
And it might be a library goal as to, hey, we want people to come to the library who have never been here before.
Or maybe the goal is to give something back to the people who are here every day.
So whatever that goal is, what does it satisfy?
And then again, who is your audience?
Is it the people who are here every day, which I call your bread and butter people?
Or is it the people who, like I said, have never been to the library?
Give them an excuse to come in here.
Is it going to be for senior citizens?
Is it going to be those millenials, which I'll talk about them a also later.
I've learned a lot in the last couple years about that.
And also what space is available?
Are you the one who has the space but maybe no money?
And maybe that will help with your -- how to get a partner who maybe has a also cash, but doesn't have an actual brick and mortar or doesn't have any space to have programs.
Some libraries, this was our case before, we moved into this building, was, we didn't have a lot of space.
So sometimes for instance, we had all Aberdeen reads.
It's our one book, one community project.
And we always had to have our community discussion some place else.
So it was either at a community theater, because they had a huge space, and a beautiful stage, or maybe at one of our historic hotels, or -- you know, what venue would go with the book, things like that.
That's something you have to think about.
What space is available, at what cost, too.
Is it something we can do a trade-off?
Date and time, date and time is so huge.
Like I said, depends on your community, our community, a Monday night doesn't work.
I don't care what it is, if it's a class, I could have just the most popular author here and I don't think on a Monday night I probably would get half as many people as I would on a Tuesday or Thursday night.
Also to be respectful, in our community we have a lot of churches, and it's a very family oriented community, and they're very busy on a Wednesday night.
So we stay away from Wednesday night programs.
That said, my book club meets on Wednesday nights, and it's very, very popular, and I think it's really popular because a lot of the moms were like, I'm going to drop my kids off at church and I have an hour to myself.
So I'm coming to book club.
It's funny that way, again, it depends your community.
And sometimes it's just trial and error.
We've tried book clubs on a Tuesday night and they don't work.
But many of my other programs, Tuesday and Thursday nights for adults work really well.
And again, what's your budget?
Many times I have no budget.
I have no budget for advertising, I don't have snacks, I don't do a lot of different things because of a budget.
And -- or lack of a budget.
It just really depends on what's your money.
If it's a very big program and maybe your foundation or your friends group has done some  fund-raising, and so how do you make that money go as far as possible?
Also, are you going to do any registration?
Are you going to charge a fee?
Most libraries are against charging a fee because that limits access to people.
Most of the time, like us, we do not charge a fee unless it's something that they're making and they're going to take home.
We have a cooking club, it's an $8 fee, and they make the food, I get the groceries, but they make the food, but they take home the leftovers.
They cook the food, and sometimes if we do a certain craft, we have a very small fee, just for materials, because we don't have a very big budget for that type of thing.
Partnerships.
That is always a big deal with libraries.
But in my 20 years I have realized that some partnerships are better than others, and we all know those partners who want to partner with everybody, but they really don't pull their weight.
And that just makes more work for yourself.
And so it's really finding those partners who say they're going to do something, they're going to do it, whether it's funding, or providing space, or maybe renting chairs and tables, or have those volunteers to come out and help you and get things moved, or whatever it might be.
So partnerships can be an amazing resource.
And then also your marketing budget, and what avenues that you have.
Traditional media, it costs money.
But sometimes, in some communities that's the only way people get their information.
So you have to -- you can't discount them.
Also, social media, and then the timeline, when do you start rolling out your publicity?
And when you should really amp it up and things like that.
So that's a lot in one plan.
But that is probably a scaled-down as I could get it.
The next thing is just, this is an example of one of our programs.
So we had decided that we wanted a health-related educational program.
We had been getting feedback that that is the type of program people wanted, they wanted more information, more of this, more of that.
So we said, okay, let's see what we can do.
It was going to be educational, and a hot topic in our community, which I think it is kind of just throughout the United States or globally, is essential oils.
Everyone wants to get back to less chemicals, and things that are much more healthy, and so we decided to do essential oils, everyday use and cooking.
People say I use essential oils and everything will be better.
But we all know, it's like, how?
How do I use this?
And so this was going to be a demonstration.
A lot of people -- I thought we could have more people get to more people, so as a demonstration than hands-on, and also like I said, a lot of people in our community, they want to watch, and they're going to go home and do this themselves.
Now, for us, the goal was public education.
It's also helping on our strategic plan.
It's a -- more like a different type of a program, it was diverse, and it also was public education.
And part of our strategic plan too was to help promote kind can of uplift people in our community.
We don't want to take away business from somebody in our community, we want to lift them up and show them off a also bit.
But also you have to be very, very careful of that in a public library.
So our deal, I guess, our partnership with a local store, it's called the oil room, and it was that please come and show us how to do all these things, and encourage people to use essential oils for their health, their wellness, but -- and I will introduce who you represent, but there will be no selling, nothing like that, no capturing of information at a library program.
It's been an amazing, an amazing partnership.
So that was wonderful.
And so it's for adults, the general public, but just adults.
We were going to have it in our library kitchen, and we would give samples, of course it's a food program, so in our town it has to start at 6:00.
And they better be getting samples by 6.
Ment 20 or they're going to get hangry.
So we had an evening program, samples provided, on a Tuesday evening, and we had -- I had about $50 that I knew I could buy different types of foods and things like that that she would be using in her recipes.
She provided all the essential oils.
And again, it was some people have a difficult time partnering with somebody who is not a nonprofit.
But she was very respectful, and continues to be very respectful of the views of the library and that this isn't a place to make great sales, or anything like that, no money can exchange hands here at our library.
We have strict policies that way.
We make exceptions for authors who want to sell their books here, if they're doing a book talk for us.
But other than that, you cannot sell anything here in the library.
So that is always something to think of.
I think we might be pausing here.
>> Is that okay if we pause for a few questions?
>> You bet.
That would be great.
>> Fantastic.
There's been lots of great discussion, lots of sharing, there's a huge fan club in the audience, so lots of good sharing going on.
And I know you're going to touch on your publicized -- how you publicize in a little bit, but there were a couple questions that are good to touch on now.
Someone wanted to ask if you require waivers or insurance from presenters in terms of indemnifying the library regarding health programs.
Do you do any of that with your presenters?
>> We are just starting to.
Because we do have people sign a waiver when they are doing kitchen programs.
Just in case somebody would be burned, or start a fire, anything like that, luckily we have not had that happen.
We don't have them sign anything as far as, you know, advertising for the library or anything like that.
At this point we don't.
>> Okay.
Earlier on there was a great question about how often you meet to plan your programming lineup.
Do you meet monthly, quarterly?
You mentioned seasons, so I'm guessing maybe you do some quarterly?
>> About quarterly.
I'm the only -- I shouldn't say I'm the only one in my department, but I do have one library tech, he's our technology librarian, and he does all our technology classes for adults, and even home schoolers and things.
Otherwise, I'm it for adult programs.
But with the children's librarian and the technology librarian, and I, we meet with the director at least quarterly.
Like I said, we do serve like over 35,000, but we only have 12 people full-time staff in our  library, so we're kind of -- we're spread thin, which I think every library can say, they need more people.
So we meet about quarterly, but then there's moments where I always try to -- we try to be a season ahead.
So I've already planned winter, we're going to start our summer planning here right after Christmas.
>> Okay.
Excellent.
I know you're going to talk about marketing, so let me just give you one more question.
There were questions about marketing and partnerships, which I know you're going to touch on.
I thought this was a good question in terms -- and I know you're going to talk about assessing your programming, but do you have any advice on how to tell whether a new program that is poorly attended was badly scheduled, versus the program itself being a dud?
>> Oh, if I had really a lot of insight on that, I probably would be a multimillionaire.
That is --
[LAUGHTER]
That is so tough.
And I've been in that where I thought, this is going to be an amazing program!
And I had like 10 people show up.
And this is a program that people said -- in fact this summer we had people say oh, charge us $5-10, we want a lunch book club, you provide the lunch, and we'll show up and discuss the book, and it will be great.
And they said they would pay at least $10 a ticket, and all this stuff.
And I did that, and I literally had three people show up.
>> Oh, shoot.
>> It was terrible.
And I thought, are you kidding me?
One thing I -- one thing I think is very difficult is sometimes we're told to do so many things that all our activities kind of get jumbled together, and -- in advertising.
I think if things get spaced out a little better, sometimes people don't -- things don't get lost in the shuffle.
But that is so disappointing, because you've spent all that time and money and then it's a dud.
Again, timing is usually the best, I've noticed timing and audience, if -- like I said, I used to every once in a while plan a Monday night program, and I just stopped.
I said, I'll never do that again, because it's just a formula for failure.
Also, in our community you can't get anyone here at a program for the library on a Saturday.
>> Hmm.
Too much other things going on it sounds like, right?
>> Yeah.
Exactly.
There's lots of soccer and hockey, and all these things, unless it's story time at 10:30, we have  50-some kids here.
But other than that, I can't get anybody here on a Saturday.
So I just stopped.
>> Well, I know you've got lots more to cover, so let's continue on.
Everyone keep posting questions and answering each others' questions, it's great to see the kind of sharing that's going on.
But let's carry on.
>> Great.
Thank you so much.
So our essential oils program, what we did was we had no registration, no fee, and of course the oil room was here.
I know I have communicated with other librarians who have done kind of the same structure, but there's was with the local hospital and their nutritionist.
So that kind of -- and I did social media, but I did a little bit with traditional media.
And I will touch on that a little bit later.
Here is the poster I made.
That was with poster my wall.
And what I like about that is I can do social media, I can do the JPEG, it fits everywhere.
And so that was really good too.
And it really just depends, we printed these in house, too.
Now, there's something about printing in house, how much is it going to cost for your laser printer, the toners, or if you go to your quality quick print or your office max or something like that and have them printed too.
It just -- you have to budget that out.
So right here is kind of -- this is my publicity wheel, I guess, that I adhere to.
And so traditional media, what I mean by that of course is your newspaper, your radio, and things.
But that's where I send my press releases.
I send a press release every season for all of our programming, but that press release gets really long.
And so then I also have individual press releases.
And that seems to catch people's eye a lot more than one big one.
So I will send just a little press release, sometimes I will email the news person at the radio and say, hey, do you need a fill-in, do you need an interview?
Do you want to interview the author, or do you want to interview the speaker that's coming in?
I've got contact information, and things like that.
They're usually always looking for something new, again, it depends on the season for us, if it's playoff time or something like that, they've pretty much got their radio spots taken up.
So -- and then I always use social media.
That is just absolute, I -- everyone always says, that's just for younger people.
I'm like, well, my mother is 78 years old and she finds out all about library programs on her Facebook page.
So it really just depends, I don't think a person can stereo type like that so much.
Also, I do Snapchat, I wish I could say I do that every day, but we have an amazing wonderful staff person who has a real knack for that, and she does it five minutes a day and she can do some Snapchat for me.
So one thing too is utilize your staff, the talents that your staff has.
I have an amazing person here on staff that is -- does all of our exhibits, all of our displays and things like that, and she is amazing.
So whenever she has a little spare time, she'll put that stuff together and it's just something that I can't do it all.
But anyway, we use a lot of social media, and then we also do some paid Addison.
And sometimes we can get some of though, our radio station here is fabulous, so they will match every ad that we buy, they will match it.
So it's like getting a two-for-one.
So that's really nice, it's part of their contribution to the public library.
Also sometimes the newspaper will do that as well.
We're lucky enough to have a newspaper in town, so sometimes that will happen too.
My online resources, I kind of think of our library website, also if some people have a blog their libraries have blogs or maybe their librarians have a blog.
So that will -- that would be something I would use as well.
Print material.
You know, it takes money.
And so even if you're doing it in house, that's going to eat up some of your maybe supply money or something like that.
So that is something you kind of have to maybe talk to your director or something about which money do we have?
Do we have print money, or do we have supply money?
What are we going to use?
It depends on the time of the year sometimes for that too.
So here is a program we did, and I would say it's a zero funds type of a program.
What it was, we needed a multi-- we wanted a multicultural program, part of our strategic plan was to have more multicultural programs for the entire family.
For the entire community, and to kind of welcome and learn about the different people in our community, so again, so that not -- people, they don't have the opportunity to talk to people from other cultures, who are here in our community.
So we thought, we're going to give them an opportunity to come and talk, and also for other cultures to feel more welcome in our community as well.
So we didn't really have any money, and we thought, well, we have this beautiful new facility, so we'll provide the space.
And I said, I would do the posters, and things like that, so we were able to partner with our local difficult coalition, and they had grant money.
So they had money for food and for printing.
And the one thing in our community we thought, and I think this is with all communities, if you have a reason for people to come together, if people think they have to come together and just talk, they're kind of shy.
They're not me, I'm very chatty, I come together to talk is great.
But a lot of people, when they come together and maybe they don't know the language as well, but food kind of spans all those things.
So maybe we can't talk as much, but a smile and maybe eating food, breaking bread together seems to bring communities together.
So that was kind of our goal.
And so the difficult coalition had money, so we had that towards food, and printing.
Printing of the posters, and things like that.
They also paid for a full-page ad in the newspaper, which was amazing.
This was happening in August, and in our community in August this would have been -- this was the Saturday after our county fair, our county fair is huge in this area.
But it also was the first Saturday after school started.
And usually in this town, I never have a Saturday program, and I never have it right after school.
 has started in August.
And also our state fair would have been starting, there was a lot of programs -- a lot of problems with having this program on this date.
However, this was their celebration, they were celebrating a holiday for the Somalian community, and it was like their Christmas.
And so they really wanted it on that day.
Specifically.
So I said, okay.
Let's try to make this happen.
We have the facility.
We have an African grocery store here, and that's where they -- they had donated a lot of the food, the African restaurant was cater the food, and we didn't know how many people would show up.
We ended up having about 450 people show up, 200 and some, we had food enough for about 250 people.
And so we shared a lot of food, and it was a lot on the library staff, and the facility, but again, it didn't take a lot of library funds.
The police department, they had a coalition or group that works a lot with the Somalian immigrants in our community, helping them with jobs, and getting them housing, and they're really the bridge for a lot of people.
So they -- the Somalians are very comfortable with our police department.
So this was a very successful program, even though I thought there were a lot of things that were stacked against us.
Also a very -- a zero funds program is also was on our strategic plan.
Was financial literacy.
And so we have partnered with local banks.
Now, a lot of people don't realize, but your local banks, your financial places, they are supposed to do community service every year for the FDIC licensing.
Not all of them do, but we have some great banks here.
So we also got real estate agents in the area, and I told them it has to be everybody, or nobody.
So every real estate agent had -- their company, they all were invited, not all of them showed up, but about half of them did, and it was very fruitful for them.
It was really wonderful.
But again, they couldn't, you know, sign people up and things like that, it was just more of an information that this person is an agent.
And we did mostly everything was on social media.
We really didn't do any other type of advertising, because it was first-time home buyers, so we knew we were marketing to the 20 and 30-year-olds, mostly.
And so we didn't do any traditional marketing to them.
>> A quick question.
Do you allow them to hand out business cards?
>> They can -- not business cards, actually.
They can hand out brochures about their certain agency, but people will -- can take a brochure and then contact them.
But they can't hand out business cards here.
>> Okay.
>> Our library board was really strict about that.
We'll help you, but you can't use us.
>> Okay.
>> And sometimes you have limited partnerships.
There's also times where maybe in your community the partners that you would be contacting are tapped out by other nonprofit organizations that maybe they've been helping and so -- but you need some of those programs.
So this is a zero-fund, zero-partner type of a program, and it's -- in our area I notice that there were a lot of bars that had a lot of trivia.
And I thought there's so many people who don't want to go to the bar, and do their trivia, so I thought let's start a trivia night.
Let's see what happens.
And I have anywhere between 25 to 45 people, adults show up on a Tuesday night.
So we do the fourth Tuesday of every month, and of course every month meaning not in the summer.
We don't meet in the summer.
We tried it last summer because they said oh, we'll show up.
No, everyone is out bike riding and fishing, and golfing.
So no one showed up.
So I basically do it January, February, march, maybe April.
And then also we pick up again September, October, and November.
But if November, you know, the holiday season, nothing.
Nobody comes to programs.
And then --
>> another quick question about your trivia.
Where do you get your trivia questions?
>> Online.
I really -- I Google -- I know it's terrible to say.
Sometimes I have them from books or something that are here at the library, but a lot of times I just Google bar trivia or interestingly enough, this is for adults, middle school trivia is what they love the best.
>> Interesting.
There's a lot of trivia related questions, so maybe we'll have you follow up with answering a few of those.
Buzzers, somebody is asking about buzzers, and prizes.
Yeah.
I hit on one there.
>> I do know prizes, I always tell them the prize is bragging rights.
But we have caribou coffee, we have Starbucks here too, of course, but we have caribou, and they a couple times they've brought in coffee and different things like that that they want to sponsor the snacks.
So that's fine with me.
I make popcorn and, you know, I say as long as I don't have to vacuum up the popcorn, we'll still have it.
The minute I have to vacuum, we're done with the popcorn.
We also like to have programs here with kids -- when kids are on vacation from school.
So a big time for us is to have family programs in the Christmas holiday, like after Christmas, before new years type of a thing.
And so our entire library is doing this, everyone is working on it, the children's librarian, and the technology librarian and everything, and me.
We're doing an escape room.
And it's Harry Potter themed, inspired, of course, and so we did that all ourselves.
And everything was donated as far as the different props and different things that we needed.
So from other staff members and families, and things like that.
So that's been very -- it's going to be very successful, we were completely full.
We had to add two more days, so we're really excited about that.
But that is something that didn't cost us anything.
And we only put it on social media and then we also just did press releases, so we filled up really fast.
We do seasonal health fairs for our health literacy.
And that is just a lot of different people, different organizations, and we always say it's family health fair.
So we want children, young parents, there's a lot of different things about, like, car seat safety, and different things like that, but we do one in the fall, and we also do one right before summer.
So it's summer safety, sunscreen, bike safety, all those types of things.
And we partner with the local hospital, the clinics, the colleges, and both have nursing programs at the colleges.
So that is kind of how that got started.
Also, one of the best resources that I have are our humanities speakers bureau.
I think almost every state has a humanities speakers bureau, and you can write a grant, the application fee is $50, and a lot of times it depends on the speaker, but then the humanities will give you grant and they take care of the rest of the expenses for the speakers.
And that has been amazing.
One that we had here right away after we had opened in this new library was images of the world, and this -- they're an amazing group, this couple, they bike through all these different countries, so they have really different experiences because they bike through a country, they're on foot a lot of time, and they're amazing presenters.
I highly recommend them, they travel all over the United States.
And to schools and different places like that.
So I highly recommend them.
But, again, they normally would have cost about $300-400, but it really only cost me $50 to get them here, and then I just used social media and things like that.
I also say, use your community experts.
You have so many experts in your community, you'll learn so much about people that you had absolutely no idea that they did this.
We did a sportsman's night event, we had planned this, we had a bow hunter who was known for going to all these different places and hunting and different things, and like I said, in South Dakota, there's a lot of hunters, and a lot of archery is a very big thing here.
So he had a wonderful pictures about beautiful landscape, and things like that.
So that was going to be a program here.
And then we also had somebody who, she loves bread.
She makes bread, she does all these things, and so we did this in our kitchen, and she did a pretzel making demo.
And we had about 40, 45 people who showed up for the demo.
So that was just, you know, absolutely amazing.
And then we have a lot of people who have different talents.
Music talents, and, I don't know you might have a magician or something, and they just really want to get the exposure.
That was our thing with 55 strings, so it was a mandolin and a harp.
And -- but they just wanted to get exposure, and so they did a concert for us for our end of our summer reading program last year.
And then people who are crafty or maybe artists, we did our pumpkin painting.
I don't want to seem like I'm rushing through this, but I know we want to get more to the publicity.
Also if you have authors in your area, I have decided some of the smaller authors I would do an author fair.
Maybe I'd get one -- if they're here one night I might get 15, 10, 15 people.
But if you have four or five authors, you might have 50 or 60 people who come.
So we thought maybe an author fair, have four, five, six authors from South Dakota all here at the same time, and that would kind of work a also better.
I do for statistics I do attendance, I always look at the cost of everything.
Even how much time I have spent.
I keep kind of a time sheet of each program, how much time I've spent planning, publicizing, and things like that, to see maybe some of these programs, you're not getting a lot of people and you've spent 40, 60, 80 hours of your time planning this program and maybe you have 20 people that probably isn't going to -- that probably isn't the best way to use your time.
So I always try to take a lot of pictures.
We had our master gardeners in our kitchen there, they did seed starting, it was in march.
And I had 35 adults, eight elementary school children who were probably drug there by their parents or grandparents, but I also, before every event I ask, is this the first time you've come to a program?
Is this the first time you've been to the library?
And I just kind of see who raises their hand and I always say, there's no judgment, judge-free zone here, just, I want to, you know, see how many people this is their first time they've been  here.
So then of course I always look, I try, when you're in the middle of a program you can't be the photographer, and the facilitator, and writing down all these stats and things like that, but you try to do as much as you can.
I take a lot of pictures so I can go back and say, we had them about this age, that age, and things like that.
So I look at the demographics, have they been here before, was the topic interesting, did it start and end properly at the right times, I ask a lot of questions.
And when you start asking questions, people love to tell you what they think.
Good, bad, or ugly, they will tell you everything.
And then you don't even have to ask them, you'll be at Wal-Mart doing grocery shopping and they'll tell you everything they think about certain programs.
These are just some wrap-up notes.
Try to take a survey if you can, when they're there on site, is usually when things are in their mind.
I do a lot of times have paper surveys.
I will leave around and I take as many notes as possible.
And I think that's about it.
>> Wow.
Fantastic.
So much great information.
And lots and lots of inspiration.
One final question, just because you did touch on a lot of partners in those -- some of your last examples.
Somebody asked, how do you find your partners?
>> That is a great question.
A lot of times it is just kind of asking around.
I look at our community and I just see -- just the other day I was like, who does stained glass?
Do I know somebody who does stained glass?
And I asked the arts councilman, the person who is the director of the arts council, I said, do you know somebody who does this, this?
Oh, it's really kind of word of mouth in your community.
And that will help you learn your community, learn about your community as well.
That is probably the way I do it the most.
>> Yeah, and I know that depends on the community, the size of your community.
There are definitely lots of webinars, I encourage folks, I'll even add the link to our partner, there's a whole section, topic area on WebJunction about working with partners and  collaborating.
So that might give you some other ideas as well.
But we are at the top of the hour, so being mindful of everyone's time, I want to thank you so much for bringing your great work to WebJunction, lots of inspiration for folks to -- that you're sending folks off with, and thank you all that contributed in chat, so many fantastic ideas were shared in chat as well.
Yes, we will -- I'll send you a link later on today in an email once the recording is available.
I also encourage you, Cara has provided her contact information for any of those other questions that you all had, you can reach out to her and follow up on that.
And then I'll also send you all a certificate next week whooping cough, by next week for attending today, and again, if you have colleagues who you'd like to share this webinar with, they can come and view are the webinar recording in the catalog and get a certificate for viewing as well.
So we've got you covered there.
And speaking of surveys, I know Cara talked about surveys, I'll send you all to a short survey as you leave here today.
It will also be in that email I send you, so if you don't have time you can circle back, but we  really appreciate your feedback, we'll share that with Cara and it helps us plan our ongoing programming.
So again, thank you so much, and thank you to our captioner and to WJ support, and everyone have a fantastic day.
>> Thank you.