Barbican Library

Today we visited a public library and I loved every second of it. I took 4 pages of notes (the most of any library visit so far) because not only was I interested in the differences between their public library and where I work back in the States (shout out to Webster Public Library!), but I was also writing down all the ideas for cool programs and collections they had that I wanted to use in the future! I noticed a lot of similarities and differences and I learned from all of them.

This is almost exactly like a program my library back home offers!

This reminded me of "Tech Tutors," which we have as a one-on-one service, but this a larger scale.

Some more amusing flyers.

The Barbican Public Library is the largest of the 3 lending libraries in the City of London itself (which, despite what you might think you know, is only 1 square mile). They struggle a lot with being able to change the space at all since it's listed--meaning they have to get permission to do anything. They wanted to get new furniture, and the only way to do that was to take one of the old chairs and put it on display in the museum. Not to mention the library is housed inside the larger Barbican Center, but it isn't part of it. This presents its own set of challenges (like a lack of directive signage to find the library inside the huge building). It seems to be a universal feature of public libraries to have to jump through odd hoops to reach their goals!

Interestingly enough, their demographics tend to be opposite of what I'm familiar with and expected. Their most frequent age range is 25-46, they have more men than women patrons, and their nonfiction is more popular than their fiction. Another similarity is that they also struggle very much to get teenagers in the library, and as a consequence their YA section is smaller and is very much tailored to the regular patrons they do have who use the collection. As well, children's age range for their library is considered to run up to 14, so they do take on a lot of the tweenagers. From browsing their collection briefly, it looks universal as well that crime thriller/mystery novels are hugely popular (their collection of those was almost equal to their regular fiction!)

They have a separate section for Oversize books (as in, books that are too big to fit on the shelves), which I honestly think is ingenious. We just put our big books on top or bottom of the shelves where they should be and they kind of just hang out.

This sign just made me giggle because it took me a minute to realize what buggies were. I also thought this was a smart idea, and it allows for more room for kiddos in story time!

They have a 12 item limit on borrowing, and some of the items (such as CDs and DVDs) cost money to borrow. Holds (or reservations, as they called them) cost 1.50 pounds if the librarian places it for you, or 1 pound if you do it yourself online (there is a discount for doing it yourself because it frees up staff time!).  As well, they don't have meeting rooms available for rental (which typically, other libraries charge money for reservation of them. This was a surprise to me!). This is why some of the items cost money to borrow--the librarians and staff were in a very tough place. They, as a public library, of course very much want to offer services and items for free because that's what we do, but in order to maintain their own costs of operation they have had to add some fees. It seems at least as if the public has been understanding!

And finally--the Children's Section. We got to meet with essentially the Children's Library Assistant, or Deputy (and since I too am the Children's Library Assistant at my library, I would also now like to be called Deputy). He gave us a huge rundown of what they do, and since this is exactly what I'm interested in I took a lot of notes.

Their Children's Department does a lot of similar services such as school visits (called nursery visits for little ones, and most often the schools are coming to the library rather than vice versa), story times and rhyme times, and summer reading challenges. Their summer reading challenge, I noticed, was different than many I'm familiar with in the States--they still offer prizes, of course, but it's more involved. The readers must sit down with a member of the staff and discuss the book they read (who their favorite character was, their favorite part, etc.) And if they read 6 books (the max for their program), then they get a certificate and a wonderful ceremony at the end of the summer, amongst many other prizes. This seems like a really neat option to offer to kids, and they have a lot of success with it!

They have a number of clubs, but my favorite was definitely Secret Film Club--which got its name because there is some kind license that says they can't advertise the name of the film they're going to show, so they instead offer some suuuuper difficult hints.

I definitely have no idea what movie they're showing.

They also offer to schools this wonderful service they call Project Loans, meaning they get the schools to pick five topics and then the library compiles tons of age-appropriate books for them, puts them all in a crate, and then sends them off to the schools. They said this is usually about 9,000 books, which is amazing and a huge amount of work!

A few other highlights: Bundle Days and Fun Day! Bundle Days are a great outreach idea. The library partners with other local organizations to have days where some program is offered at 11, 1, and 3, all at different locations. That way the organizations can advertise each other and also get each other's audiences. Fun Day is exactly what it sounds like--a massive, chaotic few hours of fun. The library plans treasure hunts, crafts, story times, etc. It takes months of planning, and they had 367 people total last year!

They feature a kid's face on each monthly brochure, which I think is super cute and super smart!

They also had juice and snacks for us, which was so very kind and appreciated!

It was amazing talking with the library staff today, and I am already planning to come back for another visit and longer chat. I feel like I learned so much about my career and the challenges we all go through together. We face a public that says they don't need us, and then proof every day that they do. We have to adapt from what libraries have been in the past to face a new set of challenges and rise to the occasion. Our libraries may have differences between the US and the UK, but overwhelmingly I find that we are the same.