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Or, how I spent my day at work on Harry Potter Day.
They didn't tell me at library school that if you come to work dressed as a witch to please the kids, you will have to walk the streets sellingyourself your library by request of the management. ;)
Here's the pictures from the day (but I can't post all the great patron photos publicly, so, um, yeah...you know)
Now, on with the story...
I get to work, and I see that they've let in the lucky winner who gets to check out the first book (see the kid signing the card), and have it checked out by our library director. I get closer to the room, and discover that they have set up all the books right outside our door. I put on my costume, and immediately get grabbed by the management to make a READ poster. Which was actually pretty cool, and came out really well. They say they are blowing up a big one for me. Maybe to hang in the room, or something? That would be very cool. (I'll try to get a picture of the poster once they've blown it up.)
So, while I'm setting up all the crafts and stuff for the say, the management starts to realize that the giant crowds they were expecting were not materializing. They come ask me if I would mind walking back and forth outside the library with the book telling people that we have lots of copies. (We had 250 walk-in copies for today, plus the 250 that were already on reserve for various patrons.) So I did.
I got odd looks from the people on the duck tours. Lots of people stayed far away from me, but a few came over to talk. The streets of Boston are fairly empty at 9:30 on a Saturday morning. I did bring in some folks who wouldn't have known we had a big party/lots of copies. (They didn't advertise the big party until a few days ago, though we had advertised our part in it to the kids for about 2 months.) A group of teenagers from CT on a scavenger hunt came over and asked if they could take a picture with me. I eventually gave up and went back inside around 10am because it was fairly pointless.
But, the day went well in the children's room at least. No massive crowds (which I'm actually glad about), but several hundred people came through during day, making it rather quieter than the average summer Saturday (I think they were all home reading their books). It was quite a bit of fun.
I had a sorting hat with house badge stickers in it. You reached your hand in, and chose a badge. Half of the management got Slytherin, which was sort of interesting. ;) We had lightning bolt tattoos, as well as all the Scholastic tattoos and other giveaways. the craft tables were full of very creative wizard hats, and kids making Harry Potter glasses. My Owl Post idea never really took off, which I found kind of sad. I hope we keep it up the rest of the week, and more people add to it.
Neither of the two concerts by Seamus and Dean were well-attended, which is a shame because they came from out of state (again, this was part of the management's program which would have been great with advertising).
Our face-painter was a madhouse. We eventually had to start giving out numbers deli-counter style. I was afraid I'd lose my voice trying to yell numbers over the din and find the kids. The sign of good programming, I think. ;)
We heard at one point that someone was selling our library copies on the steps of the library, but we couldn't get proof, so we couldn't call the cops. People kept coming in wanting the buy copies, or expecting us to be giving them away for free. Hello, library?
By the time I left for the day, there were 25 walk-in copies left. Whatever is left at the very end of the day (if anything) will go towards filling the rest of the over 550 reserves we had prior to today.
But all in all a very fun day. Reminds me why I do this job, and should help me through the next few stressfully packed workdays before I get to go on vacation.
They didn't tell me at library school that if you come to work dressed as a witch to please the kids, you will have to walk the streets selling
Here's the pictures from the day (but I can't post all the great patron photos publicly, so, um, yeah...you know)
Now, on with the story...
I get to work, and I see that they've let in the lucky winner who gets to check out the first book (see the kid signing the card), and have it checked out by our library director. I get closer to the room, and discover that they have set up all the books right outside our door. I put on my costume, and immediately get grabbed by the management to make a READ poster. Which was actually pretty cool, and came out really well. They say they are blowing up a big one for me. Maybe to hang in the room, or something? That would be very cool. (I'll try to get a picture of the poster once they've blown it up.)
So, while I'm setting up all the crafts and stuff for the say, the management starts to realize that the giant crowds they were expecting were not materializing. They come ask me if I would mind walking back and forth outside the library with the book telling people that we have lots of copies. (We had 250 walk-in copies for today, plus the 250 that were already on reserve for various patrons.) So I did.
I got odd looks from the people on the duck tours. Lots of people stayed far away from me, but a few came over to talk. The streets of Boston are fairly empty at 9:30 on a Saturday morning. I did bring in some folks who wouldn't have known we had a big party/lots of copies. (They didn't advertise the big party until a few days ago, though we had advertised our part in it to the kids for about 2 months.) A group of teenagers from CT on a scavenger hunt came over and asked if they could take a picture with me. I eventually gave up and went back inside around 10am because it was fairly pointless.
But, the day went well in the children's room at least. No massive crowds (which I'm actually glad about), but several hundred people came through during day, making it rather quieter than the average summer Saturday (I think they were all home reading their books). It was quite a bit of fun.
I had a sorting hat with house badge stickers in it. You reached your hand in, and chose a badge. Half of the management got Slytherin, which was sort of interesting. ;) We had lightning bolt tattoos, as well as all the Scholastic tattoos and other giveaways. the craft tables were full of very creative wizard hats, and kids making Harry Potter glasses. My Owl Post idea never really took off, which I found kind of sad. I hope we keep it up the rest of the week, and more people add to it.
Neither of the two concerts by Seamus and Dean were well-attended, which is a shame because they came from out of state (again, this was part of the management's program which would have been great with advertising).
Our face-painter was a madhouse. We eventually had to start giving out numbers deli-counter style. I was afraid I'd lose my voice trying to yell numbers over the din and find the kids. The sign of good programming, I think. ;)
We heard at one point that someone was selling our library copies on the steps of the library, but we couldn't get proof, so we couldn't call the cops. People kept coming in wanting the buy copies, or expecting us to be giving them away for free. Hello, library?
By the time I left for the day, there were 25 walk-in copies left. Whatever is left at the very end of the day (if anything) will go towards filling the rest of the over 550 reserves we had prior to today.
But all in all a very fun day. Reminds me why I do this job, and should help me through the next few stressfully packed workdays before I get to go on vacation.
