Book Club Experience

S524

Chrisynthia Casper

                Starting a book club at a library branch, where you are new and only the third librarian in the 50 years since the library was first built is not a good idea. I wish I had heard these words before I became so obsessed with starting my own book club and actually listened to the warnings.

                The branch of the county library that I was promoted to run, was born approximately 50 years ago. A young couple who lived in this town decided it needed a library, so they purchased a house and contacted the county’s main branch library. They ran that branch for 25 years until it was taken over by the second librarian who also ran the branch for 25 years. You can imagine the surprise when the patrons and community seen my smiling face instead of the librarian they grew up knowing and loving. It took several months for the patrons to stop telling me how the last librarian did things and I was in fact doing it incorrectly. Over time they began to understand that I was in fact the permanent manager and they were stuck with me. This did not however result in high numbers for any program that I tried to plan. The numbers from previous were much higher and I felt like I was missing something. Where were the patrons? Somewhere amongst this time I decided I was going to have a book club. I have many readers in this town, they would just love to get together to talk about books, right?

                I have never run a book club before this time, only participated, so everything was very new to me. I did a large amount of research. I studied different formats for running the club and how to chose books for the club. I went to other branches in my area to see what they were reading and how they chose their books. I asked the members of these clubs for suggestions for how to start my own book club. Which discussion questions did they use and every other question I could think to ask from the obvious successful clubs in my area.  Once I had some ground work for how a book club should be run, it was time to talk to people about this wonderful idea. Every patron that came to pick up holds, or check out books, or just come into the branch, I told them about this great group that would be meeting and discussing books. I printed fliers, I made book marks with the first title and put in every hold for a month. I told people I seen on the streets, I posted it to social media and I planned for a huge turnout.  After all most people appeared to be excited about having a club and appeared interested. The day of my big program came and I was ready to present to them my great ideas. The time came and went….not a single person attended. I was devastated.

                So what now? Promotional materials are due for printing this week. Do I nix the whole club, do I try again next month, have a book club all by myself? Do the people in this town dislike me? What went wrong? My stress level was defiantly elevated. I spent several days asking advice from supervisors and the other book club leaders before I casually told this whole story to the owner of the café near my library. Her advice was the best I had heard so far since I have been working at this branch. She asked me, “ did you ever think about changing things up a bit. Just because the last two librarians did something a certain way the last 50 years doesn't mean that you have to do it that way to.” . The book club up to this point had been ran out of the library and with strict rules about membership and type of books to be read. Even the time slot that I had chosen was similar to the old book club. I appeared to be doing to same thing with my club as the past librarian had done and it was not very appealing to the people in the town.

 I decided to continue on with my club, to not give up so soon. I changed the time, the day and the location and I am thankful that I did. The café agreed to let us hold our meetings there and even donated drinks and pie. I really didn't do much more than that but put out the changes I had made, and the next meeting I had eleven members show up to get the first book. I could not of planned for a better group of people to sit at the table with and start my very own book club. Turns out that the people in the town needed a little bit of change. Something different than what had been done the last 50 years and they also want to feel involved in the process. It had nothing to do with whether or not they liked me after all. We had a great time compiling a list for the remainder of the year and I honestly can’t wait till we get together again.