The library has had a very busy and successful summer. We had the largest number of visitors to the library this summer in years. We also had the highest-ever use of our fiction collection in July; that is especially impressive because book circulation in public libraries has tended to be flat or in slight decline in recent years.
While on the subject of records, we had our best-ever summer movie attendance this year as well. July movie attendance was 30% higher than last year and 250% higher than 2017, before the theatre was renovated. We had the highest-ever summer adult program attendance, not much higher than 2018 but still building on a 40% growth in the last few years.
Teen programming had a truly incredible June with over six times the attendance of previous years. This was because we finally filled a teen services position that had been vacant for a while. (I didn’t include the month of June in my other summer calculations because our summer patterns are tied to the school year, but I couldn’t resist cherry picking that particular juicy statistic.)
Monoporead (a board game that involves reading suggestions) is always a popular summer program for us. The number of games played by kids was up 20% this year. The adult version of the game is increasingly popular too.
One thing that did not hit an all-time high was the number of active library cards. We had free cards in 2016 in honour of our 100th birthday and even though an adult card costs only $5 and kids’ cards are always free, we haven’t beaten our 2016 numbers. The good news is that Methanex has generously donated funds to cover 500 free library cards and you can get one on Oct. 5 which is Methanex Library Card Sign-up Day. We will have lots of activities going on that day so a visit will be worth your while.
In other news, we are having a special book sale Sept. 14 (tomorrow!) that is focused on children’s materials. We’ve received a lot of donations and we need to clear out our storage areas. We’ve also received a lot of DVD donations and we’ve had a shelf full of them in our foyer for a while, available on a pay-what-you-will basis. Visit the library tomorrow if you want a good deal on either of these.
Ken Feser is chief librarian at the Medicine Hat Public Library.
