To ask you for your money-raising ideas for libraries?

[LibraryLibrary]

I'm in my local library's consultation group. Our library is under pressure from the council. 1) We need to attract more users.2) We also need to find a way of reducing costs and/or raising funds.
A couple of months ago I asked people on Mumsnet for their ideas for attracting more people to use the library. The responses were very useful. I went through them all and then sent a precis to the library management. They are starting to take some of the suggestions on board. For instance, we have some new activity groups starting.
Can I now please ask you all for any ideas for bringing in money? The library is open to any suggestions - so I'm thinking fun competitions of different types for different age groups, a fashion show, training courses (but what would people be prepared to pay for?), food and drink events, maybe a talent show... What has (or hasn't - that's useful info too) worked for your local library, school or other organisation? We want to provide activities that people are happy to pay for - in exchange for a positive experience. Of course we may need to find volunteers to help run the events. Any suggestion on how to do that and how best to market the events would be very helpful too. Thank you!

Our local library was struggling, and faced 2 options - closure or becoming a commuinity library - it's now fully staffed by volunteers, which is a huge cost saving. Lots of retired people in the village love volunteering there a few hours a week, and my children love seeing local familiar faces.

They run various free crafting groups, which definitely increases footfall, and they ask for donations.

I'm assuming yours is a staffed library, but as staff move on, maybe consider bringing in more volunteers, to cut running costs.

Councils are bankrupt. Places like libraries are easy targets to close especially if they aren’t getting the footfall they once did.
I worked in a related area and the pressure to bring in money is immense, even though what we do raise is a drop in the ocean .

A friends library abroad always do a “Blind date with a book” for Valentines. They wrap them in brown paper with a short note on the genre annd put them in a display shelf. Such a great idea.

My local (city centre) library does regular “Library Lates” evenings, usually with a live band or two, crafts/games and a silent disco. I’ve been to a few and they’re great and have been well attended. There’s something quite magical about disco dancing in the library.

They also do a kids fun day every summer which is always packed. There is usually a didi car inflatable track, bouncy castle, disco, lots of crafts and games and last time a petting zoo in the garden.

You need to be more commercial. So hiring the library building (when it is closes to the public) at commercial rates for businesses or groups.
You could also check out if you could do an Amazon store-front and sell your used/ex stock books on there. Or if you can partner with something like the Amazon affiliates program which gives money to your organisation if you go to Amazon via a clickable link.
You won't (and shouldn't) raise enough money through regular activites such as book clubs or children's clubs.
You could defintitely have a donation box in each library though.

The Council could also reduce staffing costs by moving to unstaffed Open Libraries (so you can open the door through a pin number linked to your library card).

Homework club for local high schools - maybe monthly one based on a subject and with a guest volunteer (ex teacher, uni grad) who can assist the kids with their questions. I would say this is more about bringing in users, but a nominal fee of 50p for the special sessions may work.

Our local library does LEGO play sessions (they have several large tubs of LEGO, I think it’s 50p to book on), hosts the local historians’ group, and in summer has those petting zoo people come (small fee for tickets).

You could host a repair club - maybe £1-2 fee to bring in an item that needs repairing eg a kettle, broken zippers on a jacket, etc.

CAB outreach - there may be grants available. But you would need a confidential space.

Our community library raises most of its funds through talks. These are by local authors or about things of local interest like archeological projects, historical events or characters etc. These are ticketed and raise a surprising amount of money. They are always sold out.
We also run a couple of raffles a year, always with very generous prizes donated by local businesses which make a few hundred pounds a time. We sell off books as they are replaced but this doesn’t raise a huge amount. All of this does take a lot of effort, this is a smallish village with a large and very active body of professional retirees with time, contacts and skills on their hands which helps.
There is also a Friends of the Library” scheme, £15 per year, with quite a large membership. We don’t get any external funding but do get free use of the building from the council, but we pay the utilities.

@Freddy67 There used to be a company which did a holiday club based around science experiments. I think offering that as a one-off workshop could be great if it was well done.

Not sure if anyone else has already suggested it, but a Silent Book Club could be a great option. We held ours at a bar, but I'd definitely be willing to go along to a library if there was a way to purchase drinks and snacks and things. Advertise it with a "help the library" kind of wording too and you might get quite a few book lovers willing to support.

What facilities have you got? Eg if spare function room could hire out to community groups.

My library charges £1 for their sessions and run a fair few. They do Harry Potter night, games club, Lego, dancing and baby / toddler groups for defo.

I agree with others, are there rooms which could be rented out? A friend teaches CPR/first aid and rents a hall.

My kids are key stage 2 age

When we go to the library, the selection of books on the shelves seems a bit poor - none of the popular authors you'd expect for their age like abi elphinstone or Katherine rundell. I hear from other parents that all the best titles get "booked" by people who search the catalogue and request something put aside - they never hit the shelves. But this is shit for kids like mine, who love to browse the shelves and pick what appeals on the day. I'd love it if it some of those popular titles actually went on the library shelves.

There's another popular series where we've searched and searched and our library only has book 3 & 4 of a 5 book series. The books go in order 3 & 4 are no good without 1 & 2! There are loads of series like this on the shelves where the first one or two are missing.

There's also been some sort of push on what are supposed to "age appropriate" books basically covering trans gender issues. Some of these frankly horrified me, compounding gender stereotypes and some very confusing stuff etc.

There used to be a library van that came to our village from the local town but it was cut due to funding issues despite being well used.

@Chemenger That's useful, thank you. The library does run author talks and sometimes charges a small amount for these. They don't tend to draw a big crowd, but perhaps if we look at the marketing we can encourage more people to come. I really like the idea of widening the talks to include history, etc. I think we really need to investigate our local population as I'm sure there are lots of interesting and talented people out there.

@YessicaHaircut I definitely want to look into the silent disco idea!

But what is a Silent Book Club?

There are rooms the library can use, but they can't rent them out, unfortunately.

It's a group that gets together to read together. You generally meet and chat for 30 minutes or so, read for an hour and then chat again afterwards. You get the socialisation without the pressure of reading a certain book by a certain time. It's very popular! If you google their website, you can see if there's already one set up near you.

@QuickCoralMoose I've never heard of that. It's definitely worth looking into, but I'm not sure we could charge for it.

Our little library has a kind of "Repair Shop" going on .just a few retired guys, who can have a look at pieces no longer working. No family heirlooms! Just a chance to get something fixed for a donation. ⁸

The petting zoo idea really appeals to me too. Or maybe we could do the equivalent of a school pet assembly, with children all bringing their pets for everyone to admire. Or perhaps a pet show for small pets like hamsters? Though it might be too stressful for the animals.

The local post office have relocated into our library (city suburb)with a counter and queuing area at one side and there is also a sectioned off room for midwife appts (but I guess you may not have that sort of space). If U3A are active locally small groups might be willing to.pay for meeting space by the hour.

It's a nice idea, but a local group already offers that.

I would pay to borrow board games from a library. I appreciate this would require some initial expense (although you could ask people to donate any unwanted board games). But I would love to be able to rent board games rather than the expense of buying any I’m interested in.