Last year, some of my staff and I went to a district roundtable of children's librarians held at the Madison Jefferson County Public Library in Madison, IN. I spotted a simple, hanging calendar listing all their children's events and I knew I had to have one for our library!
I purchased the Librarian's Desk Calendar from Upstart, which I like because it lists authors' birthdays and it is bright and colorful. But you could use any desk calendar for this use.
Tons of people look at this calendar every day! It's eye-catching and most people recognize the shape of a calendar. This calendar says, "HEY LOOK, WE HAVE PROGRAMS!" better than any of our flyers, which are many and can blend in together. They provide information and are great for families to take home, but they don't catch the eye like this calendar does. It is an easy way for patrons to see our monthly schedule at a glance and quickly figure out if we have programs they can attend. It's also a way for them to get an idea about how our weekly programs are scheduled.
The calendar has two holes in the top corners for hanging. Since we didn't want to put nails in our desk, we ran some wire through the holes and it hangs on a screw we put into the back part of the desk (where no one will see it).
Every season, once we have our program schedule set, I take the calendar down and hand-write our schedule in simple entries. For example, Monday, January 27 lists:
Preschool Explorers 10am
Mother Goose on the Loose 4pm
There's no room for other information (although I suppose you could add age ranges if you wanted to squeeze them in there), so I put a little note saying to ask at the desk for more information. Since the calendar is hung right on our reference desk, there is almost always a staff person right there to say, "Hey, if you have any questions about our events, I'm happy to answer them!"
This was a simple solution for us to help advertise our programs: cheap, easy to update, and visually appealing.
