DIY Programming and Book Displays: How to Stretch Your Programming without Stretching Your Budget and Staff

This manual guides librarians in creating simple, affordable, ready-to-use activities for children, 'tweens, teens, and families, with enough material for a full year of programs.

Do-it-yourself programming is an emerging model in which the librarian does the preparation, then lets patrons take over. DIY Programming and Book Displays: How to Stretch Your Programming without Stretching Your Budget and Staff makes it easy for librarians to institute such programs in their own facilities.

Organized around 12 thematic chapters, the book explains how to set up and maintain a do-it-yourself station and offers instructions for a variety of year activities. Reproducible materials and booklists are included as well. Librarians may use the activities as starting points for generating their own ideas or they may simply photocopy materials in the book for ready-to-use, monthly DIY programming. Once set up, the DYI station is available to patrons anytime they are in the library. Best of all, because DIY programs do not rely on staff, space, or special materials, they allow libraries to make the most of their resources without sacrificing patron service.

Amanda Moss Struckmeyer is youth services librarian at the Middleton Public Library, Middleton, WI.

Svetha Hetzler is youth services librarian at the Middleton Public Library, Middleton, WI.