Inspiring Interventions - Unlocking Library Connection and Student Joy
Written by Mali Jorm, Head of Libraries, Bacchus Marsh Grammar
Library interventions are big, powerful marketing campaigns designed to create a lasting impact on patron behaviour and mindset. In school libraries, they can be used to promote library engagement, increase use of a service or product and help students forge a positive self-identity as a reader.
Because of the scale and effort required, interventions are best used only a few times a year. This gives each campaign time to ‘breathe’ and consolidate patron behaviour before another campaign is run.
Book Week is an excellent example of a popular annual intervention. Many Australians have fond childhood memories of the hype around shortlisted books and of course the fun, excitement and creativity of dress-up day.
Strong interventions are based on consumer research, marketing psychology and demonstrable outcomes. Intentional goal setting helps to avoid the pitfall of reactive event planning. Reactive planning often focuses on an externally imposed event or theme (ANZAC day, Science Week etc.) where library staff may feel obligated to organise something to support the celebration of the day. Constant small-scale, reactive event planning is energy intensive, and can reduce our capacity to develop larger, complex and more impactful campaigns.
Creating a curated program of consistent, meaningful events creates a deep and ongoing connection with your school community. Students thrive with structure and predictability in their classrooms as well as when it comes to events. Part of the excitement of an event like Year 12 graduation/formal or Year 8 wilderness camp come from the joy of anticipation. Anticipation of enjoyable experiences is a well-researched psychological phenomenon which offers many wellbeing benefits such as increasing happiness, patience and a reduction in stress.
Large scale events also leverage the power of collective joy. This is the feeling of connection and happiness you get when going to see your favourite band play in a big venue, surrounded by other excited fans all singing along to the chorus together. While we are unlikely to be able to replicate quite that level of collective joy at a school event, positive collective experiences have the ability to build community and connection between our students as well as towards the library.
For interventions to be successful, they require a goal, a target audience, and a built-in data/evaluation gathering strategy. They also require planning for a pre-event ‘hype’ campaign, the event itself, and a post-event strategy for consolidating student behaviour or attitudes.
Interventions aim to inspire, leaving a lasting impact on students. Think big - space, capacity for student involvement and budget (if possible). Your event and campaign should have many tangible aspects that connect to different senses.
Interventions are a high-effort but high-impact way to market library services, strengthen student connection with your brand and drive program engagement.
Hear Mali speak in the Capacity Building School Libraries Conference in Melbourne on Inspiring Interventions: Library interventions can be powerful tools to connect with students of all ages and spark interest in genres, titles, authors and library programs. This presentation will showcase research-backed engagement strategies alongside innovative events and promotion techniques to inspire you to host memorable interventions that will become the talk of your school.