Week Six Prompt

For this prompt I took the “Pretend you're pitching an idea to your boss” literally and wrote a faux email letter to the director of my library.  All names have been changed.

Subject: Promoting Library Horror Materials

Library Director Khaki

You assigned me the project of coming up with new ways to promote the Library’s Horror Materials.  After some brainstorming and researching I offer the following ideas.  The first couple of ideas are more traditional for our library.  However, I did some out of the box thinking and offer those ideas too.

Please look over these suggestions and we can discuss them at our meeting.  If you have any questions before then I will happily meet with you to clarify or alter my suggestions.       

• The best time of the year to promote the horror genre to library patrons is starting in mid-late September through Halloween.  People are already seeing and hearing commercials for Halloween costumes and candy.  This is also a time when horror movies are advertised on television, at the movie theatre, and online.  So, it would be a good time for out library to join in on the bandwagon and create a Halloween book, audio book, and DVD display.  This could be complimented by funny and slightly scary decor like pumpkins and faux spider webs.  Perhaps we can do different displays for the children, YA, and adult fiction material sections.  The extra displays of spooky, but fun décor would add interesting focal points for patrons looking around the library.    

•  The library could throw a Halloween costume party.  There would be refreshments, candy, decorations, and a horror movie.  However, the horror movie would be related to a book(s) the library has in its collection.  For example, showing the movie Hotel Transylvania (2012) for a children's Halloween party.  Then after the movie is over the children’s librarian Sherry would show the patrons library books and graphic novels with vampires, werewolves, Frankenstein's monster, and other characters from the movie.

• This could also work for the high school and adult groups.  We could show a horror movie like Hellraiser (1987).   After the movie YA librarian Abby would explain that the movie is based on Clive Barker's book The Hellbound Heart and discuss read-a-likes for those who are interested in reading similar books or watching similar movies.

There are other times of the year when the horror genre could be advertised in the library without using Halloween as the stage.  The following ideas could be used around Halloween or at other times of the year.

• Adult Coloring books are very popular.  Adult programmer Kristie already has an adult coloring program that meets twice a month.  It would be a fun idea to have horror theme adult coloring book sessions.  While the adults are coloring the reference librarian or Kristie would be at the coloring program discussing and showing horror books and DVDs that are related to the coloring books.  This would be a good way to showcase some of the materials from the library.  Here are a few adult horror themed coloring books.  There are many more available. 

1. Dracula: A Coloring Classic by Chellie Carroll
2. Haunted House: An Adult Coloring Book with Gothic Room Designs, Halloween Fantasy Creatures, and Relaxing Horror Scenes by Jade Summer
3. Haunted Horror Pre-Code Cover Coloring Book Volume 1 by Various 
4. Great Scenes from Horror Stories by John Green.  

•  Abby has a once a month video game program for YA.  Each month the group plays a different themed game.  Last month’s theme was first person shooters and they played the classic Golden Eye on the N64, Call of Duty on the Xbox, and Doom on the PS4.  So, I suggest a video game program where the theme is Horror.  Some of the games could be Castlevania on the NES, Fatal Frame on the PS2, and any of the Resident Evil remakes on the Wii.  Before the patrons start playing these games Abby would walk them around to different sections of the library highlighting the locations of popular horror writers in novel format, graphic novels, and audio books.  Then she would take them to the DVD section highlighting some of the more popular horror movies.

Before sending this email I ran these ideas past Sherry, Kristie, and Abby to make sure they would be willing to do them in their individual programs.  They all liked the ideas and said that their normal patron base and possibly new attendees at the programs would also like them.  This is a good way to bring awareness of the Horror genre sections of the library by incorporating it into programs they already have.

• According to the recent numbers the library’s e-books are not being utilized as much as we had hoped.  So, doing a display about OverDrive could help the issues.  I suggest that the library purchases a life size cardboard cutout of Frankenstein’s Monster and place it near the reference desk.  I checked a few places online and the average cost of the cardboard cutout is only $40.00 and could be reused for other library events in the future.  In front of the monster there would be small table with signs advertising e-books.  These signs would also advertise free Old Time Radio Shows (OTR) related to the Horror theme, Project Gutenberg, and Librivox websites.  Since, patrons may have questions about OverDrive and other e-sources having the Frankenstein’s Monster cardboard cutout near reference allows them easier access to the Reference Librarian.  Also, using this specific cutout would make some patrons ask the question: why?  The answer: Frankenstein’s Monster was brought to life using electricity and the “E” in e-books stands for electricity.  I know this explanation is kind of stretching, but a life size Frankenstein’s Monster would also get patrons attention.

The books, DVD, and video games titles I mentioned in this letter are only used as examples.  The library has a good variety of horror titles that can be used.

      Thank You for your time and consideration of my ideas

      Diabolical Genius.