Sizzling Summer Stats

August 2007

More people have made more visits to DBRL libraries and checked out more books this summer than ever before.

Kids got up to dance to the sounds and rhythms of Bongo Barry at the Columbia library.

Much of this extra traffic is a result of record-breaking numbers of kids participating in our summer reading program, “Get A Clue.” This summer, over 2,850 kids signed up at the Columbia Public Library, over 400 at the Callaway County Public Library, about 220 at the Southern Boone County Public Library, and over 150 kids on our two bookmobiles. All told, that’s more than 3,600 kids, an increase of more than 13% over last year’s program, which itself broke the previous record.

The Columbia children’s desk bustles with activity during Summer Reading.

DBRL’s teen summer reading program, “You Never Know,” also had a banner year. Over 200 teens signed up, which is a big jump from the 130 participants last year. As part of the teen reading challenge, each library held events just for teens like Dance Dance Revolution parties at which we learned that teens are a little better at DDR than the library staff.

A young cartoonist shows off her crazy creature drawing skills to KOMU’s James Mouser during a program in Fulton.

Summer is always a very busy time at our libraries because of Summer Reading and other special community events like the Fulton Street Fair. This year in June and July alone we recorded over 150,000 library visits and more than 340,000 check-outs of books, CDs, audiobooks, etc. In Columbia, we averaged 2300 visitors a day in June and hit a record of 2700 visitors one of those days. The web site has also been busy. In June and July about 20,000 holds were placed online and 34,000 items were renewed using our online catalog.

In Ashland, Harry Potter fans play tabletop Quidditch during a program to celebrate the new book.

Behind the scenes, the Regional Technical Services staff set a new monthly record by adding 9,950 items to the library’s collection during May (that’s more than 450 items per work day), 1,500 more than any previous month and over 4,000 more than the average number of items added each month. May is always a busy month for Technical Services, with the beginning of Summer Reading right around the corner, but this month was really exceptional. The Technical Services Department is responsible for ordering, cataloging, stamping, stickering, barcoding and packaging all of the new materials region-wide.