Celebrating Library Anniversaries
Celebrating significant library anniversaries is a great way to promote libraries and library history. It's feasible to celebrate anniversaries as often as every five years and certainly every ten years. A significant celebration should take place every 25 years. Of course, fiftieth anniversaries and centennials call for even more elaborate celebrations.
Celebrations can occur for a variety of library anniversaries. These include the legal founding of the library or organization, the founding of a predecessor library with a direct connection to the current library, the anniversary of the library's building or one of the library's buildings, or the celebration of a significant event in the history of the library such as the start of bookmobile service.
Tips on celebrating anniversaries
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Validate and document the date of the event on which the anniversary is based.
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Start planning early! The more significant the anniversary the earlier you should start. Three to five years for a centennial celebration is not too early. Why not make it a multi-year event with a count down to the centennial year.
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Establish a planning committee made up of enthusiastic members. The committee should include community members as well as library staff and board members.
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Get your Friends of the Library organization involved.
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Involve outside groups and organizations such as the local historical society and the municipal government.
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Establish an overall plan with a timeline.
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The plan should include a strong public relations/marketing component.
Some ways to celebrate anniversaries
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Conduct a variety of events and programs throughout the anniversary year.
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Designate one day as the date for the "birthday party" or key special event. Have an open house. Invite dignitaries. Arrange for entertainment.
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Develop and utilize a special logo for the anniversary.
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Establish an anniversary blog and seek stories from people in the community about the library's past and their involvement with the library.
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Create a special page on the library's Web site for all anniversary related information.
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Develop an exhibit of historical library memorabilia.
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Arrange for regular stories in the local media.
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Arrange to have a history of the library written and place a version of it on the library's Web site.
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Work with the local post office to create a pictorial postmark related to the library's anniversary. Create a souvenir envelope to go with the postmark and include an insert with the history of the library.
Links to the Centennial Pages of Libraries
Forsyth County (NC) Public Library
Other resources
Library Exhibits The Hippest
History by Bernadette A. Lear (Library Journal article) Pennsylvania Library History Project
(Bernadette Lear) LHRT Guidelines for
Writing Local Library Histories
http://dallaslibrary.org/100/100home.htm
http://www.forsyth.cc/library/centennial.aspx
http://199.164.253.25/centennial/time.html
http://www.stpaul.lib.mn.us/125/index.html
http://www.libraryhistorybuff.org/historylinks.htm
http://www.libraryhistorybuff.org/exhibits.htm
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA601034.html#web
http://www.personal.psu.edu/bal19/plhp.htm
Although this site was developed for Pennsylvania libraries, the
Online Resources section of the site has information which would be helpful to
any library interested in documenting its history.
http://www.ala.org/ala/lhrt/lhrtpositions/guidelineswriting.htm
http://www.libraryhistorybuff.org/anniversaries-2007.htm
http://www.libraryhistorybuff.org/anniversaries-2008.htm