The Big Event

How do you persuade Elementary school students to visit the public library? By organizing attractive school trips that they and their teachers can't resist.

As the youth services librarian at San Leandro Public Library in the San Francisco Bay area, I came up with the idea of "Mega Assemblies" in which authors, illustrators, and other interesting people speak to classes at the library on weekday mornings.

Our first Mega Assembly featured Jacque Nunez, a Native American, who spoke about the indigenous people of California. Nunez's entertaining session was open to all fourth graders from local public and private schools. The response was so overwhelming that we held two hourlong assemblies back to back, each to capacity. That's a total of 800 students visiting the library in a single day!

Other Mega Assemblies have featured David Schwartz, the author of How Much Is a Million? (Lothrop, 1985), who spoke to second and third graders, and a theater group that dramatized the lives of Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass before an attentive audience of fifth graders.

Our assemblies are a great way to collaborate with teachers. We contact them in advance so they can assign specific readings or discuss related subjects before the big event. We also make sure that the assemblies don't conflict with schoolwide testing, and are scheduled for the most convenient times for teachers. Getting the word out is easy—we send flyers to elementary school principals who pass them along to the appropriate grades. Teachers must RSVP for their classes. There have been a few occasions where we've "sold out" a session, and we've also turned away some teachers who didn't respond within a few days of our invitation. But they were able to attend subsequent assemblies.

When the assemblies are over, we invite students to check out books. We've noticed that schools within walking distance have the highest attendance at the assemblies, but there are also classes that travel by public transportation and use car pools. Overall, there has been a 50 percent increase in the number of classes attending our library field trips. While it's hard to say how this has affected our circulation, about half of the classes that attend Mega Assemblies end their visit by checking out library books.

Mega Assemblies are simple to plan: I usually contact speakers directly rather than through their agents. Luckily, the Bay area is home to many wonderful storytellers and other presenters. Nearly everyone accepts my invitation to speak, including many interesting authors and illustrators. Since many schools can't afford guest speakers, we offer children an opportunity to learn something that they otherwise wouldn't have. Thanks to the overwhelmingly positive response we received from students and their teachers, all Mega Assemblies have now been incorporated into a permanent part of the library's budget. The average speaker charges a $300 honorarium, but fees can vary.

This year we plan to expand Mega Assemblies to include middle school students, and we've already scheduled Francisco Jiménez, the author of the Pura Belpré Honor book Breaking Through (Houghton, 2001), to speak to sixth graders this spring.

The response from teachers has been amazing. Now, they call us before we send out invitations to find out when our next Mega Assembly will be held. Since most of our gatherings have been multicultural, I think it conveys to teachers and students that the library really values diversity by holding these programs.

Mega Assemblies are a great example of cooperation between librarians, school administrators, and teachers, but more importantly, they give kids a terrific reason to visit our library regularly.