What Are You Doing for Library Card Sign-up Month?
Dodie Ownes -- School Library Journal, 09/02/2009
September is Library Card Sign-up Month, and as usual, the American Library Association has tons of great ideas and graphics available to help libraries remind their visitors that next to their voter registration card, this is the most important card in their wallet or purse. Basketball star Candace Parker is this year’s honorary chair. Parker, as you probably know, is an Olympic gold medalist, the WNBA’s reigning MVP, and the 2009 winner of the Nickelodeon Kid’s Choice Award.
The New Jersey Library Association (NJLA) has set a goal of signing up 10,000 new library card holders. One strategy suggested is to just ask—ask the president of your Friends of the Library group and the members of your steering committee to each recruit three new library card holders, and give them registration forms to hand out. Ask your staff members to each recruit three new library card holders. Ask your library board, commission, college administration, superintendent of schools, and mayor to each recruit three new library card holders. Check the NJLA wiki for more ideas and starter press releases.
At the Williamsburg (VA) Regional Library (WRL), children who sign up for a library card in September will also receive an Arthur sticker and bookmark and a Pokémon card. Adults will be entered in a weekly drawing with first, second, and third prizes. The prizes include $20 gift certificates to Target and WRL tote bags and travel mugs. In Indiana, the Warsaw Community Public Library has some deal sweeteners, too. Adults 19 and older who sign up for a new library card can enter a drawing 
for 10 sessions and a T-shirt from a local fitness center.
