Library Shows - A Great Way To Get Kids To The Library

Normally I write about school assemblies and school shows, as school assembly programs make up the lion’s share of our business. Mobile Ed Productions was, after all, founded to help educate children through entertaining and educational school assemblies.

But there is another venue where school assemblies have also proven extremely beneficial, and that is in libraries.

Libraries face a sometimes daunting task of encouraging use of their facilities and resources by children. Personally, I love going to the library, and I have encouraged and nurtured that love in my own children. However, sadly, not all families do so. And yet, often when brought to a library and shown all the wonders that are available there, parents and kids who were otherwise disinterested find a new love!

So it is in the interest of librarians to find ways to encourage non users to visit the library. Get them in once and they may well return. School assemblies readily fit the bill! Many assembly programs designed for school audiences translate very well to library settings. School assemblies become perfect Library Shows. Of course, traditionally, librarians have often gravitated toward the “fluff” shows - magicians, clowns, ventriloquists and such. But more and more, savvy librarians are learning that  library shows can be educational and yet just as entertaining as other “lighter” shows, and sometimes even more entertaining!

Library shows are perfect to schedule on holidays, when school is out and kids are at a loose end for something to do. Advertise a Library Show and watch the doors open! Presidents Day is perfect, of course, for a visit with Abraham Lincoln, but February is also Black History Month so a visit from Martin Luther King or Frederick Douglass is just as appropriate.

Weekends  and evenings are another great time for a Library Show. March is Women’s History Month so one might schedule a program on famous women in history. April is Earth Month, of course, so an environmentally oriented library show makes perfect sense.

We also like to see libraries using library shows to promote culture. We have some clients in a suburb of Indianapolis who have often brought in our classical mime, Toma, to demonstrate the classical art of silence (how is that for a perfect library show? - ssssshhhhh!)

In the greater Chicago area many libraries coordinate a theme for the months right after school is out. Early summer is a great time to use a library show. Kids are newly out of school with time on their hands. What better opportunity to snag them into a library and get them hooked for the rest of the summer? One year the theme in Chicago libraries was “Lights, Camera, Read!” so our program Lights Camera Action was a perfect fit, offering the enticement of a library show about television production, virtually guaranteed to boost attendance.

But there really isn’t a bad time for a library show. And there is a natural alliance between school shows and library shows. Both are designed to entertain kids. Kids love both. And libraries usually need library shows at the very time school shows are not performing, weekends, holiday, evenings and during the summer.

All in all, school assemblies and library shows are a perfect match, a “literal” perfect fit!

Geoff Beauchamp is the Regional Manager of Mobile Ed Productions where "Education Through Entertainment" has been the guiding principal since 1979. Mobile Ed Productions produces and markets quality educational school assembly programs in the fields of science, history, writing, astronomy, natural science, mathematics, character issues and a variety of other curriculum based areas. In addition, Mr. Beauchamp is a professional actor with 30 years of experience in film, television and on stage. He created and still performs occasionally in Mobile Ed's THE LIVING LINCOLN