Disappearing Guest Books

Fortunately, it’s not the case that Little Free Library #8424’s guest book has ever gone missing (though we have replaced the pen frequently), but I was reading through the LFL Steward’s Group on Facebook about what one might do to prevent a Guest Book from disappearing.

There were lots of interesting ideas and suggestions, none of which gave much hope other than to get a new cheap one and give it another try.

To help out other stewards, below I’ll present a few thoughts on something totally different and inexpensive/free that’s also a win-win from a publicity perspective.

The Social Media Guest Book

Rather than having a physical guest book in your Little Free Library, why not use a social media version of a guest book?!

Put up a hashtag for your library and encourage users to take a selfie and post a note to their social media platform of choice (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) If you also include your social media accounts (if any) for your library, they can also tag you so you’ll get a notification about their online “guest book post.”

The benefit of this type of social media guest book is multi-fold:

• Stewards don’t need to purchase guest books;
• Stewards don’t need to worry about guest books disappearing with lots of notes and memories;
• Almost everyone these days has a smartphone and an account on at least one common service;
• These social media posts will live online for everyone to see;
• It’s fun (who doesn’t like a good selfie, much less a reason to brag about what you’re reading);
• And finally, and perhaps most importantly, these social media posts also serve as free publicity to your patron’s friends, family, and neighbors that they stopped by and subtly suggest that other might want to as well.

As an example, I would encourage patrons of Little Free Library #8424 to use the hashtag #LFL8424 and tag @LFL8424 on Twitter (Facebook, Instagram, etc.) with a selfie of themselves, the library, and the book they took along with any note they want to leave.

The reach of their gracious post could also be expanded by the library’s account reposting/retweeting it, which also encourages others in the community to follow suit and participate. (If you have a personal account, you could also like/repost from that account as well as the library’s account.)

Social Media Pro Tips: If you use multiple platforms, try to get the same account name on all of them to make it easier to remember and use regardless of the patron’s platform of choice. Almost all social media sites use some form of hashtag, so just pick one for use everwhere regardless of the platform.

Not a social media ninja or know which sites you might want to use? Take a look at some of the platforms we support here for ideas: A Tiny Library with Its Own Social Media Empire.

Bonus PR Ideas

Libraries could also use social media related ideas like this to do small contests or other giveaways. Perhaps a randomly chosen online post could be chosen monthly for a special give away, or a random post could be selected to choose the book genre/theme for your library’s next takeover?

Another simple, but related idea that we’ve been doing for a while is to feature photos from our traditional guest book on our blog. This way, even if the guest book disappeared, it wouldn’t be a total loss as we have a digital back up.

Do you have a guest book or encourage patrons to engage with your library on social media? I’d love to hear in the comments what you do to encourage participation.