About Library Lovers' Day
The theme for Library Lovers' Day 2019 was 'Library Love Stories'.
ALIA ran a 200 word flash fiction story competition, with the prompt 'there was love to be found in the library'. Three prizes of a $100 book voucher were awarded. to:
Thank you to the more than 600 people who entered the competition.
Get involved
Ideas for your communication channels
- Encourage your patrons to spread the #LibraryLoversDay by having a competition for the best social media post using the #LibraryLoversDay and #LibraryLoveStories hashtags along with the Twitter handle of your library.
- Change your library’s Facebook or Twitter avatar and/or banner to the avatars and banners available in the resources section below.
Ideas for your library
- Check out all the free resources that you can use to celebrate Library Lovers’ Day further down on this page. Resources include posters, bookmarks, social media images, stickers and more.
- Leave out a labelled box where users can leave a written recommendation of book they've fallen in love with and pick up a new one. You can see the resources for it below.
- Host a shadow puppet performance, make up a new story or tell an old one and engage your local schools or childcare centres. Resources will soon be available down below.
- Host a romance themed trivia night and see how well your users remember romance books and films.
- Create a display where users can guess where a romantic or love themed quote comes from, give out chocolate as prizes.
- Create a display using our great Library Lovers’ Day poster and some of your romantic books. Don't forget to share these with us by email to [email protected] or by using #libraryloversday on social media.
- Engage with your users and hand out small bookmarks or chocolates to those who visit during the week. Or leave bookmarks randomly in books across your library as a nice surprise for someone to find.
- Showcase some of your older romantic books and engage your users to update the language and settings.
- Encourage your users to step outside of their comfort zone and have a ‘blind date’ with a book. Just wrap the book up in brown paper and see what happens.
- You know who your local talent is, invite in some relevant guest speakers to do a talk. Maybe hold a reading with a focus on love or arrange for a romance writer to visit or even host a workshop for romance writers.
- Create a Library Lovers' Day display of romance books. Decorate the display with red flowers, or streamers. Don't forget to share your results on social media using the hashtag #libraryloversday so we can all see what you've accomplished
- Host a movie night, make up some popcorn and showcase some of the great films you have in your collection.
- Everyone loves a gift, consider creating a Library Lovers’ Day hamper to send out to your local media, politicians, councillors and decision makers in your organisation and community. Tie them up with lots of ribbon for a romantic effect. Accompany them with some information about Library Lovers' Day and information about your library — how many people use it, how often, and how much the library means to them!
- Not all love is romantic, consider creating a display of materials for platonic, familial or love of animals.
- Put up a sign at the circulation desk and let your users know that you’re a ‘matchmaker’ and can help them find the book of their dreams.
- Dress up for the day, and encourage your co-workers to join in. Go one step further and run a costume competition.
- Everyone has a 'book crush', create a display where users can add their favourite book from your collection and share the passion that they have for it with other library users.