5 Tips for Successful Library Visits

So I am a little embarrassed to say that two weeks ago, for the first time, I took my seven year old to the public library to check out books. I am embarrassed because literacy is my job and I have had the privilege of working with the amazing children’s librarians in our city when I worked for the local school district. For some reason, I never thought to take her to check out books before. Now that I have, I recognize 5 key things that are making our ongoing trips a success. Read on to learn some tips that may help your family too!

This post may contain affiliate links that earn me a small commission, at no additional cost to you. I only recommend products I personally use and love, or think my readers will find useful. Visit my disclosure statement for more information.

Now, to be fair, we have been to the children’s library several times to visit exhibits. And my kids frequent the libraries at their schools. Also by nature of being an educator and having a mother who is an educator, we are blessed to have bookshelves of children’s books. One of our favorite places to go is the book store. We love to browse the huge displays of featured books and comb the shelves for our favorite authors and series. We love to visit large bookstores like Barnes and Noble and we love to visit smaller, independently owned bookstores.

As you can tell from this site and if you follow literacydoc on Facebook and/or Instagram, we love books. We also use books as rewards at home. When my children reach a goal they’ve set, they often choose to get a new book.

Our Current Book Situation

We also love receiving and buying new books, however, I have quickly realized that we are running out of room to store all of the books in our home and there are simply books my daughter is reading in one day and not ever touching again. Currently she is reading short chapter books like the Rainbow Magic series and the Down Girl and Sit adventures (the first book in this series is currently free with Amazon Unlimited (click here for a free tial). These short chapter books can be read very quickly. At this time, I feel like I cannot keep up with my daughter’s voracious appetite for books. She was getting a little frustrated that she could only check out two books at a time at her school library so I suggested we could go to the public library. She was shocked that she could check out more than two books at a time and of course, wanted to go immediately. I told her that I would look into what we needed to do to get her a library card and we would visit later that week.

My kids were so excited for their first visit to the library. I honestly was a bit surprised at their overt excitement- it made me feel bad that I hadn’t done it before.

Our First Visit

I will admit that I was a bit intimidated. It has been years since I checked out books and I wasn’t sure of the systems. However, I was pleasantly surprised when the person at the front desk went out of her way to show us how everything worked and answer all of our questions. She was patient and helpful and made me feel completely at ease and encouraged the delight in my children.

My kids were over-the -moon excited to look at the stacks. My son brought me book after book to read. We selected several to take home. My daughter asked me how many books she could take home and I wasn’t sure how many she could check out. She confidently went to ask the individual seated at the desk in the children’s area. The librarian told her she could check out up to 99. My daughter loved that answer. (We only took home 15 though). The library we went to was one that had recently been remodeled, so it had amazing technology. The staff person at the front desk was helpful to show us the check-out system.

The ride home was super quiet as my kids read through their selections. They were also completely absorbed in their books while I made dinner too (win-win for sure).

We did have to talk about taking the books back. Since my son did not have as much experience with libraries, he was not excited about this idea. We talked about it several times and we assured him that if he found a book he really loved then we could buy it and add it to our collection at home.

The kids were so excited that we agreed that we would make at least one trip a week to the library to check out new books.

My top 5 tips for the library:

Ask for help
Seek out a library that has a large children’s section. They often have hands-on activities too that can make it even more exciting for your little ones.
Let your child get their own card. They will feel more responsible for their books. I keep my kid’s cards in my wallet. Since they look the same, I simply wrote their first initial on the back of their cards so we would know whose card was whose.
Keep their library books in a bag. My children each got a free bag from Earth Fare a few weeks ago so they chose to use those. Any reusable bag would work. This makes it so much easier to keep up with them. We will probably get them other (smaller) bags for this moving forward but for now, these work just fine.
Have fun! As with everything else, a visit to the library can be exciting or it can be a chore. Choose fun- present the visit in a way that it is an adventure. Encourage your child to ask questions.

By asking questions about the book drop, my kids and I got to see the amazing conveyor belt that transports books across a large room, through a scanner, and into bins to be sorted and shelved. The contraption was amazing and led to even more interest in the library.