Skip Navigation
Back to Navigation

Your Library at Home

← Back
Pro tip: Use "title:keyword" or "library:keyword" to limit to that specific field

Your Library at Home

Sonoma County Library, Calif.

Advocacy & Awareness | 2020

Innovation Synopsis

In mid-March, we closed all 15 library locations and began a pivot to digital. Launching as “Your Library at Home,” our 24/7 online library approach includes YouTube storytimes, book clubs, crafts for kids and much more. We adjusted spending on digital resources and marketing to help library patrons make the shift from paper to electronic books.

Challenge/Opportunity

With a high percentage of seniors and underserved families in our communities, we had a heavy emphasis on physical service in our branches. With that option unavailable, we had to remain relevant and support our communities. While the pandemic reduced our budget, we had the flexibility to invest staff and funds in digital resources and market them via social media and paid advertising. We also had to counter the perception that library services had ceased.


Key Elements of Innovation

We created a “Your Library at Home” theme for our home page, which grew every week as our collections team identified more resources — including a new Spanish-language resource page. Some digital resources more than doubled their usage as our patrons read books, streamed movies, researched their family trees and more. We implemented a weekly email campaign (via the Savannah platform) to more than 100,000 patrons that generated digital engagement. We created a “Your 24/7 online library is always open” campaign.


Achieved Outcomes

The “Your Library at Home” concept keeps growing and we now have a YouTube channel with more than 150 original video programs, with more added each week. The bilingual marketing theme has evolved from “Your 24/7 online library” to "Rediscover Your Library Card" with an inclusive, "Wherever You Are, Whoever You Are" message, that successfully replaced the traditional Library Card Sign-up Month marketing program.