GC Library plans to partner with businesses for discounts
Patrons of the Garland County Library will have some added benefits in September as part of the library’s “Show Me Your Library Card” program.
The library is partnering with area businesses for discounts and free items to help celebrate National Library Card Sign-up Month. Library patrons — either full-fledged cardholders or online cardholders — will be able to take advantage of the free or discounted items by just showing their library card at the participating businesses in September.
“It’s how we’re going to celebrate National Library Card Sign-up Month this year,” said Garland County Library Marketing Manager Erin Baber.
The event, which happens every September, is “an initiative of the American Library Association, which just aims to increase library awareness and, you know, improve library usage. So this year, we decided to do a program where we’re offering people, our library patrons, a discount at participating businesses just for having a library card,” she said.
The library will have a pamphlet with the names of the participating businesses, their locations and website, their discounts and a foldout map of Hot Springs, Baber said.
“The whole point is, you know, I’m going to go out with my family, and we’re going to try something new,” she said. “So we’re going to open our Show Me Your Library Card pamphlet for that month and pick out a restaurant or someplace we’ve never been and go, and we’re going to show our library card and get a small discount. There’s no buy-in to this, you know, like a lot of the discount programs, you know, businesses have to pay to participate. We just want to market our community to our library patrons.”
The Saline County Library has been doing a similar program for the past several years and “they’ve really grown it considerably,” she said. “They’ve got like over 100 businesses participate over a year now. … We went over there, and we’re like, ‘Hey, we really love your program, you know. We want to do our own
version.’ So they kind of gave us their groundwork of what they’ve done and some tips, and then we kind of turned it into our own.”
Many libraries look to try to get people in their doors during the national sign-up month, but Baber said this is a way for the library to also help local businesses. Participating businesses will also have signs that show they participate as well as a link to sign up for a digital library card, or e-Card.
“Whenever the business is
going to sign up to participate, we’re going to provide them signage that they can have at their register that will have the information, which will include a link like a QR code to get a digital library card,” she said.
“So they don’t even have to come into our building. And a digital card is great because it lets you use anything on our website, so that’s ebooks, audiobooks, movies, through hoopla digital — everything that you can do with the library besides take out physical books,” Baber said.
“But an e-Card can easily be upgraded to a regular card. So we want people to get library cards to come and find out what they can do with the library. We have more than books. We’ve had cake pans now and fishing poles. … We’re about to add an ice cream maker. We have … just a collection of all kinds of things. We’re not just books anymore.”
While the library will welcome any business that wants to participate, the hope is to get businesses that are outside the downtown area.
“I really want to get businesses to participate that aren’t, like, in the main strip of downtown,” Baber said. “You know, it’s easy to reach out and hit all those businesses because they get tourists. … This is for the people that live in Garland County. You know, we’re the public library; we’re here for our patrons and our community. So we just want to connect them with businesses in town. I really want to get places like nail salons or tire shops to participate so they can offer like true discounts that would be really meaningful and valuable to our community.”
Baber said there are around 12 businesses that have already signed up for the program, and she is optimistic that more will decide to take part before the July 31 deadline.
“This is early,” she said. “We’re looking to get everybody participating by the end of July, so we have August to create a bunch of nice marketing materials. We’re up to about 12, and what’s neat about our program is that the discount can be anything. So it can be like a 5% off or 10% off, buy one get one free. One business is offered to give like a small trinket to everybody who visits, and that’s like a resale shop.”
Businesses interested in taking part in the program can either call Baber at 501-625-4161 or email marketing@gclibrary.com.