Big thanks to Alisha from LEPMPL for sharing this terrific blog post!
Scavenger hunts.
They’re awesome. I love
participating in a good scavenger hunt and I enjoy organizing hunts for others
to complete. And they make a great
stealth program. It is a fabulous way to
teach something or get people to explore areas they maybe wouldn’t otherwise,
but it feels more like a game. It is a
great activity that can require little set up and be available for longer
periods of time without restocking materials.
We almost always have a scavenger hunt available in Youth
Services such as “find all of the letters of the alphabet hidden around the
room,” for example. I’ve also written
clues for a variety of scavenger hunts for different age levels. This year I wrote clues for a new hunt that
was available throughout the week of spring break. My goal was to get kids (and some parents)
familiar with the library outside of YS.
Many of our young customers are familiar with most of the Youth Services
staff, so I also wanted to include staff from the Reference and Circulation
departments to show kids that these adults are friendly and approachable too
(and to prove to some of the staff how fun it can be to interact with kids
;).
The first three clues were found in YS. The third clue made them venture beyond the
Youth Services entrance and led them to the Reference Desk: “The Reference Desk is a great place to ask a
question. Ask them how many books are in
the library’s collection.” Reference
staff would respond with the answer and provide them with their next clue. Seven more clues would lead them to other
areas of the library. Some of the clues
included a little known fact about the library or required the solving of a
simple puzzle.
|
Here's the clue |
|
Here's the answer! |
The final clue, “The people that check out your books are
happy folk. You can finish this hunt if
you ask them for a joke!” brought the kids to the Circulation Desk where they
received a joke from staff and a small treat. The Hunt was available all hours that the library was
open. Over 100 people participated in
the scavenger hunt in the first two days.
Library customers and staff responded with a lot of
positive feedback. Several staff thanked
me for the opportunity to positively interact with the kids. Adult patrons were happy to see kids
excitedly searching the library for clues and commented that it was nice to see
them outside of Youth Services and exploring and getting to know the rest of
their library.
If you haven’t had a scavenger hunt at your library
yet…DO IT!
Labels: bibliographic instruction, scavenger hunts, stealth programming