Every day, librarians like you engage with your community through events, book clubs, story time, and more. In addition to all the books, magazines, and movies available for checkout, libraries fill gaps in our communities through unique programming, partnering with local school districts, creative makerspaces, leveraging Local Content to empower patrons, innovative outreach initiatives, fighting subscription fatigue with streaming video, and so much more.   

To help your community discover (or rediscover!) all the cool, unique, and valuable resources available at your library, we’ve created the Check Out Your Library movement. This multi-year initiative aims to celebrate and elevate the role of libraries and librarians as community cornerstones by asking publishers, patrons, and partners to take action, speak up, and show their love for local libraries. 

1. What is Check Out Your Library (COYL)? 

Designed to draw in new and returning patrons to explore the amazing resources and offerings at your library, COYL is a multi-year program created to support and promote your library services. With COYL, it’s never been easier to drive awareness and increase foot traffic to your library using digital campaigns, events, social media, press and outreach, and more. 

Whether your organization’s priorities are tied to increased circulation numbers, program attendance, new users, or something else, COYL is here to help. 

2. What resources are available for libraries? 

Visit the Resource Center  to download the COYL marketing kit. Inside you’ll find social images you can customize right in Canva, printable posters and fliers, a logo kit, programming guide, and more! 

Customizable graphic sized for social media with a spot for your library logo and the Check Out Your Library logo. Text says "Check out fishing rods. Check out bikes. Check out much more. For more, visit yourlibrarywebsite.com" Beside the text are simple graphics showing a fishing rod, hand-held film camera, and passport.Graphic can be customized in Canva
Example of a customizable graphic available on the Resource Center

We have also given our Digital Bookmobile a rebrand as The Library Vehicle (The LV) and recently hit the road on our new Fiction and Film Tour with stops at 20 communities! 

3. The Fiction and Film Tour? That sounds cool, tell me more! 

As part of the multi-year campaign, COYL will feature dozens of in-person events that shine a spotlight on the amazing resources available at libraries. The LV is outfitted with book and film content and is designed to bring people on board, engage them, and ultimately sign up for a library card if they don’t already have one.

Aerial view of the new LV
Our new LV for the Fiction and Film Tour (formally known as the Digital Bookmobile)

With exciting author readings and signings, family story time, and other fun community activities, the LV is an opportunity to engage with existing library card holders and help new users discover all your library has to offer! 

4. Where are some of the stops on this year’s tour? 

Our 2024 Fiction and Film Tour kicked off this week in Las Vegas, NV! Upcoming stops include: 

  • Cañon City, CO 
  • Memphis, TN 
  • Clayton, GA 
  • Charlotte, NC 
  • Coeur D’Alene, ID 
  • With more destinations being announced soon! 

You can view the full list of stops at checkoutyourlibrary.com. 

5. How can my library be added to the tour? 

If you have questions about the Fiction and Film Tour or want to be added as a stop next year, please email us at checkoutyourlibrary[at]overdrive.com.   

6. How can my library get involved? 

  • Use #CheckOutYourLibrary hashtag on social media when promoting your programs and services. 
  • Add your library’s logo to the customizable graphics on the Resource Center. 
  • Customize the fliers and posters in the marketing kit to announce upcoming author events, book clubs, hot new titles recently added to the collection and more! 
  • Reintroduce yourself to the community by setting up temporary pop-up libraries at community events, parks, local fairs, and farmers markets to increase visibility. You can find tablecloth designs, banners, sticks and more in the programming guide on the Resource Center. 
  • Include the COYL logos on your own internal programming guide for patrons, add it to photos and graphics you post on social media, to shelf talkers in your physical branch, and to your library’s website. 
  • Customize the marketing kit bookmark and print several out to include in the physical books in your branch or have on the circulation desk when patrons check a title out. 

7. What are some other ways our patrons can participate in COYL? 

  • Encourage them to promote your library and services on social media using the hashtag #CheckOutYourLibrary. 
  • Have them visit the LV when it stops at a city near you. 
  • Remind them your librarians are available to make recommendations when they are looking for their next great read or watch! 

8. How much does it cost? 

That’s one of the best parts about COYL – these resources are made available at no-cost to our library partners! For over 20 years we have been proud to serve as your partner as we advance digital reading. Today that partnership expands with COYL as we introduce tools to help you maximize the value of your digital and physical collections. To complement the effort, we are securing partnerships with publishers, launching social media and digital campaigns, and reaching out to press to help drive awareness at the regional and national level to your library. Working together, we can continue to attract, engage, and delight your patrons and champion the importance of libraries and librarians like you. 

We are so excited to launch Check Out Your Library and hope you’ll join us for the ride. If you have questions about the Check Out Your Library movement, please contact your OverDrive Account Manager. 

About the author: Jill Grunenwald is a Marketing & Communications Specialist on the North America Public Library Marketing Team. A former librarian, she joined OverDrive in 2015. Outside of the office she can be found writing, hanging out with her cats, collecting more Tarot decks than she has room for, and playing competitive pinball. Her favorite genre is something she calls “Murder at an educational institution that involves a close-knit group of suspicious characters.”