Unique Library
Library Card Signup Month + Unique
September is national Library Card Signup month, which means that libraries around the country are looking to boost their patron numbers. It’s an opportunity to get more faces into your library and create meaningful and lasting relationships with readers in your community. At Unique, all our products and services are designed to enhance the library-patron relationship, although a few of our offerings are also particularly useful to libraries looking to reach out to patrons and start their membership on the right foot.
As the focal point of any community, libraries deserve continual investment and improvement. To help libraries stay up to date, Unique has spearheaded the marriage of technology-based solutions and the traditional purpose of the library, while keeping people at the heart of the process. For our aim to arm libraries with the tools to take advantage of Library Card Signup month, we collected a few of our services that are particularly useful this month.
Sign up new residents with the New Mover Service
Getting new residents into your library is an unmissable opportunity to expand your patron base. By harnessing the power of the National Change of Address Database (NCOA), Unique can give your library a superpower: directly send new movers in your area a postcard highlighting your library.
A service to welcome new patrons
Our service is fully customizable, and we collaborate with your library to create an eye-popping and informative postcard. Mailing areas are customizable by zip code or geo-coded shapefiles.
The process is simple. You tell us what area of residents you want to tell about your library. Have an entire library system? We can break it down by branch, too.
Then, our team and your library collaborate to design an eye-catching, informative postcard to send to your designated area.
It’s as simple as that! Once the design is finalized, Unique handles all the printing and mailing.
With our access to the NCOA, we have helped dozens of libraries get new residents into their doors. How do we do it? Check out the case study below.
How did one Ohio Library boost their patron membership numbers with a custom mailing campaign? Find out how Unique used the NCOA database to get new residents into the Columbus area library.
NCOA Verification
Expiring library cards may be the furthest thing from what you’d expect to be talking about when mentioning library card signup month. But by harnessing the National Change of Address Database, we can arm you library with the information to remove or extend expiration dates, streamlining the renewal process your patrons and your staff.
How does it work?
By periodically accessing the NCOA, we can verify that patrons that have a library card are still living in your library’s service area. If the database reveals that the patron has moved, then your library can automatically expire their card and any linked cards. This keeps your patron records accurate and more manageable, while removing the need for staff to remind patrons that their cards are expiring, as well as all man hours devoted to renewing or expiring existing library cards.
New Card Member Journey powered by MessageBee
A new feature we are offering to every MessageBee library, we created an automated New Member Journey email sequence that sends each new patron a series of emails welcoming them to your library.
What makes your library special?
It highlights whichever aspects you choose, and we work with your library to set up the sequence to reflect what you want from your library. Let patrons know about all the benefits of membership without having to lift a finger. Once our team and your library decide on a design, sit back and let out MessageBee system bridge the gap between the library and the new patron.
It adds a whole new dimension that has never been seen before in the library world.
Check out a sample new patron journey we made:
Material Recovery
When your patrons, new or old, come into the library they expect that popular books will be available or holdable. When some of your most popular books are past-due and not available to be checked out, then your patrons will understandably be disappointed.
Protect your collection
Our Gentle Nudge material recovery service is a great way to protect your collection while maintaining patron goodwill toward your library. We streamline the process of getting your materials back into your library while the library stays in control of the entire process.
A track record of success
Our material recovery service has returned millions of dollars of library materials to our client libraries and unblocked thousands of patrons. No matter the size of your library, fine free or not, we have the perfect solution.
What is your library doing for Library Card Signup month? What tools does your library need? We exist to make libraries the absolute best place for patrons, and our products reflect that mission. From our ingenious New Mover Service to our revolutionary MessageBee product, see what hundreds of libraries already know about the powerful tools that can supercharge engagement, membership numbers, and patron satisfaction.