Librarians are known as arbiters of knowledge, champions of literacy, and gatekeepers of democracy. But prior to the pandemic, librarians were evolving into ambassadors of culture and pushing ahead to full-fledged promotors during the pandemic.
At San Diego Comic-Con’s Thursday panel, “National Treasures: A Pop Culture Pass from Your Library,” the Brooklyn Public Library’s Brendan Crain and San Diego Public Library’s Jeffrey T. Davis shared insight into how the Culture Pass and Discover and Go programs have brought pop culture and fine arts to the masses.
Various states have programs in place for this kind of outreach. According to Davis, California libraries maintain the Discover and Go program, which provides access to 134 institutions statewide. Denver youth ages five to 18 receive the MY Denver Card which doubles as a library card and museum pass.
Crain manages NYC Culture Pass. The program provides Brooklyn Public Library, Queens Public Library, and New York Public Library cardholders with free passes to over 100 cultural institutions across NYC. These institutions include museums, musical performances, live theater, historical societies, heritage centers, and public gardens.
“One of the goals of this program is to meet people where they are and give them an opportunity to access arts and culture,” said Crain. “People engage with the arts in very different ways. Not everyone wants to go to a museum. So, this is a way of bringing people in and making the program as a whole more accessible.”
The program is popular with patrons. According to Crain, the NYC Culture Pass averages 700 reservations per month across its various library sites. The program is on track to crack 100 thousand reservations in a single year.
The user statistics are even more telling. Two-thirds of Culture Pass users report that they would not have visited the institution without the pass. Fifty percent of patrons who use Culture Pass visit institutions for the first time, and fifty percent report that they would likely return and buy tickets for subsequent visits. Finally, more than nine out of 10 users would recommend Culture Pass to a friend at another organization considering such a program.
Clearly, cardholders with an affinity for culture would not otherwise be able to fulfill it without the assistance offered through a free pass. This is especially true for underserved communities.
Crain and Davis ran through a slideshow of cultural institutions that participate in these library programs, and the list was diverse. Comic-Con-adjacent programming includes The Society of Illustrators (New York), Poster House (New York), the Museum of Pop Culture (Seattle), Rose City Comic Con (Portland), the Cartoon Art Museum (San Francisco), and the Peanuts Museum (Santa Rosa).
Crain admits that soliciting institutional participation can be daunting. One of the selling points Crain recommends is audience development. Having a program like Culture Pass or Discover and Go can stimulate audience interest, especially for those least likely to visit due to socioeconomic barriers. Libraries help bring in visitors.
And why should libraries support such programs? Crain and Davis both say it is part of the evolving roles of librarians in this universe called the Library of Things. Librarians collect resources and foster community connections. A program like Culture Pass or Discover and Go plays into the library’s role as a cultivator of knowledge.
“We want to expand this type of thing. It’s growing now, but it’s been a bit slow,” said Davis. “It’s really well-established in the US and becoming more well-established in Canada. We have not seen a lot of this outside of the US and Canada. We think this is an important pillar for what libraries do.”
Stay tuned for more SDCC ’24 coverage from The Beat.
Related
Read More
