Lead magnet ideas for libraries
A library’s lead magnet is whatever gets a household to come in or come back: a take-home pack after storytime, a summer reading log, a guide to everything a card includes. Here are ten briefs that open in Chapbook as starting points, each with its reader and voice. Family sign-ups are for parents, guardians and teachers, and your patrons’ records stay out.
A brief to start from
A free printable take-home activity pack for a public library's preschool storytime, on the theme of weather. Six coloring pages, two mazes and two matching pages, for ages 3 to 5, with very simple pictures and a note on reading together. Every character is our own, and the sign-up is for parents and guardians, never children. Reader: the parent or guardian who brings a child to storytime. Voice: warm and simple.
Start from this brief10 ideas, each a brief to start from
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A storytime take-home pack
A storytime ends and the family’s day goes on. A few pages on the week’s theme bring the story home, and parents who ask for the next one have told you they want to hear about your programs.
Activity pack Start from this brief: A storytime take-home pack
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A library detective pack
Many children don’t know what a call number is or that they can ask a librarian anything. A pack that sends them around the building turns a first visit into something they’re keen to finish.
Activity pack Start from this brief: A library detective pack
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A local-history pack for older kids
Older children can be hard to reach with library programs, and your local-history shelf has material no one else can offer. Teachers looking for a local unit may well want it too.
Activity pack Start from this brief: A local-history pack for older kids
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Puzzles and pictures for older adults
If your library takes programs to care homes or senior centers, a pack in the adult band, with no childish pictures, respects its readers and gives activity staff something to run on a slow afternoon.
Activity pack Start from this brief: Puzzles and pictures for older adults
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Everything your card includes
People who think a library means only books miss most of what you do. A short guide to what a card includes speaks to new residents and lapsed users, and it’s easy to hand to a local employer or school.
Lead magnet Start from this brief: Everything your card includes
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Start your family history at the library
Family-history research can bring someone back again and again, and they may not know what the library holds. A step-by-step guide puts your records and your reference staff at the start of their search.
Illustrated guide Start from this brief: Start your family history at the library
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A year-of-reading log
A reading challenge gives adults a reason to come back each month. A log with a prompt for every month brings a program to people who’d never attend a book group in person.
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Staff picks, in one repeating shape
A recommendation from someone who read the book is worth having. A themed set of picks lets a reader browse your staff’s taste from home, and every entry sends them back to your catalog.
Collection Start from this brief: Staff picks, in one repeating shape
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This season’s programs, in a booklet
Program calendars get lost on a website. A short booklet at the desk and in local waiting rooms puts this season’s dates in people’s hands, and it’s something a partner can share.
Brochure Start from this brief: This season’s programs, in a booklet
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A Friends of the Library issue
Friends groups and donors want to see where their support goes. A designed issue keeps them informed between appeals, using only facts you can stand behind.
Newsletter Start from this brief: A Friends of the Library issue
How to choose one
Start from the program you want more people at. If storytime is full and the teen room is quiet, the local-history pack is the one to try. If new residents don’t know you exist, write the guide to what a card includes. If your outreach staff go to care homes, make a pack in the adult band, where puzzles are larger and harder and nothing looks like a child’s.
Local material is your advantage. No other publisher has your town’s old newspapers or your staff’s taste. Add those notes as sources, ask for nothing to be invented, and have someone who knows the history read every date. Keep patron records out altogether, and check your own policy before you collect anyone’s details for a mailing list.
Printing and giving it away
A pack prints in black on white on US Letter or A4, and Print one side leaves the back of each sheet blank, which helps on a public copier and keeps markers from bleeding through. Leave a stack at the children’s desk. For a family that wants it at home, a paid plan gives the pack a book page with a sign-up for the grown-up, and its Publish page makes a QR code for your posters. To print a single sheet today, the free word search and maze maker runs in your browser.
Every brief here opens in Chapbook
Each idea comes with the paragraph Chapbook needs to start: the topic, the reader and the voice. The brief at the top of this page is a starting point, not a pack we have already made from it. Open it, change the weather to this month’s storytime theme, and set the page mix. Chapbook then proposes titles and an outline for you to approve before anything is drawn.
Questions people ask
Can a library make its own activity packs?
Yes. Chapbook makes 8 to 40 printable pages of pictures to color, worksheets and puzzles from one paragraph, for ages 3–5, 6–8 or 9–12, or adults. Puzzles cost no credits, and each picture to color uses 5. Every character must be your own, so no storybook characters.
Who signs up for a children’s pack from a library?
A parent, guardian or teacher, never the child. On a paid plan the book page’s form says so, asks for the grown-up’s own email and name, and has a box they must tick. Check that this fits your own policy on patron information before you use it.
Can a pack use a character from a picture book we read at storytime?
No. A page that names a character someone else owns is refused, and nothing is charged for it. Choose the theme of the book instead, such as weather or bears, and let the pack have characters of its own.
Can I add our patron or circulation records as a source?
No. Chapbook sends your sources to AI providers and asks you to leave sensitive personal data out, so keep patron names and borrowing records out of it entirely. Use your program calendar and your own local-history notes instead.
Read a chapter of your own book before you pay for it.
The outline, one sample chapter up to 2,500 words and a watermarked cover are free: 60 Book Credits on sign-up, no card.