Reading between the Lions: A museum book club success

Four years ago, the head of publications at the Art Institute of Chicago started a book club for the museum's members. Susan Augustine, head of reader services at the museum's Ryerson & Burnham Libraries and a founding committee member for the club, spoke at this year's VRA+ARLIS/NA conference in Minneapolis about their successes and challenges. What follows is our report on that presentation.

No money? No problem

When the Reading between the Lions book club began it was a side project for everyone. A volunteer, seven-member program committee was formed from a number of museum departments, and everyone brought something valuable to the program: Curatorial and Publications had first access to information on upcoming exhibitions to which the book selections would be related; Membership had contacts with the club's intended audience and an interest in bringing new programs to that group; Education had the experience leading discussions; the Library had the space to hold the program as well as the expertise to help choose books and suggest extended reading lists; and the Shop had the capacity to order and sell the club books.

The club's online presence is an important part of their activities and supports in-museum book club discussions and activities. They maintain complete information about book selections, downloadable discussion guides, and a blog (later shut down as you'll read below) on their website. For the discussion guides themselves, the committee holds it's own little book club. They discuss the book and come up with questions they think will spark the best discussions, and the Membership department writes them up for the final guide.

For the launch of the book club, the committee picked two initial selections, both related to exhibitions, and sent an introductory e-mail to the museum's membership. Seven hundred members signed up immediately to receive the book club's regular e-newsletter. And the first two discussion guides, posted online as PDFs, were downloaded 1,200 times. For the actual in-museum events, the museum may have 10–20 participants—about the most you want to have for a face to face book discussion—but because they share so much online, they're able to reach thousands more.

Impressive Facts 

• Three books per year, tied to the museum's exhibitions
• 700 signed up immediate and downloaded the initial guides 1,200 times
• Nearly 2,300 subscribers currently
• Most popular guides have been downloaded up to 3,000 times, and continue to be long after the event passes
• Emails have a 30-45% open rate and are the most read e-mails of any the museum sends out 

Not Without Challenges

The comments they were getting on the club blog tended to be pretty shallow, or downright spam. So, they've since switched to a reader poll. With the poll, they send out a couple multiple choice questions meant to elicit some insight into the reading, and they share the results online.

They also still host a controlled reader comments section, where readers can submit a comment via an online form, and select comments are shared with the poll results.

And with the in-museum events, they've been getting lots of RSVPs, but also a lot of no shows. The nature of the event, or whether it's free or not, doesn't seem to have an effect on the no-shows number, so the museum has just been accepting a larger number of RSVPs than they actually want to attend.

A Worthwhile Program with a Bright Future

There have been many more positive results of the club than negative. The club encourages general reading about art as well as increased visits to the museum; there's a promotional value from the downloadable discussion guides which are obviously be shared in great quantity; the library believes it may see some increased use as readers follow-up on the reading lists included with the discussion guides; and most of all, says Augustine, staff morale has been high from having started and worked on such a successful and beloved program.

Now in their fourth year and eleventh book, the club is continuing to thrive and grow. They offer a terrific model for anyone looking to start their own museum book club, and a resource for readers everywhere.

Visit the Reading between the Lions book club online to sign up for the newsletter, download discussion guides, and more at www.artic.edu/bookclub.

City #1

There's an enormous crossover between people who visit art museums and people who read books. In fact, the more involved someone is in a museum, the more voracious they tend to be in their reading, and vice versa. As a publisher of books about art, I have to ask myself, Where are these people?

To lead me to the best places to find book readers interested in visual art, a few years ago I combined data on public participation in the arts, art museum membership, bookstore presence and other literary activities from several sources. The result was a ranked list of sixteen cities across the country, two geographic areas of interest, and two surprises locales where I thought the crossover would be strongest (all mapped here). Minneapolis-St. Paul was at the top of the list. and finally visiting for the first time myself (this past weekend for the Art Libraries Society annual conference) it's not hard to see why.

At the center of the art scene in Minneapolis-St. Paul there are two strong institutions. First, a very solid, completely thorough, general collection museum, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Second, a world-class (ie., one of the best in the world) contemporary art museum, the Walker Art Center. On top of that, there's the University of Minnesota's Weisman Art Museum (closed through the fall for a building expansion), a solid gallery scene, and the respected Minnesota College of Art and Design.

And for literature, the field is just as rich, or even more so. There's Open Book which houses the vibrant Minnesota Center for Book Arts, the Loft Literary Center and indie trade press, Milkweed Editions. You'll also find other indies like Graywolf Press and Coffee House Press based in town too, and a great short-run book printer to take care of them all, BookMobile. There are a number of great independent bookstore's Magers & Quinn, Micawber's, Common Good Books and author Lousie Edrich's own Birchbark Books, among many others. And the Twin Cites even has its own dedicated book review magazine, one of the few left in the country and one of my favorites, Rain Taxi.

And for the crossover, just check out the art book selection at the Walker Art Center. Or at Magers & Quinn. Or BookSmart. Or James & Mary Laurie Bookseller…. Needless to say, I came home to Tucson last night with more books than I'd left with. Thanks Minneapolis-St. Paul, you're number one.

(Note: We've also updated our Art/Reading Travel Guide with some Twin Cities highlights. Have more for Minneapolis-St. Paul or elsewhere? Please add them!)