Getting students back into the library: “Beats and Bongos” lead them to books

Beats and Bongos is an example of the authors’ own programming, which included performances that required audience participation and led to workshops, conference presentations, and publications. In this chapter we explain our experience in using programming for the arts and humanities as a form of proactive marketing. The program stimulated student engagement and successfully encouraged students to return to the physical library. We also discuss efforts in our library that succeeded and failed in respect to marketing the academic library in meaningful ways. Through this programming, which took place for several years rather than just as a single event, we were also able to develop rapport with students, who became interested in using the library’s materials.