Library freshens up media collection with video store feel

BERKLEY — The Berkley Public Library is taking a new approach to promoting its catalog by going old school.

The library announced it would be reimagining its media room by designing it with a throwback video store feel called “BerkBuster” in hopes that families and residents will visit and check out its physical media collection and other offerings. Rentals are free for those with a library card.

The idea came from librarian Lisabeth Conger, who used to work at a video store back in her home state of Indiana. Conger looked back fondly at seeing families come in and pick their entertainment for the evening together.

When she began working at the library, she felt the jobs were kind of similar and wanted to bring that video store feel back.

“I definitely feel that hole that was left behind by the closing of all the video stores and that kind of being that tradition that families had of having a movie night,” she said. “I just thought it wouldn’t take very much to be able to kind of re-create that atmosphere here and kind of investing some resources into collections that would harken back to that time as well.”

The library will be hosting a launch party to highlight its new BerkBuster room from 6 to 8 p.m. Friday, Nov. 14, at 3155 Coolidge Highway. The building will be open past its usual hours for patrons.

Library Director Matt Church is hopeful that the redesign will bring fresh life to that section with tailored collections such as “Friday Night TV” and “Saturday Morning Cartoons.”

“We’ve always had a healthy media collection, but now we’re trying to give it that video store feel, so we’re having more things facing out,” he said. “We also kind of felt like streaming costs have just continued to increase. It’s getting expensive for people to stream at home. So it’s just that reminder that you can use your library card and check these resources out for free from the library.”

Church also said that, while it’s not the focus of the project, the library does accept media donations, but if they’re not able to use it, the Friends of the Library will include it in their sales.

Conger said there’s a trend of people reading less and therefore not seeing themselves as patrons of the library, because they only associate it with books.

She hopes this new direction will help encourage people to come in and see that the library offers more than its collection of books and check out its physical media as well.

“I wanted people to know, who maybe don’t see themselves as readers, that there’s something here at the library for them that is free,” she said. “And within our collections and within our consortium with the rest of the libraries that we have access to their collections, we can get almost any item that is any television show or movie that is produced onto physical media. We can get our patrons a copy of that at no cost to them. So there’s so many benefits that I think a lot of community members don’t realize that’s at their fingertips here at the library already.”