CHUBBUCK — The Portneuf District Library is running two new programs to welcome visitors and encourage them to engage with the books and other resources available at the library, according to Curtis Clayson, who handles marketing and public relations for the library.

One is a continuing Goal Wall program that started in the library on Jan 6. It involves inviting library visitors to write their goals for the near future on a yellow star-shaped piece of paper.

The paper is then given to a librarian to stick on a hallway window, said Clayson, who lives in Chubbuck and has worked full-time at the library since June.

“It was just an idea I had that I thought would be fun for the community to come and put down what they thought for a goal and what they could do together as a community,” Clayson said.

His idea is for people to read about other people’s goals and see how that sparks others in the community to make their own plans.

“You come and see like, ‘This person says save more money,’” he said. “‘That should be my goal, as well.’”

Members of the community can essentially bounce ideas off of each other, he said.

There are already a large number of stars bearing written goals in the window.

Does it help?

Clayson says another aim is to enhance the motivation to complete a goal for people who write them down.

“There’s a saying that if you write down your goal it’s 45 percent more likely to be achieved,” Clayson said.

And there’s been some good feedback.

“From what I’ve heard, a lot of moms like the idea of kids being able to set goals like play more or just things like that,” he said.

And it gets them thinking about what they can do to improve themselves.

Clayson says his job position opened when the library chose to reach out more to the community. It started looking for people who could do marketing and public relations, said Clayson, who has a degree in marketing from Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah.

Thus Clayson, who’s from Pleasant Grove, Utah, has been in the Chubbuck area now for about a year.

“It’s a good job, a good community,” he said.

But he generally doesn’t get a chance to chat with library visitors too much during the workday.

“I’m kind of in the back just working on coming up with ideas,” Clayson said. “And I try to let the librarians handle the conversations and things like that.”

But if people want to come and say hi to him, they can just ask the front-desk librarian and they’ll get him, he said.

And when he’s out in the community he definitely tries to reach out and let people know where he’s from, he said.

The library has also started another program involving creating images on T-shirts.

“We’ll have a sheet that they can come and get and it has the dimensions of the size of the picture that needs to be drawn,” Clayson said.

The theme of the event is “Love Your Library,” he said. “So they draw a picture about how they love the library.”

Then they bring it back to the librarians, and the librarians will put it on the wall. Then people can come and vote for their favorite T-shirt design. The final choice will be made by the end of February.

Thus all the entries have to be in by Feb. 12, Clayson said.

“There’s going to be a popular vote and then from the popular vote it will be down to the top three entries,” he said.

Then the library staff will pick their favorite of the top three among the T-shirt contest entries, Clayson said.

“We’ll have numbers for entry and they’ll just write down the number of the one they like,” he said.

In the meantime, he’s enjoying the whole effort and looks forward to seeing how it all turns out.

“It’s fun,” Clayson said. “We’re excited.”