The archive · Public & Social · Marketing decision · 2023
A library exhibits JAY-Z's archive as 'The Book of Hov' — and gains 40,000 new members
Brooklyn Public Library staged JAY-Z's archive as a free exhibition — 600,000+ visitors and 40,000 new library members.
Brooklyn Public Library · Roc Nation
What it had to solve
Brooklyn Public Library's grand Central Library could feel intimidating, and many Brooklynites — including people who engaged with culture through music rather than books — had never become patrons. The 50th anniversary of hip-hop in 2023 offered an opening: JAY-Z's Roc Nation held a career-spanning archive of photos, art, recordings and artifacts, and the library had space and an inclusion mission. Together they bet that treating a rapper's archive as a serious, free cultural exhibition would rebuild the library's relevance and convert culture tourists into card-carrying members.
How it works
Brooklyn Public Library's Central Library could feel intimidating to locals, and many Brooklynites had never held a library card. For the 50th anniversary of hip-hop, the library and Roc Nation turned JAY-Z's personal archive into a free exhibition, The Book of Hov, that opened in mid-July 2023 with never-before-seen photos, art, recordings, books and vinyl from his collections.
The show was engineered to bring people in and keep them exploring: no tickets or appointments, 13 limited-edition library cards featuring JAY-Z album art from Reasonable Doubt to 4:44 distributed across all 61 branches, and an interactive online companion narrated by radio legend Angie Martinez. The response was so strong that the exhibition was extended and ran about five months.
The numbers made the case for culture-led civic marketing: more than 600,000 visitors to Central Library, a 74% increase over the prior year; over 115,000 Book of Hov cards issued to more than 63,000 patrons, nearly 40,000 of them new accounts (up more than 350%); and over 10,000 new or updated cards in Brooklyn's lowest-income neighborhoods.
Why it lands
- The library met its audience where it was: hip-hop's 50th anniversary made a rapper's archive legitimate cultural heritage, and the institution treated it with curatorial seriousness.
- The 13 collector cards turned a passive visit into a borough-wide quest, pushing people into branches — including underused and low-income ones — they had never entered.
- Free and open access removed the intimidation and cost barriers of the grand library, so the exhibit itself functioned as an invitation to membership.
- The story was repeatable and ownable: the archive, the cards and the online companion gave visitors something to collect, share and come back for.
What it did
More than 600,000 people visited Central Library during the exhibition's five-month run — a 74% increase over the year before. BPL issued over 115,000 Book of Hov cards to more than 63,000 patrons, nearly 40,000 of them brand-new accounts, an increase of more than 350%; over 10,000 new or updated cards went out in Brooklyn's lowest-income neighborhoods. Billboard reported that by mid-August the exhibit had already produced 14,000 new accounts, with staff saying online resales of the collector cards represented only a small fraction.
What you can take
Give people a reason to walk in that has nothing to do with borrowing books: treating fandom as seriously as collections let a library convert culture tourism into membership.
Since then
The Book of Hov became Brooklyn Public Library's most successful outreach in years, drawing visitors from around the nation and world and introducing thousands of new patrons to storytimes, robotics, entrepreneurship workshops and the library's vinyl collection. The collaboration with a private music company became a template for public institutions courting audiences who had never considered them, and the online Book of Hov archive remained available after the physical exhibition closed on December 4, 2023.
Sources
- The Book of HOV — innovation profile
- Commemorative Jay-Z Library Cards Have Seriously Boosted Brooklyn Public Library Accounts
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