When a piercing guitar riff echoes through quiet library stacks, it brings a smile to Bill Harmer’s face. It’s part of his mission of “rebranding.”

Libraries desperately want to change their image from stodgy repositories of dusty books to community activity centers. Few have done a better job of this than Chelsea’s McKune Memorial Library. It was named recently as the nation’s best small library—because of, among other things, its varied services, teen outreach, and openness to experimentation.

Harmer, head of adult services at Mc­Kune, is a rock star wannabe. He’s helped to book library concerts by jazz legend Marcus Belgrave, ex-Fugs rocker and hippie poet Ed Sanders, guitarist Jerry Miller from the 1960s cult band Moby Grape, and the Nobility, the subject of the 2006 children’s book Inside a Rock Band.

It all started in 2003, when Harmer was teen librarian at the Farmington Community Library and took the risk of inviting one of his favorite local bands, the Brian Jonestown Massacre. The group had a reputation for getting kicked out of clubs, but they behaved themselves and drew a good crowd. Soon another band, the High Strung, which sometimes played gigs with the Brian Jonestown Massacre, wanted to play libraries too. Harmer booked the High Strung into thirty Michigan libraries in 2005. This year it’s playing more than 200 library gigs nationwide in what Harmer bills as the Rock & Roll Library Tour.

The High Strung has played in parks next to libraries, in children’s book areas, and near checkout stands. Once it was banished to the basement for being too loud during a warm-up near the reference desk. But usually the group draws an enthusiastic crowd of the libraries’ main rebranding target—young people, especially those who aren’t regular library users.

Members of the High Strung avoid profanity, and they’re good at writing literate storytelling songs. At the end of their set they improvise songs by pulling books off the shelves and having audience members pick out phrases.

“We end up screaming at the top of our lungs that ham and cheese is what Cindy wanted after Daniel was scolded by the professor,” says drummer Derek Berk. “It’s accidental poetry.”

Having laid the groundwork for a potential boom in library rock concerts, Harmer dreams of bigger things, like a daylong “librarypalooza” with bands, community groups, and other activities on library lawns.