SLP De-Briefing

Our Youth Services team always takes an hour or so to gather and chat immediately after the dust of SLP has settled. It's helpful to consider the just completed chaos and chew on positives, negatives, ideas for the future and solutions to niggling problems that popped up - all while it is fresh in our minds.

There are pats on the back - we made it through an incredibly busy eight weeks!  We came through and still like our patrons and each other!  Now it's time for some Monday morning quarterbacking.

We usually have a few raw numbers to look at - number of kids registered, participating and earning a book; how many programs and how was attendance; total number of visits; circulation stats; like that. We look at the previous year and see if our sense of the summer matches those stats.

This year, our participation was down at our in-house program and up in our outreach program. The room itself was insanely busy but circulation figures were down overall.  We sensed an ennui with the design of our SLP materials for elementary and preschool ages (both three years old now) and plan to change them up for next summer. We're looking at shaking up the teen incentives as well.

We see the need to interact more immediately with supervisors of summer groups to talk about library use and the responsibilities of the caregivers that accompany kids for weekly visits.

We hope to incorporate an element of "giving" with the kids...whether asking them to donate food for the food pantry (many food pantries see donations plummet in the summer and often have to rely on funds to buy food to stock the shelves) or giving them the choice, in lieu of a small prize, of putting a marker in a donation jar that we will use for a local charity. Each marker might be worth $.05 or $.10 and the Friends money we would normally use for a doo-dad would instead support an animal shelter or our community garden or another worthy cause.

While we didn't all see the summer through the same eyes (we liked the incentives; we hated the incentives; more programs; less programs), our discussion was helpful and gave the team food for thought.

Now the notes are done, and plans in place. We close the book on summer for as many months as we can before we get back to designing materials in February.

It feels good to let the summer go. It feels good to know we have a huge jumpstart for next year's planning. Good-bye SLP. We'll think about you again...in 2014.

Summer Wrap

Summer Reading Program. It's almost time to stick a fork in.

After nine weeks of "official" fun and a couple of days into our final two weeks of book reward pick-up, I am ready to say we have had a great summer. Yesterday we had a wrap-up meeting with staffers and we couldn't think of much that went wrong; that we had to improve or that our families didn't like. In fact, we had greater participation; better continuing returns; and more expressed enthusiasm by the kids and families.

Beyond that, the program set-up allowed staff to take vacation and conference time off throughout the eleven week duration. We had plenty of time to do reference and reader's advisory with the kids. The programs were fun and well-attended. For the first time EVER, we didn't book any performers. We saved a ton of money and the only sadness we heard was from a few day care providers (Hmmm, we must have been providing their entertainment in the past).

This year, for the first time, the teens joined the babies, tots and elementary-age kids in our book prize extravaganza. For two weeks in August, we invite all the kids who earned books as a prize to come in, browse and make their selection. We have the books on tables in program room roughly by age - but nothing is labeled. Kids have loved it. They can pick a book that appeals to them  - we have advanced readers copies for them to "test"; inexpensive books we picked up at Book Fair sales and pristine condition used books. Kids often come out and reserve titles they didn't pick but want to read.

I look at Abby(the) Librarian's wrap-up; the enthusiastic report of a new librarian in WI being "present" for the kids; The Show-Me Librarian's reflections and our own early happiness with the way SLP was shaping up. It tells me we are all going in a great direction - one that embraces summer and the kids without fear and without burn-out.  And isn't that what it's really all about?


Image: 'Catfish, Shrimp and Fries'  http://www.flickr.com/photos/33286810@N00/396888366

Pudding Proofs

Okie dokey - the final circulation stats are in for SLP.  Yesterday, the last day of August, with school starting today, was finally the quietest day since our summer reading program began June 6. Quiet enough to actually work on the wrap-up report!
So wassup? 
 
Even though we offered half the number of events during SLP, our circulation boomed with increases higher than we had ever experienced before in that time period.
Our new SLP was a big part of this success.  During July, our weekly bookmark format kept kids coming back again and again as they read and worked towards earning a book. That resulted in lots of book check-outs - we almost doubled our circ increases over the previous July.  It leads us to believe that designing the program to encourage July return visits is a keeper!

August was a whole other story. In previous years, usage and circ slowed down considerably.  This year, book prizes earned were available in the first two weeks of August. That brought lots of kids and families in during a traditionally very quiet time. A few well placed programs with big crowds kept the momentum going.

We are already thinking about how to keep the circulation momentum up next summer.  And we are happy to let our board and community know that kids in La Crosse read and check-out..alot!

Image: 'Food Photography - Bread & Butter Pudding' http://www.flickr.com/photos/74149825@N00/1725407679

How'd We Do This Summer? - Deconstructing an SLP

Abby the Librarian has a great post up at the ALSC Blog assessing their library's summer reading program. I love it because it is one of my favorite things as SLP ends.
We try to do a wrap-up meeting as soon as we are finished to look at the positives and negatives.  We keep notes and incorporate any changes into our plans for the following year.  It's easy, it's fun and it makes sure that the programs remain fresh and serve the needs of the community and the staff!  Although our wrap-up meeting is a week away, I can share some of my thoughts on SLP 2011 efforts.

This year we introduced our Rubber Ducky Club for kids birth to 35 months that stressed pre-literacy skills and it was a huge success. Families were asked to return twice in the summer  - once for a rubber duck reward and once for a book.  We were pleased with the results of this program - so were the parents - and will definitely do it again.

Our elementary school Passport program with activitiy bookmarks (including reading; library book check-outs; attending programs; playing literacy games; using writing) went over great. I was pleased to read about the efforts at the Darien CT Library that Gretchen Caserotti wrote about in the Libraries and Transliteracy blog and felt like we are going in a good direction. One of my marvelous co-workers created a new early literacy activity area called "Story Action Pod" that encouraged kids to use art, writing and imagination to enhance their experience of books (you can read about it here at her fun new blog: S. Bryce Kozla.). This too was an activity that counted towards completing a bookmark and was a real hit for K-2 kids.

We had lots of return visits to the library which was a huge goal and people used the library more consistently throughout the whole program. Our print circulation stayed robust because we encouraged use of the collection. And parents and kids really loved the program and let us know. I think kids liked the stamping of their passport as much as getting a little "surprise" and they love the culminating book prize they are picking up now.

Our Teen program (whoa! I forgot to blog about it!) experienced a resurgence.  A key piece was adding a chance for kids to get a USB drive or $5 off their fines coupon (you can guess what 90% of the tweens and teens picked!) after 15 hours of reading/volunteering/program attendance and a book after 25 hours. In the past they had a chance to win a weekly prize but no guarantees that kids would receive a prize. So they were inspired to participate. They were also pumped about final raffle prizes: $75 gifts cards from B&N, Best Buy and Marcus Theaters.

We cut down on events and still had lots of usage - enough to consistently double staff our public service desk throughout the 8 week program - a first for us!  Despite the increased circ and usage and piloting new SLP formats, we had time to do reader's advisory and chat with kids and parents.  That was best of all!

Image: 'Pumpkin carving'  http://www.flickr.com/photos/99472898@N00/5127099146

Putting the Summer Library Program to Bed

Ahhhhh, my favorite day of the children's librarian year- the day after the last day of SLP.  Our nifty new database produced our stats in two minutes flat:

• over 10,200 hours read (we challenged kids to read at least 8,670 hours - a year of 24/7 reading - and they far exceeded that goal 
• 958 kids in the in-house program with 55% active during the course of the eight week program
• 452 kids in the outreach group care reading program
• 350 kids earned a free book by reading at least 20 hours over the summer

We had a very rainy and, therefore, very busy summer.  Our programs (all 113 of them!) here and at our branch locations were creative, fun and well-received.  We had enthusiastic teen volunteers; we sent staffers off on vacation throughout and, though busy, we came out sane (I think) at the end!

We'll do a report to our co-workers everywhere in the library; to the board and most importantly back to our principals and LMC colleagues.  Our plans for 2011 are already perking along and with a little design work after de-briefing on this summer, we'll be ready to head out for our trip around the world next summer. Wake uuuuuppppp!

Image: 'Asleep at the Wheel'  http://www.flickr.com/photos/34653106@N00/64368770