Summer Reading 2024 - Reflection

 

Now that summer reading is officially over, it's time for my annual reflection on how things went, what worked, what didn't, and what we might do differently next year. This was the 11th summer reading of my career, the third one that I was in charge of almost all the planning and most of the execution, and I felt that it went really well.

There was a lot of upheaval, restructuring, and staffing changes back in the spring that took a lot of time to deal with and adjust to, and caused a lot of distraction, which made planning summer reading much more difficult and stressful this year. I personally find the planning everything, deciding on programs, booking performers, etc., to be the most stressful part by far, but then once we get past the kick-off, the actual summer is the easy part and goes by so fast. This year everything seemed to go really smoothly and drama-free, and I actually enjoyed it. 

I structured this year essentially the same as last year, with some minor tweaks. We had programs each week for every age-group, plus a family/all-ages program that was either a performer or a family craft, and a fun, low-pressure, non-competitive, not heavily incentivized "Bookopoly" reading challenge that awarded free books at the beginning to get them started, another free book when they turned it in at the end of the summer, entry into a prize-drawing (modest, $25-$30 value gift cards or prizes related to reading or learning), and kids also got some coupons for other goodies that were donated by various restaurants. The Bookopoly board had various reading prompts or learning/literacy related activities, almost the same as last year, with slight update in design to fit with this year's theme (for more details on the Bookopoly reading challenge and link to a template, see last year's "Summer Reading - Going Rogue" post).

Some of the changes this year were:

• This year we did elect to go with the CSLP theme, "Adventure Begins at Your Library".
• We have a new adult services librarian who fully supported adult summer reading (the previous one wanted nothing to do with it).
• Adults were also able to receive free prize books just like the kids for the first time
• We also hired a new teen librarian right before summer, so I no longer had to oversee the teen programming or collection development or entrust it to someone who really didn't know anything about programming.
• I kept programs more simple to reduce my stress levels.
• I tweaked the rules/instructions for the reading challenge, to make it clear that they were supposed to keep it and work on it all summer, not turn it in as soon as they met the minimum number of squares (as happened last summer).
• Dropped registration and tracking prize book claims for the reading challenge, which reduced my workload and made things much simpler for all staff. Participants merely had to pick up the Bookopoly sheet, then turn it in.
• We hired two new children's services staff right before summer, who really stepped up and helped out, even covering several programs when I got hit with Covid during the last week.
  
  

Performers & Costs - fees are generally up another $100 this year, and turnout was slightly less than last year, but it does bring families in who don't attend any other programs. 

• Kick-Off, Petting Zoo ($825) and Explore-a-Truck (free), great turnout
• Steel Drum Band ($600, decent show, very poor turnout to have spent that much)
• Theatre Troupe, Cinderella and Jack & the Beanstalk ($700), good turnout, everyone enjoyed
• Raptor Rehab ($350), decent turnout
• Science Show ($400), good turnout
• Animal Show ($400), good turnout
• Edu-tainment ($800), very good turnout, known performer
  
  

Weekly Themes - I book performers first, then choose weekly themes around them. These are just very loose themes that guide some of the programs, weekly displays, and scavenger hunts, but I don't force every single program that week to fit the theme, or force every program to fit the overall summer theme for that matter.

• Backyard Adventures (native wildlife, outdoor activities)
• Adventures in Space
• Explore the Arts (art, music, dance)
• Fantasy Adventures (fairy/folk tales, fantasy)
• Library Adventures (miscellaneous)
• Safari Adventures (exotic animals)
• Treasure Hunt Adventure 
• Ocean Adventures

Popular Children's/Family Programs:

• Play-Dough - The most well-attended non-performer program of the year! Who would've guessed? 🤷
• Beach Terrariums - Had to turn people away after we ran out of supplies.
• Shrinky-Dinks - Kids LOVED making these! Had a choice of shoe charms or key chains, and though I expected shoe charms to be to top choice, it was actually key chains to hang on back-packs that they most wanted to make. Already been asked to do it again.
• Owl Pellet Dissection - educational, slightly gross, but cool!
• Safari - Made "binoculars" then went on safari throughout the library to find inflatable animals and answer questions about them.
  
  
  

Programs that Flopped:

• Space - though they loved making paper rockets, the activity making constellations with pipe-cleaners and glow-in the dark star pony beads was a flop. Many said it was "too hard" and wouldn't even try it, though some did complete them successfully.
• Secret Codes & Hidden Messages - Not exactly a flop, but though I've done both in-person and hybrid versions of this program successfully before, it was clearly too ambitious for this group. They had a MUCH harder time and took way longer getting through what I'd expected to be fairly quick, instructional activities, and many struggled with the clues of the final treasure hunt challenge, not recognizing call numbers nor being able to used them to find books containing the next clue. They needed LOTS of help and the program ran WAY long. I still had positive feedback from several participants; it just needed to be simplified.
• Fairy Tale STEM - Another that wasn't a true flop, more of a sleeper, as those who did attend really enjoyed it and had fun with the Lakeshore Learning Problem-Solving STEM kits, but it didn't draw people and attendance was very low.
• Tie-Dye Bandanas - A total shock that attendance for a tie-dye program was very low; I'd expected to be overrun! I don't know if it was because we weren't doing shirts, or what. Those that attended did enjoy it, but struggled more with getting their bandanas tied up than expected. Probably would've done better as a "family craft" program than an "elementary explorer" program.
  
  

The Outcomes:

• Children's/Family program attendance held fairly steady, with just a tiny drop. I expected this, now that everything else is back to "normal" there are many other activities and summer camps available than the previous two years.
• Teen program attendance significantly increased.
• Children's participation in the reading challenge increased slightly.
• Teen participation in the reading challenge doubled!
• Adult participation in the reading challenge nearly tripled! Partly due to being able to get free books this time, but mostly to having a supportive adult services librarian.
• Much more engagement with the reading challenge. Even though I reduced the minimum from 10 squares to 5, by tweaking the instructions so that people worked on it all summer and didn't focus on numbers, most participants completed many of the squares, far above the minimum. I also had many more kids and adults talk about working on the reading challenge and asking for book suggestions for various squares.
• Lots of positive feedback from kids and caregivers about the quality of the programming and how much fun they had this summer, several saying it was the best summer ever. Personally, I feel the quality was just as high, if not higher, both of the previous summers. Our current director and I think the difference is more a difference in atmosphere rather than a difference in quality of programming. We were much better staffed this year, with engaged, qualified staff for one, but the previous two years we were saddled with a very incompetent, unprofessional, and unethical director who pitted staff against each other, alienated patrons, and created a very toxic, high-stress environment, and staff morale was at an all-time low. Thankfully she is gone and we now have new leadership, better staffing, and staff are much happier and working as a team again; patrons can clearly sense the easing of tensions and that the environment is more positive, professional, and welcoming.

I was really pleased with how smoothly the summer went, and that I was able to enjoy it, and especially happy about all the positive feedback from patrons. We generally get positive feedback, but it seemed that we had an exceptional number of positive comments this summer, and no complaints. It's always nice to feel that your hard work pays off and people do appreciate what you do.

Next Year?

Since this summer went so well, will we do things very similarly next time? Well, I don't know. Things have changed so that I'm not solely in charge of it any more. Right before summer, in addition to a new adult services librarian, a new teen librarian was also hired, and it was decided to restructure and divide youth services into two separate departments, Children's Services and Young Adult Services, with me as the head of Children's Services and the new teen librarian as head of Young Adult Services. So it won't all be up to me next year, and though I would prefer for us to have a single cohesive, coordinated program for all ages as I think the simpler it is for staff and families the better, my colleagues may prefer to do their own thing. 

One change I'd like to consider, now that I have two colleagues to help with planning, is to make the Kick-Off more age-inclusive. Previously, since I was doing it all myself I had to limit my focus of the kick-off to kids and families, but I would like to try possibly shifting the time from morning (10:30am - 1:00pm) to late morning-early afternoon and add at least one activity geared to attract teens and one for adults, or something that is truly all-ages. I'd also like to add a smaller finale at the end. As for kids and family programs, I am finding I'm really needing to "water down" and simplify my programs compared to what I was doing 5 years ago. Attention spans are almost non-existent, kids and adults alike are having much more trouble following directions, lack problem-solving skills, and have no tolerance for frustration; they want everything to be quick and easy, and will give up if it's not. I'm going to have to figure out how to step back and design programs to help them build these skills.

Other Articles Related to Summer Reading:

• "SRP 2023 Summer at the Library" - Last year's summer reading reflection
•  "Summer Reading - Going Rogue" - for more details of the Bookopoly Reading Challenge
• "True Confessions" - My past love-hate relationship with summer reading
• "The Inconvenient Truth of Incentivized Reading Programs" - Why research does not support the effectiveness of incentivized reading programs
• "Evidenced-Based Summer Reading Program Design" - Designing more effective summer reading programs that actually support reading, based on research
• Annotated Bibliography - articles related to incentivized reading programs and increasing reading motivation and practice
  
  

Now, time for a programming break to clean, re-organize, get in some training and professional development, and make plans for the next year!

How did your summer go? What worked and didn't work for you? What changes have you made, or will make for next year?