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This summer at the Fayetteville Free Library in Fayetteville, NY we piloted our first ever week long summer camp during Summer Reading. The Fayetteville Free Library Geek Girl Camp is a camp for girls in grades 3 through 5 introducing them to hands on STEM skills and to female role models. Months of work went into planning this camp fulfilling a need in our greater community.  According to the Girl Scout Research Institute,  “Research shows that girls start losing interest in math and science during middle school. Girls are typically more interested in careers where they can help others (e.g., teaching, child care, working with animals) and make the world a better place. Recent surveys have shown that girls and young women are much less interested than boys and young men in math and science.”[1]

We had 44 girls attend the FFL Geek Girl Camp from all over the greater Syracuse, NY area. We had over 10 girls on the waiting list and charged $25.00 for the camp to supplement the cost of food, t-shirts and supplies. We also offered four scholarship opportunities for those who might not be able to afford the cost of the camp. In addition to the 44 girls who came to the camp we had 9 speakers from across the country join us in person or via Skype. Speakers included students from Virginia Commonwealth University, Cornell University, Syracuse University and SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. Other speakers included women who worked for Facebook, the Air Force, a pharmaceutical research facility, and from national organizations, Girls in Tech and Girl Develop IT. Each day we heard from one or more speakers who talked about what they do at their jobs or in school and how important it is to have women working in these fields! They all made sure to relate to the girls in attendance and campers had great questions afterwards.

Throughout the week we had a great array of activities. We rented a cement mixer and made an oobleck pool for kids to run across after learning about density and viscosity, shot off model rockets, chucked books, apples and water balloons with a trebuchet after learning about projectiles, force, gravity and more.  Girls learned about fractals, made mini catapults, 3D printed, used littlebits kits, Snap Circuits and computer programmed with Scratch and much more.

The camp was a huge success that the parents of those who attended were above and beyond appreciative and wanted to already sign up for next year. We learned from this particular camp that we created something valuable for our community and that we need to transition into this camp model for future Summer Reading programs. We were asked, “When are you having a camp for boys”? We will not only have camp for boys and girls but of different ages as well. Planning FFL Geek Girl Camp did take a lot of time; however the outcome of the camp was far beyond what we expected and worth the time spent planning for the impact it had on our community. Camps offer children an opportunity to learn more and make stronger relationships over a short period of time.  Like camp as a kid it was a place to learn new things and meet new friends and create memories that last a lifetime.

The first day of FFL Geek Girl, the campers were a little shy but after just the second day the girls couldn’t stop talking and working together. We run bimonthly programs where kids come in every other week to work on projects but having children in the library everyday for a week gives you an opportunity to teach kids a skill and not have to worry about rushing or not being able to complete the task, plus you have an opportunity to do projects or lessons that take longer and are more complex. Camps also give us a great opportunity to get to know our patrons. Girls come in and out of the library now looking for their camp counselors to say hi! Cost is also a huge factor in running a camp at a library versus a different venue. We had materials donated to the camp and used many of the resources we already owned including our own staff to run and plan the program. Most science camps can range in price anywhere from $75-$600. We decided that $25 was not only affordable but fit into our budget for the camp as well to make it run successfully.

We think that camps are the future of Summer Reading. It gives us and the community an opportunity to focus on important topics like STEAM and produce content that is beneficial and influential. At the end of the week our campers said they wanted to be inventors, work at Google, become web developers and physicists. If it wasn’t for the atmosphere we created at the library and the week long camp we would have never saw these results and impact on our community.

Please check out our website for more information about the FFL Geek Girl Camp, our Flickr page and hashtag #geekgirl14 on Twitter and Instagram.

[1]Modi, K. (2012). “Generation STEM: What girls Say about Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math” Girl Scout Research Institute. http://www.girlscouts.org/research/pdf/generation_stem_full_report.pdf

Meredith Levine is the Director of Family Engagement at the Fayetteville Free Library. Meredith is a member of the ALSC School Age Programs and Services Committee. Find out more at www.fflib.org or email Meredith at [email protected]

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I’m changing Summer Reading this year. When I was in Chicago for ALA last summer I saw their Summer of Learning and was duly impressed. I am going to try something similar this summer, using STREAM – Science, Technology, Reading, Experience, Arts, and Math. The Common Core is not a Thing here in Canada (yet) but I love the idea of experience-based Summer Reading Program. Yes, Reading is still a big part of it, the main focus even, but I wanted to offer some experiences rather than Pieces of Plastic as incentives. So I contacted the local zoo. Oaklawn Farm Zoo is small and owned by a couple that are known in our area as generous and kind folks. I had a meeting in their farm house to talk about offering 2 Library Days this summer– 18 and under get in free if they show their library card (and can earn a badge if we get that part figured out).  We sat at the table over tea, muffins, and homemade jam to discuss the details. They liked the idea as much as we did– we’ll be offering storytime and needle felting demos (using zoo-animal fur collected by the keepers). We’ll also take our portable StoryWalk and our Bookmobile for a total library/zoo day! Fun!

So, we have at least one great experience to offer for our Summer STREAM. And for me, the experience was even more amazing because when we first arrived, we heard ,”Oh, here comes the lion. Put your boots on top of the fridge.” Yes, that’s right. LION. For the winter, a lion cub lived in their house. Obi, the 6-month old African lion strolled in, rolled over on the floor, and allowed us to pet his belly. Library Days at the Zoo — YEAH! Plus, I got to pet a lion. I love my job.

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So, here's an idea.  Run a Summer Reading Club!  Offer kids free books - or prizes - when they successfully;
a.  Complete a predetermined number of books, or pages or amount of time
b. Answer questions about the books they read OR write a review OR tell someone about the book
c.  Attend programs in your place of business
d.  Complete a scavenger hunt OR a puzzle OR find a hidden object
e.  Do all or any combination of the above.

So, who runs these Summer Reading Clubs?  Public Libraries!  I said, PUBLIC LIBRARIES! Bookstores! (Like the Moravian Book Shop)  (Click on these links to learn more about their summer reading clubs.) Publishers!  Those three make sense.  Some school districts run reading clubs.  Tutoring centers run reading centers.  Here are a few of the more well-known Summer Reading Clubs.

Sylvan Learning Centers run BookAdventure.  (Check out the snazzy buccaneer dinosaur and dog!)  Sylvan has produced quizzes on recommended books.  And quiz taking is part of the club's requirements.  Sylvan boasts that they have quizzes for close to 8000 books so you should find something you or your young reader like..

Barnes and Noble Booksellers have run Summer Reading Clubs for years.  This year's theme, Imagination's Destination, dovetails nicely with the Collaborative Summer Library Program's theme of Dream Big - Read (The Public library program).  Barnes and Noble just asks that readers in grades 1 through 6 to read and record a set number of books.  It's easy!

Scholastic Books asks kids - or teachers - to log their time spent reading.  Word Girl is the mascot this year and Scholastic offers certificates, activities, booklists and more.  Check it out.

PBSKids has partnered with other organizations to provide Reading Programs - like the Soar with Reading program sponsored by PBSKids and JetBlue.  Join to earn prizes AND to donate books to needy children around the USA.

iVillage has joined with PBSKids to provide their own Summer Reading Challenge.  Click here for more information.   The program offers daily email tips for increasing your child's literacy skills.  This is a great program for parents of "emerging" readers.

BTW, I wondered if Amazon.com offered a Summer Reading Program and a simple search only offered me a chance to buy a book.  Hmmm.  I guess brick and mortar stores care more about the literacy of their future customers than online merchants.  If I am wrong, please send me the link to Amazon's Summer Reading program.  I promise to post it here.

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Throughout the year, teens in my branch come in, check out their things, and leave. Not many hang out in our teen area, maybe because our other branch has a way cooler teen room. Our stats show that they like our collection, but programming-wise, the numbers are never there. This is why I love summer. We see more teens during the summer than at any other time, and they all want to volunteer.

This year we’ve had to turn away teens and send them to other branches because, for once in as long as I can remember, we’re fully staffed with teen volunteers. They run our Summer Reading Club table and completely take care of registration, logs, and handing out prizes. We pull them into help with programs, especially ones where we need another set of hands. We’re getting another problem, though. We have so many teen volunteers that we don’t know what to do with all of them, and the natives get restless during the slow time of the day. We’ve had to get creative in coming up with things for them to do.

When we have more than two teens at the SRC table, and it’s slow, we’ve given them tasks like entering the SRC forms into our tracker software, or labeling the many, many, many pieces of our early literacy station activities. They shelve and straighten and pick up in-house, but we don’t want them doing that all the time (mostly because we don’t like doing it all the time either). They help set up for programs, especially ones that have crafts, but when all of this is finished, there’s nothing left. A lot of them are happy to read at the SRC table until someone needs help. Others are more…boisterous, shall we say, and when they don’t have a task, they’re getting into trouble.

Does anyone else have the problem of too many volunteers and not enough to do? Leave your solutions in the comments!

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 As we inch closer and closer to those hot summer days, I’m sure many of us around the country are gearing up for months of intense crowds and extensive programming. At our eight branches of the Cumberland County Public Library & Information Center in Fayetteville, NC, we prepare for eight weeks of story times and special programming, and of course, our annual Summer Reading Club.

In previous years, we’ve organized a Summer Reading Club kick-off program for our participants, highlighting a professional programmer outside of our library system; many years we’ve featured a musician or magician to relate to our theme. Due to the content, some of these programs have been geared for children already in elementary school; many have been advertised as appropriate for all-ages. 

  This year, however, we’re making some changes. Instead of focusing on a kick-off event to celebrate our festivities this summer, we are turning toward more staff and community-driven programming at our individual locations. By forgoing the kick-off special, we are able to retain our funds for future projects and can tailor our individual programming schedule to best meet the needs of each individual branch.

Our Summer Reading Club registration still follows a traditional format as in previous years. Children from birth through fifth grade receive a reading record and keep track of every 20 minutes they read or that someone reads to them. Kids receive prizes for 4, 8, 12 and 24 hours of reading. Programming counts, too; if children attend a story time or special program, they count that time toward their reading goal.

Individual library branches plan their series of special programming for the summer, but we also rely on coordination and collaboration of our children’s programs to best utilize our time and resources as a system. We regularly partner with local community agencies; we’ve scheduled programs with a K-9 unit from the sheriff’s department and a representative from the All-American Fencing Academy. 

How has your Summer Reading Club adapted throughout the years? Does your system gear up for your summer programs with kick-off events or have those fallen by the wayside in light of your community’s needs? Which approach do you think is more effective: starting your Summer Reading Club with a kick-off presentation or beginning your summer activities with traditional story times and programs? Please share your thoughts about how you kick-off or race right into summer reading at your library!

0 Comments on Kick-off or Race Straight into Summer Reading Club? as of 1/1/1900

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Sometimes, when you are a children's librarian, you get to make things like this:

That's our summer reading club booth on Opening Day (today), with one of our lovely volunteers registering kids. It's also the place kids orally report on what they've read. (They also have the option of reporting on paper or online.)

Every year, the booth is decorated in accordance with the summer theme. This year, the Illinois state theme is A Midsummer Knight's Read, so this is what I came up with:

Zooming in at the top:

"In libris libertas" means "In books, freedom."

Side view #1:

Side view #2:

We have a display of medieval-themed books in our hallway, but I also made this "virtual" display on our rotunda windows, using print-outs of fantasy book covers (click to see the whole mural):

I also decorated the booth in 2009 and 2010. It's a little stressful getting it all done, but it's also fun and rewarding!

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Now that summer is over and the season of class visits and school assignments is upon us, it's time once again to ponder the Summer Reading Club.

Last year, I was feeling a bit jaded about the whole thing and wishing we could use something more meaningful than numbers of sign-ups and attendance at programs to measure SRC success. I also yearned for a way to focus more on books and reading, child by child, than on gimmicky toys and huge performer programs.

This spring, I wrote about how outcome measurements could be used to plan and deliver a superlative SRC, one that left us knowing exactly what kids got out of the program rather than just how many kids came to the library.

I was excited to learn that several library systems, including neighboring Santa Monica Public Library, in California initiated an experiment to measure outcomes as part of California Library Association's California Summer Reading Program. The results haven't been published yet, and I am very curious to find out how they decided on the desired outcomes to measure, how they measured the outcomes, and how they will incorporate the findings into the planning of next year's program. When I find out, I'll post it.

In the meantime, I found a helpful chapter called "Review and Reflect: Meauring Outcomes" in Rita Soltan's Summer Reading Renaissance (Libraries Unlimited, 2008). This book suggests an interesting approach to SRC, incorporating museum-like interactive "exhibits" in the children's area that change weekly and both enhance and extend the SRC theme for the summer. Whether a library uses this approach or not, Soltan's chapter on how to measure for those less tangible results like the SRC's influence on a child's reading habits and interests, success in narrowing summer reading loss, and so on is extremely useful - she includes not only a discussion of outcome-based evaluation (and to a certain extent planning), but also methods of collecting data, including informal interviews, staff logs, surveys, and focus groups. For the latter, she includes sample questions - so handy!

My own system, like most library systems, isn't there yet - we still collect the same old output measures like number of sign-ups and number of kids at programs. Still, this summer seemed a bit... fresher than summers past, and I believe this is because our tiny budget for performers and incentives meant that children's librarians had ample opportunity to get creative. And lo, they rose to the occasion with admirable innovation and good cheer.

We allow the children's librarians in our 71 branches and Central Library to use the method they think best to administer the program, and so some reward kids for visits to the library, some for number of books read (although this is very rare), some for number of minutes read, and some for pounds of books read (yes, the books are actually weighed). So far, no change from previous years - but I loved where the children's librarians went from there.

One librarian gave each kid one "vote" for each pound of books read, and they got to use these votes to decide on what was coolest, pirates or ninjas. (Our theme was "Treasured Islands" - pirates bury treasure on islands and ninjas come from the island of Japan) Ninjas won, so the End-of-Summer party had a ninja theme. Cool!

Another librarian gave each kid a ticket for every 20 minutes of reading - at the End-of-Summer party, kids could "spend" their tickets for small prizes (pencils, books, etc).

Another librarian used a variety of "incentives." For younger readers, she gave kids a piece of a puzzle for each week they participated in the program, which they colored as soon as they received it. At the end of summer they had a colorful completed puzzle. Older kids earned raffle tickets for each week of reading. And coolest of all, for each 10 books a kid read, they "earned" a paper image of a canned good. This would be colored and put up on the bulletin board - and at the end of the summer, her Friends group bought real canned goods for each of the paper ones and donated them to the LA Food Bank. Now that's reading for a good cause!

From reading their reports on the SRC, I get the feeling that many children's librarians relished the opportunity to get creative with all aspects of the program. Now that they have been inspired and refreshed, we need to be able to measure the effect of the SRC on kids, in a way that is both meaningful AND not too onerous for staff.

Hmm - we've got our work cut out for us - but luckily, I like a challenge!

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We can dread the almost certain record number of kids who will throng into the library this summer - or we can look at them and think "this antsy child will be a life-long reader and library user if I play my cards right." Please visit the ALSC Blog to read my post on the subject.

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Another cool thing about being a children's librarian? Sometimes they let you do things like this:

This is the booth we use in our Summer Reading Club. Here, kids report on their books to teen volunteers. We're using the Illinois Library Association's iRead theme this year, "Read on the Wild Side."

The booth structure is the same from year to year, but I did all the decorating this summer. It was fun to paint the animals and incorporate 3-D elements including bulgy eyes, books, leaves, flowers, and butterflies. (There is only one tissue paper flower because it turns out my talent does not lie in making tissue paper flowers.)

Usually the library staff artist decorates the booth, but she wasn't able this year. I was thrilled to step in. It ended up being a more stressful task than I'd bargained for, but I'm pretty happy with the results! I just hope everything doesn't fall off.

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You may have read my posts from last week and last year about my desire for a more meaningful, less stressful library Summer Reading Club. Well, I just discovered this older and oh-so-relevant post from What Adrienne Thinks About That.

Kindred spirits, Adrienne!

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Our summer reading club ends this weekend, which always creates a bit of anxiety for me. This is the moment of truth, for our reading club members and for us, too. For the members, did they meet the club goal in order to receive their prize? And for us, what can of worms have we opened by incentivizing reading in this way?

This is the time when we hear all kinds of excuse from parents why their child could not meet the reading goal. Said child was on vacation with the family. Said child had summer camp. Said child read very challenging books. Or, most frequently, "But my child read Harry Potter!"

There is no question that by setting a flat goal for all members (unless parents make special arrangements at the beginning of the summer), the club is not fair. Some kids are strong readers, others are not. Some kids read books way below their level, others stretch above. Some kids have five million structured activities, others have none. Yet we ask the same thing of each of them: to read eight books in ten weeks. It is not fair, in the way that very little in life is. But it's the best solution we've come up with so far.

I don't like making reading a numbers game. It doesn't seem right to say, "Read one Harry Potter book if you like, then read seven easy readers just so you can meet the goal." (Members can, of course, do so.) We praise all the members who report on their books, regardless of whether they will meet the club goal. There are small prizes along the way, too. But that final prize becomes larger than life, especially in the eyes of some parents.

That's when we end up with situations that are stressful for staff, humiliating for the children, and... I don't know what... for the freaked out parents. Fortunately, it is not anything close to a majority of parents who do this; it's really only a handful, but they make themselves memorable. They hold their child's reading log in your face (as the child stands close by, staring at the ground), inform you that little Johnny/Susie worked really, really hard to read those two books, and waits expectantly for you to say, "Yes, of course, just because you asked, it's perfectly all right if Johnny/Susie gets the same prize as the children who followed the rules and met the goal."

My supervisor directed our attention to an editorial in yesterday's New York Times, Camp Co-Dependence, about the "affluenza" infecting certain well-to-do parents. They are pushy. They are overprotective. They encourage their children to break rules, both by example and by suggestion.

That's what these particular (and again, fortunately, few) summer reading club parents are doing when they ask the rules to be broken just, apparently, so they can get a prize. If it's unhealthy for the library to incentivize reading through our goals and prizes (a matter of some debate), it's even unhealthier for parents to devalue their children's efforts by placing so much importance on the prize, over the reading experience, that they demand the rules be broken in order to get it.

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My library’s summer reading program kicked off this week, after two weeks of early registration. Monday was totally crazy, as kids poured in to sign up and start reporting their books!

I have a love/hate relationship with our summer reading clubs. Mainly I hate explaining the rules dozens of times per day. Couldn’t we just get on the emergency loudspeaker and broadcast the rules to the entire village at once? I’m also not big on the paperwork aspect: filling out registration cards and reading logs, making sure we have plenty of copies of each. Boring!

It’s more fun to talk about what I love. I love how our paperback racks go from stuffed to half-empty as soon as sign-up begins. I love walking into the stacks and seeing kids lying sprawled on the floor with a good book. And I love the kids’ online book reviews.

Kids entering fifth through ninth grade have the option of reporting their books on paper or online. We approve the reviews before they show up on our website, but we don’t correct them beyond the spelling of title and author (so the link to our library catalog will work). Some of the kids put a lot of thought and energy into the reviews, making them sweetly earnest. And, very often, they give me a good laugh.

On The Year of Secret Assignments, by Jaclyn Moriarty:
“This stitch in your side, laugh out loud novel, was incredulously entertaining.”

On The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett:
“With the garden an animal lover and a boy who never did anything love is possible!”

On Skellig, by David Almond:
“The defining question in this book is what are shoulder blades for?”*

This year, our prizes are especially nice. We’re fortunate to have a generous budget, so we’re shelling out for paperback books as prizes. The Friends of the Library are funding Borders gift cards for our oldest club. It’s very nice, from a conservation and literary value standpoint, not to be buying a bunch of made-in-China, possibly-lead-filled toys.

I’ve enjoyed reading Abby the Librarian’s posts about her library’s summer reading club prizes. Kids’ incentives include ringing a gong and putting a book plate in a library book of their choice. How fun is that?

Does anyone know other libraries who are veering from the junky toy route this summer?

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*I found this especially hilarious because Skellig is one of those books my coworker J. and I love to hate. I’ve actually read several of David Almond’s books, so obviously I have some tolerance for them (or I’m a masochist—jury’s still out). I think it’s that I love the concepts of his books, but I get bogged down in the execution. They’re just a bit too weird for me.

J. and I have a running joke about Skellig and David Almond’s other books, which I pretty much blame on this sentence from Booklist’s review of The Fire-Eaters: “For anyone who loves words, Almond's books are a pleasure.” To which I say: “ORLY? I guess I’m a big ole word-hater…”

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