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I'm traveling to the beautiful southwestern part of WI along the Mississippi and Wisconsin rivers to present a workshop on programming mightiness - and in particular 1000 Books Before Kindergarten how-to's. Below are the live links to the topics we plunged into!
While programming isn't all we do, it is certainly the most public and often the most pressured thing we do (from preparation to conflicting demands). Today we look at strategies to program smarter and more effectively; the importance of balance and how to fairly meet the many needs of our public - and our funders. Creating a zen balance between service to all ages, finding time to recharge and plan, learning to get off the hamster wheel of constant programming and program shares were just some of what we explored.
Here are the workshop resources that were shared with my colleagues:
Today's Workshop
Pinterest boardLet 1000 Books Bloom Pinterest board
Basic Resources how-to post for 1000 BooksStruckmeyer, Amanda Moss. DIY Programming and Book Displays: How to Stretch Your Programming without Stretching Your Budget and Staff. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited, 2010.
A *Few * Favorite Programming Blogs:
Jbrary (great resource list of blogs to explore!) Mel’s Desk (great resource list of blogs to explore!) Kids Library Program Mojo (for a full list of fantastic program idea blogs AND great program idea posts- this is the class crowd-sourced blog from our spring CE course and has a ton of ideas from students!)
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| Three foot snow drift in Ashland WI in front of Lake Superior 4/24/14 |
Brooke and I are excited to be up in Ashland WI, on the shores of beautiful Lake Superior, to share some preschool know-how (and learn some too!) with our colleagues from the Northern Waters Library System. We are doing a workshop on starting a 1000 Books program, creating an inexpensive early literacy area and tips on doing effective early lliteracy storytimes.
We have a
Pinterest board, All Things Preschool, full of links for you. If you don't use Pinterest, here are the highlights:
Growing Wisconsin Readers - a great blog to get insight into everything early literacy - including some great posts on early literacy centers developed in WI!
Hennepin County's slideshare with a ton of easy ideas to create inexpensive early literacy activities
1000 Books Before Kindergarten slideshare1000 Books Before Kindergarten posts
here (including a webinar),
here,
here, and
here.
Both Brooke and I are blogging links for the workshop today, so please head over to
Reading with Red for more insight into preschool power!
This month marks our
third year of doing 1000 Books Before Kindergarten in La Crosse!!
It has been an amazingly fun journey.
Over
850 children have joined the program (in our community of 51K) and
172 have reached the 1000 books goal.
So far over
257, 200 books (yes...over a quarter of a million!!) have been read to kids in our community as a result of this program.
Our program was built so it could evolve to adapt to how parents and children react to the materials and incentives. Here is how we've changed:
Materials: Our
first recording sheet asked parents to write down every title read. Then it morphed to
bookmarks with 100 seeds to mark off. It has
settled comfortably into a sheet with seeds, ten lines for favorite titles to be recorded and little literacy tips on each sheet.
Incentives: Stickers are king and queen for the kids and their most treasured part of each return visit. Kids still receive a nursery rhyme fingerpuppet at 500 and a book on completion. When we first started our focus group encouraged us to give out logo-infused incentives to parents at 300 (lanyard), 500 (window cling), 800 (fridge magnet) and 1000 (book bag) levels. We soon realized the parents didn't care. So now, the book bag is given out at sign-up and that is the most prized parental possession (as well as great advertisement for the program around the community!)
Inclusiveness: The program was designed for 1-5 year olds because we wanted the kids to realize the excitement of what was happening. But what about the babies?!?! Our new early literacy librarian Brooke Rasche came on board a year ago and immediately developed and wrote a grant to fund
Baby Book Bees to dovetail into our garden themed 1000 Books. With their first 100 books read, graduate Bees have a head start by the time they join 1000 Books. We have
44 babies in this new program!
We continue to talk the programs up, include them on our program flyers and distribute posters to daycares and schools to alert families to what's available. It has been a win-win program for our community and is one that more and more libraries are adding.
If you have added a 1000 Books Before Kindergarten program at your library, please let me know in the comments and I will make sure it gets pinned to my
1000 Books Pinterest board and get it on the
google map. And if you are thinking of adding the program, please stop at
this blog post for resources, history, research to support grant or funding requests and more!
In this series, I am looking at sustainability in our work. The first post addressed some larger issues and thoughts about costs of ongoing projects followed by a post on grant fails Today, let's consider the sustainability factor of successful grant-funded projects.So what are key components to create sustainability in grant-funded projects?
First don't write it if you can't see a way to sustain the project, keep it fresh or easily make changes to evolve it to meet changing community needs. Taking a pile of money, creating a thing and letting it languish seems to be wasteful. If, in your grant planning, you figure what you need to keep the initiative or service going beyond the grant, it means two things: the grant start-up money is well-used to kick things off and you actually need the service or initiative enough to justify putting future general budget funds into keeping it fresh.
Grant WinsHere are two examples of sustainability thinking we
used in creating and thinking about projects we wanted to continue beyond their initial grant cycle.
2nd Grade Library StarsBased on meetings with our LMC colleagues who suggested we bring in one grade level for an introduction to the library, we decided to reach out to all second graders and offer a field trip adventure at our Main Library location. The biggest expense for this was going to be transportation - only one school is in walking distance of our Youth Services Department.
We wrote a Community Foundation grant for buses for $1000 and looked at our program budget for the future to fund the project in ensuing years. If we didn't book three outside performers, we would have that money.
The tours were a huge hit with the teachers, kids and staff. The worth of them was so apparent that the schools funded the buses the second year. Now we are looking at adding seventh grade and kindergarten field trips annually and the schools have agreed to split the bus costs. This makes these visits sustainable for both organizations. And because of the impact of the visits and the positives that have resulted, if we needed to fund raise to keep them going, I believe we would have no trouble in gaining support.
Baby Book BeesWe offer our 1000 Books program to children ages 1-5 but really wanted to catch families with their children from birth. So we developed a pre-1000 BksB4K efforts asking parents to read 100 books to their baby before their first birthday. We decided that offering a little bib at sign-up with the library name and a book as a culminating incentive would be swell.
We wrote a Target grant to fund these two pieces and we received that grant - for twice the amount we asked for! This allowed us to fund the effort beyond a year and get better pricing on the bibs and books. And how will we maintain this effort beyond this grant funding? We plan to enfold this initiative into the funds for 1000 Books (that original $7000 raised). Once this money is expended, we'll look into using existing programming money to continue or do a special fundraising appeal.
I think, dear readers, you are starting to see how thread of funding for projects needs to be worked into the warp and weave of regular budgets for programs and collections if sustainability is a goal.
Next post, we'll leave special projects behind and look at the sustainability of our programs. See you then!
Part 1Part 2Part 4
Graphic courtesy of Pixabay
This in the first in a series of blog posts addressing the concept of sustainability in our planning. As a management tool, it helps us build programs and initiatives in a way that points towards success.I believe in sustainability - not just in my personal life but also in my work at the library.
When I think of projects and initiatives, a big question and discussion point as planning is done and over the course of the project is - can this be sustained? As a manager I like to see amazing efforts and accomplishments. I love to see big picture projects and ideas that push the envelope of our service to families and kids.
But I also like to see how the ideas and efforts can be maintained beyond the here and now. What are the implications - for the budget, for the staff, for continuation over the long-haul, for equitable access? Is the idea for a service or initiative one that will have longevity? Can it evolve and have a nimbleness factor that lets us adjust it for changing needs. Is this something that if we offer to one, we can offer to all?
To me questions like this that look into the future can inform our choices. They make planning deeper and result in a project or service that is more sustainable.
Let's look at an example.
1000 Books Before KindergartenMany libraries are creating these programs for preschoolers in their community. The question is often asked, what are the costs of the program? I always like to say, it's what you can afford - and can realistically maintain. When we developed our program in Menasha, figuring in the cost for a binder for each child, CDs given out at every 100 level and a book at the end brought the cost per child to $14. I could see this would mean we would need to do continual fundraising to maintain this if the program proved popular.
It made me uncomfortable not to have a secure source of funds in place and to have such a high cost per child in terms of sustainability. The program has great worth and, philosophically, I wanted to offer it for as long as we could to involve kids for many years. The pressure of continual fundraising and grant-writing to maintain a project adds stress and uncertainty. I didn't want to repeat that feeling.
When we developed the program in here La Crosse, we had a goal of 1000 kids involved over the life of the program. We worked hard and raised $7000 dollars and figured the cost per child at $6 for stickers, book bag, finger puppet and book. We now have 750 kids in the program after two and a half years and still have a substantial cushion of funds to go well beyond our original projection (not all families who start will continue). I believe based on current and projected expenditures, our original funding remains secure for at least six years. By that time the program may naturally sunset or we can reach out again to generate donor-funding. This passes the sustainability test in my mind.
Our materials have also met that test. We have evolved our recording sheets and incentives to reflect participant feedback. It has helped us save money and still provide an amazing experience for families. We have not had to stay static and we look forward to more tweaks in the future.
In the next blog posts, I'll look at grant-funded projects and their pitfalls
- or triumphs
.Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Graphic courtesy of Pixabay
I will be presenting a webinar on this cool literacy initiative - it's origins, examples of programs from around Wisconsin, how to create and budget for a program like this and plenty of time for input from webinar participants - whether bragging up your efforts or asking questions about how it all works in case you are thinking of starting this initiative at your library.
Details:
Tuesday, May 14
9:00 -10:00 am CST
Sponsored by South Central Library System (WI) CE gurus
Hope to see some of you there!
I love the organic feel of how
1000 Books Before Kindergarten programs have spread. Started a few years ago in Bremen IN by the mighty Sandy Krost, it has popped up here, there and everywhere around the country. Today, a colleague,
Kathleen Larson at From the Short Stacks, posted my all-time favorite working graphic - a google doc map of places where 1000 Books Before Kindergarten programs have been developed.
Beth Crist of the Colorado State Library produced an
excellent summary of what the program is about along with some great links. She also recently hosted a webinar on 1000 Bks B4K with Sandy. My colleague, Sara Bryce did an
outstanding job of gathering research to buttress requests for grants, funds and convincing administration on the worth of programs like this at her blog B
ryce Don't Play. I continue to pin programs on my
Let 1000 Books Bloom Pinterest board.
While every program has a different feel and approach and theme, every program is alike in encouraging parents to read widely and muchly to their preschooler. Parents are always pleasantly surprised at how easy and fun the process is. And kids are proud of their achievements.
We have really enjoyed this stealth program here at our library. Kids and parents continue to participate as we near our 2nd anniversary. The program has resulted in multiple return visits and fun interactions with kids and parents. We continue to improve on it - going from writing titles on 8"x11" sheets to bookmarks with 100 seeds to mark off books read; thinking about decreasing prizes and sticking to stickers and working to keep it publicized for new families coming in.
Our state also recently added a category in their annual report request that allows libraries to report out these statistics
for stealth and DIY programs - a sea-change for us since only active program stats and SLP registrations were previously gathered on those reports.
For other links to 1000 Books posts I've done, stop
here,
here, and
here. And as always, to find samples of our materials, check out our
Winding Rivers Library System Youth website and scroll down towards the bottom of the page!
There was question on the alsc-l and
pubyac listservs recently about the originator of
1000 Books Before Kindergarten programs in libraries. Although I have been involved in these programs, blogged about them and promoted them, it wasn't me.
The good folks at
Bremen Public Library in Indiana headed up by
Sandra Krost were the developers of the concept. Inspired by
Mem Fox's Reading Magic, Sandra designed the program with zoo animals as a theme. She willingly shared her expertise with us while I was at
Menasha WI Public Library and project coordinator Ann Hardginski developed that program based on the Very Hungry Caterpillar. When I moved to
La Crosse WI PL, we started a program here with a flower/seed theme. And when Ann moved on to become Head of Youth Services at
Kimberly-Little Chute (WI) Library she started an "Old MacDonald" themed program.
Since the time that Bremen PL shared their cool effort on pubyac, programs like this have been popping up at libraries all over the country. It is an amazing stealth program that keeps parents heavily involved in nurturing their child's early literacy. It also encourages frequent visits to the library that help promote the formation of the well-beloved "library habit". And 1000 Book programs are awesome at boosting circulation since parents need many books to keep their own and their child's interest up!
Want a glimpse at how-to's and other libraries' websites that run these programs? Click on, my friends!
Willmar (MN) PLRock Rapids (IA ) PLJay Co (IN) PLFond du Lac (WI) PLGoshen (IN) PLWells Co (CO) PLGreat River (MN) Regional LibraryHave you started a 1000 Books Before Kindergarten program at your library? Share with me in comments for others to discover. And I'll be pinning it on my
1000 Books Pinterest board too!
Throughout this week, our business manager has been putting together our cir and program for our state's annual report. Today she reported out the final piece.
Holy smokies, my friends, be sure to sit down because I am about to blow you away.
- We offered 39% fewer traditional children's programs in 2011 than in 2010
- We had 32% fewer attendees at our children's programs.
- Our circulation of children's materials increased 10%!!!!
- Our circulation of children's print materials increased 15%!!!
What?!?!?!! How'd that happen!?!?!?!
We didn't institute a big weeding project; we struggled with a rather messy transition to a new ILS that had patrons often frustrated; and we cut the number of programs.
I think it is due to three initiatives we introduced this year. Each of these encourages check-outs and return visits to the library and are part of our Stealth (or passive) programs we developed:
Thinking outside the box and looking for ways to stretch our staff and resources but still encourage our families to return and use our services frequently made the difference.
I love it when our statistics back up the leaps of faith in changing services that we made.
Now what will we start this year.....
Image: 'What????' http://www.flickr.com/photos/33501059@N02/4059486159
It's that time of year when we look back at the previous year and report out to our board and community about the changes we made. Our team keeps an ongoing list during the year of new events, initiatives, partnerships and programs that have been significant - things that have had an impact beyond our usual work of collection development, desk work and programming.
This year we surprised even ourselves. Without looking at circulation or programming stats, here's the big changes we made.
Major New Initiatives
· Play Learn Read children's literacycenter developed with constantly changing content · Rubber Ducky Club, summer readingclub for kids birth-35 months successfully debuted · &nb
Marge, I hope this event will be archived since I have a conflicting playgroup. I am very interested in this program.
I really want to go to this because I hope to start this program at my library. Unfortunately, I have a school visit during that time. Will this be archived for later viewing?
I'll include the archived link here when it gets posted in the coming days/weeks after the webinar!
Is this webinar just for Wisconsin librarians, or can those of us across the border in Illinois attend too?
Anyone can come! I checked...just register at the link.
Yep it will be archived. I'll share the link here when it's up.
AWESOME! That was going to be my question, too. We're thinking about starting this (maybe in the fall??? Or maybe in January....), but we've got school visits that morning. Will definitely be checking out the archived webinar and sharing with my staff!!