Tag Archives: ideas

Summer reading 2024 resources

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The year has just begun, but library staff are already looking toward summer reading 2024. The Collaborative Summer Library Program theme this year is “Adventure Begins at Your Library,” and libraries are excited to plan adventures of all types for their communities. I’ve put together several resources to help with public library staff’s summer planning.

Webinar: The best place to start is with the webinar I did in January 2024. This webinar covers updates about the 2024 Adventure Begins at Your Library program and highlights a variety of resources that should help you with program planning. You can view the webinar here.

Resource Website: Speaking of resources, I pulled together some of the most helpful resources for planning your summer reading program here. Included are all of the resources discussed in the above webinar, tutorials on navigating the online manual and planning summer reading, a list of adventure-themed topics to jump-start your creativity and much more.

CSLP Website and Manual: I highly recommend taking a look at the 2024 CSLP Online Manual for a ton of fully developed, ready-to-go program plans revolving around adventure. To access it, visit the CSLP website, go to “Manual Downloads,” and select “2024 Adventure Begins at Your Library!” You’ll be prompted to enter the manual code (Indiana public library staff may request the code here), and then you’ll have access to this wonderful resource!

CSLP Shop: Need shirts, decorations, incentive items and other gear with the trademarked CSLP artwork? Visit the CSLP Shop. CSLP is a nonprofit, and all of the money earned from shop sales go back into what the shop can sell next year. Just note the timelines – you must order by March 1 to receive your items by May 1.

Program Ideas: This winter, I’ve been facilitating workshops across the state about the “Adventure Begins at Your Library” theme, and at each training I collect program ideas from the participants. I post those program ideas under “Summer Program Ideas for Current Year,” so check them out if you need help with your own idea creation. You can also view program ideas from past years here. Of course, you can use most of these ideas year-round! I recommend bookmarking them in your browser for quick access.

CSLP Summer Symposium: The CSLP Summer Symposium is a national, virtual, free mini-conference which takes place in December. The third annual symposium took place on Dec. 7, 2023, and the recordings are now available! There were four one-hour sessions, each worth one LEU, that may be helpful to you; the topics were simplifying summer reading, manual highlights, promotion and outdoor programming partnerships. You can view the recordings and access the supporting materials here.

As you begin to plan for summer 2024, I recommend keeping things simple for you and your patrons. Summer reading programs can be organized in a million different ways, so do what’s best for your community, but try not to over complicate it. You’ll thank yourself once summer rolls around. Happy planning!

Submitted by Beth Yates, Indiana State Library children’s consultant.

Working from home? Here are some ideas for librarians

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While most of us are working from home during this unprecedented time, it may prove difficult to find enough work to keep librarians and library staff busy without the use of the actual physical library building and materials. Below is a curated list of ideas for librarians and library staff working from home.

  1. Read articles and books for professional development. They do not have to be specific to the world of libraries, either. Booklist, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly have all recently made their content freely accessible for everyone. Click the links to access the free journals, including online content and fully-digitized print issues. These are great tools for collection development, but there are many professional library articles as well.
  2. Plan a new program or service.
  3. Prepare for a future program. For example, cut out shapes for a future storytime.
  4. Read a book to someone – a child, an isolated elder, a family member in another town – on the phone or through Facetime or Zoom.
  5. Stock up your Goodreads “pantry”. Start a Goodreads, if you do not have one already, and stock up the shelves with books you have read, favorites lists, books you want to read, etc. Encourage your staff to do this, so that your shelves can be used for reader’s advisory with your patrons in the future. This idea originated from the RA for All blog.
  6. Participate in professional development webinars and virtual trainings. This is a great time to earn LEUs and TLEUs. ALCTS also has a substantive amount of archived webinars available here. Not all of them pertain to cataloging.
  7. Create social media posts and blog content for future use.
  8. Create instructional videos to help patrons with various services. For example, how to access digital content, how to place holds online, etc.
  9. Record book trailers or write book reviews to be used on social media or with upcoming programs.
  10. Technical services staff may be able to do some cataloging and metadata work remotely.
  11. Keep in contact with other staff members through video conferencing, using any of the following platforms: Google Hangouts, GotoMeeting, Zoom, Slack or Trello.
  12. Collection development for eBooks and digital audiobooks through Overdrive, Hoopla, etc.

Additionally, MCLS has created a handy list of tools and resources to utilize when working from home, which is available here. This is not an exhaustive list of activities. Your library may have come up with some different ideas that have been working well for you. Feel free to share those ideas with us at the Indiana State Library, and we’ll be happy to add them to our list. We would encourage you to be kind to yourself during this stressful and uncertain time. Don’t feel like you need to be watching webinars every waking minute and get completely burnt out or experience technology overload. In the words of the great Theodore Roosevelt, “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”

Submitted by Laura Jones, Northwest regional coordinator, Indiana State Library.