Canva links to resources and posters
Specific Supplies
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| My staff and I at the kick-off |
We have had a LOT of traffic. In between frantically printing more of everything, I have been trying to keep track of which things we need to change next summer, how the spaces are being used, what's working, what's not working, and what we'll need to change going into the fall. Some things never change - evening programs, no matter how many people ask for them, do not do well for us and, despite my best efforts, I still need to scale back more in a number of areas. I had not anticipated being this busy.
I've been planning program details and ordering supplies the week before the programs themselves - I haven't done that in so many years I can't remember when I last did it! - and while it was necessary this summer due to the exigencies of the grant and renovation process and not knowing how things would work out in the new space, it definitely added to the stress and exhaustion.
One thing I did do this month that eased stress for me was to let go of some of the responsibility I was carrying for our shared consortium events. These performers are booked to visit every library in the consortium and I hold our events at the local middle school to coincide with summer school so my average attendance is ~200. In the past, I've really stressed myself trying to make sure everything fits the performer's needs, trying to help the teachers keep 200+ kids from kindergarten to 8th grade calm and attentive, and make sure I get things set up and taken down so I'm not interfering with the school schedule. This time I just... didn't. I told the school ahead of time what the performer needed, told the performer what to expect, and then just let things happen. It really was ok - sure, some performers weren't happy, but I couldn't have fixed those issues anyways. Mostly the school handled the set-up, the performers went with the flow, and honestly nothing was any worse than when I stressed myself out to try and control everything as well as constantly explain to the members of the public who joined that yes, it was a lot of kids, they could see the performer with a smaller audience at another library, I wasn't the person who booked the events and they weren't going to all be perfect for our venue and audience, etc.
I often have to stop and remind myself not to justify or explain things to patrons - "Thanks for your feedback, I'll consider it" is all one needs to say. I don't know that there's really an increase in people complaining that things are not perfectly suited specifically for their needs and those of their children, or of people who don't understand that I am planning and managing a department for everyone, not just for them, but it does feel like it sometimes.
In preparation for July (and August) I've canceled a couple programs - a drop-in family game night that had 0 attendees and a drop-in play group that was running concurrently with another event and had low attendance. I also adjusted the times of our STEAM activities to give us more time to clean up and reset the room, especially on Fridays. A single staff member opens the youth department Monday mornings and there's too much traffic to set up the program room. I also adjusted the teen events and volunteer opportunities for July. Some of them asked if we were going to do after hours events again and I told them no (what I SHOULD have said was "sure here's the budget, you plan it". I finally managed to put in some book orders and finish one major collection development project, but there are always more waiting.
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| My school colleague - we moved her family storytime to our community center. A good choice because she had 98 people, which certainly would not have fit in any of the youth spaces. |
Storytime Picks
Must-Haves, Classics, and Personal Favorites
Other titles I have previously reviewed
The main update to this section was that when I got rid of the holiday sections a couple years ago most of the books went here. I only put those titles into culture that talked specifically about the traditions of the holiday, not "funny Santa books". I think they have gotten better circulation here and with holiday stickers they're fairly easy to find. I don't really review holiday books and I feel that pretty much anything will circulate for the mainstream holidays, so I don't have any listed here.
Incidentally, you may notice that there's an overwhelming number of male authors in those with multiple titles. I do not believe this is because male authors are funnier...
A selection of new titles (added to this collection in 2026)
Authors with 4+ titles
I have, so far, NOT lost the Canva files for this activity.
Specific Supplies
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| Staff picture at our kick-off - our director, me, our technical services librarian and our circulation manager. |
We had a very successful - and busy - summer reading kickoff and grand reopening. Around 275 people came through the youth department. The following Monday felt even busier; I was glad I changed the schedule to come in and help because only one staff person that morning would NOT have been nearly enough! We had to do the usual weekly opening tasks, finish setting up and start summer reading, take down everything left from Saturday, and start two drop-in programs.
I moved the programs I had planned to hold in the Activity Room into the Storyroom, since the sink is on that side. Some of them got pretty messy but they mostly stayed inside the room. I can already see some things that I will do differently next year and some changes that need to be made to the spaces. It's been almost nonstop traffic, excepting a few times with severe weather, but I am hoping things will slow down over the next few weeks so we can take a breath and finally start catching up on the backlog of work from the last year of renovations. I've got almost no pictures - it simply isn't possible to take pictures while working at this pace - hopefully patrons will send me a few, especially of the kick-off.
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| I received seed donations from other libraries who have seed libraries - the kids enjoyed investigating the plants and pulling the seeds off. Some of them just wandered off with whole dead plants. I don't know what they were planning to do with them... |
Homeschool
Preschool/Kindergarten
Other
