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Summer Reading Program Ideas

   June 26th, 2014

Summer Reading signSince I work mostly with adult reference and tech support, I've never done much with summer reading programs. But my library is doing two different things this year that seemed like fun, so I wanted to share.

For patrons, we're doing the Fizz Boom Read program for kids, and an interesting but somewhat complex Literary Elements subject bingo for adults. Which are fine, but it's two other programs we're running that I really think are neat.

First, our Childrens Room is making Fizz Boom Read more fun by adding a little raffle incentive. When kids bring in completed log books, they get a raffle ticket. They can then use their raffle tickets to win one of 24 "prize jars." The jars were put together by library staff, and range from a jar of Legos to beads to pennies to Starburst to race cars to stuffed animals - anything that kids might like and would fit in a jar:

Summer Reading jars  
Summer Reading jars  
Summer Reading jars

At the end of the summer, a winning ticket will be pulled for each jar. I know prizes for summer reading are questionable, but I liked this because it's not exactly cutthroat head-to-head competition. Lots of reading is still rewarded with better odds, but the winners are still luck of the draw.

Secondly, our Head of Readers Services put together a "Celebrity Frankenstein" program just for staff. Out of magazine photos, she cut eyes, ears, noses, and mouths of celebrities - and then, for each book a staff person reads, they can build a celebrity Frankenstein face out of the parts:

Adult summer reading face

Bizarre, but engaging - here are all the rules.

She hung a huge sheet up in the Circ office to track everyone's progress, because making it visual makes it much more fun:

Adult summer reading board

And, because this is a staff program, we're also supposed to include notes about what we thought of the book on the back of our face. I think these notes are going to be used later on a "staff picks" display.

I know there are tons of ideas out there for summer reading programs, but I hadn't heard of either of these before. Anything that makes reading more fun is okay in my book.




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7 Responses to “Summer Reading Program Ideas”

  1. Keeley Says:

    I am definitely saving the face collage idea for my students. I work at a culinary school, but I think this would be a great end of term stress relief activity for my library, even for adults 🙂

  2. Alison Says:

    YAY, you’re back!

  3. Susan Kosharek Says:

    That is awesome. Do you have a list of what the 24 jars are? I could tell what some of them are from the pictures. My library would like to do something like this.

  4. Brian Herzog Says:

    @Keeley: Maybe this is tiresome, but for a culinary school how about Frankenstein food? Just random food items out of magazines and students can put together whatever dish they like.

    @Alison: thank you!

    @Susan: Not really, and instead of writing them all down, I instead tried to take a video of the jars. Not all are completely clear, but hopefully this helps. But really, anything fun works – although at the moment, the pennies and Starburst have the most raffle tickets.

  5. Keeley Says:

    Brian, love that idea! I actually have a whole bunch of old culinary magazines that someone donated just waiting to be used.

  6. Joyce Says:

    Great ideas! Looking at adapting the Literary Elements for next summer. Thanks!

  7. Veille hebdomadaire – 29.06.14 | Biblio Kams Says:

    […] Summer Reading Program : 1 pour les enfants, 1 pour le personnel. […]