Tag: summer reading

Games and Goals @ the Library

I spent yesterday at the library with my husband. He runs a Pathfinder RPG for the tweens and teens once a month, usually while I’m working, I fetch snacks and print things for them because I’m almost always on the clock. Yesterday we reset the game to level one in the new Pathfinder 2.0 and started the new one shot module designed to teach players the new rules. It’s the same module we ran at home and the kids at the library jumped right in and did a better job sorting it out than the we did. ^_^

Progress is going slowing on all fronts around here. I’m not tending to my goals very well, except my reading goal which I’m still ahead in, I haven’t had time or money yet to get it together to work on things like soap or lotion making and it’s not exactly gardening season here in the North East. I’m also spending more time working on the upcoming Summer Reading Program than I’d have thought I would at this point in the year. The Cultural Council grants came through and it looks like I will get to offer both the stained glass and teen paint night workshops I wanted to. Yay! I thought I hadn’t gotten the painting grant but it was just late because of a typo or something in the council’s answer. For those 2 things I’ve just dashed off some emails to the instructors. What I’ve really been working on are my plans for other activities. I plan to run a Fairy Tale Writing Contest, plant some sort of fairy garden, offer a workshop on Wee Folk house-making, and hopefully a few other things as well. Last summer’s Book Cover Contest was a complete and utter bust and I am going to do my best to make sure the writing contest is a success. I definitely made some mistakes! (it was my first time running an SRP and my first time running a contest so it was inevitable I would mess it up pretty big time) How I will improve this year’s contest:

  • RULES: I will NOT leave things wide-open. It turns out that saying “do whatever you want!” is not the best way to inspire creativity. I will make sure there are clear guidelines for what I want submitted.
  • Examples: I will absolutely make sure I have at least 2-3 examples of what submitted tales could be like. Last year I had no examples whatsoever because I was swamped and kept putting off working on it.
  • Publicize the contest outside the library with flyers in the local middle schools and high schools, with a press release and with a very nice flyer I have been working on for ages already.
  • Prizes: I will tailor the prizes to the contest and not offer the generic one-size-fits-all prize I attached to last year’s book cover contest.

Sometimes it’s a little overwhelming learning this job as I go but I think I’m really starting to get the hang of it after a whole year. The collection is coming along. I’m starting to find areas of nonfiction to focus on that I think will interest local teens and be of help to them, I’m still working on getting more clear direction from them on what sorts of fiction they want in the collection. I put out surveys and got a far number of responses that were pretty diverse so I can only make sure I try to order a wide selection of books across all the genres at this point. The budget is such that I can’t really order more than 1 or 2 of any genre each month but I am able to supplement that with donated books sometimes. People who love books are so generous to the library, I often get books that have just come out within a few months in perfect condition, it really helps. I’m making progress in the programming I offer too. After each one I sit down and sort out what worked and what didn’t and why. I think about what I could change to make it more successful or about why it failed.

I love this job and I want to make sure my boss feels like I am worth the chance she took hiring me. In my job description it states that I am to run at least 2 programs per month, one being the Teen Advisory Board and one other of my own devising, and that attendance should ideally be 3, 4 or more teens (we are a small, rural library, larger libraries probably get a lot more participants). Starting this month, with the new year and all, I am offering every month:

  • Teen Advisory Board: pizza, small projects, and talking about what interests those who show up. I usually get 4-8 teens for this.
  • Pathfinder Role Playing game: 4 hour session, snacks provided, usually attended by 3-4 players.
  • Monthly Movie: tied to the summer reading theme, this year fairy tales, with free popcorn. My first and only screening so far had 7 attendees.
  • Book Boot Camp: a book club where we each read whatever we want within a certain genre and discuss them over cocoa and baked goods. (I’ll switch that up if I’m still running it once it gets warm out) This month will be Mystery and it happens next weekend. I believe I have 5 sign ups but we’ll see if anyone shows up.

Last year at this time I was running TAB and attempting to continue the Young Writer’s group started by my predecessor. Unfortunately the writing group fell apart in short order and it took me a few months to begin to offer my own programs. So, progress! I am definitely doing better than I was a year ago and I’m still working on it so I have to be happy with that.

Lessons from the Summer

Summer Reading is over. This year was my first attempt at running a Summer Reading Program. I became a teen librarian in December and felt like I started out several paces behind where I needed to be. It’s been pretty challenging managing the collection and running the teen programs. The first couple of months I barely managed to run the Teen Advisory Board and a craft or two. The YA writer’s group, which had run for a couple of years, was the first casualty of my inexperience. We floundered for a couple of months but couldn’t make it work. I think it might be something that could be started up again at some point.

I thought I was prepared for Summer Reading. I’d helped manage an SRP before as a Library Assistant but being in charge was a whole other thing. The theme this year was Space, more specifically it was: “A Universe of Stories.” So I made a schedule of six sci-fi movies showing one a week during Summer Reading. I also planned six craft workshops, roughly one a week as well. The movies were an abject failure. Virtually no one came to any of them. I think Friday was a bad choice of day and 6pm was an even worse choice of time. Four of my craft workshops were very successful and two were an adventure in frustration and disappointment. The two that failed were knitting and crochet. Tons of kids signed up, and they were very well attended but they were still failures. The kids did NOT learn to knit or crochet. If I ever try either again I will hire a professional instructor and block out more time. OOF. Four workshops went well, 2 of these I hired outside instructors for and 2 I ran myself.

I had a woman come in and teach some hand sewing to which I added suggestions for decorative touches that the kids were very enthusiastic about. We had some neat projects come out of that. The other instructor taught the kids to make some artistic sorts of books and the kids did amazing work. Heads down, working away, making beautiful art. I ran the Galaxy Ts and Space Mug workshops and it was fun, the kids were creative, they left with wearable art and everyone asked for more programming like that. Yay.

Next up I’ve got Harry Potter crafts for August and December, some computer coding workshops run by Holyoke Codes coming up in September and October, also in October I hope to have a sleepover at the library for Halloween. November is a bit up in the air still. I might take it easy and just have a board game night. In December I’m planning on showing the first Harry Potter movie and serving butterbeer. Then 2020 will be upon us. I have been working on it, just a little bit, for months!

Next summer’s theme is “Imagine Your Story” a fairy tale theme. This will be much more of a hit than space/sci-fi with our local teens. Learning from my mistakes this summer, I am not going to have weekly movies, instead I am going to have monthly movies starting in January. Every month I will show a fairy tale themed movie and sort of extend the theme all year long. Also starting in January will be “Book Boot Camp” where we will read a different genre every month and get together to talk about what we liked and didn’t like about it, it’s basically just to challenge the teens to read outside their comfort zones. I’m planning a fairy tale writing contest for the summer as well as a themed escape room and a series of at least five crafts. (NO KNITTING OR CROCHET)

I’ve already written a “How to Write a Fairy Tale” brochure and almost finished my SRP flyer and write ups. I just need an actual schedule of events, and approval for all of it, and I can finish writing it and start working on organizing it. I am not going to be doing anything in a state of last minute panic next summer.