Summer With the Library

Changes to the Summer Reading Report Process

As with last year (2023), any Principal Public Library who would like access to next years iREAD resource guide must sign up on the Microsoft form. Submitting the Summer Reading report is not a guarantee that a library will receive access to the guide.

Summer Reading Report

Demonstrate the value of your work and promote the library

• Use the results of your outcome-based planning and evaluation and outreach efforts to promote the value and importance of your summer program and your library.
• Customize an infographic template with your library’s local results to let politicians, funders, the library foundation, your supervisors, and all other stakeholders know the impact your summer program had on participants and the community.
• Tell your stakeholders how many new community members you reached out to and let them know about the great new partnerships you’ve developed. Take photos during the summer and include them when you present your results (don’t forget to get photo releases!).
• Talk about your summer program results with new patrons and any community groups you’re reaching out to. These conversations can help them see how important the library is.

Improve library service

• Use your survey data and focus group results to strengthen the programs that are going well and to change or stop doing the things that aren’t working for your community.
• Use your data as a starting point for reflective practice and for thinking and talking about why you offer summer programs, the results you want to see, and the impact you want to have.
• Use your results as benchmark data to improve on in future years. You might aim to obtain positive responses from 70% of respondents in the first year and increase the amount of positive responses each year.
• Identify strategies for maintaining relationships with the underserved community members you connected with.

Training

• Use your results and feedback from colleagues as training tools to help staff learn about outcome- and outreach-based summer reading.
• Talk with colleagues about what went well, what didn’t, and why.
• Talk about how to improve your outcome- and outreach-based summer program in the future. Don’t worry about the things that didn’t go well—any lessons you learn can be used to make the program better in the future.
• Use your results to promote outcome- and outreach-based summer reading to colleagues and demonstrate why you’re presenting summer programs in this way.

Source

This project is funded by the State of Connecticut and the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act, administered by the Connecticut State Library.