You Say You want an Evolution

If the old adage, "If at first you don't succeed - try, try again" has any legs, than our class guest blogger, Jennifer Regan, a children's librarian in Illinois, is the perfect person to exemplify it. Here she breaks down how she solved and solved for the equation of success:

A few years ago a co-worker and I wrote a grant for Tot Spot, an early literacy program focused on parent and child play.  We were very excited to receive the grant money and used it to buy books, toys, games, flannel boards and puppets centered around ten different themes.  Tot Spot started out as a once a month, "open-house" style program on Saturday.  We supplied parents with a checklist for each themed station and supplied other parent resources (books and handouts) on early literacy.  At first, Tot Spot was hugely popular and we had many patrons coming to play with their little ones.  

After about six months, the numbers dwindled and we were left wondering what had happened.  We continued to set up the program--which was A LOT of work--clearing out the activity room, setting up all the stations and signage, then cleaning up and dragging the bins back to the storage closet.  I finally decided to close up shop.

As a new program year started, I had the idea to give it another try and have Tot Spot open immediately following our half-hour storytime on Monday evenings--again, once a month on the last Monday of the month.  This worked out OK, but it was still a crazy amount of work for the six kids who came to Storytime.  Also, the kids were so excited when it was Tot Spot night, that they didn't care about the book or craft for Storytime.  Some moms felt it was too late to stay after storytime to play, and inevitably we would have a meltdown from a child who wanted to stay.  Again, Tot Spot got "shelved."

I felt is was a terrible waste of resources to have the wonderful Tot Spot materials packed in a closet.  I found space in the Children's Department (thanks to the support of my director who agreed to move an outdated "kids" computer that rarely worked!) and our Early Literacy Tot Spot was born!  I only set up two themed stations at a time and keep them up for about 4 - 6 weeks.  The kids are always excited to see what the next stations will be.  

The response has been terrific!  We reach many more children by having the stations up all the time.  We also have a rack of early literacy handouts nearby for parents to read while the kids play.  It's a lot less work for us, because it's only two stations at a time and they are easy to keep tidy. Best of all, it's a program that virtually runs itself!

Re-creating a Program for Success

Image Source

It's OK. Go ahead. Admit it.  We all experience a program that seems to have hit a dead end. People stop coming, staff time seems wasted and it looks like its time to say adios. Or is it?

Our student librarians discussed how they evolved programs and breathed new life into them with a few simple changes:

- For over a year, we had a weekly afterschool program for K-5th called Reading Academy.  The program rotated between the librarians and we would choose a book to read and then do activities based on the book.  It was a flop.  The number continued to dwindle (by the end we would only have 2 kids per program) and we were never excited about it.  Then, we got an amazing reference book: "After-School Clubs for Kids: Thematic Programming to Encourage Reading" by Lisa Shaia and decided to rebrand.  We now have the After School Crew which has monthly themes like Monster Mash and Mad Scientist.  We've found it has really revitalized us as librarians because it's a lot easier to come up with a cool activity based on the theme and then the book instead of the other way around.  The patrons seem to love it too as we've had completely filled programs and the numbers have barely dwindled.  My favorite thing is that on the very first program for it, I went around our room to encourage families to come and a family I had never seen before decided to attend.  They have now come back every week for the last month because they like the program so much!

- We have been planning more STEM and STEAM programs.  The children are very interested in science; however, we seem to have trouble filling a program at a certain time of day.  Our solution has been to set up hand-on self directed tables. The families seem to really enjoy these. Many times the parent or grandparent has the opportunity to teach something new and it becomes something of a family event.  Right now we have a circuit board set up and the children test different items to try and complete the circuit.  This allows many more families to experience the learning than we could attract to a single program. 

- I run the Mock Awards for our library system and I had heard from a few librarians they didn't feel comfortable attending. I probed them and found out they didn't like getting up in front of the group to discuss the books' merits. Since I am a very outgoing person, this never would have occurred to me as a barrier to attending!

So I took this feedback to heart and I switched up the way we shared our opinions about the Mock books this year. We had tables of 5 and each table had a set amount of time to discuss the Caldecott, Printz and Newbery. Each small group had a Table Captain and this person summarized the small groups' opinions and shared it with the larger group. A few of the small group members chimed in if the Table Captain left something important out, or they thought of something else to add.

A few people have thanked me since the Mock awards to say they really liked this format because A) they were more comfortable attending because they didn't have to get up and speak in front of a large group and B) we ended on time because the table members weren't spending time discussing who was going to stand up and talk about each nominated book! 

- We changed our program to a timed reading recording for our summer reading over the previous counting number  of books. Once we did this a few years ago we saw many more participating throughout the summer and completing more reading records. It gave kids a chance to spend time reading something they really wanted to- say one of the Harry Potter books and not feel they had to read a bunch of books to complete the reading record. A couple years after we switched to that, we added a super reader booklet for those who completed their reading time- a fun booklet of various types of reading. For the reward for that booklet completion we had a board game/pizza party program at the end of the summer for those kids ( and also invted our summer teen volunteers to the party).

The Best Planning is Proactive

In thinking about how to balance the programs we offer, the class was asked to share an example of how they changed a program, grew it or adapted it to create a better balance. This is one in a series of posts in which class participants responded to the prompt: Share an example of a way you evolved a program that led to a more successful outcome.

Kristine from Reedsburg WI looks at changes coming down the pike and starts adapting programs and schedules right away.

I try to stay connected with the community and be proactive to changes than reactive. 

 

For example, when our school district implemented the 4K program, I added a Friday Morning Storytime to accomodate families with 4 and 5 year olds because 4K is Monday through Thursday. 

 

Our school board just adopted the school calendar for next year and there will be early release every Friday.  I have started the planning for how the Library can program for our school age kids on Friday afternoons.

We started our Homeschooling program because of the growing number of homeschooled families.

Mix-up to Mash-up

In thinking about how to balance the programs we offer, the class was asked to share an example of how they changed a program, grew it or adapted it to create a better balance. This is one in a series of posts in which class participants responded to the prompt: Share an example of a way you evolved a program that led to a more successful outcome. 

Teresa from Illinois had a magical mixed-up moment that turned into an opportunity that grew.

When I started working at the library, Children’s Book Week was a big deal. Children’s books were only purchased in spring and fall. (Don’t know why.) Anyway, the fall books were always saved back for Book Week. Teachers brought their elementary classes (usually walking, but sometimes by bus) to the library to listen to book talks or a story, look at the new books, and get applications for library cards.

A scheduling mistake started the evolution. One day a kindergarten and a fourth grade showed up at almost the same time. So we had the 4th graders each find a kindergartener to read to. It worked. There were pairs spread out all over the children’s room. The younger ones loved being read to; the older kids felt like superstars.

The next year we took it a step farther and invited adult volunteers to come read to classes during Book Week – not to large groups, but to 2, 3, or 4 children. And the fourth grade class purposely overlapped with the kindergarten.

A few years later, the schools cut the number of bus trips. The next evolution took our show on the road. Two librarians, several canvas bags full of books, and a day in each elementary school, plus one afternoon at the library for homeschoolers. By the end of the week, we had seen over 1,000 kids - nearly every elementary student in town.

It's a Fine Day for a Fair

In thinking about how to balance the programs we offer, the class was asked to share an example of how they changed a program, grew it or adapted it to create a better balance. This is one in a series of posts in which class participants responded to the prompt: Share an example of a way you evolved a program that led to a more successful outcome.

Luci started out with a child safety fair featuring vehicles and each year after it....grew!

As part of our SLP, we started having a child safety fair in 2010. It was held for 75 minutes one afternoon in the beginning of August.  We had a fire engine,  ambulance, police car, and hospital representatives first year. We added a school bus and free bottled water the second year.

I don't remember what we all changed the third year but we invited the humane society to join us. For the fourth year (2013), our safety fair evolved into a 2-hour evening event. I added wellness to the theme and invited organizations like the YMCA, Headstart, Birth to Three, the county health department,  the county sheriff's department,  a school crossing guard, Geoffrey the Giraffe from Toys 'R Us, and more. 

We also had a "bandage brigade" where we accepted boxes of band-aids with designs for children at the library throughout June and July with the idea that if not every child, at least every family attending the safety fair would receive a box of band-aids. I believe we had about 140 boxes donated, many by our SLP families. We had wonderful donated door prizes like bicycle helmets,  first aid kits, and car booster seats! 

While we would have between 60 and 75 people attending our afternoon fairs, we estimated that there were approximately 300 in attendance at last year's safety fair. We look forward to having another successful safety fair this August with some additions,  such as more on bicycle safety along with ATV and motorcycle safety and a simple hot dog supper which would serve as a fundraiser for the library.  

This might not be a program that a library in a larger community would offer its residents but in a small community like ours, this was a significant event enjoyed and appreciated by many people.  Oh, I should say, except for staffing,  the only cost was $6.95 for the purchase of Mr. Yuk stickers. Our library system designs and prints up to 100 copies of posters and fliers free of charge to the local library and everything else was donated.

Volunteers Are Free, Right?

In thinking about how to balance the programs we offer, the class was asked to share an example of how they changed a program, grew it or adapted it to create a better balance. This is one in a series of posts in which class participants responded to the prompt: Share an example of a way you evolved a program that led to a more successful outcome.

Erin, who works at the Herrick District Library (MI) and tweets at @erinisinire shares what happened when a great idea for a program run primarily by volunteers is seen for what it is: wildly expensive in terms of staff time.

For the past 6 or 7 years we've had a wildly popular SRP called "Reading Buddies." Young readers (1st-5th grade) were paired with a trained-by-us volunteer (6th grade and up) to read together in the library for one hour once a week for 8 weeks. We offered 3 sessions of 15 readers/buddies each and asked that all participants be able to commit to at least 6 of the weeks (accounting for summer vacations, camps, etc). 

Sounds lovely, right? These 90 people showing up faithfully each week to read together?

It was a scheduling and staff nightmare. 

Shockingly, some people can be wildly unreliable! If we were lucky, we'd get a call in advanced letting us know they were unable to make it. Frequently, we'd have no shows. It was horrible having to tell a volunteer we were sorry to have wasted their time, but their reader was a no-show. It was horrible having a kid show up excited to participate only to have their volunteer not be there. Staff were usually asked to fill in. We offered the program at both the branch and the main library. Our branch is TINY. That many people showing up at once to read together was disruptive to the other patrons who were there to use the library. TWO staff members were assigned to "run" each session-hand out progress folders to the kids, fill in as older buddies or find other staff to fill in, help with readers advisory, and wander around the department to make sure (especially the teen volunteers) were on track and actually reading and not messing around.

This was obviously a wildly expensive program that needed to change in order to survive.

We decided to offer a session this winter as a "pilot" program. Instead of looking to teens for this, we asked our Literacy Heroes (volunteer adults who go through a 3 hour training program by us and head out to various organizations and schools in the area to read with kids or offer small storytimes at other organizations-this is another program we're about to "evolve!") if they'd be interested. We had 15 kids and 15 volunteers sign up in advance. We asked EVERYONE to attend one meeting at a designated time-they were informed this was a mandatory meeting for participation at sign up-so we could match up buddies and readers. They were also informed in advance that they would be responsible for determining all future hourly meeting times AT THE LIBRARY. We strongly urged them to exchange contact information in case they needed to cancel. 

8 volunteers and 8 kids/parents showed up for the meeting. We matched them up and away they went. All folders are held at the reference desk and are accessible to each group whenever they come in to read together. Staff on desk are responsible for assisting with readers advisory if necessary. No more scrambling, no more staff intervention, no more 30 extra people in the department trying to read together at the same time. 

We are still learning from this as the program is still going on. We have yet to hear that it's not working. There were communication problems on our end from the onset and those have been corrected. For SRP this year we've already decided to drop the readers ages (1st-3rd) and we will still allow teens to participate. 

Here's hoping our evolution will work!

Storytime Cell Phone Chaos

In thinking about how to balance the programs we offer, the class was asked to share an example of how they changed a program, grew it or adapted it to create a better balance. This is one in a series of posts in which class participants responded to the prompt: Share an example of a way you evolved a program that led to a more successful outcome.

Lori from Indiana had cell-phone loving parents with their kids running amok in storytime. It was time for a change.

I don't know if anyone else has experienced this:  Parents who don't  seem to want to sit with their kids during story time.

We had quite the problem with this new crop of parents.  We have a very large meeting room, and most of the parents would sit as far away as they could from their kids.  They would then proceed to talk among themselves, text, or talk on their cells.  This, naturally, led to their little angels running amok!  They would then be flabbergasted if we had to ask them to sit with their child.  Sort of a "How dare you!"

Took us long enough, but this is what we did:  We closed the divider in the room.  The crafts were set up on the other side of the wall, so no chairs for them to use.  (We do have ready access to chairs if a parent/grandparent is in need of one).  We bought alphabet carpet squares. 

We began our new procedure without warning or calling attention to the changes.  When they arrived (after check-in and name tags), we took them to the "second door."  OOOOOHHHHH.  We handed a carpet square to each child with the request to find a spot for your carpet and you mom/etc., and have a seat on the carpet.  Granted, some went to the back (divider wall), but the kid stayed with them.  And the carpet squares kept the kids seated, for the most part, until it was time for activities.

We end the program each week with a craft, so we open the divider a bit and everyone goes in for the craft.  Story time has never ran so smoothly!

Graphic courtesy of Pixabay

ECRR Makes It... Better!

In thinking about how to balance the programs we offer, the class was asked to share an example of how they changed a program, grew it or adapted it to create a better balance. This is one in a series of posts in which class participants responded to the prompt: Share an example of a way you evolved a program that led to a more successful outcome. 

Melendra, who works for the North Central Kansas Library System (NCKLS) and is passionate about early literacy, found that introducing ECRR into storytimes made a huge difference.

I'm not sure that I've stayed in any one place long enough to have caused and then reaped the benefits of a true evolution of a program. I've had a hand in starting, or encouraging, a number of changes to existing programs, but I've not stayed long enough to judge their success.

One was the addition of Every child Ready to Read into storytimes at the first library where I worked. I attended ECRR training. My excitement about the program caused the children's manager to ask me to train the other children's librarians in ECRR and to plan all the storytimes for the next semester incorporating one ECRR skill into each storytime. Adding a discussion of the ECRR skills to each storytime was a big change for some of the librarians. The idea of addressing the parents at all was intimidating to many. 

During the spring semester that followed, the storytime staff integrated ECRR into all of the storytimes. The extra asides to the parents didn't lose the children's attention, and many of the parents started asking about the literacy skills. We added an ECRR tip to each of our storytime fliers, as well as an activity that related to the skill we'd highlighted in storytime. 

My family moved in the middle of the summer semester, but at that point, the seeds had been planted and the staff was committed to ECRR in storytime.

All.The.Things. Gack!

In thinking about how to balance the programs we offer, the class was asked to share an example of how they changed a program, grew it or adapted it to create a better balance. This is one in a series of posts in which class participants responded to the prompt: Share an example of a way you evolved a program that led to a more successful outcome.

Michelle wrote about what it was like to have new programming responsibilities with built-in expectations and decisions she made to create balance in her programming.

I'm lucky that I do programming primarily for 0-5 year olds. However, last year due to staff turnover, I was given K-6 programs until another staff member could be hired. It was HARD to balance everything while doing all of the other things I was supposed to be doing. I was trying to do all the programs as my predecessors had done, and on top of this, I was a newly hired staff person as well! It was not an awesome situation.

Looking back, I think I could have saved myself much anguish if I would have done programs my own way, instead of trying to do things the way others had done. I was still unsure of myself and my programming at the time and did what seemed to be the easiest way to do things. I got burnt out quickly and told the newly hired person that I couldn't keep it up. She told the director and they promptly cancelled the K-6 programs for the rest of the spring. I was upset, simply because I didn't want the kids to go without programs, and I didn't want to be the root cause of the cancellations!

After more burnout during SRP, I realized that I couldn't go on like I was. I cut out a couple different programs, revamped storytimes, and made what was left better. I now am the "assistant" during our homeschool programs, in which I do minimal planning (one activity is mine to plan, usually the craft portion). I plan the "family" programs, which are once a month and are larger scale than storytime or homeschool programs. Many feature outside entertainers or are more of a party atmosphere, which is much easier to plan for catering to large groups.

As far as strategies go, my main strategy now is "Leave good enough alone!" I don't overplan or overthink what I'm doing. I keep things age-appropriate, streamline, and make programs FUN. I previously thought I should act as a teacher and force kids and caregivers to learn something. Thank goodness I snapped out of it and realized that kids will learn through fun and that I don't have to force anyone to play!

Re-Thinking SLP

In thinking about how to balance the programs we offer, the class was asked to share an example of how they changed a program, grew it or adapted it to create a better balance. This is one in a series of posts in which class participants responded to the prompt: Share an example of a way you evolved a program that led to a more successful outcome.

Tara has just started doing SLPs and wanted to morph it from everyone just reading into something that fit the needs and interests of different age groups..

When I started the program was set up so all kids who could read on their own up to age 18 were able to read as much as they wanted and receive "stuff" at the end of 6 weeks. They kept track of their progress on sheets from the manual and used coordinating stickers. I decided that I wanted there to be different levels to the SRP. So I began making my own sheets for how the kids could keep track of their reading. 

Birth to age 5 kids were given a sheet with the option of reading or doing a list of activities. After the kids completed so many activities or readings, they could bring the sheet in to receive a small prize (prizes included pencils, notepads, small stuffed animals, etc;  we also had coupons donated by businesses if the parents want them to have them - our local businesses have been great supporters). After they completed an entire sheet of them, they could bring it in to receive a new book. I had purchased books that were leveled readers that they could choose from or board books for the littlest. 

The 6- 11 year olds completed their reading logs based on the twenty minute a day guideline with four stopping points for them to receive prizes. They too received new books when they reached the end. All the children in both age groups that completed the required goal by the end of the program had their names put in for a drawing for each age group to win a grand prize. Last year we were able to give away movie tickets, a free meal to Culver's, a gift card to Walmart to the winners. 

The teen group was 12 & up and they were challenged to read against each other -  the top two who read the most had their names put in for a grand prize and a runner up prize. Teens could also win weekly if they wrote book reviews. All of it seemed to do ok, but some griped because compared to previous years they had to work a bit more for prizes. I really wanted to have them do things that support reading and earn prizes that are more than plastic.

This year we are actually thinking of changing the teens to do a bingo board instead and doing more with facebook, twitter, and other social media to get teens to participate. Whether it was more successful I'm not sure since last year was my first SRP year I'll have to wait and see how it compares to this year. 

Graphic courtesy of the Collaborative Summer Library Program