 Good morning and welcome to this week's edition of Encompass Live. I am your host, Krista Porter here at the Nebraska Library Commission. Encompass Live is the Commission's weekly webinar series where we cover a variety of topics that may be of interest to libraries. We broadcast the show live every Wednesday morning at 10 a.m. Central Time. But if you're on Wednesday, every Wednesday morning at 10 a.m. Central Time, but if you're unable to join us on Wednesdays, that's okay. We do record the show as we are doing today and it will be made available to you to watch later at your convenience. And I'll show you at the end of today's show where you can access all of our show archives. Both the live show and the recordings are free and open to anyone to watch. So please do share with your friends, family, neighbors, colleagues, anyone you think might be interested with any of the topics we have on the show. But for those of you not from Nebraska, the Nebraska Library Commission is the state agency for libraries. So similar to your state library, so we provide services and resources and training and grants and all sorts of things to all types of libraries in the state. So you'll find shows on Encompass Live for all types of libraries. Public, academic, K-12, corrections, museums, archives, et cetera, et cetera. We do book reviews, interviews, many training sessions, demos of services and products, all sorts of things. We have Nebraska Library Commission staff that sometimes do presentations, but we also bring in guest speakers, which is what we have today. Chelsea Price is joining us today. Good morning, Chelsea. She's just next door to us in Iowa. And this is a presentation actually that was originally supposed to be at our Big Talk from Small Libraries online conference. This is a conference we do every year. It's 2012. It's the very last Friday of February. And it's all presentations are from small libraries. Libraries with an FTE or population served of 10,000 or less. But Chelsea was unable to join us in the last minute that day. So we weren't able to have her on the conference, but we were lucky enough that we were able to reschedule and have her join us here and then come as live to still do a presentation and share with us a shake up summer reading. I know all of us are definitely have on the brain right now. So Chelsea, go ahead, take it away and tell us how we can do this. Awesome. Thank you so much, Krista. Just making sure you guys can see my screen, right, Krista? Yep. I see your screen. Your slides are full screen. Your camera's up. It sounds good. Everything looks good. Awesome. Thank you. So yes, my name is Chelsea Pleist. I am the director of the Missouri Public Library in Missouri, Iowa. I have been the director there for actually, it's been nine years, almost to the day, which is just wild to think about nine years. I do not. I want to start off by saying I don't have a library science degree. I actually have a degree in psychology. But I guess you can say that librarianship is in my blood. My mom was also the director of a very small library when I was growing up. So I would go there after school and help her, you know, shelf books and answered phones. Were you going to say something, Krista? No, I'll just say nice. Yeah. And then my grandma, my mom's mom was a school librarian. She worked until she retired at 80 years old. So I kind of grew up in and around libraries. It's a job where I felt very comfortable ever since the beginning. It's felt like a really good fit for me. This is a picture of me in my little library. And then my book, the book that I published in October of 2020, which, as you remember, was not a great time to publish a book on, you know, mostly in-person programming when most of us weren't doing much in person programming. But it is what it is. So I'm going to be coming at this from the perspective of a small library with a small budget, because that's all I know. But I'm hoping that the tips and ideas that I share here can apply to libraries of any size, of any size budget. I'm also going to be talking mostly about youth programming. That really is the bread and butter of the Missouri Library. That's that's the majority of the programming that we do. And I do I have lots of stuff to squeeze into a small amount of time. So my apologies, if I talk fast, if you have questions on anything, you can always email me after the session. And then I also want to say before we get into it, I'm going to be talking the just a tiny bit about the summer reading themes. I'm not going to get too much into theme specific ideas, because I know so many of us choose to do different themes. So a little bit about Missouri, it's a mile and a half, a very small town, a farming, a little tiny farming town. We have a population of about 220 people. We don't have a school anymore, it closed in the early 80s. So now the nearest school in our district is about 25 minutes away. We don't have a gas station, there's no community center or anything. There's no there's not even a bank anymore. There's a fire station, there's a church, there is a bar, of course, there's got to be a bar and then there's my little library. So the library serves as the only town meeting space, the only source of free Wi Fi and really the only source of free entertainment in town. The other sources of entertainment, grocery store, movie theater, anything like that is at least 15 minutes away. I am lucky enough to have a two person staff. So it's me and my library assistant. And she is incredibly helpful. I couldn't survive without her. So if we have any solo librarians out there, I give you so many props. And I also do want to say myself and a Vermont librarian named Brie Drapa, we host a solo out a solo ish librarians happy hour through our soul. So you can register through our soul for that we meet on the first Thursday of every month at six o'clock central. Just to, you know, talk ideas, commiserate with one another, all the problems that solo or solo ish librarians have to face. So feel free to join us. You don't have to be an arsenal member. And then we are just one small room. We don't have any separate meeting rooms, no separate children's room. It's just, it's just that little building that you see there. We are open only 20 hours a week. And I am allowed only 20 hours a week paid. So unless I want to volunteer my time, which I do not. My that's where my library assistant comes in, in really handy, she can work some of those open hours so I can get more done. As you can imagine, we have a very small budget with very little wiggle room to be perfectly candid. Our annual budget is $30,000 a year. Yes, that includes pay. That includes the employee pay and all materials and everything. So I really have to think outside of the box when it comes to programming since we can't afford to hire any of those, you know, pricey performers and whatever. So really quickly, we're going to run through, I don't know, you know, you all might be using no theme at all, you might be using your own theme. But the main themes are read renew repeat. I believe that's the I reads theme. That's what the most of the state of Iowa is using for their summer reading theme, or adventure begins at your library, which I believe is the CSLP theme. So I love a good theme, but sometimes, if the theme just doesn't interest me a lot, I try to think outside of the box and think of think of some things that are still connected to the theme, but people might not think of when they hear the theme. So like read renew repeat, think of not just conservation, but maybe you could do a Pinterest party using recycled books or recycled materials. You could do a recycled art show, you could do things like composting classes, you could have the nature center present on conservation, you could do someone presenting on green cleaning supplies, you could do a craft supply shop, a fix it fair. One of my colleagues has done this at another library, which is when you invite the community to bring in their broken, you know, small appliances like radios or clocks or toasters and have handy local handymen come in to see if they can help fix and teach them how to fix their small appliances. My co-host for the Happy Hour Bree also does a take it apart program where people bring in their broken electronic toys or appliances they were going to throw in the garbage, and the kids take them apart to see how they work. So they just have a tarp full of like screwdrivers and these little parts from these electronic toys and the kids really enjoy it. So not just princes or princesses when it comes to the adventure begins, but you could think about adventures in nature, things like outdoor scavenger hunts, hunting for rocks and then paintings of rocks, geocaching, making your own treasure maps using local landmarks around your town. You could do choose your own adventure. Remember those books you could do kids could create their own adventure book. They could do a book club reading one of those together. They have some really great ideas for virtual or passive choose your own adventure programs online if you search on Pinterest and you could do readers advisory, like choose your own adventure, like, you know, do you like stories about nature? If yes, then go here. Things like that travel in terms of adventure, amazing race, kind of the same thing as choose your own adventure. There's a lot of ideas online. And of course, just trying new things that can be adventurous, eat foods outside of your culture, try books outside of your comfort zone, outside of your culture, encounter new experiences you might never have stumbled on. If they hadn't been at your library, things like we've done dissecting owl pellets, the kids love that. We've done trying astronaut fun. I've seen other libraries try bug eating with like the court, you can buy like cricket flower online and bake with it. That's definitely adventurous, maybe a little too adventurous for me. But the point is just try to think outside of the box. If you're not super pumped with the the marketing of the theme that your library is using or the programs it offers, try to think outside of the box. So why have a summer reading program? It can seem like as librarians, particularly youth librarians, like we're either constantly getting ready for or recovering from summer reading, right? By the way, I'm using summer reading as a catch all term. I know not all of us call it our summer reading program. So I'm just using that as a catch all summer reading program. I, in my opinion, has become a little bit of a circus. We tend to blow the majority of our programming budget on this one season of the year. And sometimes to be honest, I've questioned if all of this stress is really worth it. But we all know there are definite benefits to having a summer reading program in some form. So let's talk about those, along with a few programs that I've had success with at my own library. So summer reading programs fight the summer slide. You know, kids who aren't learning or reading on a regular basis throughout the summer are at a disadvantage when they come back to school in the fall. And summer reading fights really hard to prevent that summer learning loss. It gets kids excited about the library. The summer reading program is a really awesome gateway into the library for newcomers, for new visitors, who may not even know that you offer awesome free programs like this throughout the entire year. It also helps stimulate the desire to read in kids. My opinion is that if I can turn even one non-reader or reluctant reader into a reader through my summer reading program, then I've done my job, even one. That's enough for me. So these pictures from left to right, that is our, we've done a couple read to dogs or cats programs. The kids always love it. Anything with wild, with, not with wild animals, just with animals. They love it so much. And it helps the kids, it really does help them become less nervous when they're reading aloud. The middle photo, that is our slime making program. My kids love anything messy, messy art related. And with the slime, I do suggest doing that outside. We had a very nasty slime in carpet incident that was not fun to try and clean up. So we did it outside on the sidewalk and then it just hosed it down afterward. And honestly, with the slime, you can still just put the ingredients out, you know, and the kids know what to do. Of course, glue, things like glue, shaving cream, cornstarch, contact solution, and they know, they know what to do. Anything messy, I highly recommend for kids. And then the picture on the right is a group of siblings reading together. I have this antique cloth bathtub in my library. I just remembered when I was in first grade, my first grade teacher had a tub like this. And we would all fight over who got to read in the bathtub. So I wanted to include it in my library. And it's full of pillows and blankets and stuff. And the kids love to get in there and read. I've seen that come up in a lot of libraries pictures recently. Oh, really? It's interesting. I guess lots of people are thinking about that. Yeah, the kids, one thing that was funny when I first got it, there was a little girl, probably about two and a half at the time. And she comes in and sees the bathtub and starts taking off her shirt. And she thought it was bath time. Of course, we know summer reading provides a lot of opportunities for free family fun. This is especially important in areas like mine, small, rural, low income areas. Nowadays, I think the programs that we offer are just as important as the materials that we offer. And summer reading, we know is a free family fun extravaganza. And of course, it increases interest in the library. Summer reading is awesome PR for libraries. It creates really great photo opportunities. A lot of newspaper, at least our local newspapers like to report on library summer reading programs. And it really helps to boost the library's presence in the community. This photo on the left is of a collaboration I did with another small rural library, about seven minutes from mine. We on our own, we did not have the budget, and I did not have the space to do a concert. But together, we did. And so we merged our budget for this program and we got double the attendance. So don't think of other local libraries as your competition. Think of them as potential partners. And then this photo in the middle was one of my favorites. I had a friend I know that founded a puppy mill rescue organization. And she brought her therapy dog and was talking to the kids about the different tricks they were doing with her, of course. And then this photo on the right is from our summer carnival, where we have a petting zoo and inflatables and face painting, prizes, games, the whole thing. And the kids really loved the petting zoo. And that makes for awesome Facebook posts and and new photos for the newspaper and things like that. And then these are just some more, more programs I've done done in the summer that worked really well. The top left actually isn't a summer program, but it could easily be one. We did a taste testing with different M&M flavors. This was actually a Valentine's Day program. But I was able to order some different weird M&M flavors from around the world. And the kids voted for their favorites. You can see the espresso M&Ms are all gone. And I couldn't believe it because they were not good. I'm telling you, but the word I believe was the bubblegum. You see, you don't want to try it, I guess. Yeah, you think bubblegum M&M, it can't possibly taste just like bubblegum, but it did. And it was not good. But the kids really loved it. We also had a chocolate fountain, a fondue fountain that day. And we did guess the candy bars, cutting different candy bars in half and having them guess from looking at the candy bar. That's a lot of fun. The middle photo is also from our summer carnival. You can kind of see the inflatables behind them. And we did sand art. You can buy sand and the plastic little necklaces in bulk on Amazon for pretty cheap. And the kids love it. They could spend all day there making necklaces. And it's pretty, I mean, pretty reasonably priced as well. The photo on the upper right is a bug hunting program. We partnered up with our local nature center. And we took nets and jars and stuff across the street to the park. We have a park right across the street from the library. And we, she just let them loose, catch in bugs. And then when they had some caught, we talked about what the bugs were. And then of course, we released them back to where they belong. We did not bring them into the library. And the kids really, really loved it. The lower left is the owl pellet program that I talked about a minute ago. The owl pellets I ordered online. I can't remember the exact website. But if you search it, there's a lot of like sciencey websites that sell them with all the tools. I provided the gloves because they just, they're freeze dried so they're not gross or smell or anything. But I still couldn't, couldn't get past it. But these are, if you don't know, the undigested stuff that owls can't digest. So they cough it up. So inside the owl pellets are things like little bones from mice and stuff and fur. So the kids liked to guess what bones the animals, what animals the bones were from. It was, it was a lot of fun and not nearly as gross as it sounds. And they are also, I had a rescue bring a rescued screech owl in at the same time. So the kids got to see a real owl. This middle lower photo that was our bubble painting. And this is another one where maybe do it outside. I regretted doing it inside almost immediately. But as I said, kids love anything messy. So this one is just watered down paint in a cup and then straws over paper. And the kids were originally supposed to take the piece of paper over top of the bubbles and press it down. But they decided, oh no, it's better if we just blow until the bubbles overflow onto the paper. It did make some pretty cool art, though. And then the lower right is we did our nine, we did a 90s themed program and they made slap bracelets. And you can buy the slap bracelets for pretty cheap, just plain white on Amazon. And then we use stickers and markers to color them. And the kids really, really liked it. I can see why they go crazy for those bubbles, because that's the kind of thing that your parents always told you to stop doing with your drink. Yep. And you're allowed to do it. And you're saying, oh, we encourage that kind of behavior here. Exactly. So now we're going to talk about re-energizing, re-invigorating and rebranding your summer reading program. So I think that change is a scary word for a lot of us, not just librarians, all of us. But I don't think as librarians, we should fear change. I think we should fear staying the same throughout time. I think we should always be evolving our programming to stay, you know, stay more relevant in our community. So maybe your numbers in your summer reading program have dipped. Maybe your staff is getting burned out by summer reading, or maybe you're just tired of your current program. So maybe it's time for something different. And I don't think we should be afraid to go rogue just because something has been done a certain way for so long. Does it mean that it's the right way? So simplify, simplify, simplify. This is a very busy slide for given that it's talking about simplification. I did not mean to do that. But pinpoint what is important to you with your summer reading program and focus on that throughout the summer. Assess your goals. What do you attend to achieve with your summer reading program? I've seen other libraries. I haven't done this myself yet, but I've seen other libraries write a mission statement just for their summer reading program. So, you know, whether that mission is to focus on readers advisory and getting books in hands, whether that mission is having all the programs all the time, maybe reaching as many people as you can through outreach, getting outside of the walls of the library. My own personal goal, though, as I said, I haven't written my own mission statement yet. My personal goal is to increase the pleasure connections that kids have with the library. I read about this on a post from Jay Breary about pleasure connections. I want them to feel safe and happy at their library and for us to be a place that they look forward to visiting. So honestly, that's my main goal with my summer reading program is to work on those pleasure connections kids have with the library. Rebrand, if you feel that it's necessary, summer reading the word, the term appeals to kids who are already readers, but it can discourage those who are not readers yet. So I learned that just the word reading can evoke negative feelings for some of our patrons. I remember I had one boy, he was probably in middle school at the time. And I asked him, you know, are you going to do our summer reading program this year? And he didn't understand, I just met, are you coming, you know, are you coming to our events? Are you going to participate in the programs? And he didn't, he thought we were truly going to sit him down and force him to read. And he's like, read summer reading. I don't think so. And so that made us kind of rethink how we refer to our summer reading program. So now we just call it the Missouri Library Summer Program. I've seen other libraries do the summer adventure clubs, summer learning, you know, so much more to it now than just the reading the books, all those activities that everyone does along with with whatever the theme is they've chosen for the year. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Yes. So, yeah, we refer to it as a summer program, you know, you can call it summer fun, whatever. And if you feel summer reading has been fine for your library, I mean, keep referring as that it's, you know, it's not one size fits all for sure. Keep it simple. Remember that we don't have to do all of the things. It's summer reading is a lot. So don't hesitate to cut things out if they're not working for you. You know, don't use Beanstaff if it doesn't work for you. There is no rule book saying that you have to track minutes, that you have to have a baby children teen adult summer reading program. There's no rule that says we have to give out prizes for each age level or each, you know, amount of minutes read. It can be as crazy intense or as low maintenance as you want it to be. So if you feel overwhelmed, you know, cut back on those costly like time intensive programs and and lean more into passive programming or drop in programs that don't require quite as much staff time and energy. And then theme to theme or not to theme. You don't have to go with the theme that your state has chosen. Choose your own theme or don't do a theme at all. I think patrons appreciate that your library is different from neighboring libraries and they'll appreciate that you have different decorations and different programs. You know, mix it up a little bit if you don't if you don't care for the theme that year. An example here we did. So one year the theme for I reads was colorful. Color your world and then the CSL P theme was Tales and Tales and we really liked both both summer reading themes. So we decided to merge them together and do colorful tales and tales and focus on animals, but also focus on, you know, colorful art. And we had a lot of, you know, rainbow animal decorations and it was a lot of fun. And then this past year, I can't even remember what the theme was. It was based on kindness, right? Kindness and inclusion. And while that's a really awesome theme, we didn't feel that our kids would get excited about the marketing about the decorations and things like that. So we decided to do our own theme. We did a throwback theme. We did each year was a different or each week was a different decade. So we did two thousand nineties, eighties, seventies. And with each one we did, you know, trends from from that decade and crafts from that decade and gave out prizes from that decade. And I got to dress on theme, which was a whole lot of fun. I love a good costume. So don't feel stuck to that theme if you're not crazy about it. Tracking minutes. So I don't know if I have any summer house. There's a show called Summer House on Bravo, and that's what this little thing is from. Reading should be fun. Tracking minutes, not fun. Now again, this is one person's opinion. I don't want reading to feel like a chore or a homework assignment. And for this reason, tracking minutes in the library world is kind of controversial. But my opinion is it shouldn't matter how much they are reading, but just that they are reading at all. Plus tracking minutes, you know, it can be a hassle for both parents and staff. And sometimes, of course, there are issues with dishonesty. We know this even from parents sometimes. And so because of this, a lot of libraries have changed the way that they track, you know, some libraries set a community reading goal if the entire town reaches a certain amount, the library has some kind of party or event to celebrate. Some reading logs might look different. I've seen packets, I've seen calendars, I've seen passports, I've seen maps. This one in the upper right corner is one that another local library did for the Color Your World. They had them read books based in set in different countries. And when they read a book set in that country, they would color in on the map, which I thought was an awesome idea. I've seen a coupon booklet even with local business coupons and gift certificates mixed in with their reading goals, which I thought was a great idea because it's promoting local businesses and you get your prizes right there too with the gift certificates. You could also do some, I like to do reading adjacent goals. So not only reading goals, but reading adjacent as well. So anyone can do it even if someone is a reluctant reader. They can still participate. The lower right is one that we use last year. That's our bingo sheet. So instead of tracking minutes, we do a bingo sheet now and it's worked out great. So there's not only reading goals. You can see there's do a puzzle, try something new, you know, help someone. So that makes it just a little more inclusive. I feel to include some other goals as well. This is also something I found. There's a blog I love called Adventures in Storytime and they have a blank template of this bookopoly reading log. So you can complete this. It is possible to complete my bingo sheet and the bookopoly without reading, which does seem a little bit counter intuitive for a library, but it can also help someone who is not a reader yet form those pleasure connections with the library, which, you know, in turn can make them a reader in the future. So prizes, you can see by the title of this slide how I feel about prizes. I still do give prizes, but I just I've always felt a little bit icky about it. This is because I with the Oriental Trading Trinkets, I'm so tired of seeing kids just tear through their summer reading goals just to get their hands on like a free t-shirt and a key chain or something and then call it quits for the rest of the summer once they've reached that. Again, this is just one person's opinion, but offering prizes in exchange for reading implies that reading is a chore that needs to be rewarded and shouldn't reading be the reward in itself? That's that's our hope, right? That's our goal. And I still do, as I said, I do offer prizes, but motivation to read should obviously be more in intrinsic than extrinsic. All the research shows that we we are kind of insisting that extrinsic motivation is going to magically turn these kids into lifelong readers. But reading for pleasure, to be honest, just isn't everyone's cup of tea. And I don't think a couple of free toys is going to change that. I, you know, will us having kids read in order to get a prize make them like it? I don't know. I'm not so sure they'll be excited to get the prize in the moment. But it's not going to have those long lasting results that we're looking for. Most likely, you know, their reading will stop when the rewards stop. And so because of this, a lot of libraries have changed the way that they do their prizes as well. So no more Oriental Trading trinkets, no more little toys that will break as soon as the kids get them home. Maybe, you know, you could do the science activity packs. There are tons of ideas. A tons of ideas like this online. This one, I believe is from a blog called Abby, the librarian. She has a lot of great ideas on there. And this way the kids are learning and kind of have to build their own prize. And yeah, it's a lot of fun. And a lot of the supplies inside are cheap or items you already have around your library. Experience prizes, things like a pizza party, a private movie night for the kid that won that prize. Ride in the firetruck, you know, pie the librarian in the face. We haven't done that one yet, but maybe someday. A library, you know, pool party, things like that. Or you could have the kid who wins this prize gets to help the library director plan the next youth program, right? Bragging rights. So this is things like having a sign in their yard. A star reader lives here. If you have a speaker, if your library is large enough to have a speaker, a loud loud speaker system, my library is definitely not. But you could announce, oh, so and so has just earned this, you know, earned this prize, met this goal, and then get a round of applause. Kids could choose their favorite book in the library and get a personalized book plate. And then reading adjacent prizes. These are things to literary prizes. So we did books, donated books, notebooks, magazines, subscriptions, crossword puzzles, pens, things like that. We still do a lot of the color changing pencils. The kids still like those as well as scratch and sniff bookmarks that we order off of Demco. The kids really like those too. And then of course, coupons or passes to local businesses. That's a great way also to partner up with with businesses in your community. The photo so you can see the photo on the right is the science pack. The photo on the top left is our prize wheel. So my brother built this for me and it's a great thing to take to like outreach events, farmers markets and things like that. So this has things on it, like the scratch and sniff bookmarks, stickers, pens and pencils. But there's also things on it like a private movie night with two friends at the library, a pass to a local roller rink, things like that. So there's several different types of prizes. And the kid loves just spinning the wheel. Like that's a prize to them in itself. And this bottom photo, I bought this claw machine off of Amazon. I think it was only like $40 and it comes with little balls that you can put the prizes inside. And we let the kids use this when they get a bingo on their bingo sheet in the summer. And I kind of regret buying it because the music it plays is the most annoying thing you've ever heard. It will haunt your dreams. But the kids really, really love it. Same with a prize wheel. Using the claw machine is a prize in itself. And we put things like many puppets and many squishies in there. And the kids really like it. So I do, as I say, not as I do, because I feel gross about prizes, yet I still get them. I don't know. Marketing, madness will come. Well, I guess we have some time. Marketing, madness. So if you, summer reading has to compete with so many things, right? There's so much. There's summer camps, there's sports, there's family vacations. So it can be hard to keep our numbers up sometimes. And I think removing those requirements and fines can also they can boost your numbers and that really doesn't require any work at all. So if you do have a library card requirement for kids to participate in your program, consider dropping that and see if your numbers go up at all. Partner with other libraries to advertise together. You know, my school district has five or six different libraries because it's five or six towns all going to one school, right? So think about partnering up with those libraries to visit the school together, you know, maybe see if you can have an assembly all together at the school to talk about each one summer reading program. Facebook for advertising is most effective for our library for sure. I find that Facebook ads, they do cost money, but you really get a lot, a lot of bang for your book. So I don't run Facebook ads for summer reading, but I run it for our summer carnival or other, you know, large big programs that I really want to get of a lot, a lot of attendance. Yeah, there's something to pay attention to, you know, try to try a few of them and look at what kind of statistics you get, kind of engagement comes from that. You can also ask people because this is one thing to figure out where are your patrons or your non patrons that you know, people who aren't using your library yet that you want to come in and use it. Test some things out and then look at the statistics to see where they come from and then ask them, how did you find out about today's event? Right, Facebook thing. Yeah, yeah, that's a great. It's a great way to reach people who might not even be aware that your library exists. And the nice thing is that you can target your reach. You can reach people in certain areas of certain age groups. So that's really great. There is a 70 30 rule. I need to work on abiding by this. They say that 70 percent, only 30 percent of your Facebook posts or your social media posts should be actively promoting the library. And the other 70 percent should be more engaging posts. You know, what are you reading or post a book you love and will post a book that we think you'll love that you haven't read yet. Again, I really need to work on this. But not the point is most of your posts should be engaging or, you know, even promoting other local businesses, but not just only promoting your library. And of course, video content is always popular. The screenshot on the right is from a video I did. That is me inside that that that dinosaur costume. I borrowed that from a friend and just basically acted as the dinosaur discovering all the things we have to offer in our library. And it got a lot of engagement. People got a kick out of it. So video content, of course, is always great, but try to keep it, you know, under a minute. Attitude is key, especially when you are promoting children's programs and doing school visits. Attitude is key. Your enthusiasm is infectious. And if you are excited about a program, the kids will get excited about the program as well. I had a hard time with this. I was afraid to make a fool of myself, but you really can't be afraid to make a fool of yourself. You know, the kids can really like they can smell your fear. And if they can see that you're having a good time, they're going to have a good time, too. And of course, be a constant advocate for your programs and try to find a way to mention them to every patron that comes in your door at the library. My my go to is always oh, I'm sorry. It's such a mess in here. We're getting ready for this big program coming up this weekend. And that's a really great excuse for my library being messy, too. So it works out. And as some out of the box ideas for advertising, again, this is a small town thing, probably, but our town lets us advertise in the water bill and in the church bulletin. So we get to send a half sheet of paper advertising our programs along with the water bill. So it goes to every house in town. And we also I'm friends with the lady that types of the church bulletins. So she puts advertisements for the library programs in the church bulletin. And there's only one church in town, so it makes it easy. Sidewalk signs like this one can be very effective for big programs. Chalking the sidewalks can be effective. Put your computer screensaver or wallpaper as an advertisement for an upcoming program. So that way, the kids who are playing Fortnite and Roblox will have to look at your advertisement. We've also done coasters at our local bar, personalized coasters. You can order off Vista print for pretty cheap. So people, you know, look at them bathrooms to are effective. And then a digital picture frame at your desk. I've seen some libraries have actual big TVs that scroll through their advertisements, but we don't have that. We have a digital picture frame. And I've noticed that people are are much more. What? That's a great idea. Yeah. Yeah. We've we've we've given grants to libraries to get some of those like big displays. But yeah, he doesn't have to be something that it can be pretty cheap. And people for some reason are more likely to look at something on a screen than they are to look at a flyer taped to your desk, you know. So yeah, those are just some ideas for for your marketing. Some other things to consider during your summer reading program. Watch out for we've always done this this way. As I said before, just because something has done has been done a certain way for so long, doesn't mean it's the right way. We cannot truly, I think, fulfill the needs of our community if we never evolve. And this thought process kind of also stifles our creativity because taking a chance on those new ideas opens us up to bigger and better things to come. Put books in hands, any books, audiobooks, graphic novels, comics, magazines, newspapers. Our job is to get books in hands. It's not our job to, you know, tell the fifth grader that they're too young for Stephen King. We might think it, but that's not our job to tell them that they're too young. It's not our job to tell that another fifth grader that they're too old to read that picture book that the elephant picky they want to check out. That's not our job. Our job is to encourage a love of reading, any kind of reading. Be kind to your staff all the time, but especially in the summer, particularly youth librarians, let them wear tennis shoes to work, you know, let them wear jeans, let them take vacation in the summer. You know, I promise it'll be OK. I know there's a lot going on with summer reading, but that's also some of the only time parents have to take vacations with their kids. You know, there's a lot of weddings in June. So so don't don't discourage your staff from being able to take time off during summer reading. It'll be OK. A lot of a lot of really great youth librarians have transferred to other departments or or quit the field entirely because of the stress of summer reading and because of the pressure. So so go easy on them and of course ask for help. We don't get any awards for trying to do everything on our own, right? So see if you can get a teen advisory board put together. See if the school will give some of the high schoolers extra credit if they help out with your summer reading program. And then at the end of the summer, regroup, reassess your goals. How did it go? Did you get any feedback from your patrons, from program attendees and take note of that and keep the information handy in case they can help you next year and revisit that mission statement. See if you want to tweak it for next year. Some general money saving tips I have found always ask for discounts. You never know if someone is willing to give you a deal on something unless you ask. And the worst they can say is no. So we actually got that that cloth but bathtub for free because someone was selling it on Facebook Marketplace and we went to pick it up and I told him what I was going to use it for and he was like, oh, well, I'll give it to you for free. So that one I didn't even have to ask for. But you just you never know, you know what people might be interested in in donating. And then search for deals. Garage sales are really great for prizes, books, toys for your toy. If you can find some Legos or magnet tiles that are really expensive when you buy them new, you can find those at garage sales or the second hand stores, like once upon a child, those consignment stores, those are awesome places to find toys or books or prizes. Also use Target Circle, Disney Movie Insiders, Rakuten, all that stuff that can help you find those deals to stretch your dollar a little further. Take surveys. So one thing I've done when we used to have a lot of magazine subscriptions, which we don't as much anymore, but I took some surveys every once in a while on Survey Junkie or Recycle Bank and you can get if you take these surveys, you can build up points and get gift cards. If you want to give gift cards away for prizes, magazine subscriptions, things like that, use what you've got. One thing I like to do when I'm kind of at a loss for what I want to do for a craft or something like that, I go back in my storage closet and see what I have. If I have an abundance of cardboard, for example, you can do a program where you make a cat castle for the local animal shelter and have the kids like cut up the cardboard to build a cat castle and decorate it. You could do Jenga or those other life-size board games like Angry Birds. You can do those with recycled boxes. So use up what you have before you go out and buy new craft supplies. Make a library wish list. I did this before our summer reading program this past summer and I did not have to buy anything for our summer program except snacks. Every book that was on the list, every craft supply prize that was on the list got fulfilled. We did this through Amazon and just shared it on our Facebook page. And that's nice to have all year round because you never know when somebody might be interested in donating and you never know who might be interested in donating. So that's nice to have pinned to the top of your social media for sure. And don't forget about the power of passive programming. Passive programming is so great. It's flexible, it's cheap and it can make for some great social media posts. There's one book I read recently that I thought was even better than my own book. It was called the passive programming playbook. And it's just a book chock full of ideas about passive programming. They've got some great stuff in there. These are two that we've done at my library. I have a very irritating pillar smack dab in the middle of my library building that unfortunately is low bearing so we can't take it out. So we do we use it for a lot of passive programming. So this was a sports themed summer reading program and I I found the average heights of each kind of athlete and then the kids could compare their own heights to to these athletes heights. And that was a lot of fun. We've also done the I spy that one is a back to school program we did with just pictures of random stuff. And then I wrote a little rhyme and I spy rhyme for kids to look on there and find. But just passive programming I think it falls by the wayside and it's really really effective and really fun. And then of course partnerships partnerships are the corner stone of our programming because there's so many benefits to doing partnerships. So don't count out you know a new a local business that's new to town or the people in your town you know almost everyone has the potential to to make a good program whether they have a specific hobby or a passion or interest or a certain job you know almost anything can make an interesting program. I'm going to zoom through this really quickly. I wanted to touch on it because I think it's so important. I think librarianship is a tough gig especially in the summer. And I think that small and rural librarians are susceptible to burnout because all of the responsibilities often lay on one person's shoulders. Right. I just want to remind everyone if you do have because I talked about this at the beginning but I want to remind people now for anyone who came in before we after we started up if you all have any questions comments thoughts suggestions ideas for things you've done in your libraries we want to hear about that type into the questions section of your go to webinar interface and I'm monitoring that here and I can grab all of that for Chelsea to answer or chat with you about. So please do let us know if you have any questions comments or your own ideas. Yes, and I'm almost done. I promise. So good. It's it's a lot and librarians in larger libraries have to wear a lot of other hats that they probably shouldn't have to wear like sometimes a social worker or you know a liaison for homeless and it's a lot and summer reading can exacerbate that. So you all know the symptoms of burnout already. I'm sure you're quite familiar. So I'm just going to share a few things that have helped me. Find your people. Join Facebook groups. Join listservs about about librarianship and seek out those those people that are in the same boat with you. You know, join come to our ARSL solo librarian happy hour every month because having people that can serve as a sounding board can really help. That's my son, by the way, when he is a baby. Remember that we're librarians not brain surgeons. No one's going to die if we don't respond to that email immediately. You know, that woman is going to be just fine, you know, waiting until Monday to get her hands on that Danielle seal. Right. And focus on. Oh, I crossed out focus on the positive because I think toxic positivity is definitely a thing and it's OK to admit that some things sometimes just kind of stink and that's OK. Give yourself the gift of doing less. We don't have to do it all. As I said, we don't get any medals for doing it all and constantly being exhausted from your job should not be the norm. It should be proof that that something is wrong and needs to change. We shouldn't always be tired from our job. And remember, you know, take care of yourself. I think a lot of us, we don't realize what, you know, what a toll 2020 took on the world and we're still kind of recovering from that, to be honest. So I just think, you know, check in with yourself, check in with your mental health. And if you have too much on your plate, see what you can give to others, give something to your volunteers, eliminate things from from your summer reading program and focus on your mental health. And remember that I'm really proud of you. I think we put so much pressure on ourselves to be everything for our communities and do everything for our communities. And so I think just showing up for your community is enough. Whatever you're doing is enough and your community is is very lucky to have you. So remember that and then again, feel free to to reach out to me on my email. If you want any more details on a program, you can follow us on Facebook and Instagram. And yeah, any questions? Yeah, awesome. Great, I agree. Yeah, definitely self care is important. I think since the pandemic started, a lot more people have been aware of that and accepting of people of either themselves saying, you know what, I'm stepping back from all of this at this moment. I don't have enough to deal and other people accepting that from them saying, you know, I get it. Yeah, everyone is dealing with something different and dealing with all of this going on at a different level. And you do what you need to to take care of yourself. We'll see you when you're ready again to take on this. So definitely definitely important to everyone. So thank you so much, Chelsea. I'm so glad we were able to have you on the show. And I'm glad we ended up with doing the full hour instead of it was going to be a shorter right lightning round session for big talk. But so many great ideas. And this is a huge thing, since the big thing libraries do every year, if they do or any sort of programming. So having lots and lots more ideas from other libraries is awesome. So anyone has any questions or comments when I ask any more clarification about anything that Chelsea mentioned, type into the questions section here. We do have people just saying thank you, loving this info. It's been so helpful. Thank you, thank you. So so that's great. Yes, definitely. Oh, as someone says, I appreciate the ideas. I was so lost this year. Yeah, it depends on if you were going with the I know last year a lot of people struggled with the. The national programs theme, the kindness and everything. They didn't know what to do with that. We got lots of great ideas from other libraries using it, trying to do it. I think it may be a problem every year, possibly trying to figure out what to do. Right. Yeah, I still haven't decided this year. I probably should have my ducks in a row, but I'm a last minute kind of girl. So we haven't fully decided. I don't think we're going to stay on theme this year. And that's perfectly fine. It's interesting because we have people here in Nebraska and sure it might be the same way in other states, too, who are helping or providing content for libraries to help them. We have some people that start off. They like take a week off after last year's some reading and immediately start thinking about the next years. And that's not me, man. Yeah. We have librarians requests. You need to do your workshops in the fall. We need it right away. And the other people that are like, I'm not thinking about that till like April. What are you don't even I got some at winter to get through first. Right. So it's great to have these presentations information available at all times. Well, I'm hopefully this helped you out. Someone says I've been dealing with burnout since the end of the year. I'm trying to do self care. That is awesome. Good. Good for you. Do that. If you don't take care of yourself, you can't do as good a job as you want to for everyone in your community and at your library. Absolutely. And I feel like in today's world, there's so much stuff about, you know, hustling and living to work. And I don't think that's healthy. I think, you know, there's all those people on social media that are like boss babes and work 24 seven. And I don't think that's healthy. I feel like we have to create those boundaries between work and home and really stick to them. I think that's so important. When you work day and you work dance and go do your personal thing, and then you'll be back when your hours start up again, whenever that may be. Yes. Nine to five thing. But for you, like you said, with being 20 hours a week job. Yes, I'm only allowed to work 20 paid hours. And, you know, that can be flexible. Like in the summer, I tend to work more. But yeah, 20 hours a week. So I get, well, probably half of it done when the library is closed and the other half I'm at the library when it's open. All right. And I'm just saying thank you, Chelsea and Krista. You're welcome. Great ideas. Yes. Well, thank you so much. Yeah. So if anyone has the last minute desperate questions going to ask, get them typed in the question section while we do our little wrap up here. We will will stay as long as we have anything anyone wants to say or share. We have been recording today, so this will be available by the end of the day tomorrow. The recording should be up. Chelsea, if you send me or if you're willing to share your slides, you can send them to me. We can include will include them with the recording. OK, when that goes up. So I am going to pull presenter back over to my screen to do a wrap up here. It gets up there. There we go. So. We have been recording today that anyone who I did have some asked about this also going to mention it as well as I didn't mention that is the beginning, but it does go on the emails we send out. If you are looking for securing continuing education credits for our C credits or proof of attendance of today's show, a thank you for attending email will be automatically sent out from the go to webinar system to all of you who attended live today. There will be a PDF certificate attached to that. You can use either the email or the certificate to submit to whoever is your C granting organization in your life in your state. This is proof that you attended the show. Here in Nebraska, there will there are we have a C here and you you'll submit to us for that. Everywhere else, we cannot grant C credit to you in your state. You just go and find whoever takes care of that for you and show them that email or that certificate and that will be how you can get C for attending the live show. Now for the recording shows, we don't have any way of knowing who watches those. So we can't give any proof of that. That'll be something here in Nebraska where we believe we just trust the people tell us they watch the recording. It's not much else we can do. But as far as recordings go, these are upcoming shows on our main Encompass Live website. If you use your search engine of choice and just type in Encompass Live, you will find the show page. These are upcoming shows, but our archives are linked right here. Most recent one at the top of the page. So this is last week's show tomorrow. Today's will be here by the end of the day tomorrow and everyone who attended today's show and registered for day show will get an email from me letting you know the recording is available. And here's last week's. We'll have a link to recording on our YouTube channel and a link to the slides. So you have both of those and you can see here for Nebraska, we do do a specific C reporting form for each Encompass Live archive show. So if you watch this particular one, you need this link to report this to RCE here. If you're elsewhere, you'll have to deal with however your own organization handles that. While we're here in the archives, it will show you there is a search feature here. If you want to see if we've done a show on any topic you may be interested in, you can search the full show archives or just the most recent 12 months if you want something just current. And that is because I'm going to scroll down a bit here. This is our full show. This is our full show go archives going back to when Encompass Live first premiered, which was in January 2009. So we're in our 16th year, sweet 16 of Encompass Live right now. So just pay attention to the original broadcast date of anything that you watch and he shows you watch. They all have a date when you know when it first happened. Many of the shows are fine and will stand the test of time and be good, useful information still. But some things will become old and outdated. Resources and services may no longer, may have changed drastically or no longer exist. Links may be broken. People may work at different libraries, different organizations and when they presented for us. So just pay attention to that broadcast date. But this is something libraries do. We keep things for historical purposes and we will always do that as long as we have somewhere to host all of ours. And right now all of these are on our YouTube channel. We do for Encompass Live also have a Facebook page. I've got to open over here where we post reminders. It's a reminder to log in today's show, meet our speakers and then when recordings are available, we post on here as well. We also use the hashtag and comp live little abbreviation on our Twitter and Instagram. So you can if you'd like to follow us there. I do want to mention our big talk since this is a session that was originally supposed to be on Big Talk for small libraries. All of our show recordings are available on the conference recordings are now up. I just got those done and edited and posted last Friday. So if you do want to watch any of the other sessions, we have them here under our they're also the same thing. They're on our YouTube channel and with the slides or any other documentation that any of the presenters may have. So if you want to watch anything that was on Big Talk, it will be there. I will also add a link to the Big Talk page to our Encompass Live recording for today's show since it's kind of related to that. So thank you so much, Chelsea being here. I'm so glad we're here. It was a great presentation. Lots of useful information. So it's good to see you. You too. Well, thank you for having me. Absolutely. And thank you, everyone, for joining us today. I hope you'll join us for any of our upcoming shows. You've got some April shows here and our next week show will actually be our pretty sweet tech. The last Wednesday of every month is Pretty Sweet Tech Day here on Encompass Live. We do tech sessions other times during the month sometimes, but you can definitely find Amanda Sweet, who's our technology innovation librarian, is here every the last Wednesday of every month to talk about something tech related. And she attended the Computers and Libraries Conference last week in Washington, DC, and she's going to tell us some of the cool things she learned when she was at the conference. She does this regularly for us. So if you want to hear about what happened at Computers and Libraries last week, join us next week and for any of our other shows, you see, I'm getting the April dates filled in there. So that will wrap it up for today. Thank you, everyone. Good to see everybody. Good to see you, Chelsea. Good luck to everyone summer eating. Have fun and enjoy it.