Programming requires a librarian to stretch a budget within an inch of its life! Ordering prize books through Scholastic nets more books due to earned points for money spent. The books may not be the newest or most popular titles but can certainly help fill a prize shelf.
Friday: 9am- 2pm
Supervisor: Renee Kirchner
The Summer Reading Program is many months in the making. Planning starts in the fall with brainstorming. After plans are finalized, budgets are decided. In addition to the program budgets, reading incentives such as free give away books, Family Read Aloud Club books, Star Wars give aways, and prize bundles are budgeted. The budget for the reading incentive prizes is substantial for the year ($3400) however, most of the budget is spent for the summer program. The summer prizes are awarded according to age breakdowns with 0-2 year olds receiving 1 prize, 3-4 year olds 2 prizes, 5-6 year olds 3 prizes, and 9-12 year olds 3 prizes. The teens typically receive 4 $50 gift cards to various businesses. Although many prize books are ordered through normal vendors such as Brodart, the library also uses the Scholastic Literacy Partnership to order as well. However, Scholastic tends to have fewer selections with older titles, making it difficult to find prize books that would appeal to children.
Our discussion of reading incentive prizes was interrupted by a meeting to discuss the timeline of the moving of the children’s area for the new carpet and paint. Renee left me with the partially completed Scholastic list she had put together with a request to “finish spending the money” as she dashed off to discover just how messed up her April and May programming would be!
Add comment
Comments