It isn’t 2025 yet, but if your library is anything like mine, you are already well on your way to 2025 Summer Reading Challenge planning. Especially for larger systems, decisions about program structure, themes, and events have to be made early. I’ve already scheduled some of our annual summer reading performers, and I’ve got meetings scheduled for December about other key elements of our 2025 summer reading plans.
There are so many components to summer reading planning:
- Does your state or library use organizations like the Collaborative Summer Library Program or iRead to simplify planning?
- Do you use an online reading tracker service like Beanstack or ReadSquared?
- Does your library tend to change up your challenge structure each year, or keep it more consistent for ease of use?
- Do you offer prizes? What are your favorite vendors? (If you buy book prizes, where do you shop to keep costs affordable?)
- How intense are your decor plans? Do you already have Pinterest boards filled with ideas?
- What about events and presenters? Are you looking for new traveling performers this year? Sticking to tried-and-true favorites? Exploring new community partnerships?
- How do you advertise in the local community? Do you make classroom or school visits to get local students excited?
The ALSC Membership Committee likes to highlight all of the resources available to ALSC members, but there is one I don’t think we talk about enough – our members. You have access to an amazing community who is asking very similar questions while planning their own annual summer reading/learning/library challenges. We all know the intensity of working during a summer reading, and we also know the stress (and excitement) of planning one.
Take advantage of your peers. Leave a comment below with your burning summer reading question. Let’s see how many answers we can brainstorm together.
All images courtesy of A. Carlson.
Annamarie Carlson is the Youth Services Manager at Westerville Public Library in Ohio and a member of the 2024-2025 ALSC Membership Committee.
This blog post relates to ALSC Core Competencies of: III. Programming Skills.