Library Madness

As I mentioned in <a href=”http://hafuboti.wpcomstaging.com/2014/06/09/summer-reading-robot-program/%20‎” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”>my earlier summer reading post</a>, the library has been absolutely crazy-busy this summer. I’m beyond tickled and hope we can keep up this momentum.

Speaking of craziness – that’s the other aspect of the <a href=”http://www.cslpreads.org/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”>CSLP</a> theme that we’re using for our summer programming: the mad scientist.

Brittany yet again transformed our Great Wall-O-Pun using nothing more than a large printed font, crayons, and her crazy-awesome art skills. We decided to stray a bit from puns, and just go with a “mad” take on our non-fiction science books, which have been checking out very well:

How brilliantly brilliant is that?!

Mary painted over <a href=”http://hafuboti.wpcomstaging.com/2013/06/16/big-summer-reveal/%20‎” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”>her Egyptian book pharaoh</a> from last year to create this new photo op:

The funniest trend we’ve noticed is that when adults use the prop they’re almost always pulling faces. When the kids use it? It’s almost always flashing their prettiest smiles. See – here’s my team and I showing off our mad skillz:

When we have time (bwahahaaa-snort ::sigh::), and there’s a parent/child using this photo op, we’ve been asking if we may take a picture and post it on our <a href=”http://gretnapubliclibrary.org/kids/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”>Kids’ Corner website</a>. So far everyone has enthusiastically said yes. This has been a fun way to hopefully help drive traffic to our site.

Finally, we have Summer Reading Program booklets that I created a while back that change titles depending on the theme. Originally, children were rewarded by reading weekly with individual coupons. They were a mess and so easy for the kids to lose. I went ahead and created a keepsake booklet that included themed activities and it’s been a hit with kids and businesses alike. This year, we went with a Science Journal featuring artwork by my Bruce:

And a HUGE thank you goes to Mary who has beautifully assembled around 300 booklets so far this summer. We try and get people to preregister for these so that we know how many to make, but we usually get an unforeseen number “walk-ins.” In the first week alone we’ve had over 50 parents sign up on-the-spot (usually multiple kids) – so it can be a bit hectic in the booklet-making department. Next year we’re going to try to bribing people with a bonus coupon if they preregister.

There’s a lot of other things going on (or have happened) at the library that I’ve been looking forward to sharing, but again, the drain of summer workdays leaves me not wanting to revisit work stuff when at home. Hopefully, as the summer progresses, I’ll get back into a rhythm and start catching y’all up on everything that we’ve done and accomplished!

Until then, have a crazy-awesome summer!