Just Wondering - What Are You Planning for Fall

[Note: Blog subscribers who subscribed prior to August, 1 2021: Please take a moment to re-subscribe to our blog for continued access. Our old subscriber service is shutting down soon and we don't want you to lose a day of posts. Simply go to our blog and enter your email in the subscription box on the right side. Thanks!]

This post by Manitowoc (WI) Public Library Youth Librarian and YSS Board Member Susie Menk is thinking about programs that worked and didn't during the pandemic and summer. And she's wondering....what do you think?

Image by Muhammad Naufal Subhiansyah from Pixabay

Pivoting and being flexible are part of a youth librarian’s wheelhouse.  In light of the recent pandemic, youth librarians have done an AMAZING job of offering library services to patrons in new and exciting ways.  When restricted to our homes, we kept the ideas coming—storywalks, interactive webpages, zoom storytimes, activity bags, outdoor scavenger hunts and much more.  

Over the summer, libraries have slowly added onsite programming while still offering virtual options.  We LOVED having the kids in the building again!  Performers were able to come in person again.  We held storytime outside so we could see the kids again and not have to limit numbers of people. It was so exciting and wonderful to share books and activities with kids and their families.  

Now it’s time to start our fall planning.  So I’m wondering—what is your plan?  How were your summer programs? What worked for you?  What did patrons seem to like and what didn’t go over so well?  For us, our storytimes on the road were a huge hit.  Patrons enjoyed being outside and still doing storytime.  It seemed like we even got older siblings coming and participating, which is great!  Our Touch the Trucks program had huge attendance, but our Monday STEM programs were slow and not well attended. The online scavenger hunt we did where patrons were to take pictures of themselves around the city and submit them into a weekly contest totally flopped.  Last year it was one of our best programs, but this year it was a bust.  

Several of our programs were hybrids.  We did registration for a limited number of people, then prepared activity bags for those who were not able to attend but could tune in virtually.  Like many of our programs this summer it was hit and miss with the hybrid programs.  Sometimes they were all filled and all the bags were gone, sometimes we barely had anyone there and most of our bags were leftover.  

It seems that we are not out of the woods yet with the pandemic, so how do we plan moving forward?  Will you do in-person programs?  Will you still offer virtual programs?  Will you do a mix of both?  At this point, we are planning to keep our storytimes in person.  Storytimes with the little ones are difficult to do through a screen, so we are hoping to keep those programs in-person.  We were able to partner with another agency in town and offer a virtual baby lapsit.  So far, this program is one of the few that we are keeping online in the fall since it seems to work best for this patron group.  Other programs, like some of our crafting programs, will be done as hybrid--both in person and streaming.  Still others we will do outside as weather permits.  We are also looking at doing some passive programming on the weekends 

While we hope to do many of our programs in person, we are ready to shift to virtual if need be.  Since we’ve done it before, we know we can do it again.  What about you?  What is your plan for the fall?