In honor of the 80th Birthday of Smokey Bear, CSLP has partnered with the USDA Forest Service to appoint Smokey as the 2024 Summer Reading Champion (https://www.cslpreads.org/nationalsummerreadingchampion/).
Many libraries across the US are engaging their communities using the Smokey Bear Readding Challenge this year, with materials provided by USDA Forest Service. The Smokey
Bear Reading Challenge Toolkit is free and available to all libraries online.
As Summer Reading Champion, Smokey will be be providing a #SmokeyReads campaign that will include the launch of social media challenge for the public to post pictures of themselves reading with Smokey in their favorite “adventurous” spot, and short PSAs of
people reading with Smokey, as well as a couple of videos featuring Forest Service officers reading with Smokey. CSLP is thrilled to be able to team-up with such a famous figure for the 2024 Summer Reading Champion, and we look forward to hearing from our
libraries on how they engage their communities using Smokey Bear.
Incorporate Spanish Language Content into Your Summer Reading Program
Want to promote Summer Reading and Learning to Spanish speakers in your library community? The CSLP online manual has an entire section of Spanish Language program
content that is available and ready to use for outreach and promotion for “Adventure Begins at Your Library” this summer!
View the recently added recording of “How to Incorporate Spanish Language Content into Your Summer Reading Program” on the NY State Library archived
Youth Services webinars page. This March 8 Summer Reading Lunch and Learn session was presented by Deborah Kinirons, Bilingual Community Outreach Librarian at Uniondale Public Library, and Amy Olson, Youth Services Consultant at the Kentucky Department
for Libraries and Archives. Deborah is also the chair of the CSLP Spanish Language manual committee.
You can also view additional Summer Reading Lunch and Learn sessions from this year and previous years on the archived
Youth Services webinars page. Feel free to reach out to Sharon Phillips, NY State Library Youth Services Program Manager at nyslyouth@nysed.gov if
you have any questions.
PSA Now Available for “Adventure Begins at Your Library”
Summer is the time for adventure! And just in time for summer programming kick-offs we are happy to announce the official Collaborative Summer Library Programming
PSA is now available! Share the PSA with local media, across your social media channels, with local partners, and display them in your library. The main PSA, available in both English and Spanish, is a 30 second video with a tagline that you can load and launch
as-is. Additionally, there is a “clean slate” version available for brief customization at the end, should you want to add your library’s logo and event information. CLSP is also offering short segments pulled from the original for use on social media. New
this year is an animated “poster” of one of our graphics, which can be displayed on a computer screen or display monitor to promote summer reading within your library.
Partner Spotlight
CSLP developed a new partnership with Baker & Taylor in order to facilitate our member library’s ordering of materials
from our Adventure Begins at Your Library book list (available in our manual here).
If your library is a Baker & Taylor customer, they offer summer prize books as well. Get in touch with our contacts there to view the list of CSLP-themed titles to use for your giveaways at a 45-50% off discount. Email Sara Shepard at sara.shepard@baker-taylor.com or
Grace Larochelle at grace.larochelle@baker-taylor.com for details.
Adventure Partner
More than ever, the role of libraries is particularly important in helping children
learn and thrive through reading. Make sure your library's summer reading program is the best it can be with the new CSLP Adventure Begins at Your Library Brag Tags. Proven to increase summer reading participation!
"These Brag Tags are bringing in new patrons. Kids are telling their friends about
the Brag Tags and those kids are dragging their parents to the library so they can earn their own brag tag collection. Best marketing tool I’ve found!” -
Marcy P, Sawyer Community Library
"Thanks to your wonderful Brag Tags and ball chains, our Summer Reading Program more than doubled! Thank you. You have made my job so much easier, gone are the days of worrying about reading participation.”
- Carolyn, Public Librarian
"Our young borrowers cannot read their books fast enough to qualify for the next
Brag Tag in the series. This is the best gift incentive we have offered." - Anne S., Public Librarian
