For those who asked, here's the responses I got for 1000 Books vs. Books for Babies. Thank you all for taking the time to share with me; it's been extremely helpful. I will let you know how it goes here once we have it off the ground and running! We just started our 1000 Books Before Kindergarten program on October 3rd ( www.tadl.org/1000books). We had done it at my previous library, the Westland Public Library, and I thought that Traverse would be a great place to start one with all of the kid- and early literacy centered organizations around here. We've had great support by our patrons and also many local organizations including Born to Read and many of our local teachers. Preschool teachers seem to be the best advocates for this program (well, in addition to your storytime programs). So far, we've had over 80 families signup at our (main) branch and over 120 in our district. We are lucky to have a marketing manager who is awesome at putting our message out there and connecting us to media resources. In terms of Youth Services staff, our main job has been stuffing envelopes, promoting in our storytimes, and recording the numbers on a spreadsheet (we use Gmail as a library and record ours currently in Google Sheets). We put up some posters from Demco and decorations for families to record their children's name(s) on. I've attached our promotional posters and book logs (1000 Books is an organization and will send you logos to help promote the program, too). We have been partnering with our local Zonta group for many years on a Books for Babies program. The Friends of the Library buy age appropriate board books – lately we’ve been ordering in bulk from the Book Depot when we find a good title or two. Zonta fundraises and solicits donations for printed plastic bags. The bags, which include the book, a brochure with information about the importance of early literacy and a list of local organizations that offer programs for children, sometimes a gift (teething ring, bib, etc) from the local Great Starts Initiative, a child development wheel provided by our ISD and whatever else good that comes our way free of charge. Members of the Friends and Zonta get together a couple times a year at the library to pack bags. A Zonta member keeps them at her home and deliveries about 30 at a time to our hospital whenever they call to say stock is running low. We haven’t had much direct response from the recipients, but it is a good community collaboration project that we HOPE is introducing moms to the importance of early literacy. Hello! At the Detroit Public Library, Main Library do 1000 Books Before Kindergarten. We have 3 full time librarians and are open 44 hours a week. In October 2015 we got the OK to open the Children's section from 10-Noon on Tuesday and Wednesday JUST for our storytime program, the resto of Main is not open until Noon. We do storytime every day Tues-Friday morning from 10:30 a.m.-11:00 a.m. Different age levels are the focus on separate days Tuesday- Babies, Wednesday- Toddlers, Thursday age 3-4 Friday-Preschool. We provide age appropriate stories then have play time with educational toys games/crafts, snack until Noon. We bought a lot of toys from Constructive Playthings catalog. We use the Rangerland Jr 1000 Books Before Kindergarten booklet to give the program a focus. Parents register with a registration form we made up for each child. Each child gets a Rangerland book for parents to record books listened to at storytime, at home, etc....O.K. if the titles repeat. After each 100 we give them a sticker (little gold stickers come with the books) and a free book we order from First Book or other donations of free books or coloring/activity books. We started the program last October and have seen attendance grow even with all the construction going on in Midtown! Parents and children enjoy meeting other families from the area. They especially enjoy play time. This has been a great way to get new customers into the Children's Library to get library cards and check out books. We provide information on the games play and offer information about other activities going on in the area. There are special programs once a month such as Yoga for preschool age children and parents, Mad Science of Detroit, live animal show, magician, storytellers etc... On Saturdays we provide a free art program for ages 4-7 through ProjectArt so some of our Early Literacy program children attend this also! This month we tried a "Page to Stage" Program where the library bought and give tickets to the Alice and Wonderland production at Wayne State. We purchased giveaway Alice in Wonderland, Little Golden Books to give families who registered for the play. The families met us at the theater for a small reception and the production! Mainly one librarian does the storytimes. The children get used to her and look forward to seeing her! All the librarians fill in when she is not at work. Together we brainstorm to develop themes and collect books and activities for each week/month. We plan to fill boxes or totes with each theme for easy/repeat use. Hiring guest presenters gives the librarian a break once in a while and gives customers something extra! I don't have much on the ground information from our library yet, but within the last week we've just kicked off 1,000 Books Before Kindergarten here in East Lansing. The planning was really smooth -- mostly just figuring out how we want to structure rewards, monitor sign-up, and start getting the word out. I'm anticipating / hoping that it will be a minimally time intensive task for our circ staff, who handle the sign-ups and prizes, although I know there will be a learning curve. We got a grant from our local rotary club to purchase supplies (mostly the rewards, but also some things like folders to hang out at sign up, etc., but on the whole it hasn't been too spendy, at least so far -- I'll be interested to see what pace we end up going through rewards. Our Friends of the Library also agreed to donate materials from their book sale, so at 500 and 1000 books kids get to pick out a free book from what they have in stock in their children's section. I do know that several other libraries near us (Delta and DeWitt I believe) have had really good luck with their programs, and lots of motivated participants, so I think that bodes well! I believe several Great Start agencies around Lansing have partnered with their local libraries to make it a team effort, and while we haven't pursued that yet here, it might be a good option! Just let me know if you have any questions I could potentially answer (even though I'm still figuring it out myself here). My library started the 1000 Books Before Kindergarten program in May 2016 and had our first finisher in August. It requires very little time on staff; we promote the program and assist with sign up and simply hand out the prizes per every 100 books read and take a picture when they reach the 1000 goal and get the free t-shirt prize. The hardest part we’ve found and parents remembering to log in the books they’ve read on their child’s booklet and bringing it back to the library to get the prizes. Sign up is great, following through on parents end not so much. But we keep trying. With the 1000 Books option, it is copyrighted and patent so you need their permission to use that phrase if you choose that option. You simply email them and they respond they have you listed on their site and then you’re authorized to use their phrase, logos, etc. They also sent me 2 copies of their “1000 books before kindergarten’ story book they have; parents here have seen that on display and then ask about the program. I say it’s a simple very little daily work required program; biggest part is promoting it. We just started offering the 1000 Books Before Kindergarten program on September 1st. We have a very passive program. We set up a display, hung posters, and modified the generic recommended reading list to only include titles we own (so took some out and added some). All we ask the parents/grandparents/care-givers to do is register their child and then we give them the first record to track 100 titles. Then when they fill that up, they bring it back, we mark it off on our master record, and give them the next sheet. I think we also give the kids a few stickers to get them excited and we have certificates for whenever they actually complete the program. But that's about it. It's generated a little bit of buzz, but not much. I think there are six kids registered so far (approximately the same number as attend storyhour). We've already had a patron volunteer to sponsor it if it gets really popular and we need some more funds And there's been some rather confused questions from (mostly older) patrons who think the kids have to read the 1000 books themselves before(?) Kindergarten ends...but once we explain it's recommended to start at birth and one a night or five a week will see the challenge completed with time to spare, you can see the light bulb turn on and it prompts reminisces about reading with their kids or being read to by their parents. I see us offering this for the long-term, just another service, and hopefully eventually known well enough that when babies are born their parents will stop in and register them...that's my hope anyway! We are just starting some programs targeting preschool including 1000 books. I will let you know as we progress, I would appreciate if you would share any tips anyone shares with you and I will do the same. We have 1000Books at our library. It is one of the easiest to run and have approximately 100 families signed up. Every month more join. It is very worthwhile. We just started 2 weeks ago with the program. Here some info about us. Our library serves about 7,000 in a small bedroom community in between Grand Rapids & Kalamazoo. We have a coordinated effort for our whole county (Allegan). We received support from our Allegan County United Way for funding for materials including tracking sheets, progress bookmark, brochures, and bags to give away all with a farm theme. Each library can do it how they want. This is what we are doing-especially keeping staff in mind because once you start, it's the never ending program. We purchase a storage container for behind our circ. desk https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00006ICBH/ref=oh_aui_ detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1. Basically it's a hanging file for ease of access for our tracking sheets etc. For sign up parents receive a tracking sheet for the first 100 books-all they need to do is check off a "cat" each time they read a book. It can be the same book over and over, books from their collection, books from the library. Since this program is for children not in kindergarten, if their child attends a preschool program and attends a library programs, the books their count too. They also received a tri-fold brochure explaining the program. On our end, we get out a progress bookmark, write the child's name on the back (last name first), write the parent's phone number, then year. We keep this behind the desk in the storage container and as they complete a sheet of 100 books read, they add a sticker to they progress bookmark, then receive their next sheet. We are giving away incentives. After the first 100, they receive a bookbag that say I read a 1,000 books. This was suggested to be given away at the completion of the program, but we decided it would help parents remember they are participating and they could bring their library books back and forth in it. After 500, we will give a coupon away to our local grocery store for a free cookie. At 1,000 they will receive a shirt that says I read 1,000 books before kindergarten. We also purchased a vinyl banner on line to put on the wall at our circ desk to show the public the progress of our participants and to create conversation and reminders of the program. Your staff at the circ desk is your front line, so they have to be enthusiastic and sales people to your patrons as they check out. We are putting out weekly reminders on our library Facebook page, it's on our website, and we are fortunate to have a great relationship with our local public schools. The schools allowed us to attend parent/teacher conferences with a table in the hall to promote the program and they sent out the info on Peachjar-an email program they use to send out info to the parents in they school district. They also put a link on the school's website under the Early childhood tab. This program potentially effects them too. They were happy to do it! Sorry to go on and on, but I think it's an awesome program. We're concerned how to keep it fresh and remind those who some how didn't get reached by our initial launch and move into the community over the next few years. If you should have any questions please contact me. http://www.putnamlib.org/events/preschool Click on our 1,000 Books link. Our partner is: http://jr-rangerland.com/1000%20books/RangerLand%20explore%201000%20books%20... Not staff intensive. Parents respond....but find it hard to write and keep a record. We are flexible. Write it once...draw a line the next 20 times you read it this week. :) Have 3 kids under kindergarten? Use one book for all three...still get three prizes... That kind of flexible... I'm glad to answer more specific questions beyond that too. Hi, We are a level four library, serving a population of 23,000. About 25 families are currently working their way through the program. It is not much work at all: we have copies of the logs on hand, we bought stickers to give out when completing a set; our local literacy group has given us a prize bin and the books to go in it. For every 100 books read, the child gets to pick a book from the bin. I keep track on a master list which takes me about 15 minutes a week. Really easy and the kids love it! I hope this helps. On Sat, Oct 22, 2016 at 9:07 AM, Alisha Daugherty <alimcc87@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello!
Does anyone offer either Books for Babies or 1000 Books Before Kindergarten at their library? I'd appreciate any insight or observations you may have about either! How time-intensive is it for staff? Do patrons respond to it? Any thoughts (off-list is fine) would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks so much,
-- Alisha Daugherty
<alimcc@umich.edu>
-- Alisha Daugherty <alimcc@umich.edu>