I’m kind of late to the game, but I wanted to do a post for the series, “Show Me the Awesome!”, that was started by Kelly, Liz, & Sophie. (For more AWESOME, please check over at their sites for the official link-up and check out the #30awesome on Twitter/Tumblr/Vine/Instagram)

I want to talk about stepping out of the summer reading box and trying something different. For my library, June 1st has always been the start date for SRP, but the more I thought about it the more I realized it didn’t work for my teens. Well, let me rephrase that. It didn’t work well for teens I saw during my school visits. I was spending my entire month of May getting the teens hyped at the schools and expecting them to keep that excitement for 2 – 4 weeks. When in reality, the hype for most only lasted, if lucky, until that evening. So, I did something kind of scary, and made my start date May 1st.

You have no idea how many crazy looks I’ve gotten when I’ve said that. And it’s almost always followed by a WHY or ARE YOU SERIOUS?

Yes to both, but I thought…what do I really have to lose? My program is online so it wouldn’t be adding any additional work to my co-workers since teens only have to go to staff members to claim prizes. It meant that I had to have the level prizes (candy/book/lock-in) ready to go on May 1st, but that wa a piece of cake. (Programming still doesn’t start until June since I’m in the schools so much) On the other hand, it would mean I could tell teens they could sign up when they went home; in some cases I would even be able to sign them up on the spot. For me, all the pros outweighed any cons I could possibly think of.  Plus, if I failed, I failed. It would mean I would just go back to June 1st next year. Nothing would have been wasted except a bit of my time.

Failure, however,  is not in the cards. It’s basically been 1 month and I have 215 teens who have already logged books (422 who have signed up!). With two months left to go, I am about 100 away from my overall total from last year. Considering a lot of my summer crowd hasn’t even come in yet, this is huge.

The real success to me, though, is how the numbers have soared in the schools I visited. I can’t even believe how high the numbers already are.

School One:

Last Year: Over 2 days I talked to 249 teens and had 24 participate in the program. (9.6%)
This Year: Over 2 days I talked to 402 teens and have 77 who have already logged time. (19.2%)

So, I did talk to more teens this year, but the return rate is considerably higher already. Of course, I have to give a big hand to the teachers who have been helping kids log in during school hours and to their School Librarian who will be treating any of her kids who read 1,000 pages/10 hours or more to a pizza party this fall. (15 have already hit this goal, with about another 20 very, very close).

School Two:
Last Year: Over 5 days I talked to 643 teens and had 6 participate in the program. (0.9%)
This Year: Over 3 days I talked to 490 teens and have 63 who have already logged time. (12.9%)

This was the school that made me depressed last year. I spent a week there and only got 6 teens to participate! Already, this year is looking up! The percentage may be a little off as the School Librarian talked to the kids I missed, but even figured she talked to another 100 teens or so the return rate is still 10%. Considering I did even make it to 1% last year, this makes me extremely happy. With this school, allowing them to sign up/log books right away has been the difference. Now that they see how easy it is, I hoping they’ll continue this trend.

School Three:

Last Year: Over 3 days I talked to 585 teens and had 47 participate in the program. (8.3%)
This Year: Over 4 days I talked to 265 teens and have 26 who have already logged time. (9.8%)

While the number is lower, at the moment, the percentage is already higher. This School Librarian is also offering a breakfast/more prizes for just participating in my program, so it’ll be interesting to see how the numbers change. Also, I have a LOT of regulars who haven’t logged anything yet, so I’m positive the end number for this school will be higher

Now, I haven’t run down the exact numbers of how many signed up because of a school visit (see 2012), but I figure this is a good start. I am very anxious to see how many of the teens continue to log once school is out. Most of them put in an email address, so at least they’ll be including in my reminder emails throughout the summer.

While a lot of this may just seem like stats, for me it’s proof that stepping outside of the SRP box was worth it. It’s so simple to keep things the same because it’s easier and it’s the way that things have always been done, but sometimes even small changes can bring about big results.

If you have any comments or questions or just want to get a conversation started don’t hesitate to leave a comment or reach me @YALibrarianDrea on twitter.

So, I am officially back from ALA/Anaheim. I’m going to try to post a wrap-up this weekend, but there is something more important I would like to talk about. And that’s paying it forward. I don’t want to discuss how many ARCs you got, but more about what you can do with them after and how to support ALA/YALSA via membership.

I’ve seen the posts and it looks like librarians, teachers, and bloggers alike had a blast at ALA Annual this year. Did you know you could support ALA beyond buying exhibit passes? That you could enjoy the resources they offer all year long? While ALA stands for American Library Association, you do not need to be a librarian to join. Even as a blogger/teacher you can join as an associate/friend and, frankly, it’s relatively cheap. For $84 a year you can get membership to BOTH ALA and YALSA. (You can do different divisions, too, but I know the most about YALSA) Here are some of the benefits of joining ALA/YALSA:

• access to member only areas such as webinars, archived list-servs and access to ALA Connect where you can join discussions w/various interest groups
• discounts on educational classes, webinars, and conferences.
• the ability to get further involved in YALSA such as volunteering to be on a committee or various task/advisory groups
• plus a whole bunch of other member only benefits

Even if you don’t think you’d use most of those resources, you’d still be supporting ALA/YALSA. This means you’ll be supporting the committee members who create the fabulous award lists such as Printz, Morris, and Best Fiction, those who give presentations, and those who create educational resources to be used by all. And I know some of you will say, but that’s a lot of money! But I hope you think about it a bit and come to realize how little it is. After all, $84 would barely (if at all) pay for a single night in a hotel room. This is for a whole year membership and would help support an organization that does so much.

The second thing I want to talk about is what to do with the ARCs once you’re done with them. I know there are hundreds of things you can do, but I recommend giving them to your local libraries or schools. And I know many of you do this, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to say it again. Teachers are always desperate for classroom books. While the ARCs are not finished copies, teens still get a thrill of reading something before it’s published (just as all of us do!) and could easily spark interest in reading among reluctant readers.

As for the library side, I want to talk a little about how I use ARCs. Buying books for libraries is a huge job. I can spend an upwards of 5 hours or more ordering teen books for my two libraries. I try to order 3- 6 months ahead. This means I have to find out what’s coming out, which ones I should order, and if any of them needs multiple copies. Do I order everything that is coming out? No. I don’t have the shelf space or the budget to do that. So, how do I decide what to order? Well, some of it is skimming review journals and blogs, knowing my population, and feedback from the teens.

One of the many ways I get feedback from the teens is via ARCs. I have a teen reviewers program, where teens have access to the ARCs I receive at conference. They get to keep them for two weeks and in exchange they fill out a short review form for me. Based on the teen’s responses I know if the book is going to be a big hit or not. If I get 6 or 7 teens telling me they all loved a book, then I know I need to buy more than one copy. Reviews are shared via our teen newsletter and blog (when our site is up), which creates even more buzz among the teens.

I, of course, read the ARCs as well. I try not to focus on the ones that my teens are requesting though since I get quite a bit of feedback from them. The market is exploding and it’s becoming harder to keep up. Sometimes a blurb and cover isn’t enough to catch my eye. In fact, I almost completely missed Divergent. I had the ARC for months before I read it and promptly kicked myself for waiting so long. It became one I’m still hand selling to my teens and the star of last summer’s book talks. Without the ARC, this teen favorite may have slipped under my radar for months before I caught it.

ARCs are also used as prizes. Right now, the focus has been on using them for the reading programs, but I hope to expand the prize use of them. One of my goals this year is to get a TAB (Teen Advisory Board) up and running and I plan to use ARCs for raffles as a way to thank them for their time. Of course, they aren’t the only way to get teens into programs, but they can be a valuable one and one of the reasons I spend my time on the exhibit floor to get print ARCs. (My personal preference is e-ARCs, but those are impossible to share with teens!)

This, of course, is just how I use ARCs. It may not seem like much, but believe me every little bit of feedback or excitement from the teens is worth its weight in gold. It helps me do my job just a little better. I am not saying that only librarians/teachers should get ARCs (far from it), I’m merely encouraging anyone and everyone to pay it forward. Many schools and libraries are hurting and those ARCs you’ve read/don’t want still have mileage to them.

I guess all I wanted to say is there are so many ways to further your involvement in the literary world. As always, if there is anything you would like to know more about, please ask. There are no stupid questions and I would love to give answers/information when I can.

Being severely behind on great literature, I thought I’d join up on this challenge. It is hosted by Basically Amazing Books and The Reading Housewives. I plan on reading 10 Newbery and Printz winners/honorees in 2012. I’ve already finished one so far and will be working on another from the new Printz list soon for my masters class.

1. Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech