Librarians Read Over the Summer, Too!

This year, I came up with the idea to make giant summer reading logs for the staff in our children's department and challenge each one of them to complete the summer reading requirements themselves. My staff was on board, so I bought some colorful poster board and created our reading logs:

Two of our summer reading logs

On Monday, when the reading club starts, we'll hang these up in our department and as we read books, we'll write them on our logs with colorful markers. To complete the Summer Reading Club, we ask the kids to read 20 books or 1000 pages, so that's what I've challenged us to do, too.

For the kids, we ask that books be at their reading level, but since I want to encourage my staff to keep up with children's books, it's okay for my staff to read middle-grade and YA books as well as adult books. Of course, audiobooks and magazines count, just like they do for the kids!

Not only will this encourage my staff to read over the summer (though they are already good at keeping up with new books!), but I'm hoping it will encourage the kids to read, too. It shows the kids that we value the Summer Reading Club so much that we're willing to do it right alongside them.

Do you do anything to get your staff or other departments involved in the Summer Reading Club? I'm always looking for ways to make it fun for our other staff (especially the Circulation staff who bear a lot of the work as thousands of books get checked out and returned all summer!).