Summer Reading Club Summit

Author Name: Jeff Ridgeway
Library System: Washington County Free Library

Top 3 things learned:
1. Sam Eddington is unique. I enjoyed learning about the Story Time App and may use it in the future, but probably not in the way that he used it.

2. I learned that I could probably have been an illustrator for Marvel had I continued to pursue my Art career, but at this point I don't think that's in the cards as I don't want to memorize all of the primary muscles in the human body.

3. I think that Allegany Co. presented two or three common sense ideas that we will probably look at adopting or at least consider for next year's reading club, but I also find that we are doing a pretty good job of presenting a high quality program ourselves.

How to implement:
I could see doing a "Wednesdays with Us" type of program where we standardized some program times in all outlets. I can see us putting out a "call for performers" for the Summer Reading Club, with a set expense account for those performers. I would like to see the WCPS schools do a complete buy in of our program to the extent that everyone enrolled in the system would be enrolled in our club (we would then have over 20,000 enrollees if that happened). I am looking at doing a story time with an IPad and can create story stretchers such as nursery rhymes using the app shown to us. 

Additional learning: I think that we could have used a little more in-depth discussion regarding the SRC. The panel scratched the surface, but I think that having us get together with the individual librarians in each system is beneficial.