Summer’s around the corner—the season when reading challenges take center stage at libraries big and small. Beanstack can help you take yours to the next level by improving participation and engagement. In this blog, we’ll provide five ways to kick off and elevate your summer reading challenge, from setting up a test family account to sending your staff to BeanstackEDU.
We get it: no one has time to read the user manual. Thankfully, we’ve got a suite of easy-to-use resources, like our Beanstack help desk, to get you started. More ways to get up-to-speed include:
You’ve learned the ins and outs of Beanstack, and you’re ready to hit the ground running. What comes next? We recommend taking time to plan and prepare your summer reading challenges using the three steps below:
Now that you’ve planned and prepped, it’s time to start building—and you don’t have to go it alone. Beanstack Basics videos are designed to assist you with tutorials, demos, and short articles. You can also attend live webinars with the Beanstack team to get additional information.
Testing out your reading challenges as you build them helps you troubleshoot potential problems, and there are many easy ways to do so. For instance, the client-success simulator helps resolve issues as they arise, highlighting issues that need to be fixed with a red, yellow, or green indicator. We recommend setting up a test family account with volunteer access; give this test account a name like “Summer 2022 Family,” so it’s easy to delete once you’re finished experimenting. As a final check, you can also request that the client-services team review your challenges to ensure you’re good to go.
The “secret sauce” to a successful summer reading program is your team, and the more staff buy-in you have, the more likely it is that you’ll meet your goals. We recommend several best practices for training your team:
If your team is excited about Beanstack and can easily explain to families how to register and participate, your summer reading program can reach more patrons.
Beanstack’s co-founder, Felix Lloyd, has a saying: “Just because you build it doesn’t mean they’ll come.” To achieve your participation goals, you must also promote your summer reading challenge with all the available tools at your disposal. Spread the word, and the engagement and fun they experience during the reading challenge will keep them coming back for more.
To learn more about how your library can use Beanstack to host a reading challenge throughout the year, visit beanstack.com/libraries.