Summer Reading History
The Metropolitan Library System has provided a Summer Reading program for over ninety years. Our focus has always been to encourage reading during the summer. How has the program grown and changed as our communities and resources have evolved?
Timeline
2022 - Our goal structure continued to be simplified, and prize pickup was returned to June-July. Our teen volunteers also joined us in person again! In addition to in-person volunteering we also used a new software called Samaritan to streamline the Summer Reading volunteering experience.
2020 - A pandemic summer meant big changes to the program! The goal structure was simplified and flattened, prize pickup was moved to August, and activity logs contained reading activities that could all be done at home or online. We did not have teen volunteers this year for the first time in decades.
2019 - First year to promote a Summer Reading App.
2018 - Registration increases 24% over the previous year to 27,905 participants. Read it Forward reaches 4,400 books donated.
2016 - Switched to Beanstack as online vendor. Participants submit 2,204 reviews and earn 26,953 badges.
2015 - First year for Read it Forward and 2,097 books are donated. First year fine waivers can be earned by participants.
2014 - First year to track participation and reading online-- no more paper registration cards! Our online vendor is Evanced Summer Reader and we have 21,396 participants. First year adults can participate.
2012 - First year to promote Summer Reading as a game. First year to highlight Early Childhood (birth-preschool) as a separate program. We switch from tracking book/hours/pages to just time.
2007 - We participate in the state-wide Oklahoma Centennial theme with Oklahoma Kids: A Kaleidoscope (children) and Road Trip (teens).
2002 - First year teens can participate in Summer Reading! The pilot teen theme is Extreme Reads.
1990 - Reach for Reading and Catch a Rising Star! was the the Summer Reading theme.
1989 - Summer Reading Olympics was our Summer Reading theme.
1987 - Go to Bat with Books! was our Summer Reading theme.
1984 - The Lucky Penny Players debut as a Neighborhood Arts summer program for kids and families. They go on to perform at MLS for over 25 years. Anyone look familiar?
1978 - Teen volunteers are called "Reader Leaders" and get cool buttons to help identify themselves to Summer Readers. They pass out DQ coupons and 89er tickets, keep logs, and alphabetize and straighten books.
1975 - First year Dairy Queen provides free ice cream as a reading reward. (If customers ask, our Summer Reading program is too big for DQ to support now! We've checked!)
mid-1970s - Metro Libraries start using the same Summer Reading theme. Until this point, each library came up with their own.
1970 - Warr Acres hosts a summer "Reading Regatta" and installs a big sailboat in the children's area where kids can sit and read.
1964 - As part of Summer Reading this year, children can ask the librarian to create a list of titles tailored to their interests. (Sound familiar?) The librarians started this because they realized that young readers would keep books overdue on purpose because they loved getting mail addressed specifically to them. So the librarians decided they could send reading lists instead. Were these ALA-produced best-of lists? No. The librarian sat down and talked to each child and learned what they were interested in, then produced the individualized lists over a couple of days and mailed them. But they could only be requested at Downtown and Belle Isle, because those were the only two libraries that had a professional librarian.
1932 - The first version of Summer Reading that looks like what we have today.
1931 - A passport for reading!
1920s - References are in our records to "increased circulation" that occured in the "boys and girls department" and attributed special attention paid to "vacation reading". Is this the beginning of Summer Reading?
Thank you to Buddy Johnson and Special Collections for this information!