Staff Reading Challenge Update

Submitted by Trina Schlecht

51 staff members have signed up for the 2021 Staff Reading Challenge so far! If you haven’t signed up, it’s not too late to sign up and complete the challenge. Remember, you only need to complete six of the twelve challenges. If you are new to FCPL, look on the Staff homepage on SharePoint under #WeKnowBooks.

Many of you know that I love Excel and reviewing statistics. I’ve been doing just that to see which challenges have been popular and which have been less popular to date this year. One of the challenges that has been quite popular is ‘Read a Book in a Different Genre or Format than You Usually Read,’ with 34 contributions from staff members already. One staff member commented that she had previously attempted four science fiction titles and not finished a single one but finally tried one that had been suggested by a fellow staff member and actually enjoyed it. This category was of particular interest to me because the books are so varied, as some staff members changed their genre (science fiction or romance when they normally shy away from those genres) while others changed their format (large print or eBook for audiobook aficionados). I branched out and read a graphic novel that I really enjoyed.

To my surprise, the least popular challenge is the ‘Read a Book on Your “To Be Read” Pile or Give a Book You Didn’t Like a Second Chance.’ Perhaps staff are completing the challenges in order, but so far only 14 staff members have completed this particular challenge, which is tagged as the December promotion. I’m sure we can all find a book that we’ve been meaning to read and complete this challenge. It doesn’t need to be a long book, just one that you haven’t found the time to read. I’m actually working on it right now. There’s a title that was suggested last year in Whatcha Reading that I didn’t get to read immediately. I delayed delivery in Libby numerous times because I had too many other books to read. I’m curious to see how many staff will complete the December challenge before the end of the year!

Two other challenges that haven’t proved very popular are ‘Read a Book By or About Someone with a Similar Background to Your Own’ with only 15 books having been submitted so far, and ‘Read a Book Published in the Decade You Were Born or the Decade You Started High School.’ Only 16 titles have been recorded for this last challenge, but there are almost four months left to go in the year and the reading challenge. In total, staff have logged 309 books for the 2021 FCPL Staff Reading Challenge. Let’s see how many we can log by December 31! I’m sure we have all read books that we haven’t logged. After all, at FCPL, #WeKnowBooks!