HOT OFF THE PRESS: Summer Reading Guide Magazines

Submitted by Leslie Marinelli

Arriving this week at all our locations: 39 boxes of 24-page Summer Reading Guides, professionally printed in a glossy magazine format! 

This is a really big change for us. 

For many years we created individual 4-page bifold guides for each branch. These guides evolved over time and got a little better every year through staff feedback and process enhancements, but staff had to print and fold them at each branch, which was a very time-consuming and toner-heavy task. 

Plus, the individual guides did not make it easy for patrons who like to visit multiple branches. 

2024 Summer Program Guides, 4 pages each and unique to each branch

We knew there had to be a better way! 

Deputy Director Ann Decherd and I have been dreaming of an all-inclusive, magazine-style summer reading guide since our first summer together at HQ in 2022. 

We always knew a more polished, professionally printed summer reading magazine would check a number of the boxes of our Strategic Plan: 

• Deliver exceptional materials...
• Amplify the library's story to increase public awareness and usage 
• Enhance user experience in library buildings and online
• Transform community perceptions about what a public library is and can be
• Evaluate workflows and tools to maximize resources and efficiencies  

We just needed the staff and the budget to pull it off.

Thankfully, a variety of puzzle pieces came together this year to enable us to turn our dream into a reality! 

This project took several months and a veritable village to come to fruition. Kaity Bowers did the lion's share of the absolutely gorgeous design and layout, Sarah Brubaker led the charge on gathering and managing all the program details, and Amy Whitten and Ann Decherd helped me with the writing, editing, and formatting of all the fine details. Then we turned it over to the Information Services folks to check our work and help us fix any errors. Their input was invaluable! 

While our printer was printing, cutting, binding, and folding for us, our IT department was hard at work transforming the document into a digital flipbook and downloadable PDF zip file (accessible near the bottom of the Summer Reading Fun webpage).    

We hope you are as pleased with and proud of the final results as we are. We can't wait to hear your thoughts, either in the comments below or to me directly via email at MarinelliL@ForsythPL.org. 

Should we do this again next year? How do patrons feel about the new format? What's your favorite part? What should we add or change next year? 

I want to give a special shout out to Sara Baggett-Preston for taking the beautiful photo that we chose for the cover. Talk about a picture being worth a thousand words! 

Also, hats off to Elizabeth Hernandez for delivering 1,950 pounds of magazines to all the branches, most likely with a big smile on her face! 💪😀