ELLY GRIMM
• Leader & Times
The summer reading program festivities have officially wrapped up at Liberal Memorial Library, and as staff tells it, this year was a very strong one.
“I thought this year was great, this was one of the best summer reading turnouts we've ever had,” Liberal Memorial Library Assistant Director Shannon Moore said. “I would say the cozy coloring was my favorite part, it was a lot of fun. This year, we put a lot of our programming together so everyone could enjoy what we were doing. Instead of having programs just for children or just for teens or just for adults, we ran our programs more along the lines of being for the whole family, which I think was really great because everyone got to come in and enjoy everything instead of just Mom and Dad or just the children.”
“This was actually my first year being on the library staff, but the attendance was really high throughout the entire summer to all the programs and activities we had,” Liberal Memorial Library Children’s Librarian Mikayla Knudsen said. “I really liked how every program had everyone working together to make it successful, and since I'm rather new, it helped me build those relationships with everyone, which is great. I have definitely learned how to better delegate tasks to others – I typically keep things pretty close to the chest, so that was something I definitely improved on as the summer went on. With this being my first year, everything was a bit of a surprise, but I thought everything ended up going amazing, so I can't wait to jump in again next year.”
“I thought everything went fantastic. There were a couple small bumps early on, but they got smoothed out and everything ended up going really well,” Liberal Memorial Library Director Royce Kitts said. “For me, it's always more about looking at things from a team standpoint as far as reacting to that increase in people in the library – for example, Mikayla typically has 15 to 20 children for her Storytime, but with the performers and special guests we had, that number all of a sudden jumps to 150 or more. The summer reading time is when the library provides the most impact in the community, and there's already a sign in my office advertising summer reading 2026, because there's always a lot of planning involved. Even if a person isn't familiar with us, they know we offer the summer reading program. One of my other favorite things was working with USD 480, they do a great job with their summer lunch program and making sure the children are fed, and we're also thankful to work with Trinity Faith Chuch for providing lunches on Fridays since USD 480's program is only Monday through Thursday. I don't think the church's leadership expected quite the response it ended up getting, but they helped feed a bunch of children and I'm sure there's a lot of gratitude all around for that. Fed children are happy children, and that made them more likely to want to participate in whatever program or activity we had going on, so I have to thank USD 480 and the people at Trinity Faith Church for feeding the children all summer so far.”
Kitts and Moore said there were many surprises with this year’s summer reading program festivities.
“I was really surprised at how many people signed up for this year and how successful we were in streamlining the process. In the past, the opening day saw literally everyone single staff member taking sign-up forms, and it was a bit of a madhouse,” Kitts said. “This year, we got really close to locking in pretty much the ideal setup for programs that really made the kickoff party enjoyable for the staff. We had the majority of our sign-ups in before the kickoff party, though we did actually have a couple people who wanted to sign up on the last day. Last year saw 382 people sign up for summer reading, and this year saw 568 people sign up, which was a huge jump. There were a few things we brought back for this year, and everyone stepped up to make everything successful, whether it was by going on and talking to schools and churches to encourage sign-ups, or talking to businesses for donations for prizes, or helping create decorations throughout the library, so I can't give enough kudos to the staff for everything they did. We saw a big jump in adult sign-ups, and that's actually a trend I've been seeing – when I started about 10 years ago, we were lucky to maybe get 30 or 40 adult sign-ups, and this year, we had 251 adult sign-ups, which is amazing. We've also been pushing the summer reading program a lot more than in the past – it was one of those situations where people know it was happening, but word wasn't getting out as much as it could have, and everyone has stepped up in recent years to talk up summer reading and make things as fun as possible. Everyone has their own specific role, and we're all able to come together and make things great for our patrons. I feel like this year's success will be tough to build on, because everything just went so, so well.”
“I thought everything went really smoothly, which was great. Mikayla only started in April, so we thought there might be a bit of a learning curve, but she jumped right in and she collaborated with other people on the staff for certain things, which was fantastic,” Moore said. “And everything ended up looking and going just really well, so I was really happy about that.”
Kitts added there are already some tentative plans being made for 2026.
“Our theme next year is all about dinosaurs, so I think that should be really fun for everyone,” Kitts said. “When we started doing some planning for this year, we were also thinking about how we could also have some things in place for next year and have next year be a continuation. There will be some familiarity next year, which I think some people will really enjoy, and I know there are some people who plan their summers around our summer reading program. And as I've said before, just because the official summer reading program ends, that doesn't mean we don't have a bunch of fun plans and activities as the summer goes on. In fact, we've got some fun things going on this month we'll be talking up on social media and some other places, and I hope we'll see a lot of turnout to those.”
Overall, Kitts and Moore agreed, this year’s summer reading program was a resounding success, which could not have happened without the community’s support.
“This year's summer reading program was absolutely a success, we had huge turnout to everything and we got so much positive feedback about our performers and all the activities we had,” Moore said. “We even ran out of chairs at a couple of our events, so we're at the point where we can definitely expect a healthy turnout to the activities and programs we offer. I want to thank everyone who helped us out, the community's support was phenomenal. Every business we went into was great to work with and happy to donate coupons and prizes and/or sponsor one of the entertainers.”
“I also want to thank all the businesses that stepped up and sponsored what we did, especially Freddy's for the free frozen custard for our closing party, which was amazing,” Kitts said. “Everyone had a great time at all of our programs – we started out with a bang with Dan Dan the Magic Man and ended on a bigger bang with Dr. Schnoz from Mad Science. I can't say enough kudos for all of our local businesses who helped and all of the staff members for everything they did to make everyone's library experience so positive. And again, we've got a bunch of other great stuff coming up in July, which I hope will continue that trend of big turnout. I would highly encourage everyone to follow our social media pages and keep on the lookout, because July definitely won't be boring for us. We almost don't know how we're going to raise the bar for next year, but we'll definitely try.”
