Here are some of the highlights of the Collaborative Summer Library Program Conference (CSLP) that was held in Little Rock, Arkansas in April.

CSLP is the national organization that YOUR public library belongs to. The NJ State Library pays your annual membership fees through a grant administered by NJLA so that we can share the themes and artwork produced by famous artists for each year’s summer reading program.

2009 Children’s Theme: Be Creative @ Your Library (David Catrow, artist)
2009 YA Theme: Express Yourself @ Your Library (Brad Sneed, artist)

The 2010 water themed slogans are:

Make a Splash - Read! - Children's Slogan
Make Waves at Your Library - YA Slogan

The 2011 theme is:

World Cultures/Travel

NOTES FROM HIGHSMITH

    1. Increasingly important to place orders by Dec. 1 because more items are being made in China. They need a 4 month lead time to ship.
    2. CSLP subsidizes shipping costs over 8%.
    3. The 2009 catalog will be available online by Oct. 1.
    4. They will drop .tif files from the 2009 manual and only provide .jpg format for the clip art because they are running out of room on the cd. .tif files will be available by special request.  They will also do some “transparent” clip art.
    5. They have hired a new graphic artist so there will be more “smaller” graphics and more black and white.

CSLP DIVERSITY COMMITTEE
Will survey all state reps to determine the top 5 languages in the U.S. They want to have the PSAs translated into more languages available for download from the website.

2009 MANUAL

  1. Activities will be indexed by age group
  2. Bibliography and Resources will be posted on the CSLP website by Sept. 15, 2008.

ONLINE SUMMER READING PROGRAM REGISTRATION SOFTWARE
Several states expressed an interest in having CSLP look at the possibility of brokering a discount for the purchase of one of these systems. Several states are already using successfully.


Last year the Vermont Center of the Book and the National Science Foundation created a manual with math and science activities for "Get A Clue..." They produced another manual this year that goes with the Catch the Reading Bug theme. Here is the link:

http://www.mothergooseprograms.org/articles/2651.pdf

This manual is 30+ pages and contains a lot of color pictures, web sites, and activities so it might take awhile to download--- but it is worth it!

Wishing you very successful summer reading programs!


Sharon Rawlins, Youth Services Consultant, NJ State Library

Annual NJ Statewide Children’s and Teen Author Day

Barnes and Noble Library Appreciation Days