Why? Because those kids are out of school! They have time to come to the library! We only have the chance to so a school age programs once a month during the school year, and most of our attendees are homeschool kids to begin with. We want to have several opportunities for kids of this age group to participate in activities of varying interests.
From September through May we have three separate storytime classes for three separate age groups which results in nine chances to visit the library in one week to hear a storytime! Versus the 1 or 2 school age programs we have a month during the school year. In summer, we scale back and offer two sessions for preschool during the week, one for babies, and one for toddlers.
And boy....does that tick people off.
Every summer, I seem to give the same speech to try to explain that because of the extra programing we offer for families and older kids, we don't have the schedule to provide the same storytime presentation we offer during the school year. I always strive to presents a pro over a con. "I'm sorry that we are not offering storytime at our normal time for summer. I can show you our schedule of great performers and programs for you and your child will enjoy!"
Our biggest grief come from our stay at home parents who are understandably our largest crowd of storytime participants. We offer storytime for babies and toddlers in the evenings. I think we are the only library in the large metro area that offers programs at the time for that age and with a good reason. It allows working moms and dads to attend storytime with their little ones. So I'm biased when patrons try to plead their case that the only storytime session should be in the morning instead of the evening because I'm a working mom. Currently, I'm unable to take my kid to baby story time anywhere because of my schedule and the times they are offered (and I live in an area with 30 plus libraries!) So if we eliminated the evening option of storytime, we eliminate the chance for any working parents to attend after their 9-5 day. Sorry, but this strikes me as grossly unfair. (Even before I became a parent I knew that this option was not a good one) Not everyone has the luxury of being able to stay home with their kids all day (and engage in their learning and literacy at home) but stay at home moms are able to attend a family program or storytime in the evening.
While libraries usually pull out all the stops for summer, we are still limited in some regards. Recently a patron complained to me that we don't have enough activities for babies. Her child was the same age as my daughter and the most of the programs were geared towards older kids. I was at a lost for words for a second (besides exclaiming "Duuhhh!") We mostly cater to books and readers, not necessarily a entertainment center for little kids. If you walked into a Toy R' Us, and found out they only sold one toy for babies, I could understand being annoyed. But a library? What did you think we would have? (okay I'm biased her because I work at a library and I'm the mother of baby who besides crawling and making messes, can't do anything without my help)
I do think after each encounter because I do hate turning people away or the thought of discouraging them from the library. I think, look at the calendar and try to see if there is any possible way we could offer more to our under 3 crowd. But alas, we can't add something without removing something else! To add morning storytimes would mean one of the family programs would have to leave and I think there would be more of an uproar if we canceled popular family events to cater to a handful of patrons.
Lesson of the day....
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