Hi Elaine,

Hope you are well! I'm writing to you from my new position at East Haddam Elementary!

My hometown (Coventry) did the greatest thing this summer. The public library has a grant through the state where they track summer reading and it automatically gets reported to the school. No more forms, or hand tallying. We were given directions to create an account and tallied reading hours online all summer at our town library. We would stop in the library for prizes after a certain amount of days as we met goals along the way. They had a big end of summer reading party for the participants in August and the info was passed along automatically. The tally of his reading was automatically sent to school at the end of the program and he got his certificate sent home the other day saying he participated. Loved it!

I plan on contacting the town libraries in East Haddam in the spring to see if they particpate in this and if we could partner up on a community/town initiative to combine our summer reading efforts. The state is only providing this service through public libraries, but it certainly benefits us if you get in touch with the librarians in town and they are willing to participate.   It's a win-win for the schools (so much less work for the LMS, public libraries who get the website funded for them, and the parents who didn't have to keep track of a paper all summer or remember to turn it in.  Great way to connect with other librarians outside of school too.  Contact Booth & Dimock in Coventry for more info. :)