Unearthing Sunny Ideas for Summer Program Planning

What is Sunshine & Stories?

Sunshine & Stories is a Colorado State Library podcast dedicated to all things public and school libraries. Our podcast aims to offer fresh insights, as well as spark creative and practical ideas for diverse public & school library settings. Whether you’re a veteran in the library world, a newbie looking for a little professional support, or someone who’s considering shaking things up in your library (a little or a lot), we hope this podcast will be a valuable resource for you.

Ep. 206 Unearthing CSLP Summer Program Resources

Episode Summary:

The Collaborative Summer Library Program’s 2026 program manual is now live! So the Kates chat about all things summer from toolkits, printables and all that CSLP has to offer to fun ways to interpret this summer’s theme of “Unearth a Story” and the America 250 – Colorado 150 celebrations. (Full transcript available here.)

00:00 – Introduction
00:28 – What is CSLP?
01:28 – Tools  
03:33 – Access
05:29 – Learning Opportunities   
08:19 – Rules of Use
11:32 – The Theme and Program ideas
19:13 – Another take? 150/250
25:04 – Closing

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Resources:

• Collaborative Summer Library Program (CSLP)
• CSLP Professional Development – Summer Symposium and other webinars
• CSLP Official Summer Library Programming Group (Facebook)
• Colorado Youth Services Library Network mailing list
• Where to See the Dinosaurs of Colorado 
• History Colorado: America 250 – Colorado 150 Commission
• America250 
• Colorado Tourism Office – Colorado Passport
• CO State Library’s “Stories of Colorado” collection
• “Reimagining School Readiness: Dinosaurs” (CSL Kit)

Colorado folks, for access to CSLP’s 2026 “Unearth a Story” program manual, please contact Kate Brunner at [email protected]. For all other states and territories, please reach out to your CSLP Representative.

Colorado State Library projects like this one are funded in part by the Grants to States program administered by the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services. The views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this podcast do not necessarily represent those of the Colorado State Library, Institute of Museum and Library Services, or the U.S. Government.