Sunshine, Stories, and Summer are for Everyone

What is Sunshine & Stories?

Sunshine & Stories is a Colorado State Library podcast dedicated to all things summer in public libraries. During our 2024-25 season, keep an eye out for new episodes twice a month from August to May. We’ll explore topics like performers, incentives, outreach, volunteers, capturing impact, and many more ideas related to designing a summer public library program for your whole community (adults included!). Featuring interviews with other Colorado State Library staff and ideas from Colorado library professionals around the state, this podcast aims to provide valuable insight and spark creative ideas in your public library’s own 2025 summer planning. Whether you’re a veteran in the summer library program planning world, a newbie looking to start a summer program for the first time, or someone who’s considering changing up your program a little or a lot this year, we hope this podcast will be a valuable resource for you. Sunshine & Stories is available on most major podcast apps.

Ep. 113 Summer is for Everyone:

Episode Summary:

Designing an inclusive summer program benefits everyone when you think about taking a Universal Design approach. Let’s talk about the what, why, and how of creating a summer program for everyone in your library’s communities of service. (Full transcript available here.)

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00:00 – Introduction
01:23 – What does it mean to design a summer for everyone?
05:47 – Ideas to think about and changes to consider
09:17 – Practicing cultural humility
10:26 – Take it a step at a time
11:41 – How we’re trying to walk the walk one step at a time
14:16 – Resource recommendation
16:00 – Closing

Resources:

Collaborative Summer Library Program
Colorado Youth Services Library Network mailing list
CSL Kits – Tools for Library Staff (cvlsites.org)
History Colorado digital collection of John Fielder’s photography
Universal Design Guide
Colorado Talking Book Library
Rural Communication Access Services (free sign language interpretation services available on request for rural communities in Colorado)
Language Resources: Translation and Interpretation Services and Beyond from CO Virtual Library
Cultural Humility: People, Principles and Practices Part 1 of 4 (video, 7min12sec)
CU Denver Center for Innovative Design and Engineering (CIDE)
CO Department of Education Equity Toolkit

Play, Learn, & Grow:

The English and Spanish Play, Learn, & Grow videos and activity sheets are available online. To obtain printable .pdf files for the Vietnamese and Standard Chinese (Mandarin) tip sheets, contact Kate Compton at compton_k@cde.state.co.us

Next Drop-in Chat:

Join us on February 25, 2025 at 11:00 am to noon Mountain Time for our next online Summer Drop-in Chat. No need to register. Come when you can, stay for as long as you can. See you soon!