Journey through Time with BC Summer Reading Club 2023

From Stephanie Usher

It is hard to believe that we are gearing up for another year of BC Summer Reading Club when it feels like we were just getting All Together Now launched. We want to begin by thanking everyone for all the dedication that they show year after year making BC SRC a memorable tradition for your communities. It would be an understatement to say that the last three years have been a challenge, but we are happy to see that libraries are reporting statistics that almost match pre-pandemic numbers. More importantly, we are constantly touched by the many ways that SRC has brought your communities together during these unprecedented times. With this year’s time travel theme, we anticipate lots of nods to the distant (and not-so distant) past, present, and future.

BC SRC plans to continue to look at ways to provide an inclusive and accessible program and we are able to do this work thanks to a generous $100,000 grant from the Province of British Columbia’s Ministry of Municipal Affairs. Be sure to check the BC SRC staff website for upcoming training materials and resources to ensure you are running inclusive programs this summer.

And before we dive into details for this year’s SRC, we would like to take this time to thank our past Co-Chair Alicia Dobbs and the New Westminister Public Library for all her thoughtful contributions to the program over the last three years. While a typical co-chair run lasts 2 SRC cycles, Alicia (and her predecessor, Laura Zaytsoff) graciously stayed on an extra year as we navigated the uncertainties of the pandemic. Alicia was able to help BC SRC launch its first ever hybrid program and also take on the role of booklist content creator. We are so grateful for her continued service and expertise.

This year’s artwork:

When this year’s artist, Jeni Chen, pitched her concept of dinosaurs and robots for Journey through Time, we knew right away that we found someone who gets it. Jeni was able to capture the past, present, and future with her bright and bold characters that are bursting with personality. If you look closely, you’ll see the different ways that Jeni was able to incorporate this year’s sub-themes into the artwork. Be sure to check out Jeni’s debut picture book Emet’s Box and you can learn more about Jeni and her work at jenichen.com. Don’t forget to check out all the different art scenes on the BC SRC staff website

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This year’s sub-themes:

A big shout-out to our wonderful co-chairs who came up with this year’s sub-themes that encapsulate the various manifestations and expressions of time travel for programming this summer:

Dynamic Dinosaurs –Prehistoric life Living Large – Art, culture, daily life

Beautiful Builds –Architecture, buildings, bridges

Terrific Transportation – Transportation throughout history and what’s to come

Ingenious Inventions –Past, present, and future

Rollin’ with Retro –Retro classics

Far Out Future – What’s to come

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Meet the 2023 SRC Team:

BC SRC is made possible by the hard work of many people, including our core team of co-chairs and content creators who help create the annual manual that many libraries across the province rely on for their programming. Thank you to everyone for their contributions and sharing their talent with the SRC community!

And a special thank you to Dr. Tess Prendergast of UBC’s iSchool for continuing to mentor and share her expertise for the manual’s inclusion review.

Lastly, we would like to introduce Sabrina Gurniak as the new BC SRC Provincial Assistant for 2023! Sabrina is the current co-editor for YAACING and works as a Children’s Librarian at the Vancouver Public Library.

BC SRC is currently looking for a new co-chair for 2024! The term would begin in summer 2023 to begin the planning of next year’s program. Term commitments are for two SRC programs (in this case, 2024 and 2025). If you love all things BC SRC and currently work in one of BC’s public libraries and are involved with SRC in your library, please do not hesitate to apply. This is a wonderful professional development opportunity to get more involved with BC SRC on a provincial level, while sharing your insights into creating an inclusive, accessible, engaging, and dynamic program. For more information about applying, please visit the BC SRC Staff website and look for the volunteer page. Applications will be accepted until June 15, 2023 and the position will begin in July 2023.

For more information about this year’s BC SRC, please make sure to subscribe to the YAACS online forum (see our next piece for instructions!), follow @BC_SRC on Twitter, and visit www.bcsrc.ca/staff for updates.

Stephanie Usher lives, works, studies and plays on the traditional unceded homelands of xʷməθkʷəyəm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-Waututh)

Nations. She is the Provincial Coordinator for the BC Summer Reading Club, as well as a Library Technician in the Vancouver Public Library’s Children’s Library and MLIS candidate at UBC’s iSchool.