In Stephen Abram's presentation this morning, he mentioned that Google is trying to figure out how to advertise to children. And then he said "and maybe you think that's a good thing, and maybe you don't."
Examine your own answer to that question. If you come down on the side of no, advertising to children is unethical, because they don't have the media literacy skills to differentiate between advertising and content, or because they shouldn't be turned into little consumer automatons that can't evaluate what they're being told to want, then maybe you should reconsider how you feel about having a corporate sponsor for the Summer Reading Program.
Because, in a sense, that's what we run here at ACPL: The Pizza Hut Summer Reading Program. Pizza Hut provides coupons for free food for every (or nearly every) participant in both the Children's and the Teen Summer Reading Programs. To me, that means that along with recommending books and movies and fun events to participate in at the library, we are endorsing Pizza Hut. I used to think that it would be better if we had a sponsor that had a healthier food offering, but I don't think that would satisfy me now.
I think ACPL needs to stop leaning on the crutch of corporate advertising in order to be able to tell ourselves that we're giving the kids what they want. We're not giving them what they want with Pizza Hut coupons. We're telling them what to want.
One argument against dropping Pizza Hut might be "but our stats will go down!" I say that if you're doing the right thing, you might - MIGHT - have to realign your expectations (and the expectations of the administration). But you might not. I think we could offer NO prizes AT ALL and still see 2/3 of the participation we see with prizes.
If we dropped the Pizza Hut prize, we'd definitely hear about it from parents. But it would still be the right thing. I think we should do the right thing.
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I once talked to a school that didn't want me to talk about the Pizza Hut coupon, in fact didn't want me to present the program to their students because we were giving away Pizza Hut coupons and Wizards tickets. The reason? Because they serve alcohol at those businesses.
That kind of made my head spin. Alcohol use is not something to be taken lightly, around kids. I'm not sure I blame them!
Which reminds me of something I saw this spring. Anheuser Busch came out with a new malt beverage called Spykes, sold in little colorful nail-polish-sized (and shaped) bottles. Read about it here: http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2007/05/bud_extra03.html
Guess what? Apparantly Spykes is no longer on the market; I can't find it anywhere on the web.
That's an interesting idea. But what about all the destination passes? Is that different?
--Rebecca
How does using Pizza Hut or Scott's to fund the Paws to Read differ from us buying books that have M7M's on the cover?
Rebecca: I'm not sure it's terribly different. Maybe we SHOULD go prizeless. On the other hand, the destination passes are essentially about recreation, even exercise, not unhealthy food.
Nancy: Good point. We shouldn't buy books with M&M's on the cover. And the advertising of Scott's is not aimed at children, and the Read to Feed program is not aimed telling children what they want - it's asking them to help homeless animals, which is a very different kind of thing.
--Ian
My argument wouldn't have anything to do with stats going down. Heck, I'd be thrilled if my stats went down, because my staffing level is never EVER going to go up.
I see lots and lots of arguments about not sullying our "high standards" with corporate involvement.
I have yet to see any viable alternative suggestions. Think the taxpayers are going to willingly fork over hundreds of thousands more dollars so that we can give away stuff that makes us feel like we're on moral high ground? Think again.
And even if money were not an issue, what are you going to give away? Seeds of corn so the teens can grow their own bio-fuel for their cars? Anything you buy to give away to kids/teens has a corporate trail of one sort or another attached to it, and someone will always have a reason to object to whatever corporation it is.
Remember the year we did the "reading is its own reward" SRP? No prizes? It was not fabulously successful.
Linda: My argument is not about not sullying our high standards with corporate involvement. It is about not taking unfair advantage of kids through advertising, or by enabling Pizza Hut or whoever else to do that through our materials or programs.
Pizza Hut already has a big "in" with kids through BookIt. We don't need to add to that problem. And no, I wasn't here for Reading is its Own Reward ... but I'm up for trying it again! ;-) Still, there's lots of stuff that's healthier than Pizza Hut to give away.
If we used the M&M book argument, we'd have to get rid of half our collection. This is a slippery censorship slope, folks.
Local food gifts are gifts that keep on giving. And I don't mean that in a good way. I am concerned about the physical and mental health of children. And while I don't think it's our job to raise those kids, I do think that what the library offers represents itself. That's worth consideration.
I personally believe, as Alfie Kohn does (http://www.alfiekohn.org/bio.htm) that offering incentives for kids to read, i.e. "If you read that book I'll give you a (insert thingamajig here)" isn't doing the library or the kids any favors. It implies that it takes a stick to get kids to eat that (nasty?) carrot in the first place. Is that what we want to say about reading?
How many people do we have to hear grouse over our carefully considered SRP gifts? I'd much rather put our money into programming, which promotes library mission and library as third place-- even if we know that people probably won't attend that library program! How long do you really think kids are running home to play with the hunks of plastic we're handing out which parents are clearly complaining about?!
Rethinking the way we do things is hard work, but I think it's work we need to do constantly to remain fresh, viable, and true to our mission. What would've happened had the Wright brothers said, "We tried that a couple years ago and it didn't work."?
The ACPL did a Summer Reading Program with no prizes one year. (Leave it to an oldtimer to remember!) The reaction from the community was sour and there was no way to know if anyone read anything. We handed out lined paper for patrons to keep track of their reading.
From the opposite extreme there was one Summer program where the prizes and coupons were handed out in McDonald's Happy Meal boxes.
This last year we raffled out Ipod Schuffles that our patrons can't even use our ACPL computers to get music for them.
I admit that it is sad that we have to reward people for reading. I also don't like seeing reading become a competative sport. Some children and parents have given the reason for not doing a reading program because of Pizza Hut's Bookit program has them all worn out from the school year.
Always it is difficult to find a balance. We try our best.
Lisa: Maybe. Books we give away during SRP already have to meet a stricter standard than books that go into our collection, though. I think it's worth talking about it to find out whether people think that this is also a good standard to apply.
Jen: I agree - using Pizza Hut prizes promotes Pizza Hut as the Third Place, not ACPL.
Scott: I'd like to do the no prizes (except maybe books?) thing again for more than a year, to see what kind of results we'd get over time. Maybe parents would be dissatisfied with it, but it would be interesting to see if we still experienced an increase in signups from year to year with no prizes.
Everybody: Check out the rest of my blog! It's good too! ;-)
Well, what if we stuck with books as prizes? Plus, maybe a raffle for a bigger prize, like Borders? (Or am I stuck in commercial mode?)
I agree that giving away trinkets feels funny, as does giving away Pizza Hut coupons.
After the novelty wears off, trinkets just sorta clutter up the world.
But I hate the idea of no prizes at all.
Can we do fewer prizes - books only?
-Rebecca
If ACPL decided that gifts were desirable, I would prefer books, even if we had to have fewer books in order to afford it for the CHI program.
Linda: the giveaways for the children's and teens' SRPs are funded by a grant from the Foellinger Foundation. The Friends of the Library have also funded SRP incentives.
I think book incentives are great. Many kids and teens welcome the chance to add to (or begin) their own personal library. And the raffle prizes this year, gift cards and iPods, were very popular.
I also like the idea of passes to local attractions. The passes promote going out and being sociable, rather than staying inside by oneself playing video games or reading all summer.
Nancy: Our public library collection is designed to offer a wide array of what the publishing world has to offer. Our gift selections, to a great degree, do the same, though we do have stricter guidelines to we do follow in purchasing for gift books.
On the other hand, schools, libraries, Super Domes, or any other entity that chooses to become sponsored by an outside funder gives up a piece of itself-- not just a foothold on how things work, but who they are. The public image is altered. I'm not saying it'll come down to, "Congratulations Ana, you've reached the end of Trail 3! Do you want a gift for a McReader or a McPrereader?" but corporate sponsorship, as opposed to media tie-in materials we offer as checkouts OR gifts, change who we are.
So as long as we still like how we look in the mirror while we have corporate sponsorship, great. Certainly it is the current trend, but with sponsorship comes pluses and minuses that must be considered on a regular basis.
The library as the third place...yes, we want this, but I do not believe using area businesses diminishes this. Matter of fact I believe it brings us more into the community.
I lingered a long time over buying books such as the M&M counting book I ordered. I finally decided it did fit out collection development policy in the realm of "give them what they want" philosophy, plus I knew it would be popular. We would not give Pizza Hut coupons if they were not popular.
I agree if we stop this for some of the reasons given it would be a very slippery slope.
I'm sure we wouldn't give out Pizza Hut coupons if they weren't popular. But you know what else really young kids will pop into their mouths if given half a chance? A penny. That's why ACPL would never give out choking hazards as summer reading gifts.
We do, however, hand out coupons for gifts that block arteries, as well as gifts with cradle-to-grave marketing attached (not our own-- but that is a separate thread!). Kids are not prepared for media literacy without training any more than they're prepared for early literacy without caring grownups. Who's looking out for them?
I have no problem whatsoever with M&M books as collection items OR gifts. I think the "give 'em what they want" philosophy has a definite place in public library collection management.
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