2023 Theme and Art Introduction 

A few emails have been trickling in with questions about BC Summer Reading Club 2023, and we are very excited to share the news about BC SRC 2023: Journey through Time! For this year’s time travel theme, we worked with Richmond-based artist and illustrator, Jeni Chen, who created some dino-mite art by mixing the past, present, and future together. Her artwork features dinosaurs and robots (an absolutely winning combination!) and captures all the various sub-themes. We’re sure that everyone is going to have their own favourite dinosaur as we move towards the summer.

BC Summer Reading Club 2023 poster featuring illustrations with a group of dinosaurs and robots taking a selfie.

Image Caption: The 2023 BC SRC poster featuring illustrations by Jeni Chen and designed by Lauren Achtem

Jeni is excited and available for workshops this summer and has two options to choose from. She is available for in-person workshops and events in Greater Vancouver, as well as, for virtual programs. Workshops are one hour and cost $200 (+ an additional $50 for travel for in-person workshops). For workshops longer than one hour, she charges according to CARFAC artist fees. The best way to contact Jeni is to email her at [email protected].

Workshop 1 – The making of Emet’s Box 
  • Description: Join Jeni as she reads her book Emet’s Box, shares her inspirations, writing and illustrating processes (show my sketchbook, manuscript drafts, dummy books) and does a live drawing demo/exercise.
Workshop 2 – The making of the 2023 BC Summer Reading Club Artwork
  • Description: Find out how Jeni got inspired for BC SRC 2023. She will share her inspirations for the artwork and how she chose the 7 different dinosaurs by researching and reading books from her local library. The workshop will end with a live drawing demo/exercise.

Important websites to bookmark

Please note that these will be updated and posted:

2023 sub-themes

  • 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
  • Far Out Future – what’s to come

A huge thank you to this year’s Co-Chairs and Content Creators for this year’s SRC Manual: 

  • Co-chairs: Jennie Castleton & Surrey Libraries, and Kate Wood
  • Content Creators: Mehjabeen Ali & Surrey Libraries, Corene Maret Brown & Port Moody Public Library, Erin Crowley & Fraser Valley Regional Library, Alicia Dobbs & New Westminster Public Library, and Kelly Savage & Vancouver Public Library 

And a special thank you to Dr. Tess Prendergast (UBC iSchool) for her continued mentorship and lending her expertise for the annual manual.

The Manual is currently under review and will be available in March on the resource page for your SRC planning!

Materials and T-Shirts 

Your library’s SRC primary contact should have received an email regarding your SRC quantities. If someone at your library has not been reached, please let Stephanie know at bcsrc[at]bcla.bc.ca immediately. This year’s medal will be on a lime green lanyard and feature this year’s logo and one of the dinosaur characters.

This year’s reading record will feature a double-sided design, with one English side and the other a French side. We hope that this new design will create a less crowded and more coherent pathway. It will also feature one panel for participants to write/draw down titles. 

A flatlay image of the BC SRC 2023 Reading Record featuring the different elements of the reading record.

Image Caption: A preview for the reading record (English side). 

BC Summer Reading Club will be working with Fairware again for our t-shirt, baseball caps, and tattoos again. A link will be sent out shortly! Please note that BC SRC will have a small and very limited inventory for order past the deadline, so please arrange your Fairware orders if possible.

Training and Benchmark Survey

We are currently in the works to create training modules for how to run SRC that we hope will be useful for any staff, especially any summer students. The training will include information on inclusion and accessibility that we hope can be used not only for SRC programming, but for other library programming. 

To get a better sense of the needs of SRC participants, we will be launching an SRC benchmark survey that is similar to the survey we provide for online participants. The goal is to share this information directly with libraries to learn what impact SRC has on your community.

More details about both of these will come out in the upcoming weeks.  

BC SRC Community Story Award reminder

As a general reminder, BC SRC’s Community Story Award nominations are open until March 1, 2023. So please do send in your stories and the ways that BC SRC impacts your library and community. For more details, please go to the Community Story Award page. The winner will receive free registration to this year’s BCLA Conference happening between April 12-14, 2023 in Richmond, BC. As well as, an award to be presented at this year’s conference.