TD Summer Reading Club: New Online Platform 2024
Toronto Public Library
Innovation Synopsis
The TD Summer Reading Club, developed by Toronto Public Library in partnership with Library and Archives Canada, launched a new online platform in 2024. The new site modernizes library registration and provides online participation data at the participating library level. It increases interactivity on the kids’ site and introduces a parent/caregiver account to make reading tracking easier for families. The new kids’ site launched June 2024 and the new library staff portal launches August 2024.
TD Summer Reading Club is Canada’s biggest, bilingual summer reading program for kids of all ages, all interests, and all abilities, offered at more than 2,200 public libraries across Canada. The club celebrates Canadian children’s book creators and inspires kids to explore the fun of reading their way, which is key to building a lifelong love of reading and learning. Kids can take part anywhere – at local public libraries across Canada as well at home, online, or wherever summer takes them.
Challenge/Opportunity
The website portion of the TD Summer Reading Club was created in 2015 as an accessory to the National program but has since become a main access point with the number of users increasing steadily since 2020. The previous website was not able to meet new business requirements or participating library or customer needs.
Key Elements of Innovation
In addition to improvements to navigability and overall user experience, this project provided a more versatile platform that is able to evolve with the customer and program needs including these new features:
• Better data reporting and engagement with kids at a local level
• Increased interactivity for participants
• Increased tracking of kids reading progress
• Modernized support for participating libraries
Kids can track their reading and earn badges. They can rate, review and recommend books, read free ebooks and vote for their favorites in the Battle of the Books. They can also participate in weekly trivia, read and share jokes and stories, print colouring sheets, view artist workshops, enjoy an original web comic and audio recording and complete our Book Finder Quiz for book suggestions.
The site also has bilingual portals for staff and parents/caregivers where they can find program information, branding, statistics, accessibility materials, and tips on raising a reader.
Achieved Outcomes
A completely new national program website was successfully planned and implemented with new features to meet service needs.
The 2024 program is still underway and program statistics are being collected and analyzed. Since the June 2024 website launch, the average user engagement time has increased by 18%.
