15 Book Clubs for Reading Engagement — Book Clubs in Academic Libraries: A Case Study and Toolkit

Jansen (2018) situates book clubs hosted at academic libraries in the vacuum of summer, where there are fewer classes and generally more bandwidth for librarians to pursue extra programming.  Framed as “collaborative and immersive learning”, Penn State University Libraries collaborated with their es]academic tutoring center to “engage peer tutors [student employes] in reading and hope their enjoyment spread to other  students who were on campus during the quiet summer term” (p. 258). Though their model differed from RealLit (summer reading vs. academic year; specific community of readers vs. open to the campus), some similarities emerge: reading YA novels, , providing snacks, and the use of marketing channels (campus television, posters, and word of mouth). The primary difference between the University of Washington, Tacoma’s RealLit and Penn State’s summer engagement book club resides in the use of topics in books to have difficult conversations on social justice (RealLit) versus the use of book for increasing reading engagement (Penn State).

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