Q: My library's summer reading program
is going online for the first time ever. I have been designated as
the person who sets up the Evanced Summer Reader. My question is: is
it possible to have separate goals for separate age groups?
For
instance, preschoolers must read "x" amount of pages while
3rd graders must read "y" amount. I cannot figure out how
to set this up.
A: It is possible to have both a
"patron" goal and a "program" goal in the same
program. However, there is only one of each in a single
program.
What many libraries do is setup up multiple programs
with an age restriction on each. So for example, you could have a
kids program (ages 0-6), a youth program (ages 7-12), a teen program
(ages 13-17) and an adult program (ages 18-up). You can have as many
programs as you like.
To help make this easier to setup,
there is a "copy" function in the program setup. So you can
configure one program with the basic settings for your programs then
copy it several times and change only the portions that are different
(like patron goal).
A side-affect of setting up many programs
is that it may cause some confusion with all the tabs. So to help
eliminate this problem go to 'Program Settings' and change the
display mode from "Tabs" to either "Links" or
"Droplist". Now create a link for each specific program on
your library's web page using the program ID found in the program
configuration (for example,http://xx.evanced.info/library/sr/homepage.asp?programID=4).
This way you can direct each age group to a specific program and they
will only see the tab for their program.