Building Community-Based Summers

The whole community must be at the center of every library’s summer services.

California is re-imagining summer services and activities through the Building Community-Based Summers project (formerly known as Building Equity-Based Summers BEBS).*

BCBS is committed to working together with library staff across California to design summer services which focus on the strengths of all community members and that incorporate a full range of community voices throughout the process.

Building Community-Based Summers (BCBS) Overview

Two children and one adult sit at a table using Legos. The one in the middle is building a mutli-colored tower.

BCBS strengthens the abilities of libraries to create summer services that center community by designing with community so that those that have not felt welcomed at the library engage with library services in new ways.

Professional development opportunities include learning sessions and community conversations. These sessions represent the learnings of staff from over a dozen libraries across the state of California who participated in co-design sessions in 2020-2022. Through these co-design sessions designers learned about each other’s successes and challenges in ensuring that all community voices are included in summer service design and implementation.

These early co-design sessions with pioneering library staff surfaced ideas that continue to be addressed in BCBS learning opportunities. Here are a few:

  • Working towards full community engagement honors the various perspectives of our rich and varied library communities.
  • This work takes time, is intentional, and expands the ways we serve our communities.
  • Community-based engagement requires us to partner with others.
  • Working with community can be messy and worth it.
  • Acknowledging who you are serving is essential.
  • It feels good to work towards including those that have not been included in the past, even if the steps are small at first.

BCBS supports the California State Library’s goal of strengthening the abilities of California libraries to design equitable programs and services. For more information, please see the California State Library 5 Year Plan.

Upcoming Opportunities

Sign up to learn more about 2025/26 BCBS California learning sessions and other BEBS engagement opportunities.

BCBS AI Generative GPT

Explore the BCBS AI generative GPT to help you and your library team learn to build community-centered summer services using the BCBS framework. The BCBS community-focused GPT covers community-centered practices, skill development, reflective practices, and practical applications. You can also access a concept map, video, podcasts and a host of files related to all aspects of the BCBS framework to guide your journey.

Further Learning

Building Community-Based Summers logo.

*In early 2025, The Building Equity-Based Summers (BEBS) project was re-named BCBS—Building Community-Based Summers. The project will continue to build on the core BEBS practices and mindsets. The shift in project title, with a focus on community, reflects what we’ve learned through our work with library staff over the past five and a half years. By emphasizing community in our name, we’re connecting more explicitly with the practice-orientation of the work—supporting library staff in building responsive services rooted in local perspectives and needs and ensuring that all community members, particularly those that have not felt welcomed at the library, are a central focus of summer services, community relationship building and community collaboration

Building Equity-Based Summers is a program of the California Library Association, supported in whole or in part by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act, administered in California by the State Librarian.