Starting a tandem connection between your local libraries and local schools helps you gain a full picture of students’ reading habits and foster participation in reading challenges all year long.
When you set up a tandem connection with another local site, you can:
- Promote challenges directly to readers on your local partner's site
- Work together to boost enrollment and engagement
- See which readers have linked their profiles
And when readers link their school and library profiles, they can:
- Easily switch between connected sites
- See current challenges for both sites from either homepage
- Count all logged reading toward both sites’ challenges, badges, and reading logs
How to set up a tandem connection
To set up a tandem connection between your Beanstack sites, get in touch with your School Success Manager or Library Success Manager. Not sure who that is? Reach out to us at beanstack.com/support and we’ll make sure you get in touch with the right team members. Mention if you’ve already talked with your Beanstack counterpart at the local library or school with which you want to connect; if not, your CSM will bring everyone together to begin the discussion and implementation process.
Once both site administrators confirm that they want to connect their sites, your CSMs will set up a meeting with all the stakeholders. Before your meeting, consult the tandem FAQs and prepare any additional questions or documents. Some partners use a memoranda of understanding (MOU) for the data usage agreement between libraries and schools; if you use an MOU, it's helpful to discuss the agreement with your school or library counterpart before or during the meeting.
At the meeting, your CSMs will discuss any implications for your site settings and reader registration information, answer your questions, and confirm when the tandem connection will be live and readers can begin linking their accounts!
How to promote linking profiles to readers
Before the tandem connection is live, start thinking about how to spread the word about the new ability for readers to link profiles. Consult our best practices for libraries and promotional tips for schools for ideas on maximizing the connection from day one.
Once the tandem connection is live, readers will see a banner at the top of their Beanstack homepage when logged in on either the school or library site, letting them know that they can now link their school and library profiles. The initial linking process is only available to readers when using Beanstack’s web app; once linked, however, any reading logged on the web or mobile apps transfers over to the linked profile!
To help guide readers through the steps, we have flyers available to use in school or public libraries, showing the easy steps students or patrons follow. Librarians, teachers, or media specialists helping readers link their accounts will follow the same steps as the readers, as the link must be created from the reader side. We also have short videos showing the process for a library patron or student.
Once a reader links their profiles, any reading logged from that point on, either on the web or mobile app, will count toward both their school and library profiles. The tandem link does not retroactively add past reading to the linked account. And the tandem link can be revoked or replaced from the reader side on the library or school side at any time!
How to tell when readers are linked
You and your staff can easily tell what readers have linked profiles by pulling up their information in People > Find A Person. Any reader with a tandem link to a partnering library or school will display a link icon next to their reader name.
