Lawrence Public Library, pictured Aug. 20, 2015.

As the last days of summer vacation inch closer, Lawrence Public Library staffers are celebrating the end (or near end, more accurately) of another successful Summer Reading Program.

The public is invited to join the party Thursday during a Summer Reading Last Bash on the lawn of the Lawrence Public Library, 707 Vermont St. While readers have until Aug. 20 to successfully log either their hours of reading or assigned number of books, Thursday’s event will celebrate those who already completed the program — and anyone else who wants to join in, too.

“It’s a community party celebrating reading and libraries, and if you happen to have participated in Summer Reading, then the party is for you, too,” says Lawrence Public Library marketing coordinator Heather Kearns, who recapped the library’s annual program as “a wonderful summer” despite dwindling participation in the kids’ category.

If the library’s youngest readers — infants through fifth-graders — hope to continue their longtime winning streak of out-reading teens and adults, Kearns says, they’ll “need to get cracking,” and soon.

As of July 27, the library counted 1,678 Summer Reading finishers in the kids’ category, which asks participants to read 12 books or for 30 hours total. That number represents a 1.4 percent increase from last year, but a 5.6 percent decrease from 2015.

Adults and teens, while still lagging in terms of total participants, are outpacing kids in growth, says Karen Allen, the library’s youth services coordinator. As of July 27, 501 teens — or, grades 6 through 12 — had completed the same number of books or reading hours as their younger counterparts. About as many adults had logged five books or 30 reading hours as of July 27, bringing the total number of Summer Reading finishers to 2,649.

Library staffers can only speculate about potential causes behind the dip in kids’ participation, Allen says, though she has a few theories.

“I know that circulation is trending down a little bit at the library overall, so I think that probably has something to do with it,” says Allen, who also attributes the decline as a natural response to the heightened buzz around the library reopening in 2014. “This is our third year being open, and I think we were still feeling the rush of being new in 2015.”

The number of teens participating in this year’s Summer Reading Program marks a 17 percent increase from 2016 and a 27 percent increase from 2015.

“That has been amazing,” Allen says of watching the upward trend. “I’ve been here five years, and every year it’s been steadily climbing, which I think says a lot about our kids’ programs.”

Young people, Allen theorizes, are sticking around the library even as adolescents, thanks in part to the library’s robust youth programming. Anecdotally, she has seen more teens hanging out at the library’s new location than she ever did in the old building or the former Borders store that housed the library during construction. And they might be drawn to Summer Reading programming, Allen says, because it offers the kind of indoor, climate-controlled fun that’s otherwise lacking for teens over the summer in Lawrence.

In the final weeks of the program, Allen and her fellow library staffers will lead a push to reach as many kid readers as possible, she says. The overall goal is 3,000 finishers, with kids representing 2,400 to 2,700 of that total.

Despite the dip in the children’s participation, this year’s Summer Reading produced plenty of successes, says Kearns, including the widely popular Game of Gnomes. The summer-long scavenger hunt, which ended July 28, had participants look for gnomes (more specifically, gnome-shaped stencils colored with chalk paint and laden with “Game of Thrones”-inspired monikers) scattered throughout the walking paths of 10 Lawrence parks, all in the name of fun and prizes.

“We wanted people to discover new green spaces in town that they may not have known about, and I cannot tell you how many people who have come in to pick up their prizes and have said exactly that,” Kearns says of the program’s success.

Other well-attended programs included Deja’s Reading Rainbow, the library’s “very first drag queen storytime” hosted by local entertainer Deja Brooks in celebration of the local LGBT community. The June event was so successful, Kearns says, that the library plans to host another Deja’s Reading Rainbow this fall. Late June’s popular Dinner + A Movie, co-hosted by the library and Downtown Lawrence Inc., was reportedly the most well-attended iteration of the summertime event since the Lawrence Public Library’s reopening in 2014.

A visit by singer-songwriter Jimmy Webb earlier this month, as well as the library’s perennially busy “Fuel Up 4 Summer” meal site, also proved popular, Kearns says.

Thursday’s Summer Reading Last Bash will celebrate those who completed the program, as well as its overarching theme of “Build a Better World.” Slated from 7 to 9 p.m. on the library lawn, the free event will feature live music by the Kansas City Latin-Caribbean band Mundo Nouvo, food and drinks (the kettle corn will be complimentary, though guests will need their wallets for the hot dogs and Free State beer) and a Rube Goldberg machine built by library staffers.

In the meantime, you still have three weeks to complete the Summer Reading Program. Prizes (see www.lawrence.lib.ks.us details) await those who do.

“Our objective of ‘Build a Better World’ (the reading program’s name) was to get out of your comfort zone and learn about the world around you, whether locally, nationally or globally,” Kearns says.

“We’ve tried to have programs that would bring in different perspectives, so we can all learn from each other and build a better world together,” she says. “And part of that is getting out and doing things that maybe you wouldn’t have thought to do.”