The Harry and The Potters have updated their tour dates. Not only are they coming to Pittsburgh in March, they are also going to my hometown, Kansas City (April) ! !

http://www.eskimolabs.com/hp/shows.htm

If they are playing near your location, I suggest checking them out. The band is hot with teens, so seeing them live should provide an enjoyable culture emersion experience.

Watch a video of the Harry and the Potters.

The agenda for this month’s meeting consisted of:

• Announcing the TAC Member Administrator for our Teen Library Blog, Bonfirebooks. We are slowly redistributing the power of posting. Soon this blog will have posts contributed mostly by members of our TAC.
• Fine-tuning the events and rules for our Anime Convention for Spring Break in April. We have planned for four programs Mon.-Thurs. focusing on Japanese culture and watching anime.
• Examining and discussing Anime Membership card templates.
• Evaluating Teen Area for improvements

For the first half hour we hung out until the rest of the group arrived. We talked about the disgusting taste of chocolate-centered Oreos (which was one of our snacks), the new season of Full Metal Alchemist, and I found one about this jewel: discountanimedvd. One of our goofy guys “came back” to the group and brought new jokes and laughs. I was proud to see everyone getting along, considering the past couple of months have been tense within the gang. Because they were able to put aside past annoyances, it felt just like the old days, when everyone was hesitant, new, and there was no drama.

During the meeting I’ve found that if they are allowed some physical movement, they are more active in their participation and ideas. This observation was obvious after a brief out-of-the-blue push-up contest. With this in mind, I took them to the back workroom for comments and changes to the anime advertisments and to the teen area for further criticism. We hope to implement some changes in the teen area and if they are a-okd then I’ll describe them later.

I received this tip from the teenlibrarian.com web site. There is a new website, yalit.com that lists upcoming teen fiction titles. The list is pretty scarce right now, but it looks like it has the potential to grow with user input. There is a link where users can register for the web site, and, presumably contribute teen titles to the list. I am excited to see how this site develops in the future. I wonder if publishers might register for the site, and update it with their upcoming teen literature titles? I hope publishers begin providing content, so that the list becomes more comprehensive. Think of how nice it would be to look up one concise list of upcoming teen titles. It would be a lot more convenient and less-time consuming than visiting each publisher web site for news about future releases.

I am enrolled in a Library Marketing Course and one of the hot topics for class discussion has been the use of podcasting technology in the library. We have talked about this in a general sense, and we have also talked about podcasts in relation to the teen patron base. Dr. Tomer visited our class session yesterday, and offered his two-cents on how to connect podcast technology with teens. First he showed us a hilarious,camp vodcast of two young adults lip synching “I want it that way“. He argued that, if libraries want to use vodcasts to connect with teens, they should create funny and entertaining content that speaks to teens. Young adults watch hilarious homemade videos on the internet, and we should tap into this interest when creating content that targets young adults.

I agree with Dr. Tomer’s assessment that the use of podcast technology with teens should be fun and exciting. If I were using podcast technology to attract teens to the library, I would approach the Teen Advisory Board to create content for these videos. Teens would be the best source, presumably, to come up with creative skits that promote the library as a cool place to be.

I also think vodcast technology might be used as a vehicle for teens to express their creativity and work on constructive projects. For example, local teens might create a weekly television show that is published on the library’s web site. The vodcast might be the medium of choice for a teen film club to publish their short films.

Teens patrons can use podcasting technology to benefit the library (marketing videos) and to work on constructive projects (TV show, film club); let us embrace the podcast technology!

John Green - “Looking for Alaska” - Printz Winner 2005

This morning I was one of many watching the ALA award ceremony on the web. I was anxious, short on time, and needed to leave for class. My fat, orange, Morris look-alike kitty, Max, watched in puzzlement as I paced from the computer to the oven clock saying “Oooohhhh, Max, only one minute more and then I really must leave.” And of course, once Looking for Alaska was announced as the Printz winner, my fingers uncrossed, I hurrahed and hugged my cat, and took off in an attempt to be on time for class.

While driving, I reminisced my brief encounter with John Green at ALA Chicago 2005. I was at a booth in the stacks, probably about to make a speech in attempt to secure particular arcs for my Teen Volunteers, when this normal looking guy in front of me starts talking about As Simple as Snow. Well, I had enjoyed this book too and thought I’d jump in with some comments of my own. The part of the conversation I actually remember was when the guy stated something like “I thought I’d read his book since he read mine.” His name tag reads John Green. Click. I instantly became an overenthusastic fan. This unbelievable occurance, though I had been told that authors are considered commonplace at ALA, caught me unaware and I embarrasingly admit I think I might have frightened him.

Congradulations John Green, I look foward to see what characters you develop next.

Thank you Miranda of teenlibrarian.com for posting a link to our web site. Since we are getting publicity, an explanation of the site seems necessary for our new readers. I’ll start out with a background of how the web site idea came about, and then I’ll bring you up to date about the current progress.

Amanda and I have been interested in sharing our ideas and passion about serving teens for quite some time. At first, we thought about publishing a zine, a self-constructed, self-published, cut and paste primer, on the topic of teen services. After we created a zine to document our 2005 ALA annual conference experiences, we realized how much time, work, and energy goes into making a zine. Simply put, we wanted to publish, but the zine format was too involved and time-consuming to fit our hectic schedules. The teen services zine idea dissipated, but our interest and involvement with the zine format did not go away. We are still very much connected with zines and hope to have them in our teen collections some day.

A few months later, the same year, we came up with another collaborative project idea. We felt that librarians should have access to a web site that previews all upcoming teen-fiction releases. Although publishers post this information on their web sites, they only preview books that are certain to be a big hit or widely popular. We wanted to know about all upcoming teen titles.

Amanda and I both belong to the “don’t reinvent the wheel club”, so we felt the need to do some research before embarking on a new time-consuming project. In our search, we came across two web sites that offer previews of upcoming teen titles, flamingnet.com and teenreads.com. We decided these web sites were resourceful alternatives to the teen publisher web sites, in regards to finding out information about upcoming teen titles. We felt it wasn’t a good idea to reinvent the wheel, so we crossed out collaborative project idea number two and went about our lives as normal.

The third time is a charm. When December rolled around, Amanda and I came up with collaborative project idea number three. We both thought about our teen services resources, and how we would like to share them with other librarians. Amanda has participated in more than a few teen services workshops as a speaker, and has developed some great resources for teen library programs. I did a quick browse through some of my work files, and realized that I too have some valuable documents that might be useful to other librarians. We both have a history of talking passionately about our opinions on teen library services, and so we came to the conclusion that we had something to offer between these ideas and our resources. So here we are, with our own blog, and a content management system, ready to share our ideas.

If you browse the web site, you’ll find that some sections are empty while others look like a work in progress. This is because we initially jumped into the website head-on, creating content and building browsing sections. After we started building content, we realized we needed to take a few steps back. We wanted to make sure we understood what this web site means to us, and where we want it to go.

Right now we are ironing out the focus of the web site, and working on the marketing and project plan. We find ourselves philosophically examining the title of our web site, “Alternative Teen Services”, and how we feel the title represents our work. We hope to keep our grassroots focus because we want the content to be fresh, honest, reflective, and opinionated.

I suspect that after we have these ideas flushed out, the web site will suddenly fill up with more content. But until that day comes, we hope that you continue to read our blog as we update it with news, ideas, and opinions about serving teens in the library.

Stephanie

aim: sisterstephie
yahoo: stephanie_librarian

Sarah Morgan, teen librarian at the Cheshire Public Library, used library 2.0 technology to connect with teens at the library. She used podcasting technology to create digital recordings of local teen writing projects, and then distributed the digital recordings over the web.

“In Cheshire, there is “a great demand for teen programs,” explains Morgan. “There’s a group of teens here who are really tech-savvy and enthusiastic in new cutting edge stuff.” ”

Sarah Morgan’s use of Library 2.0 is an example of how new web technologies can be used to connect with tech savvy teens. You can read the full article here:

Teen Librarian Starts Podcast; Teens Flock to Program

Last December I blogged about the negative associations that teens have of libraries, as reported by OCLC’s Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources Report.

One of the most important things to point out in this report is the reference to the attitudes of librarians. Although only two negative associations about librarian attitudes are listed, I think the attitude of librarians towards teens is a problem that is prevalent in public libraries. My experience in public libraries has informed me that the majority of staff generally do not like working with teenagers. I believe that young adult library staff need to convince other staff members that young adults are worthy of exceptional customer service. Teen library staff should try to eradicate negative stereotypes about teenagers that might be causing this disconnect.

Alane Wilson of OCLC posted a response that further argues that the attitudes of librarians are in many cases what keeps teens away from the library:

In the report we were only able to print about 10% of the total verbatim comments. But I have all of them and was struck by the volume of comments from younger respondents–they clearly welcomed an opportunity to tell us what they thought about libraries and library staff. But, I was also struck by the overall negative tone and dismayed by the bad treatment by library staff so many teenagers reported, regardless of the country. Definitely a problem and one I hope readers of the report tackle in their own libraries with more ways for teens to “talk back”, more YA staff and perhaps more involvement with teen advisory groups.

I think Alane’s comments point out the need for teen services advocates to educate library staff on the value of serving teens. How are we going to build exceptional teen library services, when working in an organization where the majority of library staff members do not personally like young adults, let alone support teen services? I like how Alane suggests the forum of a teen advisory group as a way for teens to “talk back” about their frustrations of their negative experiences with librarians. I think the end goal, however, is to have as many library employees as possible understand the need to serve teens, and to embrace the teenage group as a patron population that is in the library because they want to be, not necessarily because they want to cause trouble!

Perhaps one way to get library staff to appreciate teen services, is to emphasize the idea that teens are the library’s future adult patrons. Based on this theory, librarians should do what they can to make the teen population feel welcome and to meet their needs, so as to ensure a future patron base.

I think we should brainstorm other ways to promote teen library services within our own library work environments. Do you have any ideas? Please add them as comments to this blog post. If I get enough responses, I’ll post a summary of the ideas.

Well, the January Anime packet has just arrived in the mail from ADV Films (info to receive FREE anime and newsletters for anime groups found here: Anime ADVocates). Our teen anime group (ages 12-16) have been with the ADV club for about 5 months and we’ve found that the quality and enjoyableness of the anime we receive from them have been hit-or-miss. The teens and I are not too familiar with the anime culture and consequently judge it by the graphics found in the ADV newsletter.

This month’s DVD features Misaki Chronicles and Kaleido Star episodes while the newsletter’s spotlight is on Macross. The few characters advertising Kaleido Star don’t appear very promising. Their oddly posed, Barbie-esque bodies suggest characters claiming little depth and conveys a mundane plot. However, I do have a few Sailor Moon fans so there might be one or two in the group who will enjoy this creation. If not, there will be much laughter and sarcasm to be appreciated by all. The other anime, Divergence Eve: Misaki Chronicles, will definitely need to be previewed. One of the stills depicts a woman clutching her naked size DD breasts. I’m assuming this is the same imprudent character shown at the top of the page bending over exposing her butt cheek lines. Hmm, this is just a bit too haughty for my audience.

Unfortunately there appears to be too much god-awful anime, like those featured in the January ADV packet, flooding the market. I wish my knowledge of this genre was extensive enough to correctly analyze the trends. To begin my education I’m going to try to locate this book Adult Manga: Culture and Power In Contemporary Japanese Society authored by Sharon Kinsella.

‘Til then I’ll keep checking up on ICV2–an awesome resource for graphic novels, manga, and anime with the emphasis on how these genres relate to popular culture. They even have a review guide ICV2 Retailer’s Guide that I highly recommend making the contact to acquire. Included in the guide are: short, sweet, and to the point reviews; lists detailing which anime currently appear on television; and much more info. “I thank ye o’ great ones who keep this site up and running!”

Here’s some fun for a change:

The Troll in the Bathroom - The Harry Potters perform a song about the troll in the bathroom.

Harry Potter Lego Comedy - Cute lego-constructed comedy.

Harry Potter Premiere - a couple of teens travel to NYC to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire