Alt. Teen Services received a mention in the latest issue of VOYA! Do you remember the Alternative Teen Fashion show we blogged about in the past? Well it just so happens that the Alt. Teen Fashion show, facilitated by Jenine Lillian, received VOYA’s Most Valuable Program award for Young Adults 2006! And she kindly gave credit to yalibrarian for promoting the books that jumpstarted the entire fashion ordeal.

“After Stephanie Iser, a teen librarian in Kansas City, Missouri, posted an entry on her nationally recognized blog, Alternative Teen Services (http://www.yalibrarian.com), about cool, new fashion books for teens, Lillian ordered the books for her library’s young adult collection.While visiting schools in Fayetteville, she booktalked several titles including Generation T: 101 Ways to Transform a TShirt by Megan Nicolay. When she introduced this book, sparks flew among the teens. By August, a Teen Alternative Fashion Show Planning Team of twenty teens began meeting with Lillian to brainstorm about creating an event unlike anything they had ever experienced. They set their sights on Teen Read Week in October for their performance date.”

Wow! Thanks for the mention Jenine, and it’s good to know our blog is being so inspirational to yalibrarians. But let me give credit where credit is due! Amanda Rodriguez is the brilliant mind behind the collection development posts, including the blog regarding cool new fashion books for teens.

So I have a few points to make, in no particular order:

A) Congratulations to Jenine and all the hard working teens at Fayetteville Public Library for getting Most Valuable Program of the year! That’s amazing, and we here at Alternative Teen Services think your program hands-down deserves the award.

B) The write-up in VOYA provides a lot of background information about the planning that went into the event, and tips for hosting a similar program at your own library. So read the article in full to get some tips!
http://pdfs.voya.com/VO/YA2/VOYA200710fashion_show.pdf

C) Amanda, thanks for being an awesome contributor to YALIBRARIAN.COM. Your posts have been very cutting edge, always providing interesting insight and a fresh look into teen library services. Thanks for being such a voracious reader and letting us know your opinion on new books, notifying us of the new stuff that’s worth ordering, and finally, for being such a big teen advocate as I personally know you are from working with you at the Kansas City Public Library. And thanks for inspiring the Alt. Teen Fashion Show!