Yup.  Just two more weeks before April, which means Poetry Month is once again upon us.  Although I can’t write poetry to save my life I do love to read it.  It was this fact that was foremost on my mind last year when I planned my first Teen Poetry Program.  I wanted something low-key, educational but fun and settled on a kind of coffee house type program where teens could sip on coffee/tea and listen while others read their poetry outloud, slammed if they knew how, read someone elses poetry, then participated in a series of activities that would teach them some poetry skills. 

You can read all the details about the program on an old blog post.  We’re planning a similar event this year, however, we’ve invited a local published poet to come in and “open” the event.  If there was one thing I learned during my experience last year it was that poetry programs are a perfect opportunity to collaborate and network with your local high schools.  It was because of the poetry program that I managed to meet one of the school librarians and also an English teacher who offered her class extra credit for attending the event and extra points if they recited a poem.  If it wasn’t for her class I probably wouldn’t have had so many attend the program.  For some reason I always felt kind of down about that fact, that the only way we managed to get teens to come to our program was to essentially bribe them.  But looking back I realize that it’s all about perspective.  Despite how we got them through the door, they did come, they did have fun and I do believe that they brought something back from the experience. For me that is the very definition of a successful program.  Many of them were very shy in the beginning or acted too cool to read poetry in front of an audience but it only took a few brave souls and one amazing young lady who really knew how to slam to encourage the rest to step up.  Of course, the flavored coffee and chocolates probably helped too.

 Below is the slide presentation I used during the program.  Please feel free to use it, change it, as you like.  I found most of my activities from the IPL Teenspace poetry wiki but unfortuntately it doesn’t seem to be working right now so I can only provide the cached link. I would love to hear some ideas from our readers on various poetry programs, there are so many different ways to share and encourage a love of words and writing with teens.

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The word has been out for awhile now that social neworking sites provide a creative and easy way to connect with people. Libraries, businesses, publishers, musicians, politicians, radio stations, you name it, the question is not so much “do you have a MySpace?” but “who does not have a MySpace?”.

One of the first things librarians often do when they create their MySpace (or Facebook) profile is search out well known YA authors and add them as friends. The purpose is mainly to help introduce book titles to visiting teens and to promote books and the joy of reading in general. Besides, who wouldn’t want Meg Cabot on their friend list. How cool is that?

Publishers have caught on and many have started automatically creating MySpace and Facebook profiles for their authors as soon as their books come out. However, after reading an article in the October issue of Publishers Weekly, it would appear that some publishers are becoming weary of this practice for two reasons. First of all, maintaining author profiles can be time consuming. Second, a publishers ultimate goal is to sell books and it’s difficult to find verifiable statistics proving that social networking sites actually do increase book sells. “We have tangible results that blog postings and website features sell books. The jury is still out on the effectiveness of social networks” says Fauzia Burke, President of FSB Associates. Granted, the people interviewed for this particular article mainly publish for an adult audience, so it would be interesting to see what HarperCollins would say about the effectiveness of author profiles when it comes to selling their books.

Nevertheless, this article intrigued me since a librarys’ motivation for creating social networking profiles are in a sense similar to that of a publisher. We’re trying to connect, to direct viewers to our physical and virtual locations. So if publishers are having a hard time getting tangible results from them then how are librarians doing? Is it possible to be able to prove that a MySpace is getting viewed and more importantly, directing viewers to our resources? I believe it is, at least with MySpace. (Keep in mind that I am only 75% techie so if someone out there knows a better way please share). I noticed recently that the “new skin” on MySpace has a new site tracker so you can see how often your profile is being viewed. If you want to know whether your profile is leading viewers to your website or blog then you can use free applications like Blog Tracker and Google Analytics which show you how viewers interact with your site and how they got there in the first place (keywords, referring sites, etc.).

There does, however, seem to be an interesting movement away from traditional social networking sites. Anna Zelenka of Wordpress wrote a post mentioning how some well known bloggers have always seen the whole MySpace/Facebook thing to be pretty much a waste of time and found blogging to be much more effective in reaching readers (the focus of the discussion on these posts has more to do with the OpenID movement, a concept I’m still trying to wrap my pretty blond head around). She also points to a fascinating post by Dana Boyd who uses the term ephemeral profile to describe a particular behavior that I’ve also witnessed with the teens at my library. They have this tricky habit of loosing or forgeting their passwords. However, rather than hunt down the password or having it emailed to them (which is what I and probably most adults do), teens are more apt to just start over again, beginning with an entirely new email address, creating an entirely new profile and possibly even moving to a completely different social networking site (since they do seem to be in abundance lately).

Boyd notes that this behavior is indicative of teens who are all about creating and recreating their identity. What better way to do this than with social networking sites. Create a new profile, a new you and meet completely new friends. She has an interesting quote, “I should note that I don’t think that the answer is “help teens remember passwords.” I actually think that this tendency to shed is advantageous in the way that we shed clothes every year because the “old me” is no longer relevant. Technology is a bit too obsessed with remembering; there’s a lot of value in forgetting.”

So, where does this leave teen librarians? It’s a hazard of the occupation I guess and all the more reason why we need to remain on our toes.

Usually it’s the teens in our library who help me keep up with all the new or “it” websites but this time, it was actually my husband who found this little gem.

Musicovery is an interactive radio website that allows you to choose music according to your mood. You can then narrow your search by music decade or music type. Your search results show up as a kind of funky selection web, then you can choose what song you want to listen to from there. It doesn’t stop there. Like LastFM, it also provides additional suggestions according to the artist being played. Phew. It’s almost exhausting trying to make you’re way through all the choices but really great for those days when you just don’t know what to listen to, not to mention a wonderful snazzy website to show teens as a way to introduce them to new music.

My Alt. Teen Services post is a day late. I guess that’s an improvement on last month when it was a week late. I’m going to blame it on indecisiveness this time. I spent most of yesterday trying to come up with a good topic. There’s so much to think about and talk about these days when it comes to teen services, so much in the world impacting a teenagers life and so many librarians trying to figure out the best way to help them. I was pretty much set on writing about how neat it would be to have a Teen Yoga program at a library, however, while crunching on my Grape Nuts early yesterday morning my husband thoughtfully reminded me that November 11th was Veterans Day, something which had completely passed me by. My husband has good reason to be paying close attention to this particular holiday. His nineteen year old cousin was killed a mere three days into the invasion of Baghdad in April of 2003. We were newly weds at the time, young adults ourselves and it was the first time I’d ever seen him cry. Suddenly a yoga program seemed like a very trivial topic.

It makes me twitch to think about all the issues teens have to deal with these days but the one that leaves me most anxious, the one that makes me gnaw on my hang nails and yank at my tangled hair in the morning, is the depressing situation in the Middle East. The past few years has revealed a lot of dishonesty in our government. I’m not here to argue over those issues. I’m here to try and put myself in the shoes of a sixteen year old and imagine what it must feel like to be at the edge of my childhood in a world where you seemingly can’t trust anyone, or look to anyone for honest leadership. All the facts and the falseness, all the broken promises, I wonder, how do they make sense of it all? How does it effect them? Do they even care?

Of course they do. They may not keep up with the news in the traditional way but they do keep up and they do care.
I’m currently reading The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot by Naomi Wolf. Now before you say “Whoa, maybe not such an objective middle-way read”, know that I’m only on page twenty and don’t have much of an opinion on the book other than that it’s helping me learn a lot of WWII history that I didn’t know. There is, however, a quote I read which has been stubbornly sitting at the tip of my brain all weekend. In an attempt to express how fragile our civil liberties are Wolf uses an interesting pendulum analogy:

“Up until now, the basic checks and balances established by the Founders have functioned so well that the pendulum has always managed to swing back. It’s very success has made us lazy. We trust it too much, without looking at what a pendulum requires in order to function; the stable framework that allows movement; space in which to move; that is liberty.”

I read the part about being “lazy” and was reminded of another quote that I read recently in Julian Aiken’s article from American Libraries, Outdated and Irrelevent? Rethinking the Library Bill of Rights. The results of the survey he reviewed indicated that “more than half of our public libraries are not conforming to Article V of the Library Bill of Rights“. Apparently this particular part of our job has simply turned into a cumbersome battle that most librarians are “no longer interested in fighting.” I find something downright scary about “rethinking” the Library Bill of Rights and remolding it to better fit the needs of busy librarians who are unwilling to spend the time explaining Article V to busy working parents.

So, where am I going with this? I’m not entirely sure, this is definitely a very randomly thought out post. Am I saying that we’ve become lazy? I don’t know. I’m not sure you can quantify laziness so lets not even use that word. Maybe we’ve become too cautious. Tensions are high in this country, people are on fire with opinion, who can blame anyone for choosing to remain reticent in the wake of controversy or for choosing precaution over advocacy if it means keeping relations in a community peaceful, not to mention helping to avoid heated disagreements with friends and peers. That route is easier, less stress on everyone, that’s for sure. But I have to admit, the repercussions of that kind of cautious action scares the bejezus out of me. Is it enough that we keep gay/lesbian fiction on our library shelves, yet overlook doing programs or displays to promote those books because we’re afraid of upsetting people? How many of us shy away from doing teen programs that may involve political or religious topics because we worry it might lead to inflammatory discussion or upset parents? I think Teen Librarians need to be careful about choosing the quiet stay out of trouble lets lay low and walk the path of least resistance so we can appeal to everyone route. You may think your appealing to everyone that way but instead you end up isolating your services to a quiet reading room and I say quiet because, well, eventually no one will be there. They’ll be here instead.

I think Younker had it right when he described teen services as “the illegitimate child of public libraries”. It’s unfortunate but true and because of it teen librarians have to expect controversy while on job. They have to anticipate these moments be willing to face them and engaged in them productively. Most importantly, we shouldn’t be afraid to let teens engage in disagreement. When holding a book discussion, don’t gloss over hot topics because you’re worried it may pinch a nerve and start an argument. If you do, you may be missing out on a perfect opportunity for teens to express themselves. Teens love to express their opinion. Let them. While you’re at it let them know what it means to be able to live somewhere where they are able to express their opinion without persecution. Then let them know how fragile those rights are and how easily they can be stripped away from them. Using library services to empower our youth is one way we can help maintain the checks and balances in our society.

We’ve never had a great deal of success with teen book clubs at our library.  Nowadays we usually just try to incorporate books into whatever program we’re doing at the time.  So I was paying very close attention to the YALSA BOOK listserve last week which was practically on fire with all sorts of creative ideas for book clubs.  One in particular caught my eye,  the Missing Ending Book Club. 

 The Missing Ending Book Club idea originated with the Weld County Library in Greely, Colorado.  After viewing their presentation at a conference, Janet Good of North Branch Summit County Library was insipired enough to start her own.  Janet explained the concept of the book club in a recent write-up in her local newspaper:

“Each reader gets a book with a twist:  the final pages stapled off!  At club meetings, readers tell how they would end the story, and then find out the author’s take.  Besides the joy of exercising his or her creativity, the reader with the best guess gets a prize.”

Janet also includes related snacks and crafts during the program, depending on what book is being read.  When their club read The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp by Rick Yancey, the groups craft was to make a sort of self-made coat of arms shield.  The snack was mini corn dogs and Coke because that was the first meal the main character Alfred introduced the knight to in the book.  She also hands out candy to anyone who guesses the ending of the book correctly.  ”I used gold-wrapped chocolate coins that meeting.  The prize for the best guess as to the ending of the story was a DVD of Camelot.”

The model of the Missing Ending Book Club can be adapted using a variety of different books.  Mysterious would obviously be the easiest genre but any book with a twist at the end will do.  If you want to make the program more for older teens then maybe something like What happened to Cass McBride by Gail Giles or Tyrell by Coe Booth would work.  At any rate, it’s a fantastic way to jazz up a book club and help teens get a little more excited about reading.

For more information about creating successful teen book clubs, try The Teen Centered Book Club: Readers into Leaders by Bonnie Kunzel and Constance Hardesty.

*The information/quotes about the Missing Ending Book Club at the North Branch Summit Library was taken from Janet Good’s email to the YALSA listserve, with her permission.  Thank you Janet. :-) 

I finally finished my masters last December.  Although my husband and I aren’t entirely ready to uproot our family, I have tentatively been looking for jobs and my mind has been very focused on what my future in the LIS profession will hold.  Generally speaking, I only have a little bit of experience with teen services, mainly just the odd program here and there.  I do blog about teen services on occasion but most of that is gleaned from things I read.  I often wonder, even if I do know how to talk the talk, can I really walk the walk?  When actually faced with my first day as a teen librarian, will I even know where to begin?  I have a pretty good feeling that I’m not alone in this, that there are plenty of other new librarians coming into the profession wanting to be the best teen librarians they can but feeling a little overwhelmed and bewildered by the continuous flow of ideas being presented to them. So, here’s the scenario.  You’ve just landed your first job as a teen librarian.  Where do you start?   What’s the first step? 

The following is a draft of some of my own ideas.  I have yet to cross this threshold so it will obviously be a rather incomplete list.  What I’m really hoping for is that this post will help generate a dialogue with readers and other fellow teen librarians who have already been through this.  Together, hopefully we can help ease some of those first week jitters for us newbies out there.


1) Evaluate the services already in place

I figure the most logical first step would be to get to know your new library.  What services/programs are already in place?  Are there outreach services, school visits throughout the year?  Study the collection. Note any gaps that may need to be filled.  Is there a collection development policy or statement for your area?  Ask for the past years monthly reports, circulation stats, attendance stats for past programs.  What about regular library goers?  Do a lot of teens come into the library after school?  Have there ever been any behavior issues in the past, if so, how were they dealt with?  What about organizations in your community, are there any that your library has collaborated with before?  If so, collect and store their contact information in case an opportunity arises for collaboration in the future. 

2) Make yourself known to your demographic

In addition to introducing yourself to teens who come into the library, make your presence known to teens who aren’t regular library goers.  Begin with an online presence.  If your library doesn’t have one already, start a teen blog (see Josh’s post on Creating a YA blog for some guidance).  Make sure all your contact information is available on the blog, including a picture of yourself so teens know who to look for when they do come into the library.   I would also sign-up for Meebo and imbed a widget on the blog.  I wouldn’t worry about starting a MySpace or other social network profile right away.  A blog and Meebo are a good start to connecting with teens online.  Find out how they respond to that first.  Then create some snazzy brochures for your teen department that include the blog address and perhaps pictures of your teen area in the library.  Take the brochures with you when you go for school visits or just drop them off at various locations in the community frequented by teens. 

3) Start slow when it comes to programs

I’ve always had a hard time slowing down my brain when it comes to programming.  I hear about so many great ideas nowadays, it’s really hard not to just want to try them all.  But you’ll likely overwhelm not just your staff but also your teens if you try to plan for too much in the beginning.  Stick to the tried and true stuff.   Obviously, budget is going to be an issue here so check into that, maybe start with something cheap and easy first so you can reserve your money for bigger events once you’ve been on the job for awhile.  I think an online gaming event would be a safe bet to start with.  It doesn’t require much more than space and internet accessible computers, perhaps some pizza and pop for refreshment.  Runescape has always been a popular online game with teens but there are plenty of others out there for them to try (Gaia and Naruto Arena have become really popular with the teens at our library).  Then try a second event that’s completely different, like a Fashion show or Pizza tasting contest.  This way you’ll get a diverse sample of teens that you can size up and get to know.  Provide suggestion boxes at each event and maybe a sign-up sheet to see if anyone is interested in starting a TAB.

4) Organize your professional tools

I know they’re expensive but I do think it’s important to have subscriptions to some of the essential publications like YALS and VOYA (in many cases employers will pay for them).  If you can’t afford the subscriptions then remember to bookmark their websites and check them often for new links, resources and articles of note.  Keeping up with blogs is also important but…yikes…that deserves a whole post of its own.  There are a lot of good ones out there and it’s hard to keep up with them all.  I try to keep my list pretty condensed.  In addition to the Alt Teen Services blog, I also read Ypulse, Pop Goes the Library, the YALSA blog  (they even have a catagory especially for new librarians). 

5)  Contribute to the profession

I think anyone would agree that it’s important to wait until you’ve found some sort of sense of balance between work and home before piling on any additional responsibilities beyond your initial job requirements.  But after things have slowed down a bit and you begin feeling a little more comfortable in your position, it may be a good idea to look into contributing to your profession in some way.  There are a number of different ways to do this.  First, figure out how much time you are willing to commit.  ALA and YALSA have all sorts of committees and task forces you can join.  However, if that seems a little daunting then you may want to start with something a little smaller, perhaps on the state level (check your state library website for opportunities).  Or even something more local like a seat on the literacy council in your community.  If you like to write and do research about librarianship then start a blog of your own.  Don’t have time for your own blog? Then join a collaborative blog or do something that requires even more of an irregular committment like contributing to the TeenLib wiki.  Despite how small scale they are, these experiences have the potential of helping you on and off the job.

6) Advocating for teens

One of the most important aspects of being teen librarian is advocating for teens and their right to access information.  This is also probably one of the most difficult aspects about being a teen librarian.  Stay on top of intellectual freedom issues by being proactive.  Know your library’s policies and the steps taken when a request for reconsideration occurs.  Most important, know your support base (who to call if you need help) before an issue comes up in your library or community, as opposed to just reacting to it when it does.  Look beyond your own institution.  How can you as a teen librarian help fight censorship in your community?  Anticipating these situations before they happen will help you deal with them better when they occur.  In addition, make sure your teens are aware of their rights.  Post links to the blog or print out information for them to look at while they’re hanging around in the library.  Build a display around the theme of censorship.  One of the best times to do this would be during Banned Books Week  but you can also do it during the month of a Banned authors birthday. 

7)  It’s not always golden

Working with teens is a tremendous challenge but that is also what makes it so rewarding.  I hate to say it but there will likely be a number of disheartening experiences that you will go through…a program will completely flop, teens will look at you like your from Mars, a parent may get angry at you for suggesting that their child read a Gossip Girls novel…in the midst of all this you will likely make all kinds of mistakes and blunders, all of which you will learn from if you allow yourself to.  The important thing is to never loose your enthusiasm for what you do and never ever stop trying

Gaming and libraries seems to be a topic on the tip of everyone’s tongue here lately. Shifted Librarian, Jenny Levine has been blogging notes about the Gaming, Learning and Society conference which took place in Madison, Wisconsin last week and I imagine the biblioblogshere will soon be buzzing about the much anticipated ALA TechSource Gaming, Learning and Libraries symposium taking place later this month on July 22-24. All this recent attention on gaming and libraries has brought a shift in focus from viewing gaming simply as a recreational activity to acknowledging its potential as a literacy/educational tool.

At ALA this past June, OCLC Vice President George Needham conducted a presentation called Gaming, Information Literacy and the College Student, which ultimately attracted a lot of stimulating discussion and criticism. Although the focus of this presentation was directed more towards academic libraries, I think there is a lot here that would make for some interesting discussion amongst teen librarians also. Relying on recent research (2003 Environmental Scan: Pattern Recognition, Pew Internet and American Life Project, Marc Prensky) Needham’s presentation attempted to encourage librarians to think ahead a few years and consider the information literacy needs of the graduating class of 2010. Pegged with a multiple of descriptive, if not stereotypical names (net gens, millennials, gen y, gen me), this generation is especially known for its video gaming enthusiasm.

According to Needham’s presentation, gamers believe:

• there are multiple paths to victory
• failure along the way is to be expected
• leaders can’t be trusted
• life should be fun

Taking these traits into consideration, Needham suggests that we design library tools with gaming technology in mind so users can essentially learn on their own (remember: multiple paths to victory, failure to be expected, life should be fun) without having to turn to the “information priest” (leaders can’t be trusted) for assistance. He does not necessarily advocate that we completely forfeit our role of helping students find information, only that we allow them the opportunity to “play” first and ask when they feel they need the help.

Needham said that in this environment, librarians should focus on “in demand training,” helping students when they hit an obstacle, not before they start. Even then, he said, librarians shouldn’t say that they are providing formal training, but should say things like “let me show you a short cut,” the kind of language students use with one another all the time.

Many critics have since taken issue with Needham’s use of metaphor (digital native vs. digital immigrant, librarian as information priest), while others have take issue with his attempt to make gaming behavior synonymous with information seeking behavior. There is a lot of concern that allowing for “failure” is the same things as lower expectations and as such would be detrimental to the learning process. There also seems to be a lot of concern about taking the “librarian” out of the process and diminishing their role to mere “shortcut pointer-outer”. Would designing library technology tools so they are more game-like, more intuitive and trial-by-error be better for teens? Would this be considered the same as speaking to them on their own terms or is it simply “lowering the bar”?

When mulling over this myself, I can’t help but think about a presentation I saw at PLA last year called Making Traditional Library Services Teen Friendly. Mary K. Chelton was among those presenting that day. Well known for her research on teens and information seeking behavior, one of the things she kept repeating was how librarians tend to suffer from an “ideal user” syndrome. Attitudes need to change, she said, we need to start treating teens according to who they are, not how we wish them to be. I have since come to believe that this philosophy is key to providing successful services to teens; however, critics may still view it as another example of lowering standards. Reference-anxiety is another thing that needs to be taken into consideration here. Can we really expect teens to admit that they can’t do something and to come for help?

Current research on teens and information seeking indicates that whatever information literacy we are teaching them isn’t working very well. They make errors when they search and have difficulty combining word variations. But research in this area is incomplete and I have yet to see anything that really substantiates whether other tools such as podcasting or vodcasting might actually help in this area. So what do ya’ll think? Is it time to push for more alternative, non-traditional methods when it comes to teaching teens how to find information? Does the answer rest with gaming technology? Or do we need to take this thing back to the drawing board?

I just thought I’d share this although it’s not directly related to YA services. Michael Wesch, a Kansas State anthropology student did a video essay on digital text and Web 2.0. I thought it was a good visual intro to Web 2.0 and could be used a neat staff development tool to help further introduce and encourage Web 2.0 philosophy.

The Terrazas Branch Austin Public Library recently had a two month long program on altering books. The teen librarian, Joanna Nigrelli sent out their flickr album link http://www.flickr.com/photos/aplteens/sets/72157594326521707/ to the YALSA listserve today and I just love seeing all the different pieces. It just seems like such a fun program to do. She remarked that it was a very successful event. They held a total of twenty workshops between October and November.

I think collage art in general would be a wonderful activity for a teen program. It’s so intuitive, theraputic and it gives teens a chance to be creative and artsy without actually having to possess what is thought of as traditional artistic skill. Teens spend so much time in a school environment where final grades and test scores are ultimately what matters most. Not only that but many public schools are often faced with budget issues and art/music programs are typically the first to feel the effects. Libraries can help fill in the gaps by offering creative art/music programs and encourage an environment where teens don’t have to feel pressured. Art and music can teach teens how the process of creating or learning something is just as important as the outcome.

I think this kind of thing would work well as an ongoing everyday after school program. However, rather than focusing soley on altered books, you could just do a general altered art program. You can pretty much alter anything, from books , journals , postcards , playing cards , cd’s , boxes …then provide them with the general supplies: paint, markers, pastels, assortmant of paper/collage paper, yarn/ribbon, found objects. You can, of course, get real fancy with stamps and such but I think it would be best to start with the basics and see if it takes off before investing in the expensive stuff.

There’s also a lot of potential for this to go beyond just a basic craft program. Take the Found Art project for example. Post/playcards can be altered to include quotes from a favorite book and then placed in another book for a reader to be pleasently suprised with. If you include the author and the title of the book on the card then it could potentially function as a niffty little readers advisory tool, something which teens may find a little more intriguing as opposed to a traditional book talk.  Perhaps this could be a TAG project of some sort.  Teens providing readers advisory to other teens. 

I’m finding the Maplewood “Lock the Library” situation to be very distressing (see library’s announcement here). I know teen behavior has often been a topic for discussion on this blog, but I would be interested in hearing some thoughts on this specific situation. The behavior problems exhibited by the teens in the Maplewood community are extreme and would certainly necessitate an extreme response. I feel for the librarians who have to endure this and realize that this action was pretty much a “last straw” response, but locking the library during the prime hours of the day defies reason and could only end badly for the Maplewood library. I personally feel it shows the community/library board’s inability, perhaps even incompetency, to deal with a major problem. If the library itself is unable to handle the over abundance of teenagers with disciplinary problems then shouldn’t the community (including the library) pull together and find an alternative that doesn’t include such a drastic and unfair step as closing the library entirely? This is one of those situations where having a teen librarian would be very advantageous to a public library. We should be here to advocate for these teenagers and promote more constructive solutions for situations like this.

Linda Braun also blogged about this situation on the YALSA blog last week.

I’ve found myself thinking a lot about the state of our world lately. I don’t have cable, yet I still find it difficult to go through an entire day without being ambushed by some horrible image or headline telling yet another dark story. The past weeks bizarre trend of school shootings has especially hit close to home, since I just gave birth to a little boy not six weeks ago. I can’t help but wonder what kind of world he will be living in when he becomes a teenager and whether there is something I can do now to try and combat the many dangers he will have to face.

I think the answer lies in youth activism. I have been inspired many times over with stories of how teens have banded together to fight for a common cause and I believe libraries are a perfect resource to help foster such enthusiasm for activism in their teen communities. It is, after all, during our adolescents that we begin to form our own opinions and if there is one thing libraries do best, it’s provide resources to help people think for themselves.

Activism also happens to be part of the message of this years Teen Read Week. Get Active@ your library is by far one of the best messages ever chosen by YALSA, since it encompasses such a broad range of topics. There is definitely no excuse this year for a library not to be promoting something during Teen Read Week.

YALSA has a great list of ideas for helping teens get active politically and philanthropically on their website. However, I think it’s also important to ask teens what it is they want to become active about, rather than just create a program around a chosen issue. This way they will actually feel as though they are involved in the process as opposed to just being guided by an adult. Ideally, it would be great to invite teens to a general meeting where ideas can be hashed out and a cause chosen. Lisa Cole, Youth Services Librarian at Koelbel Library in Colorado did this with a group of teens this past summer. After raising a chunk of money with a Read-a-thon the teens decided they wanted to donate books and supplies to children in Iraq, which they initially did through an agency known as Operation Iraqi Children.

If teens are looking to become active on a more global scale, then there is a really neat social networking website called Taking It Global, an “online community that connects youth to find inspiration, access information, get involved, and take action in their local and global communities”. Here, teens can participate on forums, express their thoughts on global activism and become involved with various projects. They have also recently launched a Virtual Classroom for teachers which librarians may also find useful.

Below are a few other websites for promoting during Teen Read Week:

What Kids Can Do

Youth Activism Project

BAMboozled

Action without Borders Kids&Teens

I just finished reading The Book Club Exploded from LJ’s July issue, and I must say, I’m becoming more and more enamored with the idea of doing a book discussion blog for teens.  The article mentions that book discussion blogs have had “mixed results” in general but seem to be more successful with teens.  I did a search for for teen book blogs on google just to see if I could find some examples.  I managed to locate three so far, but if anyone knows of more, please leave a link in the comments and once I have a good list I can add them to the teenlibwiki.

Seward Memorial Library
Stow-Munroe Falls Public Library
Prairie du Sac Public Library

One of the biggest obstacles in discussion groups with teenagers is trying to get them to feel comfortable enough to speak up and express their thoughts. The anonymity of blogging, forums and chats could help with this type of anxiety.  I imagine both methods have their pros and cons and I think most librarians would a agree that offering both a standard book discussion group and a book discussion blog would be of great value to any teen department.  I just know that many librarians have voiced frustration with the traditional discussion group and in those cases, opting for a book blog might be a good way to gain more interest and reach their teen population.  The examples above reflect a variety of formats and uses for a book discussion blog.  The posts on the Seward Memorial Library blog seem to focus more on book summaries, whereas Prairie du Sac Public Library is much more interactive.  I think I would prefer Prairie du Sac’s method myself, which seems to resemble more of a discussion by using questions to entice readers to respond.

Before I hit the awkward, self-conscious teenage phase of my life I used to spend a lot of my spare time after school lip-synching and dancing to songs in front of a mirror. I can’t believe I am actually admitting this on a widely read blog but, there you go. This particular past time of mine has always given me a sweet spot for the many lip-synching vodcasts found on the internet (Numa Numa being one of the most famous). There’s just something about getting together with a bunch of friends and making a fool of yourself in front of a camera. Times have certainly changed. Whereas I used to do this in front of an imaginary audience, teens now have the technology at their fingertips to actually make their own lip-synching video and publish it for view on the web. I think such an activity would make a really neat teen program. I’m sure many teenagers find themselves in the same boat I was in growing up. I have very little musical talent, so lip-synching was one of the few ways I could actually express myself through music. Whether they want to take it seriously or just have fun with it, lip-sychning can provide a way for teens to relate to music in a creative way.

A lip-synching program would probably be best done in the form of a contest. I’m not sure if other high schools did this, but ours used to have yearly lip-synching contests where each grade was marked on performance, creativity, costumes, style, etc. One of my favorite memories of this was when my class performed the song Step by Step by the New Kids on the Block. The only way we could convince five boys to stand up in front of an audience and pretend to be Donnie, Danny, Jordan, Jon and Joey was if we promised to mock the group. So, in the middle of the performance one of the guys pulled out a massive can of hairspray and started primping himself. However, other contenders in the contest would take things much more seriously and choose songs that would allow them to make a statement. The winner of the contest that year was actually the freshman class who did a take on Pink Floyd’s, The Wall. They put a tremendous amount of effort into their performance, had wonderful props and costumes.

Hosting a lip-synching vodcast program at a library would allow teens to experience music in a creative, fun way through the use of technology, while also encouraging positive socialization.

I recently returned from my first PLA conference. It was a wonderful, inspiring experience. There were a number of conference sessions focusing on teen services, a good sign, I think, that YALSA has definitely experienced a growth in recent years.

I thought I would just summarize some of the key points from the sessions I went to that pertained specifically to alternate teen services. Perhaps the “biggest” concept that speakers touched on most was the idea of collaboration. Many public libraries are discovering the ways in which partnership can lead to successful teen services. Collaboration comes in many different forms, the first one being with teens themselves. One slogan often repeated was “by teens, for teens and with teens”. Other libraries have found success partnering with their public schools such as the Howard County Library. An entire session was devoted to this program (toolkit can be found at www.hclibrary.org/partners.) It was nice to see how both entities worked so hard to make libraries an integral part of the school curriculum.

Imaginon is another example of a successful collaboration between a public library and local children’s theatre. I’ve always thought one of the best ways for connecting with teens is to follow the mall library tradition that began a few years ago (see King Country Library System) and start building mini branches specifically for teens in places like the YMCA and other youth canteen-like places. These wouldn’t have to be full service libraries, but just enough to peak interests and show teens what’s available for them.

Assessing the success of current teen programs was another area touched on. Patrick Jones was very insistent about never doing a program without a survey at the end. This is, indeed, one of the best ways to know what parts of the program were successful and what parts were not. Attendance doesn’t always provide an accurate assessment. In fact, Jones remarked that many programs with high attendance are sometimes less successful since it often results in less of a “connection” with teenagers. Setting an attendance limit should be seen as not only necessary but developmentally appropriate. Aaron Schmidt from walkingpaper.org had a very interesting alternative to the traditional paper survey. During one of his programs, he set up a questionnaire on his laptop and left it in the back room. That way, teens could leave comments at their leisure rather than doing it in a rush at the end of the program.

Many speakers also voiced the necessity to work towards altering negative attitudes towards teenagers. Mary K. Chelton (who referred to herself as the “oldest living young adult librarian”), talked a lot about the “ideal user syndrome”, that is the idea that teenagers should exhibit a certain kind behavior other than the one they are currently exhibiting. For example, “they should be reading books, not playing games”. Patrick Jones, Tricia Suellentrop and Michele Gorman all referenced recent studies in their talk about the teenage brain and how it literally functions and processes thoughts differently from adults, just another reason why providing services that promote positive youth development is so important.