Are you a member of the Young Adult Library Services Association? Do you have opinions on what teens’ information needs are? What are the issues that teen librarians face? What needs to be addressed so that “teen librarianship” can progress as a profession? How can we support all types of library workers that serve teens? Is YALSA helping you support teenagers from a variety of social and class backgrounds?

Did any of these questions spark an interest in you? Then you might consider running for a leadership position within YALSA. Help ensure that YALSA continues to be an effective organization for teen librarians. Or maybe you think YALSA needs some improvement? Maybe you have ideas that will shake things up a bit…

I know it can be tough to step up to the plate and take a leadership role, especially due to the amount of time and resources that would need to be set aside for carrying out assignments and projects. You will be required to attend the ALA conferences, in addition to any other meetings required of the position. But someone has to do it. And if you feel that you can accurately represent the needs of teenagers and the librarians that serve them — then why not you? Why wouldn’t you be a good candidate?

The Young Adult Library Services Association is currently gathering candidates to run for the 2009 election. Positions open include:

• President-Elect (minimum of 2 candidates; 1 elected)
• Board Directors-at-Large (minimum of 4 candidates; 2 elected)
• 2011 Michael L Printz Committee (minimum of 8 candidates; 4 elected)
• 2011 Margaret A. Edwards Committee (minimum of 6 candidates; 3 elected)
• Division Councilor (minimum of 2 candidates, 1 elected)
• William C. Morris Committee - New Non-fic award. (minimum of 8 candidates; ? elected)
  

What would you do differently if you were in charge of YALSA Printz committee? If you were a YALSA Board member, what issues would you support for the organization?

To get more information on nominating yourself or someone else for an elected position, please visit YALSA wiki:
http://wikis.ala.org/yalsa/index.php/YALSA_Election_Information

Nominations need to be in ASAP, preferably before the nominating committee meets at the ALA annual conference in June 2008.

There you will find more detailed information and links to the nomination forms.

Please repost, thanks.

Thank you for reading the Alternative Teen Services Blog. Please take a few minutes to let us know about your interest in reading this blog!

http://www.polldaddy.com/s/38F3D9E7702F9350/

Thank you for your time!

Books for the Beast

Books for the Beast is a conference at the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore on Saturday, October 27. While I look forward to attending, I am disappointed by the required reading. The literature is intended to be the best that YA can offer, but most of the books are terrible or mediocre. I know there are lots of great new young adult books (Twisted, Un Lun Dun, Alabama Moon, Strays, Beige, and An Abundance of Catherines are just a few that I’ve recently read and can remember.) Why haven’t these been chosen? Why are we saddled with garbage like Say it Ain’t So, What Happened to Cass McBride, Jason and Kyra, and Sleeping Freshmen Don’t Lie? Does anyone know how the literature is selected? I suspect it is related to the holdings at the hosting library. It is sad that as young adult literature is receiving positive attention for its relevance and literary merit—comix in particular— a significant conference seems to select such insignificant and poorly constructed novels.

Each participant reads from two of the genres (ten books). The genres include Science Fiction/Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Multicultural, Non-Fiction, Real Life, and Suspense/Horror. My chosen genres are Multicultural and Real Life and I have read a few other choices as well. I have read fourteen of the thirty books and found only a few worthy of positive notice. Cecil Castellucci’s Boy Proof, Sharon Flake’s Who Am I Without Him: Short Stories about Girls and the Boys in Their Lives, Siena Cherson Siegel’s graphic memoir To Dance, and of course Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese are complex, eclectic, and arresting works that transcend demographic marketing.

One of the interesting aspects of the conference is that teens are invited to attend for free and share their perspectives and perceptions on this body of literature written for them. Although YA novels have a clear intended audience, the opinions of young readers tend to be overlooked and discounted in favor of expert judgment. I am looking forward to a small shake-up in the hierarchy.

The conference runs from 9:00-4:00 at the Roland Park Country School, 5204 Roland Avenue, Baltimore, 21210. Speakers include author Gail Giles and Mark Siegel, graphic novel artist and editor. For more information, email beast@prattlibrary.org, call 410-396-5356, or visit the Enoch Pratt Free Library’s webpage

There is a lot going on in both the library world and blogosphere and sometimes it can be too much to keep up! I’ll be doing a monthly update of news, and I hope this update will help you breathe a little by giving you just enough news to get caught-up.

Teen Read Week is less that two months away, meaning that all us TeenLIBS should have a game plan in mind for supporting this national literacy initiative. There are tons of program ideas on the YALSA wiki, and many can be used for last-minute program planning.

Although the ALA Annual 2007 conference is old news, it’s worth mentioning some of the librarians that have provided blog coverage from a teen librarian perspective. Lindsey and Trisha provide an excellent overview of the conference on their blogs about special events, programs, adventures in the stacks, and personal experiences. There is also some good mentions on the YALSA blog regarding the conference, including the Zine-A-Palooza program, the Music and Media Interest Group Meeting, and the to I-Pods and Beyond Presentation.

The Gaming, Learning, and Libraries Symposium was held July 22-24 in Chicago. Beth Gallaway has provided coverage for the symposiom on the Game ON: Gaming in Libraries blog. Included in the coverage is Eli Neiburger’s guide to choosing videogames for tournament play and information about sharing your library’s videogame scores by joining a national library videogame ledger (to begin in January 2008).

Liz and Sophie over at Pop Goes the Library Blog need your help! They are writing a book and need input about using pop culture to connect with the community. If interested in helping, you can take the survey here. The book will be called Pop Goes the Library: Using Pop Culture to Connect with your Whole Community.

Lindsey Dunn recently hosted a teen Mystery theater program that received a positive response from the participating teens. The mystery kit used to conduct the program can be purchased online for around $30.00. Read more about the program and see photos on her blog, Zee Says=Film Addict + Teen Librarian.

Worthington Public Library hosted a fashion program for teens called Project Goodwill. Teens were instructed to put together a last-minute runway outfit using donated clothing from library staff. They were allowed to bring one accessory from home to complete the outfit. Visit the Worthing Public Library teen blog for more information.

Joyce Valenza shares a list of photo and image web tools on the SLJ Blog. Of special note is the graffiti text generator and the powerful online graphics editing program, Picnik. Share these web tools with your teens or use them to updgrade your Teen Library Myspace.

And now onto news from the local front, regarding our AWESOME web site! Carleen from Library Shrine will be coming back on board as an active blogger. You can look forward to her well-thought out posts in the immediate future.

The TeenLibWiki underwent a makeover so that it can operate more as an organic encyclopedia rather than a list of links to web sites. Extensive documentation has been included on how to participate, so please read up and help us build a totally awesome and free online resource for teen librarians.

And finally, I have recently received several e-mails from people wanting to contribute to the Alt. Teen Services blog. We definitely want the help, so thanks for offering it. I plan to catch-up on these e-mails sometime in mid-August, and I thank you for being so patient!

A couple of years ago I bought myself a copy of Connecting Young Adults and Libraries. As a paraprofessional serving teens, I found the book to be a good introduction to teens and libraries. It covers all the basics from teen volunteers and advisory groups to collections and services. It was only natural for me to bring up this resourceful read to a coworker who also served teens.

ME: So have you read Connecting Young Adults and Libraries? I bought a copy and it has some good tips on starting a teen advisory group.

HER: You mean the pink book?

ME: Yeah, that one!

HER: But of course, over here we call that the YA BIBLE!

So a couple of days ago when I got an e-mail about the new YA BIBLE, I felt compelled to share the announcement on this blog.  It turns out that a new edition is being published and the editors need your feedback. Please fill out an online survey by July 24th to shape what’s to come in the new book.

Read the full message below:

Subject: We need your feedback to make the 4th edition of Connecting Young Adults and Libraries the best, ever!

Hello teen librarians, LSTs, youth advocates, library school professors, grad school students, and anyone else who might have an interest in helping shape the next edition of Connecting Young Adults and Libraries, the book that Mary K. Chelton claims “has everything—clear philosophical goals for the service grounded in developmental assets; an incredible list of how-tos by authors who have been there, done that; a lively text; and a rock-solid understanding of the real kids who need us, not the fantasy kids we often confuse with them.”

If you have read or used the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd edition of our professional book, Connecting Young Adults and Libraries, we need your feedback to help make the 4th edition as comprehensive and practical as possible. We will be collecting all survey responses on Monday, July 24.

If you have a copy of any edition of Connecting Young Adults and Libraries, it might be helpful to have it in front of you as you answer these questions. It’s not necessary, just helpful. When you’re ready to begin, click on the link below to get started with the simple 10 question survey. If you’d like to leave the survey at any time, just click “Exit this survey”. Your answers will be saved.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=eXKBV1NeIp9SQ_2bkv6lHj_2fQ_3d_3d

Thanks for your input – we appreciate it!

Michele Gorman and Tricia Suellentrop

Co-authors of Connecting Young Adults and Libraries, 3rd edition
comixlibrarian@aol.com; triciasuellentrop@gmail.com

“The American Anime Awards is designed to honor the best in anime as voted on by anime fans nationwide.”

Fans may vote online between now and January 31st via online ballots. Award ceremonies take place at the New York Comic Con, and will be taped and broadcast on the Anime Network.

Here are some ideas for celebrating the American Anime Awards:

• Make a news announcement about the American Anime Awards at your next teen meeting. Handout small slips of paper with the url for voting.
• Setup a few voting laptops at your next anime program and encourage teens to vote during the meeting.
• Host a discussion about which anime films and manga titles might win. Before the discussion, look up the nominees in case teens are unfamiliar with a few titles.
• Host your OWN teen manga awards based on a handful of series the library owns.
• Tape the broadcast and watch it together at your next teen anime meeting.
• Post a link to the American Anime awards on your teen myspace or blog.

If you don’t have an anime group together, this could be your opportunity to speak with teens in the library about starting a group. Find out which teens like anime and manga, and tell them about the 1st Annual American Anime awards. Ask teens if they might be interested in meeting up to discuss manga and watch anime at the library.

Hello! I feel compelled to make an update about the content on yalibrarian.com

Our content is pretty much contributed by our readers and a few dedicated bloggers. It’s all grassroots at this point, and we only make postings when we have something exciting to share or feel like making an update. The bio rhythms of our postings go like this:

—– ++++ — += –= - –0 a//sadflak

In case that is hard to interepet, let me translate:

we are grassroots / we blog when we want to / we don’t force ourselves to blog when we have nothing to say
But with that being said, I definitely want to keep this thing going. So if you have something to say, please e-mail me and perhaps you could start blogging too, on this very web site. YAY.

e-mail: alt.teen.services@gmail.com

Hello Happy readers! I just got this message in my inbox, and wanted to share the news:

Apply now for the 2007 Sagebrush Corporation Award

For A Young Adult Reading Or Literature Program!

Are you a member of YALSA? Have you developed an outstanding reading and
/or literature program that brought books and young adults together to
foster a life-long love of reading? Come on, don’t be so shy! You know you
have and you should get credit for it! The Sagebrush Corporation Award
seeks to do just that! Every year, a grant from the Sagebrush Corporation
provides $1000 to support the winner’s attendance at an upcoming ALA Annual
Conference. So why not give it a try? You can get more information on the
Award and the application form at:

http://www.ala.org/ala/yalsa/awardsandgrants/sagebrush.pdf

The deadline for the Sagebrush Award is December 1, 2007. Good luck!

Hello again. I received lots of helpful e-mails from awesome folks wanting to help out with Alt. Teen Services. But I did a silly web admin thing and lost all the e-mail. Oops. I guess that is what makes this site *grassroots*. Anyways, I hope everyone e-mails me again. Would you be so kind as resend correspondence to teenservices@yalibrarian.com and if that doesn’t work, try alt.teen.services@gmail.com.
Thank you for your patience!

Stephanie

A while ago (let’s say six months ago) I started a web site called Alt. Teen Services. And well, I never intended it to represent my ideas alone. I envisioned a collaborative web site with a network of teen librarians, library students, and library staff sharing ideas, resources, and passion about working with teens — all spun together in a lovely grassroots 2.0 package (with a sprinkle or two of riot). But lately it has been back to square one with little to no help some help but not enough. The design is okay, but help with content is needed in the form of personable writing, such as posts about daily experiences and interactions with teens. I hope to have content about:  

• Working with GLBTQ youth  

• Personal philosophies of teen services  

• Rants and raves about the job  

• Excitement about working with teens  

• Ideas about serving the underserved  

• How and why to include alternative materials in the collection  

• And whatever you might be thinking of in the back of your head.  

What am I saying? Everything qualifies! So this is an official call for new content. I’m looking for new people to get involved with the web site and I don’t care if you are a library student, retiree, professional, staff worker, patron, or even a teen. As long as you enjoy working with teens in library environments and have something to say, then I would love to hear from you.  If this offer sounds appealing, please contact me by e-mail: teenservices@yalibrarian.com. I’m looking for anything from one-time postings to consistent content providers.   OK - now onto rocking out! 

Readers, please check out the YALSA blog post about the DOPA hearing that is scheduled for July 11th.

We must do what we can to save social networking internet access for library patrons!

I have moved the information in our popular Library 2.0 list to the Lib Success Wiki, under a section titled:  Library 2.0 Services to Teens - Best Practices. The reason behind this move is to open the list up to all who wish to contribute their findings. However, I am accepting suggestions on the old blog post, and will add the findings of any commenter onto the new wiki page. This seems like a silly move because the post was so popular and generated a lot of hits. But it’s all about freeing up information for all to utilize.  

The Alternative Teen Services web site started out as a place for a coworker and I to share our ideas and passion about working with teens. Last month, we invited a new blogger on board, Josh, who has contributed several postings, my favorite of which is the motivational post about gamer rights.

So what’s next? New bloggers? A smart layout? Vodcasts? Podcasts?
Well, that depends on what you think. Do you have any ideas? Please consider joining an online discussion group in which we brainstorm the mission, values, and plans for the Alternative Teen Services Web site. Think of it as an informal focus group, with the intentions of making the web site usable and resourceful for teen librarians. With the web site still under construction, we have a lot of decisions to make and we want your help.

Please contact me if you are interested.

stephanie.iser [at] gmail.com

Amanda shares new book releases in the Brave & Brass Book Blog. I find Amanda’s updates to be not only informative and useful to librarians serving teens, but also enjoyable to read. She puts a reflective spin on reviews by sharing how the Trails West library teens respond to new materials:

Westerfeld! Westerfeld! RAH! RAH! RAH! The Midnighter gang is back for the final installment. I had to buy a copy from the bookstore, since our library hasn’t received one, for my Teen Advisory Group who are still screaming at each other to be the next to borrow it.

Not only are the reviews entertaining, they are short and sweet–taking 5-10 minutes to read an entire posting. Librarians hoping to be informed and entertained will want to syndicate the The Brave and Brass Book Blog.

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