As a reader and frequent book store browser, I devote a degree of judgment towards book covers while downing an uppity-caffeinated beverage. When picking up an unfamiliar title, the presentation of a book is as important as appearing professional for a job interview. The book’s cover art introduces the reader to the story. Elements infused within the design, illustration, or photography heavily contribute towards the overall presentation and appeal. In fact, there are many times when a reader cannot recall the title or author, but is able to conjure a description of its cover. Once in a while, roles reverse and the consumer influences the cover. These titles become branded by the cover art due to momentous success i.e. Eragon, Twilight, Harry Potter. However, most titles receive a new makeover as the book transforms from hardcover to paperback to reprints, thereby creating a high expectation towards packaging.
Book cover art is a fine art as it attempts to attract its targeted audience. Those of us connected to the bookworld have a high regard for the efforts invested in printing high quality book covers, especially when we are booktalking titles to teens. Attractive and varied covers help us entice readers to expand their reading preferences. For publishers to package two different products with the same illustrations gives the impression of an impetuous company undermining current ethical standards. Whether copyright has been breached is not the immediate issue, rather consumers expect that their personal dollars are purchasing a unique product. To hinder the dystopian possibility that one day there may be several different titles displayed next to each other featuring the same cover art, please voice your opinions in the comments.
Hi everyone, this is Stephanie from the Alternative Teen Services Blog. As you may have noticed, our blog posts have dwindled! The last time this thing was updated was a little more than a month ago. A handful of our regular bloggers are taking a hiatus and we need some fresh voices to step in for replacement.
Are you interested in sharing your passion, ideas, and experience of working with teens in libraries? Would you be willing to blog for librarians in need of inspiration, support, and ideas?
If so, then please get in touch by sending an e-mail to teenservices@yalibrarian.com
Thank you for your time, and thanks for reading the Alternative Teen Services Blog.
Stephanie
PS please share this with anyone that might be interested! Thanks.
Attention Teen Librarians: Want free money for your teen tech week programming?
YALSA is giving out 20 mini grants for Teen Tech Week celebrations. Each grant is $450 in cash for a library’s TTW plans, plus $50 worth of Teen Tech Week products from ALA Graphics. All you have to do is turn your application into yalsa@ala.org by January 7…. Which is next Monday
To download the application and official rules for the Teen Tech Week mini-grants contest, visit www.ala.org/teentechweek and click on “Contests.”
Crystal Niedzwiadek interviewed me about the Alternative Teen Services Blog for a YALSA Podcast. We talked about the technical process of running a blog, spam, censorship, and connecting with the community of teen librarians. You can listen to the podcast here:
The second half of the podcast is with Eli Neiburger and focuses on the AADL Gaming Blog, which is used to establish an online community between the teens and kids that attend gaming tournaments at Ann Arbor District Library. There is some pretty fascinating discussion going on about gaming in libraries. For more information on Gaming, teens, and libraries, I recommend listening to a gaming presentation Eli did at the 2007 gaming in libraries symposium. http://gaming.techsource.ala.org/index.php/…
Library Review is looking for papers about web 2.0 and teens in libraries. According to the journal description, “Library Review aims to provide an international communication link between researchers, educators and library professionals in academic, public, company and other libraries by publishing papers which have been reviewed by the Editor and one or more reviewers.”
_____________________________
Special issue call for papers: Web 2.0, teenagers and libraries
According to a recent survey of 11 to 20 year olds reported in Media Guardian (17.5.07), more than 90% of UK teenagers have used a social networking website and a third have at least four profiles on social networking websites. One-fifth claimed they ‘couldn’t live without’ social networking. It is essential that libraries which aim to engage a teenage audience acknowledge this trend and find new ways to provide services which are accessible to teenage users in the online environments where they feel most comfortable.
This special themed issue of Library Review (http://www.emeraldinsight.com/info/journals/lr/lr.jsp) will explore the current use of Web 2.0 technologies in libraries which serve teenagers, and consider how services might be developed future to better meet the needs of a teenage audience.
The issue will cover initiatives in all types of libraries serving teenagers: school, public, college, university and other information services. Contributions are welcome from researchers, library/information practitioners and other interested parties. Suggested topics include (but are not limited to):
Involving teenagers in the design of web 2.0 services
MySpace, Facebook and other social networking sites
The use of blogs
Security and safety issues
Getting staff – and managers - onboard
Gaming - does it have a place in libraries?
Online reading groups
Podcasting - library tours and other uses
Web 2.0 approaches to information skills
Wikis and online communities.
Articles should be between 4,000 and 6,000 words in length. Author guidelines are available at http://www.emeraldinsight.com/info/journals/lr/notes.jsp
If you are interested in submitting an article, please email sarahmcnicol@hotmail.com I am very happy to discuss ideas for contributions.
The deadline for submission of full articles is 18th April 2008.
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!
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
The Card Catalog of Creativity Blog has a nice overview of a Teen Advisory Group Meeting in which teens painted book ends for the library. The activity allowed teens to personalize the teen collection.
Thinking about a renovation? The Indie librarian shares research on the types of furniture teens do and don’t like in their libraries. While some furniture may be cute in the children’s area if placed in the teen area the furniture would be out-of-place.
If you need to attract teens to the library, then why not build a state-of-the-arch gaming facility equipped with xbox 360s and gaming PCs? Carver’s Bay branch library in South Carolina did just that and gained more than 60 members for the teen gaming club within the first week of opening.
Tech Related
If you have logged onto Facebook recently, chances are you read the news about profiles appearing in Google search results. This may be a good time to remind teens about controlling privacy settings on public profiles.
Lit Related
The latest episode of JetSet highlights diy ‘zines. I thank twitter for the introduction to Jetset, which is a quick mashup of the weekly news in a digestible video format. The last episode included more than one story related directly to teens and the pop culture that influences them so much.
A new blog featuring urban lit reviews is looking for – reviews! For more information, visit streetfiction.org.
Teen Read Week is just about four weeks away! There is still time to register on the YALSA web site. Visit ala.org/teenread before September 17th to register.
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.
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!
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.
It’s been a while since I have had the time to post, but there have been a number of things that I have discovered about recently, which I would like to share just in case some of you don’t know about them.
The first of these is the Summer Blog Blast Tour, which was organized by Colleen Mondor, the brainchild of Chasing Ray.This tour consists of a number of interviews with assorted children’s and YA authors, which will take place all week on a variety of lit blogs.It kicked off on Sunday with an interview of Gene Yang, the author of American Born Chinese, on Finding Wonderland: The Writing YA Weblog.It will go throughout this whole week and will feature many authors including a few of my favorites like Chris Crutcher, Kazu Kibuishi, and Brent Hartinger.I would highly recommend going over to Chasing Ray for a peek at the schedule to see what authors you like and where you can find their interviews. Also, thanks to Colleen for putting all this together.
Next I need to mention a phenomenon that I am sure most of you are already aware of, but I just discovered it a few weeks ago so I feel the need to mention it.The phenomenon that I speak of is called Brotherhood 2.0.This is a video blog run by John Green, author of Looking for Alaska, and his brother Hank Green who is the creator of a great environmental technology blog called Ecogeek.The purpose of this vlog is for the brothers Green to avoid textual communication for the entire year and to therefore communicate largely by use of these videos.Every week day there is a new entry and they are all quite hilarious.They also give an interesting view into the lives of these two brothers.This is especially interesting for YA librarians since John is an award winning YA author.You actually get to see some intimate moments detailing his experiences in the world of YA lit.The site has developed an extremely large audience, so I am assuming that many of you are already regular viewers, but if you aren’t you should give it a look.You won’t be disappointed.I would however suggest starting with the early archives from the first week or two just so you have an idea of what the site is about.
What does an Eclipse teen program and Jewish Culture booklist have in common?
I’ll give a few hints:
The item in question was recently reviewed in the latest issue of the YALS journal.
It changes at least once a week, if not more, with new information
You have the authority to add to it and change it.
It gives you access to booklists that are being updated all the time with new titles
What the Eclipse prom and Jewish culture booklist have in common, is that they are both topics explored in further detail on the TeenLibWiki. These two articles were also recently added to the wiki and/or updated within the past month. TeenLibWiki has changed. There is more documentation, such as how to start a new page or how to upload images. Add your program ideas. We have created a new section just for programming ideas. Please add your best to the list and get some tips from others. We (still) need your help. A wiki works best when people are adding information and editing content. Give and Take Challenge. I challenge you! If you login to the TeenLibWiki and find at least one useful piece of information that helps you do your job as a librarian serving teens, then I challenge you to add something to the wiki that may prove useful to someone else. And if you don’t find anything useful, maybe we need your useful ideas so please add anyways =) Some current wiki features:
Although it has already been mentioned over on the Yalsa Blog I felt it was time to throw in my support for the new Myspace Channel called Impact. This is a very interesting new channel, which provides myspacers with links to the myspace pages of presidential candidates as well as a link to a page that will help someone register to vote online. There are other things the page offers, such news, videos, and more, which relates to making an impact in the world.
Channels like this could have a big impact on our youth. It gives politicians a means to try and reach an age group they hadn’t previously been able to communicate with very well. Now a teenager can simply get on myspace to read about candidate’s issues, and even comment on the page or send a message with a question to them. Even better, this has the potential of spreading quickly because every teen that is interested in a candidate or issue, can add links to their profile, include that candidate as a friend, or mention it in their blog. For more info about the channel and the impact it could have check out this recent NY Times article.
So what does this mean for us as librarians? Well, as librarians obviously we should be excited about anything that helps provide information to the people who need it. So something that connects youth and political information should be worth a look. There are a lot of ways we can try to get the word out about this source. Link to it on your websites, mention it in your blog, have a program centered on politics for youth, or even create a bookmark or pathfinder with political info for your teens. If you have a myspace, mention it there and add a banner for the register to vote page. Also, when you are talking with your teens simply mention that you saw this cool new site. This is a great new site which goes along with other resources such as Rock the Vote, which we need to be encouraging our youth to check out. Don’t forget many of our 16 year olds right now will be eligible to vote in the next election.
The teen space at London Public Library received a makeover! Grafitti artist Bryan Jesney painted the neighboring stairs, making the space more colorful and inviting. Wouldn’t you love a bit of paint and creativity to spice up the space for teens?
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.
The Alternative teen services blog is maintained by teen librarians who share ideas, resources, and advocacy about serving teens. By sharing our ideas in a fun and supportive environment, we will gain perspectives that improve our library services to teenage youth.
The Card Catalog of Creativity Blog
Feedburner Rss