What I Learned at PLA: You Are But IM (teens)
For teens:
You Are But IM.
Presenters included Patrick Jones, Tricia Suellentrop, and Michele Gorman (of ImaginOn of Mecklenburg County NC.)
Highly suggested reading: Connecting Young Adults and Libraries (which is in our collection)
Some of this isn't new, but serves as a good reminder:
We all need to remember that teens need to feel as if their needs are important. What may seem stupid to us, may be life and death to them.
We need to give youth MEANINGFUL opportunities to participate. There is a list of volunteer opportunities in the book.
There was mention of Keith Curry Lance on the AAYSL (I think) web page who is doing something important. Those teen librarians out there should know who he is. I don't.
Idea I had: What if we got a group of us who read YA fiction/nonfiction together who submitted new book reviews to local school newspapers?
Another idea I had: Move the batman and superman comics to the jfic section. They aren't all that YA.
The presenters felt that the following were the current best practices:
- We need to learn their technology. (Find out what they're using and learn how it works)
- Podcasting
- Interactive teen library page: myowncafe.org
- IM reference
- My Space.com
- e-videos (from Denver, where they have just started offering downloadable videos)
- video games for circulation (Baker & Taylor now carrying)
- IPOD Shuffles loaded with audio books available for circ
Programming ideas included gaming tournaments and an On the Edge book club, a book club based on controversial novels.
Presenters insisted that every YA program should have an evaluation form asking: how did you find out about the program, what did you learn, and what else do you want to know.
Outreach is important and Teen Read week is a great opportunity (3rd week in Oct)
IDEA: Put ya/graphic novel catalogs on tables in teen area w/ note to pick titles they'd like to see in the library. Important to take requests seriously.
Presenters recommended getting a list of clubs at the local schools to see if they could help create programs (e.g school chess club did chess training and tournament at library over summer)
Check out nclib.org (hennepin county pub. lib) teens online
posted by chris w @ 1:51 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Sounds like it was a good workshop. I don't know about the other speakers but Patrick is always dynamic. I agree with Tamar that we're falling behind the kids, Dave thinks so too. I know the Tech Taskforce was discussing "gaming" today. That plans are in the works to institute IM reference services this year and that ALL of our staff, but especially Reference staff, needs to get on Board and familiar with what's out there. I know that all the managers have goals in their plans this year to explore some aspects of blogs and list serves, but here's the other side of the issue. I can lead a horse to water, but I can't make him drink. At a certain point, you all, as managers and staff, have to jump into the technology trends that are there to be explored. For example, how many blogs do you monitor? Who among you uses a news service? Who maintains a page on myspace.com, google or yahoo? What online groups are you involved in? I do alot of this stuff at home, so I can stay current with what my son is doing, but what do you think we should do as library staff? If you want to get more involved in planning for the techno future, give Dave a call and tell him you want to join the committee. They are the ones that will be making major recommendations for change.
NR is the only branch that gets wired. Yeah for us!
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