On May 8 - 9, 2008, Gretchen Reynolds and Ann Geht attended the Engaging Teens Conference, a two day event focusing on teen programming in libraries for librarians, educators, and staff who work with teens.
The conference began with a presentation by the ever energetic Michele Gorman called "This Ain't Your Mama's Library! Technology, Radical Trust, and the Role of Social Networking." Michele began by introducing us to the developmental stages and milestones of adolescence:
Early Adolescence (11 - 13 years)
1. Increased concern about appearance
2. Seeks independence from family3. Displays rebellious, defiant behavior
4. Importance of friends increases
5. Peer group dominates6. Ego dominates all situations
Middle Adolescence (14 - 16 years)
1. Becomes less self-absorbed
2. Makes independent decisions3. Experiments with self image
4. Takes risks and seeks out adventures5. Becomes sexually aware
6. Develops sense of valuesLate Adolescence (17 - 18 years)
1. Views the world idealistically
2. Becomes more involved with world outside family3. Relationships stabilize
4. Sees adults as equals5. Seeks to firmly establish independence
The characteristics of early adolescence were a helpful eye opener given that a large number of the infractions of library policies that occur during the after school hours come from younger middle schoolers, not high school students. This makes sense given that 11 - 13 years olds are at a developmental point where displaying "rebellious, defiant behavior" and an "ego that dominates situations" is completely normal. Michele had a wonderful sense of humor about the eccentricities of young adults, and encouraged us to never take it personally when we bore the brunt of a middle schooler's bad choices or bad mood; their prefrontal cortexes just aren't fully functional yet, so oftentimes adults have to be the middle schooler's brain and help them realize choices have consequences.
Michele also stressed the developmental needs of teens, mentioning the Search Institute's "40 Developmental Assets" for adolescents: http://www.search-institute.org/assets/
Libraries can support the developmental needs of teens by:
1. Respecting and responding to unique young adult needs2. Providing equal access to library resources
3. empowering youth through participation4. Engaging in active collaboration
5. Supporting healthy youth developmentMichele then moved on to the "New Digital Divide." She argued that whereas previously the "digital divide" had described the gap between people with money to purchase a computer and Internet access and those who did not, the new digital divide describes the gap between those who grew up as "digital natives" and those who are learning computer skills in adulthood. In order to connect with our "digital native" teens, we as librarians need to push ourselves to bridge this digital divide and go where teens spend a good deal of their time: online. She steered us through many web 2.0 sites, including a few that we could potentially use in library programs: www.picnik.com (free photo editing) and www.animoto.com (free video creation and editing). She emphasized the importance of social networking in teens' lives, and encouraged libraries not to shy away from involving themselves in social networking sites and teaching teens and their parents web safety skills. Some sites that were mentioned that promoted safe social networking were NetSmartz (www.netsmartz.org/netteens.htm) and the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use (www.csriu.org).
Next, the Loudoun County Public Library presented Hanging Out Rocks! which explained how a Loudoun County Youth Initiative (basically a group of concerned community leaders who wanted their county teens to experience the same sense of outreach and inclusion that younger children received) transformed a local library into a Friday night "Teen Center." Community leaders asked teens what they wanted from their county services, and teens responded that they simply wanted easy transportation and a place of their own to hang out in. No programming. No activities. Just a place to snack, hang out with their friends, and meet new people. So the library system wrote a grant proposal that included staffing a branch library to be open after 5 PM each Friday only to teens ages 12-18: they could buy pizza, bring food, play games (including Wii), and be loud. Although the turnout was very low the first Friday night (5 teens), the word spread, and now they host upwards of 100 teens each Friday evening. They discovered that when reaching out to teens in their community, several things were very important:
1. It was vital to reclassify library positions into Young Adult positions only (not YA + Adult or YA+ Children's)
2. Teen events often went smoother when the 12-14 age group was separated from the 15-18 age group
3. If a grant proves successful, and the community loves what you're doing with it, it's very likely to be included in the library's budget the following year
4. It's essential to share success stories with local media and to apply for awards (which are often accompanied by a cash prize)
Next was a presentation on Funding for Teen Programs by Kevin Cherry, the Senior Program Officer for IMLS. He emphasized that IMLS has funding that it offers as grants to YA initiatives. He cited the very successful, initially grant-funded program in Hennepin County that allows library users to check out free museum passes as if they were books and a week long "library camp" program offered to teens that was funded by IMLS. He said that successful grants do five things:
1. Present a strong "needs assessment"
2. Give a community context for the project
3. Show collaboration with community leaders
4. Show what success will look like
5. Are sustainable when grant funding is no longer available
On the second day, we saw a presentation by Cathy De Rosa (OCLC Vice President) on Teens, Technology, and the Mashed Up Library. She shared some new statistics about libraries: library website visits are down by 10% overall since the year 2000, and by 2010 teenagers will outnumber Baby Boomers. Teenagers tend more toward wanting to read information electronically, while Baby Boomers tend to print off electronic information to read (something we may want to take into account during future collection development decisions). Teen "digital natives" will often feel there is something "off" about media that's targeted at them but doesn't involve them in any way: they're used to web 2.0 collaboration and creating content. Therefore, a good library website (for teens) will allow them to interact with it and make it their own. (A "mash up," by the way, is when someone splices two website together to create new content. For example, if Worldcat combined its content information with Google Maps so that someone could look up the location of any book in Worldcat and see it mapped on Google Maps, this would be a "mash up.")
Next, Hedra Packman gave a presentation on Teen Employment and the 21st Century Grant at the Free Library of Philadelphia. The Free Library of Philadelphia has developed an amazing program wherein teen volunteers get paid a wage for after school homework assistance and technology help. Teens can work their way up the library ladder, beginning as after school workers, then mentoring other teens in the program, even getting their library degrees paid for and becoming regular library staff after college. Teens lead teen programs, train each other, and develop a yearly teen summit complete with t-shirts and a theme. An amazing program. The Nashville Public Library presented a similar program called Engaging Teens in a Shared Leadership Capacity: T.O.T.A.L. which involved unpaid teen volunteers creating programming, training library staff, and doing community outreach.
Rhonda Belyea from the Central Rappahannock Regional Library presented Reading Buddies: Teen Volunteers Reading With Kids! which involved 9th-12th graders visiting children at a Boys and Girls Club of America center, modeling good listening behavior during a story time, then reading or being read to by the children. Lastly, there was a presentation on books that appeal to reluctant readers by Jamie Watson, a member of the YALSA "Quick Picks" committee. She described the teen-centered approach she had to showing off books to teens, watching how they handled them and what they said about cover art. Surprise, surprise: the cover is incredibly important to reluctant readers, as is the pace of the book and the opening chapter. Several titles she book talked were the Drama High series (a toned down version of Street Lit), PostSecret (by a local author -- this book could work as a potential teen program), and anything by KaShamba Williams.
Some other ideas we took away from these presentations:
1. It would be excellent if the YA FANS started a teen programming wiki so that teen programs could be searchable by topic, and all YA FANS could work on adding comments, contact information, and keeping it up to date.
2. A great teen program (possibly grant funded) would be a "One Book, One Community" for teens. Each teen that signed up for Teen Summer Reading would get a copy of the same teen title in their giveaway bag, and summer programming could include author talks and book clubs that focus on the book.
3. What if we created our own collaborative teen version of the PostSecret book (by local author Frank Warren) as a teen program and published it? Mr. Warren could give author talks.
4. What if we invited KaShamba Williams to do an author reading?
5. What if we created a "Tackling the Issues" series of talks for teens and their parents?
6. What if teens were involved in training library staff about teens and technology?
7. What if we set up regional Teen Advisory Groups?
8. What if teens could apply online for volunteering at the library?
9. Do we do outreach to our juvenile detention centers?
10. What if teens could sign up for a monthly e-mail list on teen events at MCPL?
11. What if MCPL has staff dedicated only to teen services and these staff members had their own orientation training like Children's staff has?
Next, the Loudoun County Public Library presented Hanging Out Rocks! which explained how a Loudoun County Youth Initiative (basically a group of concerned community leaders who wanted their county teens to experience the same sense of outreach and inclusion that younger children received) transformed a local library into a Friday night "Teen Center." Community leaders asked teens what they wanted from their county services, and teens responded that they simply wanted easy transportation and a place of their own to hang out in. No programming. No activities. Just a place to snack, hang out with their friends, and meet new people. So the library system wrote a grant proposal that included staffing a branch library to be open after 5 PM each Friday only to teens ages 12-18: they could buy pizza, bring food, play games (including Wii), and be loud. Although the turnout was very low the first Friday night (5 teens), the word spread, and now they host upwards of 100 teens each Friday evening. They discovered that when reaching out to teens in their community, several things were very important:
1. It was vital to reclassify library positions into Young Adult positions only (not YA + Adult or YA+ Children's)
2. Teen events often went smoother when the 12-14 age group was separated from the 15-18 age group
3. If a grant proves successful, and the community loves what you're doing with it, it's very likely to be included in the library's budget the following year
4. It's essential to share success stories with local media and to apply for awards (which are often accompanied by a cash prize)
Next was a presentation on Funding for Teen Programs by Kevin Cherry, the Senior Program Officer for IMLS. He emphasized that IMLS has funding that it offers as grants to YA initiatives. He cited the very successful, initially grant-funded program in Hennepin County that allows library users to check out free museum passes as if they were books and a week long "library camp" program offered to teens that was funded by IMLS. He said that successful grants do five things:
1. Present a strong "needs assessment"
2. Give a community context for the project
3. Show collaboration with community leaders
4. Show what success will look like
5. Are sustainable when grant funding is no longer available
On the second day, we saw a presentation by Cathy De Rosa (OCLC Vice President) on Teens, Technology, and the Mashed Up Library. She shared some new statistics about libraries: library website visits are down by 10% overall since the year 2000, and by 2010 teenagers will outnumber Baby Boomers. Teenagers tend more toward wanting to read information electronically, while Baby Boomers tend to print off electronic information to read (something we may want to take into account during future collection development decisions). Teen "digital natives" will often feel there is something "off" about media that's targeted at them but doesn't involve them in any way: they're used to web 2.0 collaboration and creating content. Therefore, a good library website (for teens) will allow them to interact with it and make it their own. (A "mash up," by the way, is when someone splices two website together to create new content. For example, if Worldcat combined its content information with Google Maps so that someone could look up the location of any book in Worldcat and see it mapped on Google Maps, this would be a "mash up.")
Next, Hedra Packman gave a presentation on Teen Employment and the 21st Century Grant at the Free Library of Philadelphia. The Free Library of Philadelphia has developed an amazing program wherein teen volunteers get paid a wage for after school homework assistance and technology help. Teens can work their way up the library ladder, beginning as after school workers, then mentoring other teens in the program, even getting their library degrees paid for and becoming regular library staff after college. Teens lead teen programs, train each other, and develop a yearly teen summit complete with t-shirts and a theme. An amazing program. The Nashville Public Library presented a similar program called Engaging Teens in a Shared Leadership Capacity: T.O.T.A.L. which involved unpaid teen volunteers creating programming, training library staff, and doing community outreach.
Rhonda Belyea from the Central Rappahannock Regional Library presented Reading Buddies: Teen Volunteers Reading With Kids! which involved 9th-12th graders visiting children at a Boys and Girls Club of America center, modeling good listening behavior during a story time, then reading or being read to by the children. Lastly, there was a presentation on books that appeal to reluctant readers by Jamie Watson, a member of the YALSA "Quick Picks" committee. She described the teen-centered approach she had to showing off books to teens, watching how they handled them and what they said about cover art. Surprise, surprise: the cover is incredibly important to reluctant readers, as is the pace of the book and the opening chapter. Several titles she book talked were the Drama High series (a toned down version of Street Lit), PostSecret (by a local author -- this book could work as a potential teen program), and anything by KaShamba Williams.
Some other ideas we took away from these presentations:
1. It would be excellent if the YA FANS started a teen programming wiki so that teen programs could be searchable by topic, and all YA FANS could work on adding comments, contact information, and keeping it up to date.
2. A great teen program (possibly grant funded) would be a "One Book, One Community" for teens. Each teen that signed up for Teen Summer Reading would get a copy of the same teen title in their giveaway bag, and summer programming could include author talks and book clubs that focus on the book.
3. What if we created our own collaborative teen version of the PostSecret book (by local author Frank Warren) as a teen program and published it? Mr. Warren could give author talks.
4. What if we invited KaShamba Williams to do an author reading?
5. What if we created a "Tackling the Issues" series of talks for teens and their parents?
6. What if teens were involved in training library staff about teens and technology?
7. What if we set up regional Teen Advisory Groups?
8. What if teens could apply online for volunteering at the library?
9. Do we do outreach to our juvenile detention centers?
10. What if teens could sign up for a monthly e-mail list on teen events at MCPL?
11. What if MCPL has staff dedicated only to teen services and these staff members had their own orientation training like Children's staff has?
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