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TLC: Teen Loving Care

Page history last edited by PBworks 16 years, 10 months ago

This page (TLC: Teen Loving Care)  was created by Floatingclouds or Jodi Mitchell, prior Young Adult Services/Adult Reference Librarian at North Regional Library, a branch of Durham County Library. These thoughts are her own and do not knowingly reflect those of other staff members. Jodi is a recent graduate of San Jose State University where she graduated with honors from the School of Library and Information Science. She is a strong advocate of youth and devoted eight years to working with street, homeless, abandoned and gang youth in Oakland, California. Although she only recently acquired her degree, she has worked in public libraries for over 15 years, and has served on numerous Young Adult committees. She honors diversity in public libraries, enjoys photography and conducting research on numerous subjects, is an active environmentalist, and is currently writing a YA novel loosely based on her own teen years. She is also a new regular reviewer for School Library Journal's Adult Books for Young Adults column. Jodi may be reached by email @ jodidcl@yahoo.com.  

  TLC (Teen Loving Care) will specifically address teen services at DCL. Links to outside resources, photos, essays, interviews, and comments, and documents are welcome. Teens belonging to DCL's TAG's (Teen Advisory Groups) will be invited to participate. (Including participating in this wiki). Hopefully a few teen leaders will emerge, who will be invited by staff and management to have a voice and contribute to the strategic plan process. As teens are our future stakeholders; it is imperative that the public library be a welcome, safe, engaging and inviting environment for youth, or they will simply turn their backs on the public library, and we will lose massive support and funding in the near future once baby boomer's and elders bow out. We must remove our blinders, and be visionary and futuristic in order to promote and perpetuate public libraries. Including teens in the strategic planning process, and collectively welcoming them into the library and providing best practices' service to Young Adults is crucial. Old fuddy duddies need to let go of their egos, antiquated school marm practices, and technology phobia and step out of the way. Honoring diversity includes honoring all ages. Our collective staff might welcome some diversity training so as not to perpetuate ageist practices. If we do not equally serve teens in the same professional way we serve others, we are discriminating against a specific group. This implies that customer service and best practices are elitist, serving only those groups we prefer or wish to serve, and ignoring, downplaying, or simply disrespecting other groups. YA librarians cannot work in a vacuum. We need to educate and include the entire staff in teen services best practices and customer services; otherwise we will fail this group, and ultimately ourselves as dedicated public library professionals. The following is from one of the many professional blogs that I read daily: "Alternative Teen Services." The article is entitled:

 

"Thoughts on 'Everyone Serves Youth Training' "

 

and the link to the article is below:

 

http://www.yalibrarian.com/wordpress/2007/04/thoughts-on-everyone-serves-youth-training/

 

 Teens enjoying welcoming teen atmosphere at new North Regional Library Young Adult room. 

 

Teen enjoying welcoming library space @ North Regional 

 

Teens gravitate to graphic novels, comic books, and periodicals colorfully displayed. The signs say "For the Love of Graphic Novels." These things just fly off the shelves. Just check the stats.

 

 

What the heck are graphic novels, and why should we have them as a valid part of our library collection??!!

 For an excellent, clear and concise explanantion of  what graphic novels actually are: how to catalog and classify them, how to build an appropriate and popular collection,  as well as an authoritative explanation of their intellectual, cognitive and artistic merit for Young Adults see the article written by Berkeley, Ca librarian in following link:

 

http://archive.ala.org/booklist/v94/youth/my1/55yatalk.html

 

We place 'check me out!' notes in our books; as many teens think they cannot take the books that are faced out or in displays.

 

 

Once a month we showcase a specific genre of interest to teens and make a snappy flyer to hilight the display. This month is 'vampire romance'. DCL carries many books in this genre, and the teens love them.

 

 

Bright and cheerful room, with collections reflective of current pop culture, as well as classic literature that teens have loved through the ages.

 

  We do our best to promote library services to teens and to always welcome them to the library @ North Regional. That is why we are here, and that is why these teens came to the library to read, socialize and relax during their Spring break!

 

Teen Program @ North Regional

 

Today, April 27th, author Paul Cuadros came to read from his new book, A Home On the Field, (http://www.ahomeonthefield.com/) about the high school all-Latino soccer league he started and coaches @ Jordan Matthews High School in Siler City, Chatham County, NC. We had 40 teens and various adults show up. The teens were enthralled by Paul and his story. Some had been reading his book in ESL class, and were well aware of its story and main characters. They asked many questions afterwards, and then swarmed the podium, just to be near Paul. They asked him if he would play soccer with them after the reading, and he said, "Sure, if your teachers will let you."  Later that day I ran into these same kids in Eno River Park, and they thanked me very enthusiastically, and wanted to know if Paul would come back, and how could they get a library card. It was a very successful and exhilarating event.

 

Paul's first team, The Jets, who won the championship!

 

Siler City's response to the Latino immigrant population in 2000. A David Duke KKK rally.

 

 

When Paul read from his book, you could hear a pin drop. The teens paid rapt attention.

 

 

The teens joked around with Paul, they really identified with the main characters in his nonfiction book.

 

 

 

The teens swarmed Paul at the end.

 

 

The perfect photo op!  Paul Cuadros, thank you!

 

 

DJEMBE FIRE!

 

On May 2nd, 2007 we had another wonderful cultural performance at North Regional Library. Djembe Fire! ( http://africanrhythm.org) brought the "magic of African rhythm" to  our library patrons. This was a high energy show! We had a full house for this amazing and fun performance; including 3 classrooms of teens, and various other patrons of all ages.  African drumming, dance and song created a festival atmosphere at the library. After the performance, the 2 lovely dancers provided a mini African dance class, and many members of the audience participated. Even this Young Adult Services Librarian(the author of this wiki page) danced.Thank goodness there are no photos to prove this. A journalist from the Herald Sun was there, and we will be in the paper tomorrow. 

 

Djembe Fire! Welcome to our library. 

 

We had a full house!

 

The library was a little louder than usual!

 

We had beautiful dancers in the house.

 

 

 

 

 

The audience was given a dance class afterwards.

 

 

Many joined in.

 

 

Thank you Djembe Fire!  for bringing African culture (and a fun time) to our library today.

 

 

 

Cinco de Mayo 

Our teen book display for the month of May highlights Hispanic authors for Young Adults. There are many wonderful authors: Gary Soto, Sandra Cisneros, Isabel Allende, Victor Martinez & Rita Williams-Garcia to name just a few. Come on down to the library and check-out some of these wonderful books. We have books in both English and Spanish. Have a fabulous Cinco de Mayo.

 

I made this flyer for this month's display.

       

Here are some wonderful books by Hispanic authors for teens.

    

 

TEENS & TECHNOLOGY

 Many public libraries have set up educational and innovative technology services and programs specifically for teens. Austin Public Library has Wired for Youth Centers where teens have their own technology space. The library received grant funding to purchase this equipment and set up the spaces and programs and hire techie teen librarians! Check out their website here: http://www.wiredforyouth.com/ . Teens have web design programs, etc. Because Austin is a High Tech area with Dell and other corporations; the library felt that it would be cost effective and a positive social and economic outcome to have teens well prepared to work in the high tech industry. What a great way to reach-out and provide a fun and educational service @ the library for many of the low income teens who reside in Austin.  SLJ (School Library Journal) has an interesting article about YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association) and Teens & Tech at this link: http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6430163.html. This article points out many innovative ways public libraries are reaching out to their teen populations in positive, creative and constructive ways by offering many technology oriented programs and services. Even small, rural libraries now have library gaming events, in the least they have DDR: Dance, Dance Revolution. And many libraries have web design, animation, blogging and myspace programs for teens. I would love to form a blogging or myspace teen group @ DCL. Colleges now expect their students to be IM, blog, wiki and social software proficient. Some professors now only hold their office hours with their students through IM (instant messaging) or some other virtual way. Most of my graduate classes at library school expected me to contribute to wiki's and electronic blackboards regularly. I would have been lost if I wasn't somewhat skilled in 2.0 technology. Thus said, many of our adult patrons @ DCL are still highly computer illiterate. I spend much of my time as a reference librarian just instructing patrons in the very basics: how to save a document, how to open an email account, how to print, how to access google. I am shocked at the very low computer literacy level that still exists in Durham. It would be great to enlist teen tech volunteers; who  roam the computer area and provide computer literacy instruction to our patrons. Teens are very patient with and competent in instructing elders. Instead of providing teen volunteers with boring, mundane, repititious tasks that will only turn them off to the library world and work world, we could offer them this more fun, challenging and exciting volunteer opportunity. It would also free up  reference librarians to assist in other areas (such as reader's advisory and other services) instead of constantly being out on the computer floor.  Could only be a win win situation all the way around; and we'd be empowering teens to be responsible and helpful community members.

 

TEEN PROGRAMMING IDEAS

Tricia Suellentrop has some great ideas about "putting teens in charge of their own programming..." Some of her ideas include:

  • Form a teen advisory council
  • Invite teens to serve as regular members of your library committees
  • Recruit teen materials selectors
  • Enlist teen technology volunteers
  • Hire teens as computer programmers and Web site designers
  • Be a positive force in the lives of young people by being their ally...creating worthwhile youth involvement in programs will encourage, inspire and give teens a voice.  

read about it in her May 2006 article from School Library Journal in following link:

http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6330768.html

 

Some Programs @ North Regional

A popular program @ North Regional is Teen Board Game night. It doesn't take much time or expense to set up this program. Monopoly, Sorry, & cards are popular. Afterschool youth are ravenous! Always have plenty of chips & punch on hand. It is nice to hold the program in a private space if possible. Teens need to blow off some steam after school; they also like to socialize, talk & joke with each other. They have expressed to me that they prefer being in the library meeting room for their programs. It provides them with their own sense of space, privacy, security & ownership; & adds a sense of worth & consistency to the programs. The teens then know when & where to show up. I just sign-up for the meeting room spaces well in advance. I post colorful fliers about the programs under a "TEEN SCENE" banner posted on our lobby's bulletin board. I also display these fliers in the YA room. I take a concensus; & let the teens choose which nights & times they want to hold their programs. If they set-up their own calendar; they are more likely to show up. Recently a teen expressed that she would like to have a board game instruction night. She informed me that many teens do not know how to play board games anymore, but would like to learn, and that they could instruct each other. She volunteered to teach other teens how to play Chinese checkers. This is a great idea.   It hadn't occurred to me that lots of teens just haven't grown up playing board games as prior generations had. Perhaps one nigth a month can be focussed on teens instructing teens on board games. This will empower the teens to feel more confident in their abilities, and more will show up for the program.   

 

   Note: If you simply ask the teens, they will always tell you what they want & need. That is why it is important to have a Teen Advisory Council @ each branch.   

 

Some other suggestions for teen programs I have received are: 1) "Racing to Chat" a typing speed contest. Teens need to be able to type extremely fast in order to keep up with IM'ing and Chatting. Winning goofy or fun prizes for the fastest typist, least mistakes, most mistakes, slowest typist would be fun for the teens. Teens totally came up with this program idea on their own. 2) One teen suggested a teen book group. 3) Several teens have expressed interest in a library use only 'chat site' and/or MySpace page that they themselves can design & maintain. Teens in anime & manga clubs generally are good graphic artists & web designers & can create some groovy layouts.  Here is a good list of public library teen Myspace pages already in existance for some good ideas. Many can be accessed from their  library websites; and some have their own catalog search functionality right from the Myspace page--providing teens with autonomy & easy, fast accessibility. ( http://www.libsuccess.org/index.php?title=MySpace_%26_Teens)
4) One teen suggested a self-taught typing program such as Mavis Beacon  http://keyright.us/landing_typing_master.html?gclid=CNKn-pygtowCFSQsFQodQ2ZTSQ)  to help teens increase their speed.

 

These teens take their board games seriously! 
 
 
Some intense concentration!
 
 
Teens always have the munchies! Yum, those 'cheesie poofs', a real favorite! 

 

 

Make your move!

 

It is the end of the school year here in Durham. A middle schooler from our Teen Leadership Council suggested we have an 'end of the school year party'. What a great idea. We posted flier invitations around the library for ages 12-18 to come to  our party. We had bilingual cakes  and staff contributed ice cream & pop. A Staff Page & 2 teen patrons helped serve food & set up the room. We must have had at least 40 teens show up and eat and eat and eat!. Not a crumb survived. They laughed and socialized and had an all around delightful time. A good way to foster warm and fuzzy feelings about the library, and end the school year on a positive note. Happy Summer. Feliz Verano!

 

 

Teen Leadership Council (TLC)

 

We have held 2 Teen Leadership Council meetings so far. Both were very well attended. Teens are very anxious to get involved, have a voice, and acquire leadership skills. Once you set some council guidelines; and come up with a few ice breakers (pizza)...the kids will really take off. By our 2nd meeting the teens voted to take over the meeting facilitation away from me, the librarian. Although I will still provide some agenda items, the teens voted to rotate the facilitator & secretary on a monthly basis. The secretary will take minutes to be kept in a binder.They voted to meet once a month, on Tuesday nights. They were given a tour of the library, behind scenes and in front, introduced to staff, told about employment options and requirements at the library, told about my background & education,  told about strategic planning and planning for the future of youth services, and shown how to access and use this wiki. They began a list of program ideas for teens, discussed what they would like to see changed at the library (technology, technology, technology, cafe with snacks, a larger teen room with it's own computers away from the central part of the library, a library-use-only 'chat' or myspace page, typing & keyboarding assistance/programs, more autonomy, less authoritative and controlling atmosphere, and provided with more dignity, and respect.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments (7)

Anonymous said

at 12:40 pm on Apr 13, 2007

We have one teen on the strategic plan steering committee (who went on the "best practices" trip to Charlotte/Mecklenburg). Two more teens went to Virginia on the April 12 trip. I encouraged them to let their friends know we want at least 10-12 teens at the Future Search Conference May 18-19 at the Searle Center. I definitely want teens involved & (by the way) would love to change the terminology from "young adult" to "teen" services. I like "TLC: Teen Loving Care" ...

Anonymous said

at 3:27 pm on Apr 13, 2007

Thank you,Skip. I will hold my first teen advisory group later this month. Perhaps a few more teen leaders will step forth that I can refer to you for the conference in May.

Anonymous said

at 12:52 pm on Apr 18, 2007

Right on, Jodi! My own suspicionis that many librarians are afraid of teens, and so just don't want them around. Younger children and their parents are a much easier market to bring in, and make circ statistics look great. So, it's a natural temptation to "look where the light is best".

Thanks for the pics of North. I love, love, LOVE the display stands! At East, we have two catalog computers in side the YA room, which never get used, because no one seees them. Your YA room is a real improvement.

Anonymous said

at 10:25 am on Apr 29, 2007

Thanks, Bill for your support and encouragement! Teens just aren't as warm and fuzzy as toddlers. Many people just don't like teens. Perhaps they remind them of their own miserable teen years. If we treat teens as if they are potential criminals, then that is what we will get.

Anonymous said

at 5:21 pm on May 8, 2007

I didn't know where else to put this--tonight was an example of why we DESPERATELY need computers in a teen space. We had about four kids in the ref. area who were being really loud. They weren't being bad, but def. very loud and disturbing to other patrons. After a couple warnings from the guard, they were told to leave. I would rather be able to tell them we had teen computers where they could be as loud as they wanted--because again, they weren't being bad--just loud.

Anonymous said

at 9:58 am on May 9, 2007

Jennifer: Just soem ideas. See my Teens and Technology article just added to my TLC page.

Anonymous said

at 12:45 pm on May 9, 2007

Jodi, I love your suggestions and I ideas. I would even be happy to help teach classes on Photoshop, etc. to teens. I'm also glad you noticed my comment--I felt so frustrated last night with my inability to give these kids what they wanted--a space by themselves. Remind me tomorrow to talk with you abotu MySpace.

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