The Teen Third Space

My final session was The Teen Third Space. There were 3 speakers during this panel, two talked about teen spaces in libraries and the third spoke about having a teen webpage separate from the library website and catalog. Here is a link to the handouts--it is a word doc, so don't be surprised when it asks you if you want to open it.

Kimberly Bolan is a facilities planning and design consultant and has published a book displaying her design triumphs. She is also a librarian with 20 years of experience. She went into the history of the idea of a "third place" and summarized it as being a social surrounding separate from home and work or school, as well as an environment that facilitates community building. She argued that creating a comfortable teen space increases use of all our services, which is always desirable. In order to get teen input, she recommends showing teens the options, rather than saying "you want [this], don't you?" (Hmm, reference interview anyone?) A couple of the things she says makes teens happy in a space are food and drink and a variety of furniture.

Anthony Bernier is an assistant professor at San Jose State University. His presentation was called, "Why Bean Bags 'Bite:' YA Seating." Obviously not a big fan of the bean bag chair, not only because they are messy and get smelly, but because teens don't like them and they are uncomfortable. He have 4 "rules" for choosing teen area furniture:

1. Maximize Options
2. Mix and Don't Match
3. Offer Movement
4. Explore the Floor

What this comes to, is offer a variety and don't make teens sit the way our grandparents thought teens should sit. Offer chairs and stools that are comfortable and offer a number of ways to position themselves. Let them put their feet up, mix up the colors and don't expect things to stay where you put them.

The final presenter was Angela Sigg, web developer of the Denver Public Library. She worked with teens and staff at her system to create a teen web page for the library. Her summary of what teens like in a website:

• short blocks of text
• one that reflects what they like and who they are
• mentions regular teen patrons
• features their reviews of books and movies

What they don't like:

• Boring!
• too much text
• using teen "lingo"--trying to be cool

That was the last of it. Sorry to say I did not win the raffle, and neither did Cheresse--they were giving away some cool notebooks and teen read week shirts.

Oh, speaking of teen read week, the YALSA president's meeting was just before the panel, and the president urged us all to register if we are participating in teen read week. It is free and helps them report the number of participants, which in turn helps them get funding. All around goodness.

Excellence in Library Services to Young Adults

This morning I attend YALSA's Excellence in Library Service to Young Adults. It was a great showcase of 4 different library's projects in serving unique populations of teens. There were posters from about 10 library systems all together, but only 4 presented. All were larger systems, although some of them did not have prior teen programing or services in place. Many of these projects were gateways into further serving teens, even if the programs themselves did not last.

The first library, which I missed the name of, held a 2 day teen summit where they invited teens to come and hear speakers on different hot topics. To entice teens to the summit, they emphasized big name speakers and provided a box lunch. One cool idea I came away with was to have a sign in "sheet". When their sponsor wanted to keep track of who attended with a paper sign in, the librarian came up with the idea of putting a regular flat sheet over the tables and provided sharpies for teens to "sign the sheet". This allowed tracking for numbers and names, and ended up being a piece of artwork when teens added their tags to the sheet as well.

Brazos Price from Austin Public Library was the second presenter. He spoke about their Second Chance program which formed a library branch inside both the short and long term juvenile facilities in their city. The teen spaces were very neat and clean, with a lot of tables and space, and had an impressive number of books. They started out with donated ARC's and second hand books, but have impressed their admin so much that they now have their own budget for new materials and have surpassed a couple of their branch libraries in circulation numbers.

Hennepin County Library/Brooksdale Branch started an International Teen Club at their library. The program is really inspirational in its scope. Most of the members are Hmong, but they are open to any nationality. They have developed their own programs, volunteer to help the library, designed their own logo which they use on marketing and t-shirts, made a dvd to teach new immigrants how to use the library, started a peer tutoring group and give workshops to other clubs that want to start one and have cultural workshops to help keep their culture alive here in the US.

The New Scotland Branch of the Albany Library System created a Skate Club to help bring a population of skaters into the library. The skaters had previously used the library only for internet, bathrooms and water while they spent the day skating on the expanse of concrete in front of the library. The branch librarian was smart enough to recruit a library school student who also happened to be a pro skater to come facilitate the club and they partnered with a local for profit indoor skate facility. He brought video of his own skating and encouraged the teens to do so as well. The club grew into an advisory type of group and gave feedback as to how the teen area in the new branch should look and feel, as well as helped develop their new teen employment program. The Skate Club will not be back this year since Albany is going through a lot of closures and reopenings with remodels and new libraries being built, but the group's input will live on and many of the teens that were involved with the club are now involved in other ways.

The final presentation was really short. The Alameda County Library recruited teens to teach seniors how to use computers and navigate the internet. It sounds like it was a very positive experience.

One thing I took away from this session was the power of giving teens a voice. Making them feel that the library is their place, instead of just a place they visit. One way that I saw this in many of the sessions was allowing the teens to come up with their own logo/graphic that represented who they are. At some point, I would like to facilitate an art contest with that in mind.

Sunday--Jessi

This morning I got up way too early (there are many reasons why I love working in a public library, and one if them is that I hardly ever have to get up before 8am) and went to a session called Beyond Gaming Tournaments. The materials can be found here, although I noticed that all the slides and handouts aren't there yet.

The first speaker was Craig Davis of Youth Digital Arts Cyber School. He recommended training teens to create their own digital art, music and video games. He showed us how professional sounding music can be made easily using cakewalk and nitty (sp) a music programming language. That could be combined with digital artwork and made into a video game. He suggested having a teen design a game that featured the library or website, linked to the library home page, to interest teens.

The next panelist was Elizabeth Saxton of the Cleveland Public Library. She told us about gaming advisory boards and how engaged teens could be in the decision making concerning library gaming. One idea that I found compelling was to have teens write game reviews or news type coverage of gaming tournaments to post on a blog or publish in a zine or newsletter.

The third panelist was Amy McNally from Ridgedale Library. Her presentation was mostly done by the two teens she brought along. They have an anime club and a cosplay costume making club. This part of the session had little to do with gaming, but it was interesting to listen to.

I ran into Cheresse at this session, so I accompanied her to Winning over Boy Readers, next. It was a great session and Alan Lawrence Sitomer was an inspiring speaker, however, I don't think he answered the question that the title poses. We did hear lots of good reasons why boys (and girls) should read, as well as a lot of statistics linking race, literacy and success rates for teens, as well as how to make teens comfortable with reading. He said that it is important to listen to what the teen is interested in, rather than forcing what we think of as literature on them. Also, physical and mental comfort are key. These things may sound obvious, but many people miss them in their interactions with teens. I was impressed and went back to the exhibit hall after the session to pick up his arc, The Secret Story of Sonia Rodriguez. Mr. Sitomer moonlights as a YA author.

My last session was Fostering Youth Advocacy: How Libraries can help. There were 4 speakers at this panel from Oakland County Library, two high school students in their Youth Leadership Council, the Teen Services Librarian and an administrator. Most of the talking was done by the teens, who were fairly accomplished public speakers for their ages. The program consists of a group of around 12 teens who serve themselves and the library in different ways to advocate for their rights. Some members go every year to State "Leg" day (legislature?), where they sit in on talks and have the opportunity to be heard on important issues to teens. They also lobby for better teen areas in the branches, library improvements and take part in regular monthly meetings to discuss what is important to them. Jane was also at this session, so I will be interested in her take on it.

I met David and Bo at the Book Cart Derby after all the sessions were done. I had never seen one before and was amazed by the level of the competition. Many teams had flashy, expensive looking costumes and cart decorations. All were well choreographed and one woman actually sang during their performance. The mad scientists/zombies won the gold cart. There was a lot of time, thought and creativity put into theirs.

We headed over to the iSchool Reception at the House of Blues after the derby. I met up with a cohort there and had a nice time talking to iSchool students past and present. It was a really long day...

What I am doing at ALA 2008 by Jane Gibson

On Saturday, I am emceeing the LIVE! @ your library Reading Stage from noon -4PM
http://www.ala.org/ala/ppo/calendar/ac2008/LIVEstage2008.cfm

Then, at 4PM I’ll attend the PPYA Business Meeting (Popular Paperbacks Committee—I am chairing the list called Journey> Destination and serving on the committee for Spies and Intrigue:
http://www.ala.org/ala/yalsa/booklistsawards/popularpaperback/nominations.cfm

On Sunday morning I have my PPYA Committee meetings to discuss the titles already nominated. This is an open meeting—so you should come to it—here is the schedule:

8:00 - 9:30 - Death
9:30 - 11:00 - Spies
11:00 - 12:30 - Journey
12:30 - 2:00 - LUNCH!!
2:00 - 3:30 - Fame

It is located in the Disneyland North Exhibit Hall J

In the afternoon on Sunday I am attending
Fostering Youth Advocacy: How Libraries Can Help

I don’t have a cell phone, but I am staying at the Crowne Plaza Resort-(714)867-5555

Posted for Jane by Jessi

From attendee to presenter, in two simple steps.

Hello, folks.
As you may know (no blushing violet, I), I occassionally present on readers advisory related topics at conferences. I did a couple of presentations at last year's ALA annual in Washington DC, and recently presented for the Ontario Library Association (and PLA) in Toronto, Bouchercon in Anchorage, OLA/WLA in Portland, and BEA (Book Expo America) down in L.A. What can I say? Word on the street is that I talk real loud and show funny pictures!

It was not, however, my intention to do any presenting at this year's ALA conference, which I'm attending in support of my work with the RUSA CODES reader's advisory committee, and to catch some programs for a change, instead of pacing around my hotel room sweating over my presentation. Until a couple of days ago, that is, when I learned that the sole speaker for our Book Group Therapy program, Nancy Pearl, would very regretfully not be able to make it. Which fact put me on this year's roster of ALA presenters in two simple steps, or stages: shock, and acquiesence.

Fortunately (for everyone), I am only going to be a small part of this presentation, as in the resulting flurry of emails among our committee members outed a number of other presenters, all of whom know much much more about book groups than I do. The ultimate shape of this 90 minute program is still being figured out - it appears that SPL's own Jen Baker (no stranger to book groups and book group workshops) may take her turn on our stage as well, but as for me, I have volunteered to distract people for ten minutes with something called Why Men Don't Join Book Groups.

Sadly, we won't have Powerpoint, so I can't show dirty pictures or use sight gags. So now, on my day off, I set about to pace the room and figure out just what on earth I can weave into my remarks to lower the BS quotient of the flow of words coming out of my mouth a couple weeks from now. Oh, I'm sure I'll come up with something. Though don't be surprised if you find me at Archie McPhee's the night before departure to LAX, buying up something shiny and attractive to the inner child to throw out in handfulls to the stunned crowd, a la Chuck Palahniuk or beloved SPL alum Ray Serebrin. I'll keep you posted.

How about the rest of you: anyone presenting anything so we can come and whoop! whoop! in the back row?