Emily Williams - Learning Retrospective

Hello staff! We wanted to report in about a professional development opportunity from earlier this month. Elisabeth Wright (VI), Claudia Farias-Cowling (AL), Kassy Nicholson (NW) and I attended the Young Adult Library Services Association Symposium in Louisville, KY from November 3-5. The focus for this year’s conference was helping all teens build a better future and brought together several hundred public and school librarians, educators, students, publishers, and authors for the common goal of helping libraries support the needs of teens in our communities. We’re going to share the highlights and summaries of some of the best sessions we attended. Let us know what you think in the comments. – Emily Williams (EPD)

The Five Laws of Library Programs For and With Teens – Elisabeth Wright

As the title says, the session presented five principles to guide teen programming, adapted from Ranganathan’s Five Laws of Library Science. I wanted to share this session with everyone because I think it spoke to a lot of the themes I heard at the conference.

1. Programs are for use. Get teens to come to programs by getting teens invested in the planning process. Take advantage of captive audiences (at schools, etc.) and measure all teen engagement, whether it’s a formal program or not.
2. Every teen his/her program. Every community is different. The programming that teens in one community want/need is different from that in another community. Keep programming interest-driven and enable teens to make it their own.
3. Every program its partner. Look for mutually beneficial relationships with both internal and external partners. Clearly define partnership roles at the start.
4. Save the time of the teen, the librarian, everyone. Empower teens to take ownership of programming. Offer consistent programs so that teens know when to expect programming. Have programs-on-the-go ready to break out when there are lots of teens at the library.
5. The program is a growing, changing, adaptable, flexible thing. Be responsive, rather than reactive - when a teen suggests that the library should offer something, ask “tell me more.” Use existing programs as a springboard (i.e.- a video game program evolving into a board game program). Consider moving up on Roger Hart’s Ladder of Participation.

Note from Emily: I’m going to look for ways to incorporate this into training for new teen services staff!

Create a Volunteer Program They Can’t Resist – Claudia Farias-Cowling

Some of the most notable aspects that I think could be useful in the volunteer programs at all our branches are: always have something for volunteers to do, plan ahead, everyone needs to be on the same page, and taking care of volunteers after high school. The first two go hand in hand: planning ahead and thinking about any prep work for upcoming programs, school visits, etc. Programmers can have a board or clipboard with a list of things that they need help with. Taking care of your volunteers after high school - this one got me thinking. What kind of experience are they getting that is marketable? Are your kids doing something besides signing up people for summer reading? Think about every task they are performing, or better yet, have them think about it. Have them translate everything they are doing into a skill or bullet point that can be added to their resumes. When they are helping with programs, they are getting some on-the-job training on being a librarian. You can have them create a resume as a final project for the end of summer/semester that includes all the things they have gained experience in. Another thing that I found to be important is that all staff members need to feel comfortable with tasking the volunteers when they come to the library. Everyone should know how to help them sign in, where this magic list of stuff for them to do is, etc. There shouldn’t be just one persons who knows all this stuff. Ideally, your volunteers will be able to come in anytime (whether the volunteer overseers are there or not) and be able to be occupied with things to do.

Note from Emily: We’ll be sharing the information from this session with the Youth Engagement Supervisors, who are working with Heidi Port and myself in preparing the teen volunteer program for Summer 2018.

No Teen Left Behind: A Teen Driven Mental Health Initiative – Kassy Nicholson

The teen librarians at the Pasadena Public Library posed a question to their Teen Advisory Board: “What vulnerable teen populations are we NOT serving?” They introduced teens to several vulnerable populations—teens experiencing homelessness, teen parents, teens with special needs, and teens with mental health disorders—and they let the teens discuss on their own without interference. The teens decided they wanted to focus on mental health, because it can affect all those other populations as well. The library partnered with their local health department, NAMI, and other organizations to get the librarians and teens training on mental health, special needs, homelessness, and LGBTQI2-S cultural competency. The Teen Advisory Board came up with a mission statement: “The Pasadena Public Library Teen Mental Health Initiative aims to increase awareness and discussions around topics of mental health, provide specialized services and programs for teens, family and friends, provide training for staff, and maintain a well-stocked, vetted, mental health resource center.” The resource center was in the teen area and contained a number of brochures and community resources, as well as library resources, and a Share Your Secrets box where teens could anonymously leave notes with their secrets on them. Some of the secrets were posted, to show teens that they are not alone. They also had an Online Resource Center on the library’s website with resources and booklists. They did quite a few programs, ranging from information sessions on mental health to book discussions and art programs. This session had so many good ideas—way more than I can list here—that it was almost overwhelming. I can’t wait to take this idea to my Teen Advisory Board and see if they are as passionate about it as I am.

Note from Emily: If you’re a member of YALSA, they have a Teen Mental Health interest group (established by Meaghan Hunt).

Helping Teens Navigate Information in a Post-Truth, Alternative Fact World – Emily Williams

This was a super helpful overview of media literacy for teens, and included several guides and strategies for working with middle and high school students. My favorite advice from the session was, “Be the citation you want to see in the world.” Basically, give your sources when answering reference questions. Let customers know that you are looking at the most authoritative source, and explain what that means when appropriate. Also, as much as I appreciate discussing theory and strategy when it comes to teen services, I also appreciate a session where we can see physical worksheets and concrete steps in an education plan. For more about this topic, YALSA has a great Literacies Toolkit to help educate the public about how to detect fake news.

Thanks for reading! Please ask us questions or share your thoughts in the comments. If you want to see more about the conference and delve deeper into library services for and with teens, visit YALSA and the Symposium homepage.