Youth Involvement

In class 12, Jenny spoke about services issues and program evaluation. I was not aware that there is so much science in program planning and evaluation. I was impressed with her knowledge of the field and her use of the library lingo but I was also quite confused by some of the information she provided. I myself have done a program evaluation as a library intern this semester but I don't think that I thought about the differences between a formative evaluation and a summative evaluation. I enjoyed reading the volunteer experiences in the manual in Chapter 11. I agree that volunteering in a library is a great experience for any teen. Not only does the teen give back to the community but they make friends and stay current on what is popular. Libraries are fun and interesting places to be and librarians can make this possible for every patron which walks through the door. I was also not aware that there are so many volunteer opportunities available to teens. Scavenger hunts sound like fun to me.

Youth Participation Services

Week 11 we spoke about youth services and getting to know your audience is an important aspect of program planning. The manual gave a lot of ideas about programming and raised several issues of how to implement a program, what to do about attendance and the overall success of a program. Of course sometimes teens don't show up for programming or book clubs in a library and I have seen that happen. There could be several reasons for this. It is easier to get 8-12 year olds involved in book clubs. They still have parents bringing them to the library and these kids have a genuine love for books. I am planning to organize a collaborated discussion with a librarian from Grand Army Plaza Library to do a book club discussion this week on The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg by Rodman Philbrick. We decided that it is best to start to speak a little bit about the author and then introduce the characters, setting and plot of the book. For the most part the book club consists of the same four tweens that come every month. They choose the genre and book they are interested and the librarian prepares a discussion. This is the reason why I'm trying to be on top of the American Civil War subject.

Programming

In the Flipping It article, the author speaks about the positive affect of the youth counselors in the Youth Empowerment Initiative. Queens Library is a good model for other libraries who are interested in improving their library programming. The library has goals to motivate the undirected teens into lifelong library users and to encourage teens to succeed academically. Libraries already know that adding public-use computers brings young people into the library but many librarians are not trained in positive youth development which youth counselors provide. Last year Queens library hired eleven youth counselors who created programming during and after school hours. The counselors deal with the cases of abuse, pregnancy and other problems that concern teens. Summer Reading Program combined with a basketball tournament and Read Down Your Fees program are a great way to motivate teens to read. Teen spaces and programming deserve attention and everyone should serve the youth not just the young adult librarians. This was a powerful article and it represent the possibility of the library to change the teen community into something positive.

After reading the Pierce book about serving the multicultural youth I thought about the recent visit me and the librarian made to the Brooklyn Residential Center for troubled girls. These girls were avid readers and had particular tastes in novels. They like urban fiction and they are aware of the new bestsellers. Our library is not required to reach out to these girls but we find it to be a beneficial experience and there is a sense of satisfaction when a girl receives the book that she has been waiting for. We usually have a diverse selection of books available for their choosing.

Information services

The class 9 readings questioned the common issues a Young Adult Librarian faces from day to day. The authors do not have definite solutions for these issues but promote the idea that the librarian should be flexible enough to adapt to the situation as it comes. I think that this is something that is done in every profession and since a public library is not a school we should cater to teens in a way that will make the library a favorable place for them. When I was reading the manual I began to think of what I would do in the situation of the problem posed. I would follow the policy of the library but I would like to think that the library would be liberal in serving the public.

Our profession as librarians is all about alleviating the conflict between the patrons and the library. We are not interested in losing popularity. Since we want to please everyone we are sometimes "stuck between a rock and a hard place." Parents can be difficult and administration can be skeptical. The most important issue that young adult librarians seem to face from administration is: why should we continue to support YA when our main measure of success is still circulation and YA has lower circulation than children's or adult materials? The circulation numbers may be lower for YA but it may be not. For example, if the budget for children's materials is $20,000 and they circulate 80,000 items; but if your budget is $5,000 and you circulate 30,000 items, then YA has the higher circulation-per-dollar ratio.

Teen Week Booktalks for class 8

Teen Week Booktalks from Scholastic

On Monday Deborah Gregory came to the Brooklyn's Central Library where I intern. She came during teen week to promote her new book called Catwalk: Strike a Pose. I liked the way she spoke about her passion for fashion and her inspiration for her work. She is a journalist, a young adult writer and fashion designer. She has a bachelor's degree in Writing and a degree from the Fashion Institute of Technology. She has a great sense of humor and she is happy with her profession. She grew up in a foster home and when she was growing up she wanted to be part of a music group. This inspired her to write about a music group. She also began sewing when she was 11 years old and so her love for clothing has been prominent in her books. I liked the way she addressed the teens and asked them questions about their dreams.

She spoke about the fashion industry and the writing industry. It was difficult for her to get into the writing business because of the barriers that many black people face. She spoke about her traveling and interviewing Destiny's Child music group and how she started her own movie called Cheetah Girls. She read a chapter from the first and second Catwalk book. Then she quizzed the class on what she has read and whoever got the right answers got a signed poster of theCheetah Girls. She also did a practice fashion model walk with the girls to some music. The girls enjoyed listening to her and she grabbed their attention well. She spoke about the characters of the book and what the book is about. She also used a lot of acronyms in the book such as a.k.a.

She came dressed in a pink outfit that she made herself and she said that pink is not just a color but a cattitude. I thought she was pretty funny but she also gives hope to young girls that they can achieve anything they want. She has even mentioned that one of her good friends is one of the judges from America's Next Top Model television show. I was glad to be a part of this event.

Literacy Debate

The readings for class 6 were concerned with collections for young adults. After reading the New York Times article by Motoko Rich I understood that the online readers extract greater benefits from reading than the book readers. Online reading builds on the traditional reading skills and requires new skills. These skills include the ability to navigate the We and to synthesize information in many different forms. Reading books differs in several ways from online reading. Book readers many form questions less frequently; searches can be limited to the table of contents and index. Book readers may interact less directly and less often with one another than online readers. The only benefit to reading books is that readers have high confidence in them and the information is often already organized and synthesized.

Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading? article made me question my own literacy skill progress. I think that I agree with some of the teens that the web gives more opportunities to interact with the article and other users. It gives you a feedback and several viewpoints. It also gives more suggestions for reading updated and similar articles. I'm in favor of the web. I don't agree with groups that are against the web as a learning tool.

Intellectual Freedom

I enjoyed last weeks presentation by Amy Chow on Collection Development. I was interested in learning the perspectives of other students on the purpose of the collection. The readings for week 7 were about intellectual freedom. The Amy Pattee article on the dilemma of incomplete sexuality education made sense for me as a future librarian who needs to purchase ya materials for the library. There is no federal law that supports sex education which teaches about both abstinence and contraception. In my experience as a teen I think it is mandatory. Some teenage boys didn't know the importance of contraception when I went to school and maybe the lack of education was the reason why they didn't. I agree with the author that teens should see sex as an emotional and not just a physical experience that is special and not to make it trivial. Purchasing the right non-fiction materials for sex education is important for the ya collection.

I also browsed through the YALSA resources for social networking and found them to be helpful for teens, parents, librarians and community leaders. The Toolkit for Librarians discusses what social networking is and how it facilitates learning in schools and libraries. I agree that there should be no block on software that enables people to form virtual communities via the computer. These technologies have many positive uses and are an ideal environment for teens to share what they are learning. It can also improve reading and writing skills and it could be a tool for a meaningful experience as a part of a community with similar interests.