Book TV for Teens…on the Web (where else?)
As chair of the YALSA-TV Task Force I’m often asked, what exactly is YALSA-TV? A great question, and one that our task force is trying to answer. It’s our charge to present to the YALSA Board a fully-outlined proposal to create and facilitate a web-based, book-focused, video site for teens. Like YouTube, but all about books (for now, anyway!).
Right now, the idea is like Play-doh: we sculpt it into one form, then change it into another. Many factors will be determined by cost, ease of use, and appeal to teens. We are really excited about this venture and hope that you will be, too.
Some of the TV “channels” we’re toying with: sneak peeks of galleys from YALSA’s teen galley groups; booktalks; book trailers; and first-time authors. The more we can involve teens in our decision-making process, the better.
To that extent, we’re working on a survey that we’ll send to teens (with your help!). Their input will be invaluable to us, with questions ranging from “how do you find videos online?” to “what should we call this site?”.
While we’re working on the survey, we’d love to hear from you. What would you like to see in a book-based, video-sharing site? How could we meet the needs of teens in your community?
Thanks for the input, and look for that survey to be disseminated soon.
Perhaps this is just because I’m in the midst of brainstorming for summer reading, but I wonder if teens could help create some of the content that will be on the TV as part of their summer reading programs? Summer is often the time when teens have tons of time to spare, so perhaps encouraging libraries to promote some sort of video contest as an aspect of their summer reading program would help with the teen buy in for the idea? I’ll be sure to look for the survey and ask my teens what they would want to see on YALSA-TV…
This sounds like a great idea. I think teens would love to film one another and they could even create commercials for their favorite books. So for example, if a teen looks up “The Hunger Games” and is not quite sure it is up their alley there is always a video recommendation to see. I noticed that teens more times than not read the books theirs peers recommend. This way there is a ever expanding source of viral book reviews.
Summer reading programs present a great opportunity to get teens involved. Definitely, we want to have as much of the content created by youth as possible. The viral book commercials are gaining in popularity and we really want to tap into that as well.
Thanks for the ideas and suggestions!