You work hard all summer to provide teens with a variety of activities to help them learn and grow. But chances are, your elected officials do not know about the great work you do and what it means to teens and to the community. So, it’s up to you to show them! Elected officials need to know about the vital role libraries play in helping teens succeed in school and prepare for college, careers and life. Without this knowledge, they will not be able to make informed decisions regarding key pieces of legislation, such as the Elementary & Secondary Education Act (ESEA) or the Library Services & Technology Act (LSTA). District Days–the time when members of Congress are back in their home states–are the perfect chance for you to show off all the great things you do for and with teens through your library, by inviting your Congressperson to come and visit any time between Aug. 1 and Sept. 6, 2015. You could also bring your teen patrons to them at their local office. YALSA’s wiki page has everything you need to extend your invitation, plan for a visit, and be a great host! Your teens are relying on you to speak up for them, so be sure to seize this opportunity. Then, tell us how it goes by sending photos and information using the #act4teens hashtag.
Month: July 2015
Volunteer for Award, Selection & Strategic Committees and Taskforces!
It’s that time of year again! As YALSA President-Elect, I’ll make appointments for the following YALSA committees and taskforces:
- 2016 YA Services Symposium Marketing & Planning Taskforce
- 2017 Award Nominating Committee
- 2017 Governance Nominating Committee
- Alex Awards
- ALSC/BOOKLIST/YALSA Odyssey Award
- Amazing Audiobooks for Young Adults*
- Midwinter Marketing & Local Arrangements Committee (2017 in Atlanta)
- Midwinter Paper Presentation Planning Committee
- Morris Award 2017
- Selection and Award Committees Oversight Committee
- Best Fiction for Young Adults
- Great Graphic Novels
- Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults*
- Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers
*Please note that the PPYA and Amazing Audiobooks Committees are virtual. YALSA members with book selection and evaluation experience and who are comfortable working in an online environment with tools like ALA Connect, Google Docs, Skype, etc. should put their names forward for consideration.
Past-President Chris Shoemaker noted in his blog post last month that the YALSA Board adopted a new policy about serving on YALSA award committees (Alex, Edwards, Morris, Nonfiction, Odyssey & Printz). Beginning Feb. 1, 2016, any individual who has served on any YALSA award committee will need to wait two years before they are eligible to serve on another YALSA award committee.
If you have been on selection and award committees before, please consider volunteering for the new Selection and Award Committees Oversight Committee (more info can be found in this board document). This new committee needs experienced YALSA members to serve as liaisons and to standardize policies and procedures for selection and award committees.
The Fine Print
- Eligibility: To be considered for an appointment, you must be a current personal member of YALSA and submit a Committee Volunteer form by Oct. 1, 2015. If you are appointed, service will begin on Feb. 1, 2016.
- If you are currently serving on a selection or award committee and you are eligible to and interested in serving for another term, you must fill out a volunteer form for this round (so I know you’re still interested and want to do serve another term)
- Qualifications: Serving on a committee or taskforce is a significant commitment. Please review the resources on this web page before you submit a form to make sure that committee work is a good fit for you at this point in time.
- Need more information? Click on the links above. Check out the Committee FAQ. Watch the Selection Committee Webinar.
- Please free to contact me with any questions or issues at gsarahthelibrarian at gmail .com.
Thanks for volunteering with YALSA!
10 QUESTIONS TO ASK ABOUT YOUR TEEN SERVICES
Are you struggling trying to find ways to engage teens at your library? Look no further! As part of our ongoing research relating to teen library services, we talked with teens across the country and have answers for you in “10 Questions to Ask about Your Teen Services.” (For details about the research, see our recent YALS article: Denise Agosto, Rachel Magee, Andrea Forte, and Michael Dickard, 2015, “The Teens Speak Out: What Teens in a Tech High School Really Think about Libraries…and What You can do to Improve their Perceptions.” Young Adult Library Services 13 (3): 7-12.)
10 Questions to Ask about Your Teen Services
- Can teens find quiet spaces for reading and studying in your library and vibrant spaces for hanging out, socializing, and creative activities?
It’s important to remember that teens use libraries for all sorts of activities – social interaction, quiet reading, collaborative school work, and hanging out with friends. Your library space needs to support all of these diverse activities. When asked why they use libraries, some of the teens we’ve worked with talked about schoolwork. For example, Kacie* (age 18), told us that she hadn’t visited her public library in years. Then she stopped in one day and realized that it was a great place to do her homework. She realized that: “‘Hey! The library is quiet. There’s everything I need [for studying].’… It was like: ‘Hey! The library’s kind of awesome!'” On the other hand, other teens told us about using libraries as spaces to connect with their friends or to engage in creative pursuits. As Jamie (age 18) explained: “People usually just go to the library to play music or just chill out, eat lunch, or read a game magazine. I have used it for that. They have cool magazines there.” Your library should provide clearly marked spaces to support each of these different activities.
Continue reading 10 QUESTIONS TO ASK ABOUT YOUR TEEN SERVICES
App of the Week: Specimen: A Game About Color
Title: Specimen: A Game About Color
Cost: Free
Platform: iOS
If, like me, you’ve always loved the paint chip aisle at your big box hardware store of choice — the orderly color squares and
rectangles, the fun color names, the act of comparing a Bubblegum Pink and a Primrose Blush until you can see their subtle differences plainly — you, too, might think you’d be a whiz at a game that’s only objective is the matching of colors. If so, I wish you better luck than I’ve had.
Specimen: A Game About Color is a color-matching game that puts your eye for color to the test. Instead of gazing at rows of orderly paint chip samples, players are called to match jellybean-like blobs of color floating in an inner circle to the color that fills the screen outside the circle, all while a timer ticks away the seconds.
The game gets tough pretty quickly, though you can earn extra lives by showing exceptional skill, and the addition of special blobs in the higher levels allow you to do things like detonate two color blobs at once (or so I hear.) Lives and special blobs can also be purchased through the app to further gameplay.
At first glance, a color-matching game might not seem to lend itself to library programming, but for those libraries with Apple devices, Specimen could be an unexpected addition to an art-based STEAM program. And much more fun than staring at paint samples.
Have a suggestion for App of the Week? Let us know. And find more great Apps in the YALSA Blog’s App of the Week Archive.
Instagram of the Week – July 27
A brief look at ‘grams of interest to engage teens and librarians navigating this social media platform.
This week we’re looking at two ways to spice up your library’s Instagram account and engage users with library memes and opening lines of books. With websites that allow you to create your own memes using popular themes or uploaded images, the possibilities for witty library humor are endless! For #firstlinefriday or #firstsentence posts on the first of each month, some libraries share opening lines of books as a way to engage followers with trivia, to advertise an upcoming book club, or showcase new materials in the collection.
Have you created memes for your library’s social media accounts? Have a preferred go to meme generator? Posted any opening lines? Share with us in the comments section below!
Day Five and Recap of the Week — Teens have valuable opinions (but we already knew that)
In the craziness of finishing up a week of camp (both for the teens and the younger campers who came in the morning) and heading back to Champaign-Urbana, I didn’t get a chance to write a Friday blog post. However, I’m here for a day five recap and a brief reflection on the week as a whole.
On Friday, we gave the teens more design time on their projects and also, gave them a chance to put their ideas together into a final presentation. A few of the teens made a PowerPoint presentation, giving an overview of their week and how they arrived at their design projects. It was a nice way to summarize the week and reflect back on what they had done.
After a brief dress rehearsal, it was showtime! The director of the Peoria Heights Public Library was there, some 4H staff members (the camp was sponsored through 4H and the University of Illinois Extension), and some of the parents of the teens. Their presentations were both informational and a celebration of their hard work.
And boy, did the teens have some great ideas. Each project showcased the teen’s strengths and their insight. The projects focused on how to make the teen space in the library more inviting for teens. Some focused on the physical space, others on what was in the collection, and others about how to bridge generation gaps between teens and older adults, using the library as the setting. The library director was intrigued by many of the ideas. I was reminded that we need teen perspectives because they have valuable opinions. I would be curious to return to the Peoria Heights Public Library in a few months and see what input was considered and put to use.
YALSAblog Tweets of the Week – July 24, 2015
A short list of tweets from the past week of interest to teens and the library staff that work with them.
Do you have a favorite Tweet from the past week? If so add it in the comments for this post. Or, if you read a Twitter post between July 24 and July 30 that you think is a must for the next Tweets of the Week send a direct or @ message to lbraun2000 on Twitter.
Continue reading YALSAblog Tweets of the Week – July 24, 2015
Teen Design Lab Day Four — Time to Design!
Another good day at the Teen Design Lab. We had a pretty free form day, complete with some inspiration, project time, and stickers.
What we did:
- Watched some library related humor videos (such as Check It Out made by the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library — what a great job they did incorporating Taylor Swift into EVERYTHING). These videos served as inspiration and a potential design project. We wanted to give teens the option of making a video parody to promote the library.
- Then it was design time. This is the neat part of the camp. We just let the teens be, serving really only as sounding boards and offering words of encouragement. We provide laptops, paper, pens, and other design supplies (such as clay, building blocks, felt, etc) so they can create a prototype of some sort. It was neat to see the teens find their element — some needed to make something with their hands while others made detailed dream plans and steps to success charts. The design process also the teens to showcase their talents and strengths, which is awesome. At the same time, we are aligning with library and community priorities — giving suggestions on how to make the teens feel welcome or participate in their community and or library.
- The day ended with a sticker workshop. Again, this pulls from Makerspace and Fab Lab ideas and equipment (check out the Maker & DIY Programs YALSA Wiki page for more information about this sort of programming). It was an easy setup — laptops running Silhouette software, Silhouette vinyl cutters, and vinyl for the stickers. It’s another workshop where the teens really have free reign over what they want to do. Our only suggestion was using a silhouette image for the cleanest cut. The teens really took off on this project, most printing multiple sets of vinyl. They picked up on it pretty quickly (and a few had done this before). It was a nice way to end the workshop.
The teens will be back tomorrow, continuing to work on their designs and then give a brief presentation to their peers and community members we’ve invited to come so the teens’ opinions can be heard!
Teen Design Lab Day Three — Tech Playground & Teen Feedback
Wednesday was a bit of a slow day. Lucky for us, we had something free form planned for the teens to explore.
We called it a Tech Playground. Our potential project ideas were:
- Facebook pot for the Peoria Heights Public Library
- Google Maps with pins of their favorite places in Peoria Heights
- Experiment with graphic design using Canva, Gimp, or Imgur
What won out was Canva. I had only briefly worked with this website and I was the one who had recommended it after hearing about it at a social media conference. To sign up, all you need is an email address or can log in with Facebook or a Google account.
From there, you can make almost any sort of design. Flyers, Facebook covers, Etsy banners, posters, business cards — the sky is the limit. With the design, there are both free templates and templates that can be purchased at low cost ($1 or so). You can upload your own photos, use copyright free images, or purchase images from Canva (again around $1 or so). It’s relatively easy to maneuver around the site, and lots of tutorials to watch if you get confused. Here’s a thing we made!
The teens seemed very into it and said it was one of their favorite things they did that day. It was a great project to just let them run wild and to create something they wanted to use. We also confirmed that Facebook is just not a social media this group of teens use (paralleling recent studies done that say teens are moving away from using Facebook).
After Canva, which was hard to tear the teens away, we had a volunteer from the Peoria Heights Historical Society come in. The teens seemed engaged with the volunteer and asked some good questions. The day ended with conversations on potential design projects they will officially start tomorrow and a conversation with the director of the library. He had looked at their feedback on the Hack Your Library project. The conversation was pretty good, but of course, came back to similar problems — teen involvement and investment. The teens gave good suggestions, such as scouting a couple of teens and allowing them to have a very active role in program planning. If they can bring a couple of friends, then the program has a chance of taking off. I’m curious to know in the future if the director keeps this in mind. I think getting teen feedback is so crucial. We can guess all we want, but at the end of the day, what the teens say and think does matter.
Looking forward to day four and getting more into the design process!
App of the Week: Let’s Go Rocket
Name: Let’s Go Rocket
Platform: iOS
Price: Free
I’m always on the look out for fun new games whether they are for my computer or my mobile device, so when I ran across Let’s Go Rocket I was quick to check it out. This free iOS game is very simple. You are given a rocket and you have to navigate it through a series of obstacles. You can vary the speed of your rocket by either touching it to speed up or letting go of it to slow it down. Sounds simple, right? However, there are a lot of additional details that make this game quite complicated. First, you have to ensure that your rocket moves fast enough that it doesn’t drift off of the bottom of your screen. If it does, you lose. Moreover, you can’t move side to side at all, so avoiding obstacles is not as easy as it might first seem. And, there are a lot of different types of obstacles that will keep you on your toes. Along the way, you also encounter gems to gather and aliens to pick up along the way. To add to the fun, you can choose which rocket you would like to use when you first start the game and there are options to buy or unlock other rockets as you go along.
Though Let’s Go Rocket is fairly simple, I have found it very enjoyable and almost frustratingly difficult. Even when I know exactly what my objective is, the app manages to make achieving it difficult with the sensitivity of the controls and the limited range of motion for the rocket. The app indicates your best result on the screen as a sort of “finish line” that you can cross, which is a nice way to keep track of your progress and motivate yourself to keep pushing further. The artwork in the app is very cute featuring not only an array of rockets, but also adorable aliens and great backgrounds that make the game very engaging.
Let’s Go Rocket is a good combination of simple controls, fun artwork and difficult gameplay elements. This makes it a nice option for both those who like casual games and those who want a bit more difficulty in their games. Though the app does include additional features that can be purchased, it can be played without these add-ons, meaning that it is a nice free option to recommend to teens at your library.
Have a suggestion for App of the Week? Let us know. And find more great Apps in the YALSA Blog’s App of the Week Archive.