“Youth subculture” is part of the lexicon of pop sociology. Most teen librarians can point to examples of youth subcultures, punks, goths, metalheads etc., but even sociologists haven’t always had a practical definition of the term. Defining “youth subcultures” can be key to understanding the world view of some of the young patrons we serve. (more…)
Yesterday the New York Times published the first article, in a series, on the current state of reading. The focus of the first article is on the topic of electronic reading and whether or not reading text messages, blogs, web sites, etc. counts as reading. This is not a new question of course, and it’s a topic that I’ve posted on this blog about before, however, it’s important to pay attention to the New York Times story, and follow-up articles, for a few reasons, including: (more…)
Yesterday morning the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom sponsored a session titled Your Brain on DOPA. The program was designed to give attendees an opportunity to find out:
In this podcast, Kelly Czarnecki interviews Amy Alessio about the compilation of the 5th edition, Excellence in Library Services to Young Adults.
Don’t forget! You can:
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There will be a session at ALA on Monday, June 30 from 10:30am-12:30pm at the Marriott Anaheim Hotel, Salon A-D where “Winners from the Excellence in Library Services to Young Adults program will speak and highlight their initiatives in an interactive round table format.” For more of YALSA’s annual programs check out the wiki.
How often are teens criticized for not engaging in “proper reading”? According to a recent study by the UK’s National Year of Reading consortium, 45% of teen readers have been told off for their reading habits.
The researchers, through their “Read Up, Fed Up” report of British 11-14 year olds, also found the following:
Via RH Reality Check, I’ve learned about the awesome SexInfo. Launched in San Francisco by Internet Sexuality Infomartion Services (ISIS), SexInfo lets teens receive health information via text message when they send numerical codes for common questions–1 for a broken condom, 6 if you’re not sure you want to have sex, and so on. While the texts require minimal effort on the part of teens, the messages they receive in response fully utilize the character limit. Responses include clinic addresses, hours and phone numbers, and a brief (often empowering) message to the teen, like “It’s ur choice 2 have sex or not.” (more…)
Many librarians are probably familiar with designing programs that build developmental assets. We help build youth assets like leadership, helping others, and succeeding in school so that there is less of a chance that teens will make destructive choices such as vandalism and drugs.
You may even have heard of asset building in Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMORPGs) and Multi User Virtual Environments (MUVEs) such as World of Warcraft, Entropia Universe, Teen Second Life and more. This article in the May Harvard Business Review, Leadership’s Online Labs, talks about how real world transference can occur as a result of game play - from being leaders in online games to being leaders in the work world. (more…)
Over the past couple of weeks new web-based search tools have popped up. These tools are worth investigating as a way to help teens expand their research lives. Two of these search sites use images, in two completely different ways, as a way to enhance the search process:
