I was doing some research, and I came across the news that Teens Don’t Tweet—as in teens Don’t Use Twitter.  I started clicking through links, and discovered it’s a really hot topic.

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With major revelations in the Shepard Fairey copyright case hitting the news, image citation and copyright has been on my mind lately.  Maybe I’m a little over-sensitive because I hold a degree in art history, but failure to properly cite images has always been a pet peeve of mine. I cringe when I see students pulling photos and diagrams straight from a Google image search without bothering to find out the source of the image or credit its creator in any way.

But here’s my sad little secret: half the time I’m just as confused as my students when it comes to properly citing.

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When it comes to the Internet, how many lives do you lead? Yesterday I read Ellyssa Kroski’s article in School Library Journal, about libraries creating policies for staff social media use. Some of the recommendations include showing respect for your colleagues, not spilling organizational secrets, and adhering to your library manual’s code of conduct. Wow, I thought, we could really use something like this. But then I thought about it some more, and I wonder: to what extent can we enforce such a policy? It’s reasonable to monitor library accounts, but what about personal accounts? Here’s where it gets fuzzy.

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Last night some friends and I were sitting around at dinner, and conversation turned to the recent National Equality March. Don’t recognize the name? You’re not alone–though news organizations report tens of thousands of participants, almost none of us at the table had heard about the march before it happened.

This came as some surprise, as we were a table full of very politically involved women–many of us participated in rallies in the wake of Proposition 8, or phone-banked for marriage equality in Maine and New Hampshire, or stumped for candidates in local elections. And we’d certainly gotten wind of other marches and events in the past, often making sure to mention them well ahead of time at our weekly dinners.

And then it dawned on me: we weren’t on Facebook.

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I had a conversation with a colleague over Twitter last week that didn’t sit particularly well with me. Her prediction: that soon we’ll have no shared culture at all. Soon we’ll be nothing but pod people.

How depressing! How bleak!

But wait…

Am I already a pod person?

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Just years ago the Library 2.0 concept rocketed to fame, with libraries across the country adopting user-center practices, policies and content. Library 2.0 encourages libraries to constantly update their services and content to best serve their users. The need to keep services, convenient and user-centered is especially important in teen services where our users are constantly changing themselves. This asks teen librarians to constantly rethink their collection and services, not an easy task.

If you are ready to leap ahead with the next incarnation of library services to teens join us for Libraries 3.0: Teen Edition Institute in Boston. Registration for the institute opens today, October 1st. Participants will hear a speech from teen author and technology blogger Cory Doctorow (via Skype), as well as a thought provoking keynote speech by acting California State Librarian and futurist, Stacey Aldrich. Join in the discussion with librarians Laura Pearle, Wendy Stephens, and Buffy Hamilton as they present “Flip This Library” and rethink your library’s space and services for teens. (more…)

Today Twitter has been abuzz with discussion of the Cushing School (MA) library going bookless. As I read the Twitter posts I find myself feeling a bit disconcerted by their lamenting nature. While yes, I understand that a school library moving to a no books model is a drastic thing to do. And, while I understand that a library needs to almost always provide a combination of print and digital resources, I wonder how can we respond on Twitter, blogs, editorials in newspapers, etc. to this topic thoughtfully without sounding like a group of whining traditionalists? (There, I said it.) (more…)

An article in a local newspaper recently touted the launch of a new iPhone application (iCommunicate) designed to help parents of autistic or developmentally delayed children. It sounded like such a wonderful tool, and it made me wonder if there were any apps out there (other than games) that might be useful for teens. I decided to do a little research and see what I could find. (more…)

Recently I saw the documentary Resolved which is about high school public policy debating and specifically two teams of debaters, one from an Illinois suburb and one from inner-city Los Angeles. During the movie I learned that public policy debate between high school students is not at all what I thought it was. For the past several decades it’s been about fast talking – and I mean really fast talking – and rapid information processing more than focusing on gaining a strong understanding of a particular issue. (Part of the movie focuses on the two teens from L.A. trying to change debate from the fast-talking fast-processing style to something more traditional. But, that aspect of the documentary is not the focus of this post.)

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As some people know, I am very interested in finding ways to successfully use technology with teens and figuring out ways to help librarians use technology in order to connect with teens. And, as some people know, I think Twitter is a really powerful technology that librarians should use. But, when I read reports that have been published recently saying that teens don’t tweet I think, “so what?”

Yes, it is interesting that teens haven’t taken to Twitter in the mass numbers we’ve seen for MySpace and Facebook. That doesn’t mean there aren’t teens who are using Twitter (and we should count that use as valid) and it doesn’t mean that librarians shouldn’t use Twitter in their library and professional lives. For example Twitter is an amazing tool for: (more…)