Author Archives: Paula Brehm Heeger

Well the dog days of summer are not far off and Summer Reading has been in full swing but what about TAGs? Here at Teen Central we are taking the summer to regroup and come up with a plan for next year talking about projects and programs that our TAG will be heading up. The summer can go either way…the TAG can be up and running strong or sleeping late and days at the pool can seem much more attractive to TAG members.

What are some of the activities that you use to keep you TAG involved during the summer? What are some of the strategies that people have found worked best when your TAG started to drag? Does anyone have a virtual TAG during the summer?

Posted by Kendra Skellen, TAGS Committee Member, Gwinnett County Public Library

This is the way to go if you want to limit the number of teens you have on your Teen Advisory Board. Some areas to recruit from are:
• Library teen volunteers
• Recommendations from School Media Specialists

• Recommendations from library staff
• Recommendations from teachers
• Other teen leadership groups in your area
• Boy & Girl Scout Leaders
• Boys & Girls Club counselors

You could use an application process and use the applications to then interview the teens and make your choices from there. This could be a very time consuming process, but it will usually weed out the teens that are not really interested in being on the board.

Sample applications:

Gwinnett County Public Library Teen Scene

Vancouver Public Library

Halton Hills Public Library Teen Advisory Group

Posted by Kendra Skellen, TAGS Committee Member, Gwinnett County Public Library

How do you recruit? Here you will use your standard forms of publicity: word of mouth, brochures, posters, flyers, web and maybe applications. When we started our TAB groups at our branch libraries, we used an application form. This allowed us to create a database of interested teens, and each teen then got an invitation from the library for the first TAB meeting at the branch of their choice.

If you are relying on posters and flyers, you will want to place these items in more places than just the library. Where to place the flyers and posters:
• local hangouts
• coffee houses
• parks

• schools
• Boys & Girls clubs
• Library (of course)

Make them eye-catching with enough information to catch their interest.

If you have teens who are already volunteering in the library, they are some of the first you should try to recruit. They already have an interest in the library or they wouldn’t be there volunteering. Ask they to help recruit their friends and to put up posters and flyers to the places where teens hang out.

Next posting – Recruitment by Invitation

Posted by Kendra Skellen TAGS Committee member, Gwinnett County Public Library

Recruiting for your Teen Advisory Board/Group
Recruiting teens to be a part of your Teen Advisory Board (Group) can be one of the most maddening yet worthwhile tasks you will have in creating or maintaining a TAB. Being teens it will be a constantly changing group. The teens will become interested in other activities or, gasp, grow older over the years and outgrow the group. However, with good recruitment tools in place you will never lack for those new teens to replace those you have lost.

Open to all or by Invitation

You need to decide what is best for your library. Open recruitment to all interested teens will give you a group with a wide range of interests. It can also give you more teens than you may want in your group. Membership by invitation will be a lot more work, but will limit the number of teens you have to work with. It may also give you a group of teens who are more responsible for they are teens who have been recommended to you by your peers in the community.

Your choice of open recruitment or recruitment by invitation may be determined by what your plans are for the TAG. Will the group be advising you in materials selection? Will they be planning and presenting programs in the library? Will the group be more involved with getting teens into the library for fun activities? What will be their purpose?

Once you have determined the purpose of you TAG, you can then make a determination of how you would like to recruit the members.

Next installment: Open Recruitment

Judy Macaluso TAGS Committee Member Ocean County Library

Today’s Millenial Generation wants to give back to their community and to become involved in things that affect them. Our library has been very successful by our TAGS being a community service opportunity and for teens to earn volunteer hours for their participation. And when that concept is carried forward into meetings where they learn that their ideas count and programs they want can and will happen and they are making a difference – it’s a win-win for sure. It is good to keep in mind that teens influence not only their peers, but their parents and adults as well. A meaningful experience for them being a library TAG member can have an unforeseen ripple effect. Positive news about the library, it’s activities and staff gets communicated to others. An unorthodox, but effective public relations strategy for sure! What are your thoughts about TAGS being a community service opportunity?

Judy Macaluso TAGS Committee Member Ocean County Library

Reason #1:Simply said working WITH teens is working FOR teens in the most developmentally appropriate and effective way. Teens on their way to adulthood are getting into the game of life – voicing an opinion, formulating an idea, making a plan, taking action, dealing with success and failure and making a difference. Teens want to do – not be done to. That is youth participation and that is what YALSA and Teen Librarians espouse.

Reason #2: Libraries are truly part of their community’s youth development support system. TAG’s are like Scouts, 4-H, Clubs, etc. By practicing youth participation with TAG’s libraries make young lives better – and that’s the whole point – isn’t it? Libraries that make lives better make a community better.

Reason #3: Rapidly changing fads, trends and interests – libraries have to know or they fall flat on their face. Teen Librarians need to be in touch with the unique teens in their unique community with their unique interests. Why have collections, programs and services that do not meet needs. Bottom Line: Libraries need to provide value and meaning by being in touch with the community we serve.

Reading Patrick Jones’s New Directions in Library Services to Young Adults is a great inspiration as well as Diane Tuccillo’s VOYA Guide – Library Teen Advisory Boards. And a valuable websites is http://www.jervislibrary.org/yaweb/TAGs.html

What would reason #4 be from your point of view?

Posted by Paula Brehm-Heeger, TAGS committee:

When there is tension in the Library, everyone feels it. Many libraries report that it starts around 2:30, when the after school crowd begins to trickle into the building. Often unhappy staff members are the most obviously stressed, but teens who feel unwelcome and unfairly targeted for constant correction of their behavior feel stress, too.

Lowering the tension level is tough to do once a pattern has been established, right? Sometimes words – no matter how calmly delivered to frustrated staff or teens that are not in the habit of trusting the library “really wants you here” – just don’t seem to do the trick.

Quality training opportunities– like those offered by SUS trainers – are extremely valuable. Take a look around your community, too. Are there staff training possibilities available from experts outside the Library profession?

Recently, I heard a community health educator specializing in adolescent medicine discuss the importance of bringing tense people out of the “red zone” – both mentally and physically – in order to effectively address challenging behaviors (“challenging behavior” of both teens and staff). This community health educator did a one hour stress management session with my TAG focused on physical and mental tools for simply calming yourself down. They loved it. Many have reported using these methods at school or when they are having difficult interactions with parents or teachers.

Why not host this kind of session for staff, too? It can be quick, easy and incorporated into a general staff meeting. Staff members may realize that, once they start reflecting on daily stress, it is not only (or perhaps predominately) teens that cause them to feel tension.

Now that my TAG has had some stress management education, they are very interested in talking more at our meetings about their ideas for de-stressing staff/teen interactions in the Library, too!

Posted by Paula Brehm-Heeger

Thanks to everyone for the great comments about TAG activities. Clearly, TAGs can be an invaluable tool when it comes to building effective teen services! Some unique TAG activities mentioned in comments from the field include asking TAG members to:

• Speak at staff training events
• Ask questions of candidates for Teen Librarian positions
• Create booklists
• Help with children’s programs
• Offer general feedback about service
• Plan special theme-based programs

A few of these suggestions hint at the advocacy role TAGs can play internally – advocating for service to teens within the Library organization.

What about the role TAGs play in advocating for the Library in the community, particularly with other teens? How do your TAG members raise the profile of the Library? Could they be doing more?