YALSA Professional Learning: The Future of Library Services for and with Teens – Thinking Differently

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photo of sneakered feet surrounded by notebooks, devices, and writing implements This week in discussion related to thinking differently about library services for and with teens, let’s talk about successes that people have had with thinking differently and implementing change. Thinking about what you’ve read related to this topic, and what you’ve been able to accomplish, let us know:

  • A success you’ve had in your library implementing YALSA Futures Report related ideas that help make change in your work with and for teens
  • What you think helped to make the change possible
  • Ideas and suggestions you have for others who are also working towards change
  • Questions you have about implementing different thinking, innovation, and change in your work with and for teens

You can read the original post in this series as well as the follow-up.

YALSA Professional Learning: The Future of Library Services for and with Teens – Thinking Differently

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photo of kid feet in sneakers surrounded by books, notebooks, tablet, and smartphone Last week in the first post in this month’s YALSAblog Professional Learning series on innovation and change, I posted a set of resources to read, listen to, and view. This week it’s time to start a discussion about barriers to thinking differently about teen services in libraries and how the resource materials posted last week help you to think about new ways to overcome those barriers.

One of the barriers I regularly face, and also see in other people’s institutions, is that of time. There are lots of ways to think about time within the context of thinking differently. One of the things that I found the article about disruptive innovation focused on really well is that thinking differently, doing things differently, and disrupting traditional practice takes time. And, not only that, but it takes time to fail, analyze what didn’t work, and try a new or different approach. In libraries this time factor can be a really big barrier to thinking differently. It’s a lot more convenient and takes less time to keep doing things the way they have been done before.
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