Teen Room Display

Though I don't directly work with teens, I am still the on-site advocate for teens at my branch. Due to the demise of Google Reader, I don't know where this fab idea first came from--but it wasn't mine. Sad face.

Just Give Me a Reason...What books do YOU recommend?

Post-its, a writing prompt pulled from the title of a Top 40 song, markers, and a poster frame lined with colorful paper.

It took a while to get started...

But it began to catch on...

Yep, the teens are my branch are excited about books and reading--no doubt about it! I am thinking I'll change it to ask for favorite quotes next.

What else could I do?

 

Game Word Generator

Here's a useful thing I found while poking around:

A Game Word Generator

Especially useful for people working with teens/tweens and playing games like Pictionary, Win Lose or Draw, and Charades.

Just click the button to get a new word, and you can choose categories like easy, medium, hard, really hard, movies, idioms, people and characters, or a mix of all categories.

I know this just saved me at least 15-20 minutes of staring off into space trying to think of words!

The blog it comes from has TONS of great group game ideas too--all my favorite kinds of games.

Check it out!

Life-Sized Angry Birds

You know how sometimes when you imagine something or come up with an idea, reality is not quite on par with your imagination? My Teen Angry Birds program was the EXACT OPPOSITE of that!

I imagined using cardboard boxes to create life-sized structures to topple and helium balloons (for the pigs--if they float free then the pig was destroyed).  The dollar store was out of green so we used silver (I was going to tape pig pictures on, but even small pieces of paper were too heavy). We had plenty of room, so we used playground balls and threw them to knock down the structures. 



The building supplies

 Each teen took a turn building, and another teen got three chances to knock it down and then it was his/her turn to build. We did one round like this, and then they did a team round where they split into two groups and competed to see who could knock down the other team's tower in less throws.

The only thing I would change is to have more large boxes--I had TONS of smaller sized ones, but the balloons wouldn't fit.

So cute! So crafty!

We also made our own angry birds by making yarn pom-poms and gluing paper faces to them. The teens LOVED this (paired with snack time, of course!).

Check out the GIANT cardboard tubes I found!

We made a giant photo-op structure and decorated it with all the birds and pigs the teens made.

Finally, our last activity (and this was pretty much unnecessary) was another type of structure to knock down. We used Dixie cups and (shamrock themed) stress balls that I got on clearance. Sharpies worked perfectly to transform them into pigs, and I let each of the teens keep one at the end of the night. There was pretty much only one or two ways to stack the cups, and it was HARD to aim and knock them down. We used the pom-pom birds that the teens had made, and flung them with a large kitchen spoon. I would probably just skip this in the future.

Oink oink oink

 This was a very inexpensive program and it was FUN. I did start saving boxes a couple of months beforehand. I only bought yarn, snacks, balloons, and the stress balls.

Highly recommended!

Teen Success Part 3: Where We're At Now

Part 1
Part 2

So, here we are. Since I started at my library, every year I offered a lock-in during National Library Week, and last summer I decided to do another one at the end of summer. Despite my bad luck with Teen Thursdays, I was super excited about the summer lock-in since I had planned to play Life-Sized Clue with the kids.

This didn't really work for two reasons:

1. it doesn't get dark until at least nine in August, so our Clue time was at the end when the kids were all jacked up on soda and candy, and we were short on time (lock-in ended at 10 or 10:30, don't recall exactly--but we were crunched for time).
2. Dynamics again. I had a few kids who were there to actually do what I had planned and follow directions. And I had a bunch of kids who were there to go crazy.

So, when National Library Week rolled around this year, I decided to do things differently. I realized that my dynamic problems were partly my own fault. I was trying to do too much just to entice kids--any kids!-- to come to my programs.

Lock-In! Computers! Pizza! Soda! Snacks! Crafts! Life-Sized Clue! Games! And MORE!!!!!!!!

(seems a tad desperate, no?)

Essentially I was telling them it was a free-for-all and then being frustrated when they showed up expecting that. I decided that this year, although I would be doing it after-hours and it would essentially still BE a lock-in, I wasn't going to advertise it as a lock-in. I still wanted to play Life-Sized Clue, so that's how I advertised it.

You guys? I set the registration deadline to Thursday, and it was FULL by the end of Thursday! That's so epic for my library I can't even express it. I had 24 spots, and I could have had at least 30. AND THEY ALL SHOWED UP.

It.was.so.much.fun.

We went right into playing Clue. I had two staff helping, so we were able to 'host' three of the games, and the fourth group knew how to play. We played for about an hour and fifteen minutes, then took a snack break in the meeting room. At that point, rather than go back to Clue, we played large group circle games like Fruit Basket Upset and Secret Leader (these types of games are my specialty)

They were awesome. Everyone there wanted to be there, and wanted to do the activities I had planned.

Here's what I've learned:

• There is little or no interest in weekday teen programming in my community. The need is for weekend/Friday night things to do. I'll admit that I've been avoiding that truth, but for a group like I had for Clue? I'll gladly work on Friday nights (well, some Friday nights). 
• Don't overdo it. It doesn't have to be everything to everyone. Manage expectations on both ends by being clear in your advertising what will happen at the event.
• I think I've finally figured out the right way to market to my kids (school announcements, forget the flyers). During the school year anyway--BUT I have contact info for all the kids who came during the school year, so I should be able to contact them directly over the summer.

Going forward:

Friday night events once or twice per month over the summer.

A planned redecorating of the existing YA area of the library--hoping to build ownership of the area with teens. 

Stay tuned to see if I'm on to something here!

Teen Programming Part 2

Read Part One

I've been trying to get teen programming off the ground for three years now, and I'm hoping that I'm finally reaching success. Let's talk about it, shall we?

Library Background, three years ago:
No teen program. We have a teen space, but the library as a whole is not teen friendly. There is a 'comfy chair' seating area in a bank of windows, but there's a tendency to see that as 'adult seating' and teens who sit there are eyed warily and frowned upon. Before my time there was a futon couch in the teen area, which led to lots of making-out problems. So that was removed and a study table was put in--unfortunately being near some of the only outlets in the library, this table is monopolized by adult laptop users. We also have this awful set-up where the library has two entrances to a giant hallway that is isolated from the rest of the library. The local Boys and Girls club was a block away, and kids coming from there would head to the library if they had no where else to go. These kids had little or no interest in using the library, just needed a place to hang out and continue being unruly. Teens tended to congregate in the entrances and hallway and there were problems with noise, swearing, and blocking entrances.

What I tried first: 2009
Building relationships with the teens who were coming to the library. I would go talk to them, say hi, learn their names etc. Whenever there was a discipline issue, I tried to get other staff to let me handle it and I would use a relational approach to deal with it. "Hey, you know you guys can't use that kind of language if you want to hang out here. I have no problem with you being here, it's your library too, but you need to follow the basic rules and make sure that you're not disrupting other people." That type of thing.

How it went:
It worked.  And it didn't. I built great relationships with many of the 'trouble-makers.' They would come seek me out in my office (part of the library they'd never venture into otherwise). I got random hugs. They listened to me--or at least tried--and respected the rules. But all my teen events were flops, except the lock-in. I would tell them about my events, they would sound excited and promise to come...and they wouldn't. The lock-in was the only event that would attract a large enough group to justify the planning, but the dynamics were terrible. I'd have some quiet, shy, and respectful kids I didn't know well, some of my 'trouble-makers,' and some of my trouble-makers' friends who were loud, crazy, and not at all interested in whatever it was I had planned. I'd plan activities and games that would just devolve into chaos. That dynamic was like oil and water, and nothing really worked. It drove everyone away.

Winter '09/'10: 
More events like I had during summer. More flops. I had my second lock-in. As with the first it was a success attendance-wise, but didn't lead to any other success.

Summer '10:
I had a bunch of random teen events throughout the summer. I made myself a public facebook account and tried using that to advertise/reach the teens in the community. I was constantly using great ideas from successful teen programs--Minute-to-Win-It, spa days, Wii games, art programs etc. All were flops.

Winter '10/'11:
Didn't really do much during the school year. In August 2010 the library went through a reorganization, and it was incredibly chaotic. How the library worked was restructured, two full-time positions were lost and five part-time front-desk staff were hired.

Summer '11: "One World Many Stories"
I came up with a PLAN. Since all these big fancy one-off type programs weren't working, I would offer consistent weekly teen programming on a variety of topics to try and start building a solid group of teens who would prioritize coming to my events. I would then continue "Teen Thursdays" into the school year and taste sweet sweet success. The events would be smaller/require less work from me, but they would always have treats and would happen consistently. I gave it the old college try, but, yeah--flop. I think the highest attendance at any Teen Thursday was eight, maybe? And I had no consistent attendees.

Winter '11/'12: 
I pretty much gave up. I stopped my feeble attempts at Teen Thursday around the end of November, and  decided to focus on tweens. I had a super successful Diary of a Wimpy Kid Book 6 party (like, whoa, 100 people were there). I was ecstatic! We were playing large group circle games, I was in heaven! I asked them if they'd like it if I had more game events to play games like we were doing right then and they said YES! Two weeks later I had a game event--same day of the week, same time, same advertising format. Two kids showed up. I scratched my planned twice-a-month tween events off the calendar in frustration. I wanted to give up on all kids older than six.

Since this is so long, I'm going to stop here. Look for "Part 3: Where We're at Now" coming soon.

Sweet Success-Teen Program Style. Part 1

Youth Services: Programming for one age group, Collection Development, Working only 40 hours per week

After three years, I may have just had my first entirely successful teen program. No spin, no excuses, just 100% success. It feels really nice. Not sure if it's a trend, or something I can replicate but I'm sure going to try.

I've been part of ground-up successful teen programming before. I did an internship with a branch of a large suburban MN library while I was in library school. A classmate of mine (she worked there) and I created teen programming there for the first time, and it was very successful. We were reaching teen library users. They were regularly coming to library events and bringing new people to the library. We developed relationships with our population and turned a possibly disruptive element into library advocates.  Soon after, the system hired a dedicated Teen Librarian and it has been interesting to watch the progression and success of teen programming in that system.

My current position serves ages 0-18, and frankly, I think that's a nigh-impossible task. My personal belief is that truly successful teen programming requires--REQUIRES--a dedicated, location-specific, teen liaison.

What is successful teen programming?  I consider successful teen programming to be that which reaches a consistent, dedicated group of teens--especially those who are already library-users, and turns them into library advocates.  It is not just one-off events that attract a bunch of kids who will never set foot in the library until the next big sexy event you throw (not that those events are wrong, but I don't consider a series of one-offs to be successful teen programming--you follow?).  If you only consider attendance you may have the appearance of successful teen programming, but I bet for every 'successful' event there are at least as many flops/no-show events. I think this is why bigger libraries often seem to have more successful teen programs--a larger pool of teens to draw from means more attendance. But is it really successful teen programming?

Teens are so relational, you really need a LOT of time to build those relationships. Those of us in smaller libraries who wear many hats struggle to find that time.  It's not impossible to do, but I think administrators and the public need more appreciation for the time and dedication needed for teen programming in general.

In part 2 I'll talk more specifically about last week's program and what's working/what hasn't worked here.