Competency 9: Internet

The Texas State Library site for young adult library services is a great resource for service, collection and program information for teens. I choose to present this website on my blog because it has many great ideas for youth librarians who either need new ideas or to breath fresh air into tried ones. The site can be found with the link below: http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/ld/projects/ya/

This site is relevant to my topic based on its Young Adult library themes. In order to entice and inspire young people to be active members of the library while also inspiring them to read, the youth librarian must be equipped with vast and varying ideas to accomplish this goal.

I located this site using Clusty.com.

Competency 8: Research Visual/Multimedia

The chart below shows the percentage of teens, ages 13-17, who participated in various leisure activities on the day prior. The Gallup survey found that 90% of teens watched television while only 33% read a book. The complete findings can be found at: http://www.frankwbaker.com/teenleisurehabits.htm

This chart is relevant to my blog topic because it demonstrates the lack of activity in teens' daily lives. In order to help promote leisurly reading and participation (outside of school hours) in the library or other community organizations, new programs and ways to entice teens must be provided.

Competency 7: Image

The following image was retreived by a Google Image search for Young Adult Library Services. I chose this image to represent my topic as an example of a possible activity to get youth involved in the library and reading. This Teen Library Challenge was created for the Crawfordsville District Public Library (CDPL) in Crawfordsville, IN. The originally published image can be found on the CDPL Young Adult blog: http://www.cdpl.lib.in.us/blog-ya/

Competency 6: Browsing Search Strategy

I chose to search for young adult library trends by browsing ProjectMuse. First, I narrowed the search by discipline (i.e., Cultural Studes, Language and Linguistics, Library Science and Publishing, Literature). I then entered my search terms of Young adults and public libraries. The search returned 326 results that covered a variety of material related to youth in the public library. I found an article, Developing Children’s Interest in Reading, particularly appropriate, while others, such as "The books were just the props": Public Libraries and Contested Space in the Cape Flats Townships in the 1980s, were not. This method, even though my search only included a limited number of items to browse, is time-consuming and unpredictable. My search was semi-directed and exploratory; if I required more specific information, this search strategy would not be my first choice.

Competency 6: Citation Pearl Growing Search

The Citation Pearl Growing search was helpful in finding many articles relevant to my area of interest in the Academic Search Complete database. By searching the results and adding thesaurus terms as well as terms from the citations originally found, I was able to increase the number of results from fifty to two-hundred and twenty-six. I think this search strategy would work well in the beginning stages of research to help find different aspects of a topic. This is a good search for expanding the results for a broader perspective.

Competency 6: Most Specific Facet First

I used the Most Specific Facet First search in JStor to find articles about youth participation in public libraries. I chose after-school and extracurricular as my most specific facets. Then, I chose program*, involvement or participation, followed by public librar*, and, finally, youth, young adult, teen or adolescen* as my following next most specific facets. I agree with our textbook readings that this type of search is not novice-friendly. It is difficult to determine which facet of my search is the most specific. As my search continued, my hits became more relevant, so I do deem it a successful search. I found many articles related to my topic.

Competency 6: Building Block Search Strategy

I used a building block search in ERIC to find information on the topic of Young Adulg Library Participation. The search yielded many results, some of which were not relevant to my search. I began by searching for (Young Adult or Teen or Youth or YA) and (library or community) and (participation or involvement or interest). Using the term community in the query produced too many irrelevant items. I then changed hat portion of the query to simply librar*. This yielded many more appropriate results. The article I chose to highlight addresses marketing schemes geared toward involving youth in their library.

Tagging

LibraryThing tags: 027.62/6/0973 21(1) librarianship(1) libraries(3) library(2) library science(1) non-fiction(2) professional resource(1) public libraries(1) Reference(1) teen(2) teens services(1) teentrax(1) YA services(1) Young Adults(1)

http://www.librarything.com/work/2466435

New Directions for Library Service to Young Adults by Patrick Jones is my choice because it offers tangible details to offering innovative services to young adults and teens in the public library. I talks about bringing teens into a working partnership with their library and their community.

I have checked this book out and will be reading it over the next few weeks to hopefully gain a better understanding of the role I will be playing in the lives of children.

Competency 4: RSS feed

I have chosen to add the RSS feed from two sites/blogs: YALSA, http://yalsa.ala.org/blog, and http://teenlibrarian.co.uk. Each of these feeds offers information into youth activities and participation. I find these sources insightful as I prepare myself for a career in youth library services.

Learning to listen, or listening to learn?

The Seattle Public Library offers a the "Teen Readings & Library Events Podcasts" led by a Teen Center Advisors. This is great example of youth involvement in public library services and independent thought in young adults. It showcases their interest in reading and discussing issues from read works and applying those to the world as they see it. Each podcast in the series is designed by the Seattle Public Library's volunteer Teen Center Advisors.

Use the following link to access the audio file:
http://www.spl.org/Audio/Teens/TCAPodcastDystopia.mp3

This podcast was located using Google.

Know your audience

An excerpt from YALSA's 1/29/2009 blog, Dear Teens, It's okay to ask for things:

"I’ve noticed a particular phenomenon among teens that I don’t see as much in children or adults. Actually, it’s two things.
1. Often, when I see a teen searching for a book on the shelves, and I approach her and ask if I can help her find what she’s looking for, she says no–even though it’s pretty obvious that she’s having trouble locating the title she wants.2. When a teen asks if I have a particular book and we don’t own it, I always offer to buy it for him. Many times, he will decline. The same goes for offering to put an item on hold–he will say “no, it’s no big deal, don’t worry about it” very politely, but very definitively.
Why does this happen? And what can we do about it?"

YALSA, Young Adults Library Services Association, is an organization that reaches across the wide-ranging topics that involve young adults and library services. This association holds a wealth of information for students, like myself, who are new to the field.

I searched GoogleBlog, http://blogsearch.google.com/, to find blogs related to my areas of interest, and I chose this one because it's a great reminder of how we need to recognize that different teens have different personality types and most teens are different than adults. It seemed a wonderful starting point when attempting to cater to the needs of others; I must know my audience in order to reach them.

To reach this YALSA blog, go to: http://yalsa.ala.org/blog/2009/01/29/dear-teens-its-okay-to-ask-for-things/#more-2169

Reclaiming Our Youth

I am studying Library and Information Sciences and am creating this blog in an attempt to better my understanding of different techniques and tools used for the retieval, storage and dissemination of information; this blog also serves as a response to an assignment for one of my core courses. In order to do this, I will be exploring an area interesting to me so that I may learn and satisfy my curiosities concurrently.

I strive to become a children and young adult librarian in a public library system. I hope to be able to make a difference in the lives of young people by inspiring them to learn independently and take full advantage of all a library can offer if they would only seek it.