3. What?
Teenagers are a difficult audience to
cater to.
They are often neglected by public
librarians because they are less
prepared for teens--this makes it
essential that school librarians are
ready to tackle the problems.
4. Where?
The school library
Teen space
The couch, the bean bag chair, the
window seat--not the desk.
5. When?
During School
After school
Be adventurous- Do something on the
weekend!
6. Why?
Clichéd but true, they are our future.
We focus on Children’s and Adult
programming, Teens are a group that
fits into neither of those categories
and therefore deserves its own
programming.
Why not?
7. How?
How do we encourage teens to be active
patrons of our school libraries?
How do we show them that we are more
than just the books on our shelves?
How do we market ourselves to and connect
with this audience?
8. Getting Started
What should a high school library be?
Welcoming
Engaging
Flexible
Comfortable
9. What is the YA library?
Engaging students outside the classroom
Don’t fight the internet, television, cell
phones, electronic communications.
Embrace them
Rigid library environments do not
encourage or support teenage activity
10. The Ideal Library
A high school library should be an
area that fosters developmental
assets while encouraging social
interactions.
It should be a meeting center for
students where they are comfortable
to both play and learn.
11. Body-Conscious Design
Facilitateslearning and
accommodates for this by creating
seating that allows for a variety of
postures.
Students should be offered the
opportunity to move from one kind of
posture to another
12. Creating
“If you build it, they will come…”
Changing the physical aspects of your
library is the easiest way to change
teen’s perspectives
13. Decoration
It is important to improve the visual
experiences that teens have in the
library
More than how the books look, this is
about how the library feels
14. Displays
Judging books by their covers
Presenting choices
Involve the students--let them
create an “I recommend…” display.
Borders and BN definitely have the
right ideas!
15. Getting Help
ALA
Library Websites (YALSA)
Books
Other librarians
You might know them by a variety of terms, but these are the most acceptable ones (according to teens themselves). The most effective method is to refer to each teenager by his or her own name. Not only will they feel more respected and involved if you know their name, they’ll respect you for spending the time to learn it. While it is easy to make generalities concerning teenagers, the best way to handle them is individually. Yes, it’s a lot more work, but the results are worth it.
Teens are consistently the most difficult audience to attract to anything--school libraries are certainly no exception. On the contrary, the library can sometimes be the least attractive thing to a teenager. Our job as School Library Media Specialists is to encourage teenagers to use the library and all the resources it offers.
Today’s teens are frequently struggling to find a place to call their own. Public libraries often don’t have the resources or the patience to create appropriate teen programming and spaces. Public libraries tend to focus more on children and adult programming. Therefore, it is school libraries that have the best opportunity to create a teenaged space. Teenagers don’t like to sit in straight-backed chairs. They want to have an option besides just the standard tables and desks. By observing teenage bedrooms, it is possible to understand how teens sit, relax and study. While a library cannot (and should not) reproduce a bedroom setting, it can be designed around those ideas.
Teens can often face opposition at public libraries and at other venues in town. Why not create a safe and inviting space for them to be in, not only during school hours, but after school. This would be a wonderful project to approach your principal with--Leave the library open for teens after school, especially if the local public library doesn’t offer a teen space. Request community volunteers (be prepared to volunteer some hours yourself! This should be about the teens, not about receiving a raise…no matter how much it might be deserved)
If teens find themselves to be unwelcome, discouraged or “in the way” in their libraries, we risk losing them as patrons forever. While public and school libraries spend a lot of time working on programming for children and adults, they tend to forget that 7 year period of a person’s life that falls in-between those age groups. By ignoring them during that period, libraries as an entity are in danger of losing those people forever. If you aren’t reminded of the benefits of a library for 7 years, the odds that you’ll forget them entirely are strong. If library usage amongst adults is down, it is probably because that these adults were neglected by libraries when they were teenagers. Yes, adding teen programming is expensive, but in public libraries, this expense is overlooked when it comes to Senior Citizens. Large Print books cost considerably more than regular books, yet this cost is overlooked because it benefits a large library audience. BUT, if a library is attractive to teens and caters to their needs and wants, don’t they stand a chance to become just as large of a portion of the library’s patrons? Why shouldn’t teenagers get just as much time and respect as the children and adults that frequent the library?
So we’ve agreed that teens deserve time and thought, that their patronage is important and that it is necessary to encourage their love of the library through their formative young adult years. But how do we do it? How do we change the unfortunate stigma that the library has adapted for teens of being a stodgy, stuffy, lame place? How do we become the PLACE to be? Must we abandon the rules of the library to create comfort for our teenagers? I don’t think so, but it is absolutely necessary to make some compromises. Necessary and worth it.
To begin creating a teen space, one must be aware of what constitutes a space worthy and welcoming to teenagers. The old-fashioned stigma of signs about “no talking”, “no food”, “no music”, is what comes to mind when considering a library.It is unfortunate that we are stuck with this depressing vision, but it’s what we have to work with. What’s important is that we are all working to change that image. No, we shouldn’t necessarily encourage food, raucous conversations and loud music in the library, but we should work harder towards saying “no” less often and spending more time reminding students what they CAN do in their library. Saying “no” and “you can’t do this” is an easy way to alienate any audience, especially a teenaged one.
Today’s high schools are often faced with the the challenge of keeping their students engaged outside the classroom. Librarians and English teachers lament over the lack of reading for pleasure and educators as a whole are frequently at a loss when it comes to competing with everything else the world has to offer teenagers. While it is certainly difficult to prevail over the competition, it is not impossible. First, it is necessary to create an environment that is both welcoming and academically stimulating for teenagers. This is no easy feat, it requires some money and quite a bit of effort to create, but it is definitely worth it in the end.
A relaxed environment (like that of a teenager’s bedroom) can help promote healthy social interactions and educational growth. According to Galen Cranz, Professor of Architecture of California at Berkley, who set out to make libraries more physically attractive to teenagers, we should design libraries with teens in mind, and therefore it is ideal to base the modifications around the “somatic and ergonomic principles of body-conscious design”.
Student should be able to study/work/discuss in a variety of positions. It is in their physical body to want to do so. This need to keep the body moving is not just a teenage want--it is proven to promote better study habits. Being able to keep their bodies moving while studying and working contributes to differentiated styles of learning. They should b able to change from sitting, perching, standing, or leaning. The opportunities are just about endless. Installing interesting furniture can invite students to use it as they see fit. PERSONAL SIDE NOTE: I know that I myself like to be able to work lying on my stomach. I read like that also. No library that I’ve seen has presented me with that comfortable option. I’d be bound to keep attending one if I came across it. I’m 24 years old and this kind of advertising would certainly pull me in--I think the same would go for a 15 year old.
Because technology advancements can be costly, the cheapest and easiest thing to start with is the library’s physical aspects. To be sure that your additions and improvements will be successful in your library, it is wise to include teenagers in the process. By creating a library club or Library Council for your library, not only will you garner the respect of the teenagers (because you are showing that you respect their opinions) and give them another reason to enjoy their library. A school library should focus on creating not just a comfortable physical area but also a supportive atmosphere--what better way to do that than to work directly with the students.
The library is dealing with the rigid stigma that it is a place for rules, regulations, clean walls, no food, no talking, no fun, etc. In order to encourage our teenagers to make use of all the library has to offer, the library must be welcoming and encouraging. It is not enough to have a friendly librarian or advanced technology. No one will want to enter a library that is dreary and drab and dull. For teenagers, a library must be the opposite of boring. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again--we have to try to make our libraries THE place to be! Maybe we can’t buy brand new furniture and tables, but simply brightening up the place is a great start. Try to avoid the typical “READ” posters you see everywhere, but put up posters of the people, activities, and pop culture things that teens are expressing interest in. When they see how accepted their interests are, they are more likely to feel comfortable inside the walls and bookshelves. The library has to feel like it belongs to them.
While library usage can be improved by weeding an old collection and adding a variety of new books, many library’s can’t afford to do that, especially not on a whim. Through my own experience in library’s I’ve noticed that displays are the best way to encourage students to check out books. In one library, I created a variety of displays with different themes (“great books for boys”, “great books for girls”, “series after Harry Potter”, etc.) and noticed a vast difference almost immediately in the circulation of the books. There is research to back up this evidence, but the gist is that teens like their options to be staring them in the face. They don’t want to spend time perusing the spines of books, they want to see the cover immediately. While working at Random House Publishing, I learned that those fancy displays in Barnes & Noble and Borders aren’t just nicely done up by the employees of the stores--those are ad placements for the books, paid for by the publisher. While we’ve always been strongly encouraged to not judge books by their cover, teens, adults and children all do exactly that. It’s too hard not to! Additionally, when students see that you’ve taken time to pull out books for them to look at, they’re much more likely to pay attention to those books. For reluctant readers, displays are perfect--they can be overwhelmed when faced with the entire library. Having fewer books to choose from, ones that have been deemed “good” by the librarian or other teens makes their entry into the reading world a lot smoother.
There are a variety of helpful tools out there to get you started on reprogramming your library to fit the needs and wants of the students it serves. On the handout that I will pass out is a list of the places you can go, as well as a list of helpful books that are designed for exactly this kind of project. Teens are an ever-changing group and while they have consistently been a difficult target audience, we are just now starting to work very hard at reaching them. There has never been a better time to redesign, reconstruct and rework the way we help our students. The first step is to create an environment that makes them comfortable instead of one that frightens them away. Once they are in the doors, once they understand that the library isn’t just books, computers and rules, then we can start working with them and therefore, working for them in the best way possible.
