[OPLINLIST] Calling all Teen/Young Adult Librarians

Wed Nov 30 08:15:23 EST 2011

I have a large Youth Advisory Board of 31 teens and the teens are very
active and engaged in all the activities. The teens ages range from 6th
grade to 12th. Once a teen joins our YAB group, they tend to stay until
they graduate.  Our YAB group is not open to all teens, there is an
application process, which the current YAB's have total control over. 

YAB's are required to get 3  hours of volunteer time in a month, most go
above and beyond this. They can stock pile hours in the summer if they
like, which most do. I just tallied the total number of hours these 31
teens volunteered this year and it equaled over 900 hours. These hours
include, writing trivia questions, completing book reviews, prepping
crafts, shelf reading, and assisting with children's programs, helping
with our SummerREAD programs and so much more. We have a monthly
meeting, which counts for an hour of volunteer time. We talk business
(new books, programs, decorations, planning and changes they would like
to see), we have snacks and we try to play a few mixer games or have
time to just talk. YAB's also run our teen programs, they plan them and
lead them, with my help. We try to have between 3 to 6 teen programs a
month, plus additional YAB only programs. 

The things that keep all these teens active is that I do an overnighter
once a year and an after-hours party at Christmas time. If they are
behind in their hours they do not get to attend. Plus they also get to
go on a book buying trip, this year they were able to spend $1000 to buy
books they wanted for the teen area. Most of these teens are also very
active in their schools and need volunteer time for National Honor
Society or what them for collage applications. 

I have been running YAB's for 2 years now. When I started our group had
14 teens. The Youth Advisory Board is by far my favorite thing about
working with Library's teens. I would be glad to share any other helpful
information, please feel free to email me. 

Erin A. Gillespie
Children's Associate and Young Adult Staff Representative
Findlay-Hancock County Public Library
206 Broadway
Findlay, OH  45840
419.422.1712. ext. 230
Gillespie at findlaylibrary.org

Confidentiality Notice: e-mail sent to us is generally subject to Ohio
Public Records Law
except as otherwise provided by Ohio law or under a legal privilege. If
the reader of this message is
not the intended recipient, please notify us immediately by replying to
this message and deleting it
from your computer. Thank you.

From: oplinlist-bounces at lists.oplin.org
[mailto:oplinlist-bounces at lists.oplin.org] On Behalf Of Marsha Wagner
Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2011 8:14 PM
To: Nancy Koebel
Cc: OPLINlist
Subject: Re: [OPLINLIST] Calling all Teen/Young Adult Librarians

We just got our TAB going strong when we had a change in personnel.
Jennifer Morton our wonderful YA librarian is now working for Cuyahoga
Falls Library.  She can tell you about some of our more successful
programs: tie dye t-shirts; Japanese food program.  We have a small
budget and offer pizza and pop for TAB meetings.  Even with that it has
taken a couple of year to build the group.  FYI we just hired Kathleen
Walker from the Massillon Library for the position, so we hope to start
up again soon.  Marsha Wagner Canal Fulton Public Library

On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 6:06 PM, Nancy Koebel
<nancy.koebel at birchard.lib.oh.us> wrote:

We tried a TAB when they first became popular and had a negligible
group.  By the time I took over YA it had stopped and I just haven't had
the time to restart one.

One of the suggestions I got from a webinar I took last month on teen
programming through Webjunction was if you can't have an official board
that meets at regular times, try putting a teen program suggestion box
out.  Once they see their suggestions come to life they might be more
interested in participating in an official TAB.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Sheena Striker" <sstriker at mljlibrary.org>
To: Oplinlist at oplin.org
Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2011 3:21:18 PM
Subject: [OPLINLIST] Calling all Teen/Young Adult Librarians

We have been looking at our numbers for adult programming and are not
happy with what we are seeing. It has become clear that our focus needs
to be more on teens and young adults. Therefore we are talking about
starting a youth advisory board and expanding our youth programs. I
would like some advice/information about how things are done at other
libraries. How do you go about finding teens for the board? Do you have
a close working relationship with local school districts? What are some
of the struggles/triumphs you have faces? Is there a specific type of
program that goes over the best? Any information or advice you can give
me would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much! Sheena

--
Sheena Striker
Adult Programming Coordinator
MLJ-Hardin County Library
419-673-2278
sstriker at mljlibrary.org

_______________________________________________
OPLINLIST mailing list -- OPLINLIST at lists.oplin.org
http://lists.oplin.org/mailman/listinfo/oplinlist

http://aboutbooks.info -- Search for author, title, subject... anything
about books.
_______________________________________________
OPLINLIST mailing list -- OPLINLIST at lists.oplin.org
http://lists.oplin.org/mailman/listinfo/oplinlist

http://aboutbooks.info -- Search for author, title, subject... anything
about books.

-- 

Marsha Wagner 
Library Director M. L. S. 1981
Canal Fulton Public Library 
154 Market St. NE 
Canal Fulton, OH 44708 
330 854-4148; fax 330 854-9520 

Canal Fulton Public Library has been named a Top 10 Library in the 2010
HAPLR index!
http://www.haplr-index.com/HAPLR100.htm

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.oplin.org/pipermail/oplinlist/attachments/20111130/1efdf5e4/attachment-0001.html