Teen Services Underground

Storytime Underground has been a constant help from book suggestions to storytime ideas to general support for me as a librarian and I’m so excited to see that a Teen Services Underground is getting under way!
Creating a Personal Learning Network (PLN) is something I’ve discussed on my blog before, it’s not new.  But, it’s always important and if created successfully can really help navigate the library world – making you feel less alone (we are each other’s cheerleaders!) and believing that you can pull it off (whatever crazy idea you want to try!).
Teens can be a very difficult population for libraries to reach – they’ve got school, work, sports, clubs, etc. and often drop off the library radar because they’re “too busy.”  Yes, sometimes they can be busy, but I think it’s all in finding a group of kids excited to spend time in the library and finding the right time to provide programming.  It may not look like children’s programming and it may not look like adult programming, but it’s programming.
In our library the teens fall under the adult department (with a very small space as a teen space).  Often, our middle school students who have graduated onto high school come back to ask me for help or book suggestions because they a rapport with me from the relationship we’ve built up through programs.  I love seeing them as they get older, but we also hope they begin to build that type of relationship in the adult department as well as they continue to be library users throughout their life.  To create these relationships we’ve started hosting combined programs for students from 7 – 12 grade to encourage overlap between programs so that students can become familiar with the adult staff while still attending “tween” programming in the children’s department.  We finally have a Teen Advisory Group (TAG), not too big, but it’s a start and we hope it grows as our next set of 8th graders get ready to graduate before summer reading.  I’m definitely going to be passing along the link to the Teen SErvices Underground website to our teen programming librarian, I know it will help her like Storytime Underground has helped me!