On November 23rd we’re thrilled to be joining forces with YALSA to host a webinar presented by Sarah Flowers, YALSA President-elect and author of Young Adults Deserve the Best: Putting YALSA’s Competencies into Action. In her session, Sarah will be discussing the practical ways to promote and apply YALSA’s competencies to ensure quality library service to the teens in your community.

Take a look at all the resources on WebJunction for serving your teens and bring your own experiences and templates for others to R&D (rip-off and duplicate!). Here are a few of my favorites:

• Providing Excellent Service to Teens
• Teen Advisory Groups
• Beyond Angst: What’s New in Literature and Resources for GLBT Youth and Their Allies
• More Than Just Capes and Tights: Graphic Novels and Collection Development
• Gaming in Libraries

Ok, so it’s obvious I want to be a Teen librarian when I grow up! I hope you enjoy looking around the site and I look forward to seeing you at Sarah’s webinar on the 23rd!

See more YA & Teen resources »
Register for upcoming events »
View webinar archives »

Some of Amanda’s choices are standard fare for any teen/pre-teen’s reading list:

• Princess Sonora and the long sleep, by Gail Carson Levine and Mark Elliott
• Half Magic by Edward Eager
• Carnival at Candlelight by Mary Pope Osborne
• etc….

Normal stuff, right? But then you keep reading and right down there at the end she drops the kind of zinger you still don’t expect (had you been expecting a zinger from an 8-year-old, that is), even from a child who’s been listening to their famous economist dad. I won’t spoil the ending, but it’s worth viewing Amanda’s list for yourself.

Personally, I’m going to spy on my daughter’s night stand when I get home tonight. I don’t expect to find much indication that my work has influenced her reading choices, but then again, she’s only 7. Next year could be the big year for online community and information theory texts.

How about you? I’m sure some of you have some great stories to share. What’s the weirdest book you’ve ever seen a kid choose and why?

-Tim

All you need to do is stop by a participating comic store and make your free pick from a selection of titles like Archie, Superman, Hellboy, World of Aspen, X-men, Tiny Titans and many more. Seriously. These are free. I know you are thinking: “What’s the catch?” Nothing is free, right?

Well, apparently this is. Thanks to some major discounts from comic publishers, the past few years have allowed thousands of comic retailers in the US, Canada, and internationally to give away millions of comics to happy readers.

Hard to believe but this year is the 7th Annual event. Retailers decide at what level they want to participate and can set their own eligibility rules, but the basic premise boils down to free comic books for readers on May 3, 2008. For full details you can refer to the FAQ, check out the Free Comic Book Day, website, or see what the good folks at I Love Libraries have to say.

Whatever you do, don’t wait too long. This is only happening on Saturday. Check out the Comic Shop Locater to find your nearest store. Then get out there and get your (or send your patrons out for their) free comics! Because in my book free comics beat free cones any day!

According to the study results, it appears that libraries indeed remain relevant in this internet age. In fact, the study found more than half of all Americans manged to visit libraries last year. Even more surprisingly, those tech-savvy, web-loving, Wikipedia using Gen-Yers were the biggest library users of all.

To start a discussion on the topic, WebJunction member alatreil asked:

“Would you say that Generation Y (18-30-year-olds) are your library’s heaviest users? What do you think this means for your library—and what does it mean for the nation’s libraries?“

As always, we’d love to hear your thoughts. Please post in the original thread, or here in the blog comments.

We’re on the cusp of the second annual YALSA Teen Tech week. The program encourages teens to “tune-in” and use their local library as the place they can become competent and ethical users of technologies ranging from research databases to DVD authoring to music downloads.

We’ve started a discussion thread to help the WJ community to share creative ideas for activities, promotions, and events. Come to think of it, this is also a great place for procrastinators (we know who we are) to harvest compelling, last-minute programming ideas.

As part of next week’s event, YALSA is conducting a two-phase survey to learn more about how teens access and use technology, including social networking sites; one bonus outcome of the week should mean a better understanding of teen technology habits and skills for all of us.

As always, we encourage you to post your ideas and experience (and images!) here and in the forums. Here are a few resources to get you started:

• WebJunction Teen and Technology Resources
• Teen Tech info at the YALSA Wiki
• Activity Ideas for Teen Tech Week
• Background on Teen Tech week
• 25 self-directed Teen Tech activities (There’s some great stuff—suggestions to blog, create a YouTube video, Try LibraryThing, and much more)

We look forward to hearing about your plans and experiences!