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For my next blog I would like to explore youth volunteerism and the positive impact that youth volunteers can have for libraries: There are a number of reasons that libraries should enlist and recruit youth’s to volunteer in the library but one of the most important reasons is that it enables libraries to understand youth’s :

Just as successful businesses make decisions based on what their customers want, successful organizations need to do the same. Nike doesn’t design tennis shoes without talking to the athletes who wear them. Organizations too need to be aligned with their target markets. Only teens can tell you what is going on in their lives, what are the pressures they face. “If the problem is gang violence, you go to the teenagers-even to the detention centers-and bring those youths to the table. Anything else is seeds for failure” (McLarney & Leiger, 1997, p. 4)

This illustrates a key theme that we’ve been discussing in class; libraries need to involve youths-it is only then that libraries will be able to understand what they can do to meet the needs of youth so that they can maintain their relevance in the lives of this segment of the population.  

In addition to being able to develop a deeper understanding of the diverse needs of youths, libraries will also benefit from the energy, enthusiasm, and perspective that youth volunteers bring to the library. For example, The Canadian Volunteerism Initiative, in cooperation with the Heartwood Centre for Community Youth Development, implemented a youth volunteer project at the Halifax Public Library. In a handbook that resulted from this project entitled, Youth Volunteers at Your Library: Engaging Youth in Your Library, a number of testimonials are provided, which highlight some of the benefits that youth volunteers can have. For example:

“We are just realizing how much the library and community have so much to from youth involvement. It is not just that we have things to give, we also have so much to gain.” 

-HPL personnel (2006)

“We have a lot to learn from youth.” -HPL personnel (2006)

“The youth’s energy is so contagious.” -HPL personnel (2006)

This handbook is full of useful information about how to engage youth volunteers, the challenges that may be encountered, and the positive impact that youths can have for the library - I strongly recommend checking it out!

Not only do libraries benefit from youth volunteerism, but youths themselves do as well. Some of the more obvious benefits that youth derive from volunteering at the library include the following: It enables youth to increase their awareness and knowledge of library services and resources, it enables them to develop new skill and increase their employability, youth will be recognized by the library and the community, they will develop a stronger sense of belonging in the library and the community, it will help to enhance their self-confidence, become meaningfully engaged and develop new relationships (Heartwood, 2002, pp. 9)

So how do libraries recruit youth volunteers? This is one area that I think that libraries need to give more attention to. There are a number of resources available both in print and online that can equip librarians with the knowledge and skills that they need to successfully recruit youth volunteers. For example, some of the books that I have came across include Teen Volunteers Services in Libraries (Kellie Gillespie), Library Teen Advisory Groups (Diane Tuccillo), and Connecting Young Adults and Libraries (Patrick Jones). Some of the online resources which may be useful include: The top 10 ways to recruit and enage youth volunteers (World Volunteer Web), Recruiting and Sustaining Youth Volunteers (Canada Volunteerism Initiative) and Tips For Recruitment of Youth Volunteers (Points of Light Foundation).  These resources provide readers with a number of useful strategies for reaching youths, such as using mediums which appeal to youth (i.e. the web), dispersing brochures and posters in high traffic areas, recruiting youth for a particular event, recruiting youth indirectly through adults or through other youth volunteers, and becoming visible at places that youths frequent.     

I myself feel that one very important way to get youth’s to volunteer in the library is by building stronger connections with local schools. One reason for this is because, as stated in Ontario Secondary Schools, Grades 9 to 12: Program and Diploma Requirements, 1999 (OSS), every student who begins secondary school during or after the 1999–2000 school year must complete a minimum of 40 hours of community involvement activities as part of the requirements for an Ontario Secondary School Diploma (OSSD).  Although many students may be aware that the library is a viable option for completing the community service hours, I feel that libraries should be doing more to promote themselves to students as an option. Visiting schools and speaking to students about the benefits that volunteering at the library can have for them as well as the positive impact that they can have on the library as well as their community, may help to spark some motivation in the minds of youth

I recently worked in a library where a number of youths have/are completing their community service hours. I’m not going to lie, I was a little skeptical at first; I thought that their enthusiasm would more than likely be waning because they were being forced to do these community service hours in order to graduate and I also thought that I may get a little bit of attitude from some of them. However, it turns out that these youths are the most enthusiastic, energetic and positive volunteers that I have ever worked with. They really do enjoy being at the library and they really like it when I give them responsibilities and duties. In fact, I think that they respect me more because I am willing to entrust them with these responsibilities; it shows them that I trust them and that I know they are capable of performing these tasks. More importantly, these youth volunteers are great with the library patrons, making every effort to engage with them by asking them if they need help finding anything and by making small talk with them. The patrons really respond positively to this as well.

Overall, youth volunteers are a wonderful asset to the library and I think that all libraries would benefit from developing a deeper recognition of the positive impact that youth volunteers can and do have.

 References

Heartwood Centre for Community Youth Development (2002). Youth Volunteers at Your Library. Retrieved December 5, 2008 from http://www.heartwood.ns.ca/tools/YouthVolunteers.pdf

McLarney, M. & Leiger, L. (1997). Younger Voices, Stronger Choices:Promise Project’s Guide to Forming Youth/Adult Partnerships.YMCA of Greater Kansas City.

Ministry of Education and Training. Ontario Secondary Schools, Grade 9-12. Retreived December 5, 2008 from

http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/extra/eng/ppm/124a.html

It is possible to define adulthood using factors such as chronological age, financial and/or domestic independence as well as the nebulous concept of maturity. There was a discussion at the beginning of the course about how to define “young adults.” Is the label best applied to the traditional age range of 13 to 19? Or is it necessary to expand the parameters in order to reflect a social shift?

Statistics Canada reports that there has been a significant increase in the “the proportion of young adults aged 20 to 29 who resided in their parental home” (Human Resources, 2008). It is interesting that they exclude teenagers altogether from this category. The decision to return home can be the result of graduating from university, changing or losing a job, planning marriage or a divorce. All of these life circumstances often include some form of debt. They have been referred to as the “boomerang generation” or going through “adultescence” (Powers, 2007).

Consequently, young adult librarians may find themselves answering as many questions about resources for proper resume formatting and child custody as they do for high school projects on the solar system and the life cycle of trees.

In most cases, the aforementioned scenarios are temporary and individuals will resume their independence once their situation has stabilized. Unfortunately, there is a more worrisome trend that has been a focus of research by sociologists in recent years.

“Boys are in serious trouble. Doing worse in the classroom now than they did ten years ago. Hard to talk to. Unaware of their emotions. And the most violent in the industrialized world” (Thompson, 2008)

This can lead to a life characterized by endless drifting and insecurity. Many young males are abandoning or delaying responsibility as much as possible. They do this in favour of a life of recreation. This has most recently been addressed in State University of New York professor Michael Kimmel’s “Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men.”

In it he describes “the wasteland between ages 16 and 26″ (Tucker, 2008) (an echo of the Statistics Canada figure that seems to be the common redefinition of young adulthood) when:

The guy is in no hurry to shed youthful egotism and hedonism and take up the mantle of adulthood. The Guy mentality is rooted in resentment, drenched in booze and dedicated to pervasive, sometimes violent denigration of women and gays. It’s a perpetual carnival of pornography, violent video games, hypermacho music and blustering talk-radio hosts who stoke resentment by constantly reminding Guys of the lost paradise that should have been theirs (ibid).

One of the problems is a lack of suitable role models for boys as they grow up. This problem is recognized in the school system. In a report by Ontario educators, the province was urged to “act immediately to boost the already low and rapidly shrinking number of male teachers” (CBC, 2004).

However, I believe it is equally important to have male representation in public libraries, particularly in youth services departments. These males can be available throughout a youth’s academic career, whereas exposure to a teacher typically lasts only one year. Furthermore, boys are required to go to school. Yet it is often observed that boys are not physically present in the library. There is some exciting and innovative library programming to address this issue. The ALA awarded its 2007 Diversity Award to Break-4-Boys: Male-2-Male Mentoring in which men speak and do activities with tweens and teens (ages 11–18) on a consistent basis. Mentorship is performed free for males by males (Nichols & Wilcox, 2007).

This is is no way intended to deride the contribution of women to librarianship. However, at a time of decreasing literacy, particularly for recreation, the value of male staff in the library as role models for boys cannot be overstated.

References:

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. 2004, November 13). Ontario urged to counter drop in male teachers.
Retrieved October 23, 2008, from: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2004/11/12/male_teacher_041112.html

Human Resources and Social Development Canada. (2008). Family Life — Young Adults Living with their Parent(s) .  Retrieved October 23, 2008, from: http://www4.hrsdc.gc.ca/indicator.jsp?lang=eng&indicatorid=77#MOREON_1

Nichols, K.D. and Wilcox, L.J. (2007). Male-2-Male Mentoring Is Working in Chicago Libraries. Information Today, Inc.  Retrieved October 23, 2008, from: http://www.infotoday.com/mls/nov07/Nichols_Wilcox.shtml

Powers, G. (2007). What to do with boomerang kids. Sympatico MSN Finance. Retrieved Retrieved October 23, 2008, http://finance.sympatico.msn.ca/retirement/gordonpowers/article.aspx?cp-documentid=5767869

Thomspons, M. (2006). Raising Cain: Protecting the emotional life of boys. Retrieved October 23, 2008 from:
http://www.michaelthompson-phd.com/media.htm#cain

Tucker, C. (2008, October 5). ‘Guyland’ by Michael Kimmel: No girls or gays allowed. The Dallas Morning News. Retrieved October, 23, 2008, from: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/ent/stories/DN-bk_guyland_1005gd.ART.State.Edition1.269f7db.html

“His all-time favourite teacher is the one he calls Mr. Google. He doesn’t need lectures or classrooms, he says, because he can ask Mr. Google and learn everything he wants to know.”

When you have a few moments, read through White’s observations of 4 Toronto teens.

Let us know what you think.

Several weeks ago, a friend sent me the link for the Real Public Librarian blog.  It happens to be the blog of Debra Burn, who was so instrumental in developing the verbYL Youth Lounge/Youth Library I blogged about yesterday.  She blogs about lots of different library issues, but one particular post that I found interesting was “Youth in libraries—are you really ready to let them in?”, which I used as the title of this post.  After reading glowing accounts of the wonderful teen library spaces out there, I recalled this post and started thinking about its very real relevance for all libraries.  Even in the midst of our desire to provide appropriate spaces for our young adult patrons, we need to examine how we deal with them in the library, particularly when their behaviour is somewhat less than stellar.

Burn’s post centres around a hypothetical separate young adult library, but I believe her comments apply to regular libraries as well, whether with separate teen space or without.  Burns asks us to imagine the creation of a successful new teen library space, which achieves the desired goal of drawing in masses of eager young adults, ready to enjoy the library and its facilities.  What happens, she asks, when you as the librarian find yourself faced with a group of “at risk” young people who over time establish a pattern of disrupting the library?  Their behaviour goes beyond the normal thoughtless exuberance that can sometimes characterize youth; some of the youth “show little regard for adults and authority”, and some “are downright scary”.  Her question:  do you ban them from the library or do you stand firm that all are welcome and continue trying to work with them, keeping in mind that by so doing you may alienate some “good” patrons?

My first instinct, pondering this situation, is to kick the troublemakers out.  Yes, access for all, but unacceptable behaviour may mean one loses that privilege.  But what does that accomplish?  Relative peace in the library, I suppose, but how do I reconcile the fact that I have denied access to some?  Obviously, in some extreme cases, this may be the only way to go, but, as Bernier and Herald stated, “Zero tolerance fails every day all over the country…criminalizing [youth] does nothing but perpetuate useless and costly cycles of recrimination and retaliation.  Nor does it help bridge the service gap between libraries and disenfranchised youth” (1997, p. 47).  And as one youth services librarian put it:  “I don’t believe that there are bad kids, but that every kid can have a bad day, week, month, or span of years” (Farrelly, 2007, p. 41).  I’m simplifying a complicated issue, but these quotes would seem to suggest that banning “at risk” youth should be a rare exception.

Burn gives rational arguments for both sides of the question, as obviously it is a decision libraries need to come to on their own.  She goes into more depth in discussing the second option, which she believes requires the assistance of human service professionals in order to provide optimal support to “at risk” young adult patrons, which obviously is tied to her experience planning for and implementing verbYL.  Once again, I was struck by the genius of community partnerships.  It would be asking a great deal of librarians to require them to deal with such patron behaviour on their own, but if the library worked in tandem on a day-to-day basis with human service professionals trained in dealing with such issues, think what could be accomplished.   It wouldn’t be easy, and it may not work everywhere, but in the quest to be truly accessible to all, it might at least be worth exploring the possibility.

References

Bernier, A., & Herald, D.T.  (1997).  Rude and crude?  School Library Journal, 43(8), 47.  Retrieved September 27, 2008, from EBSCOhost.

Farrelly, M.G. (2007).  Unleashing your inner man.  Public Libraries, 46(2), 40-41.  Retrieved September 27, 2008, from ProQuest.

 “Real Public Librarian” blog   www.paradigmlibrary.blogspot.com

Last week in class we were asked to think a little bit about our experiences of being a young adult using libraries. “Aha!” I thought. “Blog post!” So, following is a case study of one.

My very first reliable memory is of the library. I haven’t been back to the Winnipeg public library since I was two, and in my head it is the biggest library in the world. In elementary school, school libraries were my havens. I read constantly, voraciously: mysteries, science fiction, fantasy, literary fiction, classics, even some non-fiction, books for kids and then books for adults. The school librarians were really good to me and would ILL things for me once I’d made my way through everything I was interested in locally. Things seemed to be shaping up for me to have a long and happy relationship with libraries.

Then, high school. I hated the high school library. I don’t know exactly why. I remember it being in a fairly inaccessible place in the school. I remember it being huge, and unwelcoming, and smelly, and full of books, but I cannot remember for the life of me a single book that was in that library. And I do remember that the librarian was terrifying, of the “cranky old white lady” variety, who did not deal with teenagers well at all, although I think she thought she did.

During that time, probably shortly after I started high school, I stopped using the public library too. And this was, in large part, because I stopped reading. Almost entirely. There was lots of stuff to read for classes, and I read that. I sometimes read books that people gave me (our family is big on the book gifting). After I started to drive, one of the places I would go to hang out with friends was Chapters, and I bought books there, although I bought more specialty coffee. I just really didn’t read like I had when I was younger.

I had other interests. Yes, boys and friends. I spent hours of my evenings on the telephone. I was heavily involved in the extracurricular drama club. We didn’t really have much in the way of tv, but when I was 15 we got a computer. With dial-up. And games. I spent a lot — a lot — of time playing computer games. I didn’t read for fun. Therefore, I didn’t go to the library.

As some of you know, I also didn’t willingly set foot in the university library for the first full year of my undergrad. My life would have been easier if I had, but there was something extremely intimidating about it, even though I went on the mandatory tours in a couple of my classes. It took an essay assignment in second year that required ten whole scholarly citations (oh, woe!) to get me to walk into the library of my own volition.

Once I had, I loved the library, and spent lots of time there. It took me getting up the courage to actually go in, use the catalogue, take the elevator, get the books, and sign them out. I remember being petrified, and my adult brain cannot possibly fathom why that would be. But it was a very real fear. Once I had accomplished it, I was so darn proud of myself.

And pleasure reading? I have started again, about two years ago, over a year after I was finished my undergrad. Slowly. Now I use the local public library regularly again, browsing the stacks, taking full advantage of holds and ILLs, and even recommending purchases I think the library should make. It feels like seeing an old friend again. We’re picking up where we left off.

There is, you see, a teenage-sized gap in my library patronage. At this stage, I have to wonder whether it is a chicken-and-egg sort of situation. Did I stop using the library because I wasn’t reading? Or did I stop reading because the library ceased being a place I wanted to go? The public library certainly wasn’t anathema in the same way the university library was, but it also wasn’t a destination for my teenage self. I don’t know the answer, and I have thought long and hard about this for years, wondering why I stopped going to a place where I felt safe, and where I always felt like I fit in. If I could go back and ask myself as a teenager what happened, I’m not sure I would have understood it even then.

I’m curious to know if my experience is similar to others’. I’ve always felt that it was kind of weird. But then, what teenager doesn’t think they’re a little bit weird compared to everyone else on the planet? The interesting thing about my own experience is, it suggests that public libraries might find attracting young people extremely difficult if we rely on pleasure reading as the staple draw, for example. It suggests that it’s a lot harder work to get teenagers to come in to the library than it appears, because before I hit high school I would have considered myself the ideal candidate for a teenager who would use a library. If I take my own experience, I would say that marketing library services to teenagers is probably futile… so, as a librarian-in-training, I have to say, I hope I was indeed weird.

I still think of myself as a teenager. I swear I don’t feel any different than I did when I was in high school. I don’t even feel more mature. And I don’t think I’m unique in this way. My grandmother, for one, always insisted she felt as though she were still eighteen years old – even while she was well into her sixties!

And yet, I have changed — and my grandmother has changed – without even realizing how.

So often, adults think back to their own adolescence when trying to relate to youth. While this can be a valuable exercise, our memories can be poor reflectors of reality. Besides, the older we become, the greater the difference between life for us when we were teens and life for teens today. As YA librarians, we need to familiarize ourselves with the youth of today, understand what they understand, and see the world as they see it.

To better understand youth and some of the cultural and ideological differences between younger and older generations, check out the Beloit College Mindset List. This list provides a window into the cultural milieu in which youth today have grown up, and highlights some of the cultural and ideological gaps between younger and older generations. It’s easy to forget what youth today remember and don’t remember, or what does and doesn’t resonate with them. While the focus of the list is on older YA’s, specifically those entering their first year of college/university, it still holds true for many of the younger YA’s as well.

Of course, the goal of such an exercise isn’t just to gain some new depth of understanding of youth today (although that’s important for anyone who has to spend work-related time with youth). Instead, in a library setting, the focus should be on answering some of the following questions:

How do these factors affect the worldview of our patrons?

How do these factors affect our own services, outreach and attitudes?

Where do we need to adjust our thinking and make changes in our outreach tactics and programming?