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In 2000, the world’s leaders joined together to establish the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. They selected 8 issues that impacted the world, and set a deadline of 2015 to address. In 15 years humanity joined together to reach most of the goals.

Now they have set new goals  for us to reach by 2030. They may seem huge, but humanity can be amazing! Everyone will need to reach beyond themselves to help reach these goals, but as providers of service to young adults we can help inspire and encourage everyone to think about these issues that impact the whole world.

To help promote awareness of these issues Global Goals has created resources and lesson plans  for educators to use to engage youth in discussions about these issues and inspire them to become active in helping to reach these goals.

At the heart of libraries we already work hard to address several of these issues every day, but like the video said, let us not stop halfway.

For example Good Jobs and Economic Growth is an area I see libraries all over addressing. Some are partnering to offer technology and other workforce training to the public. Others are out in the community helping to support small businesses. Lastly libraries have resources and materials like Test Prep books, Wifi, and computer printing will help support job seekers.

I recently met Elaine Harger, a middle school librarian, who was incorporating the life cycle of technology into her digital literacy lessons with students. She showed images of children mining for the minerals in cellphones, and computer recycling centers in India. This helps teens understand the true cost of throwing away outdated technology and meets the goal of Responsible Consumption.

Libraries are open welcoming places for everyone. We help reduce inequalities by exposing people to new ideas, solutions, and experiences. In some communities the library can be the only place that minorities feel welcomed and accepted. We encourage people to read, watch, and do things just outside of their comfort level, especially teens. At the heart that is why we fight for intellectual freedom and Banned Books Week.

So we know that libraries are already doing great things, but we need to be more deliberate about making the things we do more visible. Even if you focus on one goal, you can help make a difference in the lives of everyone on the planet by being a role model and advocate for global citizenry.

So as you think about your school year, displays, collection development, or the future libraries, try to incorporate the global goals into your libraries’ services or your vocabulary.

Happy End of Summer and Back-to-School!

I’m so excited to be sharing my first YALSA President’s Report!

It’s been a whirlwind since ALA Annual, and here’s what I’ve been working on since then:

Done & Done!

• Appointments to Edwards, Printz & Nonfiction Committees
• Assigning Board liaisons to Strategic, Selection & Award Committees
• Assign Board Members to Standing Board Committees
• Column for Fall 2015 issue of YALS
• Virtual training for New YALSA Board members
• YALSA blog post on Presidential Initiative: 3-2-1 Impact! Inclusive & Impactful Teen Services
• Worked with YALSA Board to appoint Renee McGrath to fill Krista McKenzie’s vacancy on the YALSA Board
• Had first call with the Whole Mind Group, who YALSA is working with on Strategic Planning
• With Chris Shoemaker, hosted first monthly chat with the YALSA Board, where we discussed YALSA’s Standing Board Committees
• Interviewed candidates for Member Managers for the Hub blog and Teen Programming HQ; appointed Molly Wetta as new Hub Member Manager and Jessi Snow as new Teen Programming HQ Member Manager

Works in Progress

• Filling Strategic Committee vacancies
• Filling Rachel McDonald’s Board vacancy
• Appointing YALSA representatives to ALA groups
• Strategic Planning
• Preparing for YALSA’s YA Services Symposium & Fall Executive Committee meetings
• Seeking content experts for Teen Programming HQ
• Seeking out partnerships with ALA ethnic caucuses, ALA LGBT Round Table, ASCLA, Wattpad, National Writing Project, Connected Learning Alliance, DeviantArt and more

Media & Outreach

• Expressed YALSA’s support of the establishment of the Joint Caucus of Librarians of Color, Inc. in Library Journal
• Interviewed by the Chicago Tribune for an article on Summer Learning programs
• Interviewed by School Library Journal for an upcoming article on tweens and tween library services

Stats & Data

• Friends of YALSA raised $1,155 in June 2015
• Friends of YALSA raised $436 in July 2015
• Membership: 5,113 (down -0.3% over this time last year)

Important Deadlines

• Oct. 1 - Deadline to submit a volunteer form to be on YALSA's upcoming award, selection and strategic committees! More information here

Last, but certainly not least -

THANK YOU

• All of our members for all that you do to support teens and teen library services in your communities, every day!
• Chris Shoemaker, YALSA’s immediate Past President, for passing the torch and mentoring current President-Elect Sarah Hill
• YALSA’s ALA Annual 2015 Local Arrangements Committee, for a terrific job coordinating travel tips & info and local YALSA events in San Francisco
• YALSA Board, for your hard work, leadership and enthusiasm - I know it's going to be a great year!
• YALSA Staff, especially Beth Yoke, Letitia Smith & Nichole O'Connor, for your assistance and support with association logistics

Until next time!

Respectfully submitted,

Candice Mack, YALSA President

YALSA’s Cultural Competencies Task Force interviews Ady Huertas, Manager of the Pauline Foster Teen Center at San Diego Central Library. Ady has worked with teens for over a decade: from providing instruments and lessons for a library rock band, to providing free summer lunches, to organizing a thriving teen council, Ady continually strives to provide resources and services for teens. She currently leads and contributes to several projects serving Latino teens, such as the REFORMA Children in Crisis Task Force, and the California State Library/Southern California Library Cooperative STeP (Skills for Teen Parents) Project. This podcast gives an overview of how best to reach out and serve Latino teens and provides advice to librarians new to serving Latino young adults and their families.

Resources:

REFORMA: The National Association to Promote Library & Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish Speaking: http://www.reforma.org/.

REFORMA Children in Crisis Project: http://refugeechildren.wix.com/refugee-children.

Webinar about the STeP Project: https://infopeople.org/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=485.

University of California, EAOP: http://www.eaop.org/.

National Council of La Raza: http://www.nclr.org/.

National Council of La Raza | STEM: http://www.nclr.org/index.php/issues_and_programs/education/k12_education/stem/.

Summer Fun Cafe: http://www.sandi.net/site/default.aspx?PageType=3&ModuleInstanceID=19400&ViewID=047E6BE3-6D87-4130-8424-D8E4E9ED6C2A&RenderLoc=0&FlexDataID=49011&PageID=1.

Follow us on Twitter:
Ady Huertas: @adyhuertas
Monnee Tong: @librarianmo

Intro and Closing Music: Summer’s Coming from Dexter Britain’s Creative Commons Volume 2. https://soundcloud.com/dexterbritain/sets/creative-commons-vol2

Adapted books are texts that have been modified to make them more accessible for people with different abilities. Making books more physically accessible could mean using fluffers, which are foam stickers or Velcro squares added to the corners of stiff pages to make them easier to grab and turn. Any book can be adapted with these fluffers, but it’s important to make sure the books that are modified can also be independently read by patrons. Turning regular texts into adapted books will not only round out your library’s collection, but it can also be a great makerspace project!

There are several quality resources online for ready-made adapted books. The Paul V. Sherlock Center on Disabilities at Rhode Island College has a great database and is constantly adding new books, as well as taking submissions! The books are available as Powerpoint slides, so they could be shown on a big screen during a program, but are also downloadable as PDFs that can be printed, bound, and added to the library’s collection. Most books that have already been adapted are picture books, but there are quite a few for different age levels. Middle grade novels like Beezus and Ramona by Beverly Cleary and the Al Capone books by Gennifer Choldenko have been adapted. There are also some higher level books like Beowulf, or A Tale of Two Cities by Dickens.

A great program would be teens assembling the pages of adapted books. To ensure they’ll last a long time, the pages could be laminated or kept in page protectors. If budget is a problem, then the printed pages inserted into a three-ring binder works just as well. Decide what level of adapted books would work best in your library. Do teens with disabilities want books they would read, or do they want to create adapted books for younger kids? Print off enough where each teen can assemble a book, and encourage them to study it as they compile it. Once they see how adapted books are made, they might want to make their own!

Teens can keep up with their classmates in school by reading the adapted versions of required reading. If library staff can’t find a copy already adapted online, make it a project! Summarize each page or chapter of a novel, and be sure to include all major details and important dialogue. Use clip art or symbols underneath each line to show a picture for each word. Free programs to do this include Picto-Selector and PictureSET. If this seems like something your library will embrace, however, it might be worth the investment to use online programs like LessonPix ($36/yr) or Boardmaker ($99-$199/yr), or Writing With Symbols software ($319). Read over the book when it’s completed to make sure the symbols match the written word and convey the correct meaning.

It’s not necessary to include a symbol under every word if your teens have higher reading levels. Sometimes just summarizing key points and spacing the text out so that it isn’t overwhelming on the page is enough to help reluctant teens read. If the book has art (like the Great Illustrated Classics), include the illustrations to help with context clues. Reading an adapted novel should be more similar to reading the actual novel more than to reading Cliffs Notes.

This program involves active learning, with “concrete and measurable changes for the teens participating” (The Future of Library Services for and with Teens: A Call to Action, 22-23). The learning outcomes for teens include: seeing how people with disabilities read and learn; being compassionate towards these peers; embracing others’ differences; and actively helping others better their lives.

Not only could this program count as a makerspace, but it could also serve as volunteer hours for teens, since they’re giving back to the library specifically and the community at large. Check out YALSA’s wiki on Teen Volunteering and Service Projects.

Sample page of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, from the Paul V. Sherlock Center on Disabilities.

With our youth patrons returning to school, now is the perfect time to re-evaluate your community’s demographics and set goals to “Get Away” and connect with those underserved populations. As you consider where to start, the first step may seem daunting, but tackle the unknown in a way that is most comfortable for you. We’ll be sharing our ideas about setting goals during our Teen Read Week Twitter chat Setting Goals to Reach Underserved Teens onFriday, September 11 at 2 pm EST. If numbers and statistics read like a first language, you’ll probably have your own plan of action in which to gather information and compile results into charts and graphs. However, many of us need a different approach in order to ease our way into such unfamiliar territory and we offer a few ideas here.

Demographics from an insider view

Consider your teen patrons’ habits as a diving board into better knowing your community. For instance, if your teens often ask library staff for change to spare for food, comment about not eating breakfast, or are eager to attend library programs especially for the free snacks, you may want to further explore this trend. Start by investigating the nearby school’s stats on free and reduced lunches, the city’s poverty percentages, or the state’s caseload counter for food stamp families. The location of these resources will also provide other relevant data that may offer a more detailed view into the issue. Once you have a baseline of data, connect with local food pantries and other social service providers and start a conversation. You may discover any number of ways to partner with these organizations from creating a bookmark for the public listing the location of these services to facilitating meal programs.

Demographics from a bird’s eye perspective

Map the government, parks, nonprofit, and other community agencies within your library’s service area. If a particular trend in services exists, investigate its related statistical topics and connect with those organizations. Also, the types of businesses in your service may offer a starting point into better understanding your community. If you notice an unusual number of liquor stores in your area, you may check the location of rehabilitation centers or AA groups and connect with them. Another way to address your map of agencies, is to first connect with the organizations located nearest to your library, as those service are directly targeting your immediate area.

Take action with us in better understanding your community by joining the Teen Read Week Twitter chat on Friday, September 11 at 2 pm EST. Come ready to share your goals and gain new ideas and resources from your peers. When joining the Twitter chat, be sure to use #TRW15. See you there!

Amanda Barnhart is the current chair for YALSA’s Teen Read Week committee, an MLIS student, and a Young Adult Associate for the Trails West branch of The Kansas City (Mo) Public Library.

Which young people in your community could be most positively impacted by services that your institution currently provides or could provide?

Are there foster youth, homeless teens, teen parents, teens from military families, incarcerated youth, disabled teens, LGBTQ teens, immigrant teens, teen English Language Learners, or teens from various cultural, ethnic, racial or socioeconomic backgrounds in your communities who could really use the library’s help to succeed?

What would that assistance or those services look like?

My YALSA presidential initiative, “3-2-1 IMPACT! Inclusive and Impactful Teen Library Services,”
focuses on building the capacity of libraries to plan, deliver and evaluate programs and services for and with underserved teen populations. It is a call to action to all of our members to take a close look at our communities, identify service gaps and address needs by using or contributing to YALSA resources like the Future of Library Services for and with Teens report, Teen Programming Guidelines, our new Teen Programming HQ and more.

Visit YALSA's wiki to find and share information about serving diverse teens and building cultural competence. For a list of selected resources relating to building inclusive services for and with teens, check out this flyer (.pdf).

Other activities that we hope to work on this year include collecting stories from members who are reaching out to underserved teen populations and sharing best practices and/or advocacy messages, creating spaces or pathways for members who are focusing on the same teen population to connect with one another, providing continuing education to help members reach out to specific populations and also gain leadership and cultural competence skills/knowledge, and compile existing and/or create new resources to help members serve various underserved teen populations.

As YALSA President, I’m excited about harnessing the passion, energy and activism among all of our members to help create positive, inclusive, impactful change for and with the teens that we serve in our communities. I’m looking forward to working with all of you and to the amazing work that we are all going to do together this year.

Whether you know the teens that frequent your library or not, disabilities can be hard to see. If you’re lucky, teens and their parents may be open about disabilities and how you can help them get the most out of their library experience. And if you’re not lucky, well, sometimes you'll deal with behaviors or unsatisfying encounters that make you wonder if you helped the patron at all. Thankfully, making your summer reading activities seem inviting to teens with disabilities is easy to do. With just a few tweaks to what you already have in place, your program can be inclusive! This way, it doesn’t matter if you know what disabilities you’re dealing with, or if you’re just taking a wild guess. Check out these tips, and share your ideas and notes on what works and what doesn’t in the comments.

1. Have a visual sign-in sheet.

Hang a poster in a prominent place that shows teens what to do to sign up for summer reading. List the steps in simple terms, like: wait for the librarian; sign your name; pick your challenge. Have visual aids printed next to each step, like a photo of the librarian in charge of summer reading and a pencil signing on the line. Make a similar poster to show how to log weekly progress. This will help teens with disabilities be independent when they come to the library to participate, rather than feeling like they always have to ask for help.

2. Divide tasks by reading challenge rather than by age.

Instead of having elementary aged kids sign up for a certain challenge, and having teens sign up for another, let everyone pick their own challenge. Read three books a week, read for an hour a week, listen to two audiobooks a week— the possibilities are endless! This empowers teens with disabilities to challenge themselves on their levels, and also shows other patrons that reading can take on a variety of appearances!

3. Expand your program to be a learning challenge.

Instead of a straightforward summer reading program, some libraries are hosting summer learning challenges by partnering with city attractions to promote learning and interaction all summer. Some learning challenges have a theme, like Explore & Roar at Chicago Public Library focusing on animals and the environment. Reading is still important, and patrons can read anything they want, but there is also an aspect of taking that knowledge and discovering things in the city’s museums, zoos, and historical sites. The City of Memphis offers free days to many city attractions to encourage involvement with the summer library program Explore Memphis. All of these experiences can tie back in with Makerspace programs at the library or other community centers.

4. Collaborate with the school system.

Reach out to the school system, especially the special education department, and find out what books are required reading for the upcoming school year. Make sure your library has plenty of copies available, and ask how you can make this reading easier on students with disabilities. The library could host a book club meeting during summer reading to talk about one of the required texts, or plan a program based on a book or elements from the story. Reading the book in advance and being able to talk about it with others or relate to it in another way could help teens with disabilities stay on track in the upcoming school year.

5. Make your program known.

After your library collaborates with the school system, make sure promotional materials are handed out to students before the school year ends. Make it clear that everyone is welcome to participate in summer reading so the special education teachers and students know they should join in! Also consider sending promotional materials to summer camps for teens with disabilities, therapy centers, and intramural teams, as well as any day centers for people with disabilities in your area.

6. Encourage teen volunteers.

When teens are signing up for summer reading, ask if they’d like to volunteer to help with any aspect of the program. (This goes for teens with or without disabilities!) Teens can help their peers sign in or update their progress. Teens with disabilities might not want to be in the spotlight, so they can work behind the scenes, helping set up for programs or cleaning up after parties.

7. Work in small groups.

A lot of Makerspace activities are individualized, but can easily be adapted to work in small groups. A teen with disabilities who might not be able to make something on their own can be part of a team and still participate. Break the activity into steps where the team has to plan their project before they build it, and then can present it to the entire group. Circulate often so you can offer help to everyone, without seeming to focus on the teens with disabilities, while making sure they know you’re available if they need you, and that it’s ok to get help. Check out YALSA’s Maker & DIY Programs for ideas.

8. Eliminate distractions.

Let’s be honest, it’s easy to get distracted regardless of your age or attention span! Depending on their disabilities, some teens may get more distracted than others, and some distractions can quickly lead to disruptive behaviors. Teens with autism might not be able to focus on spoken words if there is also music playing, even if others just consider it background music. It can also be distracting to hand out too many items at the same time, or give instructions all at once. Start by talking slowly and outlining what’s going to happen at the event; it’s helpful to make visual charts, as mentioned in the first tip! This way teens know what’s going on and in what order, and can look back to it often, without interrupting the program flow.

9. Schedule breaks.

Even if the program doesn’t seem long, taking a few short breaks will help everyone stay focused. Put these on the schedule so attendees will know they when they can go to the bathroom or grab a drink without having to interrupt the program. These breaks can also give teens with disabilities time to process what they’ve done and prepare for what’s coming next. It’s also a good time for you to check in with them and make sure everything’s ok, and see if anything can be done to help them engage more easily.

10. Roll with the punches.

We know that nothing ever goes according to plan, but when you’re including teens with disabilities, things could get derailed easily. Instead of throwing away your whole schedule, make sure you have substitutes for each part of the program, and even changes you can make individually for the teen who needs a little help. If the music is too distracting, turn it off, even if it means scrapping a part of the event that involved dancing. If the art supplies are too messy, have some alternatives (or even gloves!) so all teens can be involved in the program in their own way. It can be a bit tricky when you’re adapting a specific activity for teens with disabilities: you don’t want to seem like a pushover, but you do want to be accommodating and helpful. For more information on this balance, check out YALSA’s resources on Serving Disabled Teens.

A short list of tweets from the past week of interest to teens and the library staff that work with them.

Do you have a favorite Tweet from the past week? If so add it in the comments for this post. Or, if you read a Twitter post between May 1 and 7 that you think is a must for the next Tweets of the Week send a direct or @ message to lbraun2000 on Twitter.

Last spring, a couple of coworkers and I did some outreach at an event called Girlvolution. It was a completely youth-led conference, with sessions on social justice issues ranging from foster care reform to sexual identity. The teens leading each session mixed statistical and factual information with their own perspectives and experiences.

It was the best conference I had ever been to. I was blown away by how poised, informed, and prepared the youth were. But I wondered: how did they do their research? Had they been visiting our libraries every year without us even knowing it?

Our Youth and Family Learning Manager looked into it and found out that this was exactly the case. Although Powerful Voices (the organization that hosts Girlvolution)  had a "Library Day" as part of their program each year, the library had not been providing direct support.

What an awesome organization.

So this year, we collaborated. My coworkers and I met with their staff to hear more about their organization's mission and goals, and to learn how we could help. We arranged for me to visit Powerful Voices on a Thursday afternoon a couple of weeks ago to talk to the youth and their adult allies (mentors) about research. It was a great conversation about everything from whether all the world's information is available on Google (heck no) to evaluating resources.

Results of a survey asking participants to rate the effectiveness of Library Research Day.

That Saturday, the girls and their allies all came to the library. We settled down in the computer lab and got SERIOUS about research. I showed them how to find books in our catalog, and how to decode Dewey. We dug into databases to find the most up-to-date information and the best statistics. We ended the day with pizza, which is never a bad idea.

Powerful Voices ends their sessions with a gratitude circle. That Saturday, many youth and adults mentioned finding out about all the great resources the library has to offer, and how helpful librarians can be. I was grateful for all I learned from them, and to be part of the support network for such talented and engaged young women.

They were pretty excited about the new library.

For the past six months or so, my fellow teen services librarian and I have been building a partnership with a local drop-in center for homeless youth. We began by meeting with staff several times and taking a tour of their facility to get a better sense of what they do, and how we could help. Then we moved into outreach efforts, like tabling at an on-site job fair. We even revamped their on-site library. 

By this time we’d really gotten to know the staff, and we’d also spent a good bit of time at the shelter talking with the youth. They mentioned weekly gaps in drop-in services, as well as a desire for help with job and education goals. Our partners suggested that we all collaborate to co-host a weekly drop-in at the library on Thursday afternoons, when both downtown youth shelters are closed.

We've been holding drop-ins for a little over two months now.  When my schedule allows, I visit the shelter on Thursday mornings to personally invite youth to the program. Several staff from the partner org co-host with us each week: the outreach coordinator, an adult intern, and a peer intern. They are all very talented at working with youth, and full of great ideas. It's absolutely a co-production from both partners. Drop-in wouldn't work if the library tried to host it on our own.

The very first drop-in.

The library provides snacks, and we do different activities each week—gaming, crafts, etc.—all while talking to the youth about where they are in their lives, and what they need. While many of the participants are unstably housed, others attend private school. Drop-in attendance is diverse in just about every possible way: financially, ethnically, culturally, racially. For many of them, it's a unique opportunity to hang out in a friendly, safe environment with teens whose circumstances are very different from their own.

This game of Egyptian Ratscrew got intense.

Sometimes participants want to work on resumes or interview skills, so my coworker and I help with that. Sometimes they need our partners' help connecting to shelter or other resources. Sometimes they just want to hang out and eat popcorn.

During the first couple of months of drop-ins, we collected information from participants about what they want and need from the program. Now we’re using that information to design evaluations that will measure the impacts we all want to see. It’s a slow process, but I’m confident that the outcomes from this program are going to be profound.

We take our fun seriously.

Already, we’re seeing big mental shifts among participants. Youth who feared they wouldn’t be welcome in the library, or who had previously visited but had never spoken to staff, are now regularly accessing library resources. Our partners have seen more youth accessing their resources, too, and we’ve connected at least one participant with a job. I can’t wait to see where this partnership will go.

"Mrs. Thompson, why we only got two Bluford High books?"  "We need more manga."  "I like that Sharon Draper lady.  We got anymore of her books?"  These were just a few of the questions and statements directed at me about our high school media center's collection when I became a media specialist.  Through day-to-day direct observation and through results of a student survey, I quickly realized areas of our collection that were being underserved - manga and urban fiction.  There were groups of students who were all clamoring for the same few titles that we had of a certain genre or series and our "hold lists" were growing longer by the day.

Several reasons may attribute to underserved groups in a library program.  Community dynamics change.  Our small suburban school system has seen tremendous growth in the 18 years that I have been here - 400% growth.  That translates into a graduating class of 78 in 1998 to a graduating class of 478 in 2015.  In the same time period, our minority population grew from 5% to 30%.  Our media center's collection does not reflect this growth.  Another reason for underserved groups is the rapid growth in new styles of writing, like manga.  It can be difficult to know whether new styles of writing are going to be accepted by your patrons, and we hate to waste money on books that are just going to sit on the shelves.  We started out with three different manga series to test the waters.  The popularity of these titles exploded!  They rarely made it back onto the shelves as students would grab them from the "re-shelf" cart as soon as they were checked in.  They also became our most stolen titles!  (We do not currently have a book security system.)  There were titles that our students desperately wanted to read, so why wouldn't I listen to them to continue to foster their love of reading.

As a reader, I cannot stand to read things in a series out of order.  Many of my students are the same way.  Why did we only have some of the Bluford High series?  Why were #1, 4, 6-8 of Full Metal Alchemist missing?  Our database showed that we had owned, at one point, #1-15 of the manga series BlackCat, but several of the titles were now marked "Lost".  I set filling in the gaps of the asked about series as my first goal in strengthening our collection for our underserved patrons.  In the urban fiction section, we went from two Sharon Draper titles to all 10 of her young adult titles.  We were also able to fill in the missing Bluford High titles, which serve our urban fiction fans as well as our Hi/Lo students.  For the manga patrons, we filled in all of the holes in the series we already had and aimed to include four new series a year.

Another strategy for building our collection for these underserved populations was to get input from the students.  In adding more manga, we allowed the students who were most interested in these series to help us with the selection of new titles.  They perused catalogs and looked online for reviews and suitable content (as some manga is aimed at a more adult audience). My African-American girls, who were devouring the urban fiction, asked about adding the Drama High series.  They loved looking for new authors to tell me about as well.  With the addition of the new titles, plus the marketing of the items through displays, our circulation increased 67% in one year!  Allowing students to assist in making our collection stronger for them gave them a sense of ownership and pride in our media program.

YALSA's Teen Programming Guidelines states that librarians should "create programming that reflects the needs and identities of all teens in the community."  Many media centers and libraries run into the problem of having an underserved population, and it is the duty of the librarian to recognize the needs of all patrons and work to strengthen the weak areas.  Investigate your collection for missing titles and allow your teens input.  These practices can go a long way in reflecting the needs of the communities we serve.

"Mrs. Thompson, why we only got two Bluford High books?"  "We need more manga."  "I like that Sharon Draper lady.  We got anymore of her books?"  These were just a few of the questions and statements directed at me about our high school media center's collection when I became a media specialist.  Through day-to-day direct observation and through results of a student survey, I quickly realized areas of our collection that were being underserved - manga and urban fiction.  There were groups of students who were all clamoring for the same few titles that we had of a certain genre or series and our "hold lists" were growing longer by the day.

Several reasons may attribute to underserved groups in a library program.  Community dynamics change.  Our small suburban school system has seen tremendous growth in the 18 years that I have been here - 400% growth.  That translates into a graduating class of 78 in 1998 to a graduating class of 478 in 2015.  In the same time period, our minority population grew from 5% to 30%.  Our media center's collection does not reflect this growth.  Another reason for underserved groups is the rapid growth in new styles of writing, like manga.  It can be difficult to know whether new styles of writing are going to be accepted by your patrons, and we hate to waste money on books that are just going to sit on the shelves.  We started out with three different manga series to test the waters.  The popularity of these titles exploded!  They rarely made it back onto the shelves as students would grab them from the "re-shelf" cart as soon as they were checked in.  They also became our most stolen titles!  (We do not currently have a book security system.)  There were titles that our students desperately wanted to read, so why wouldn't I listen to them to continue to foster their love of reading.

As a reader, I cannot stand to read things in a series out of order.  Many of my students are the same way.  Why did we only have some of the Bluford High series?  Why were #1, 4, 6-8 of Full Metal Alchemist missing?  Our database showed that we had owned, at one point, #1-15 of the manga series BlackCat, but several of the titles were now marked "Lost".  I set filling in the gaps of the asked about series as my first goal in strengthening our collection for our underserved patrons.  In the urban fiction section, we went from two Sharon Draper titles to all 10 of her young adult titles.  We were also able to fill in the missing Bluford High titles, which serve our urban fiction fans as well as our Hi/Lo students.  For the manga patrons, we filled in all of the holes in the series we already had and aimed to include four new series a year.

Another strategy for building our collection for these underserved populations was to get input from the students.  In adding more manga, we allowed the students who were most interested in these series to help us with the selection of new titles.  They perused catalogs and looked online for reviews and suitable content (as some manga is aimed at a more adult audience). My African-American girls, who were devouring the urban fiction, asked about adding the Drama High series.  They loved looking for new authors to tell me about as well.  With the addition of the new titles, plus the marketing of the items through displays, our circulation increased 67% in one year!  Allowing students to assist in making our collection stronger for them gave them a sense of ownership and pride in our media program.

YALSA's Teen Programming Guidelines states that librarians should "create programming that reflects the needs and identities of all teens in the community."  Many media centers and libraries run into the problem of having an underserved population, and it is the duty of the librarian to recognize the needs of all patrons and work to strengthen the weak areas.  Investigate your collection for missing titles and allow your teens input.  These practices can go a long way in reflecting the needs of the communities we serve.

Back in October 2014, I wrote about a report entitled: “America After 3 PM.” The Afterschool Alliance was writing about how students spend their time after school. In it, I raised the point of libraries as hubs for after-school activities, a free spot for teens to come if they don’t have the resources or access to other after-school programs. At the end of January, Alia Wong from Atlantic wrote an article called “The Activity Gap,” which discusses the access issues students from various socio-economic classes face with participating in after-school and extracurricular programs.

Wong begins the article by comparing two different students, Ethan and Nicole, whose family backgrounds contribute to two different lifestyles and life paths. While their names have been changed, these two students do exist and were case studies in a study published in Voices of Urban Education. This national study was conducted by Brown University’s Annenberg Institute of School Reform.

Their results are nothing we didn’t already know. The article states the researchers were “alarmed” at the results, but we’ve been seeing and hearing about this growing income achievement gap for a while. I come back to the same question I raised in my October 2014 blog post: how can libraries help?

I can offer an example of a space happening in my community at the Urbana Free Library. Our library is able to offer a Teen Open Lab a couple days a week. The auditorium in the library is opened up and staff and teens set up essentially a mini-Fab Lab/makerspace/hangout area. It’s a spot where teens can come after school, hang out, or create anything from stickers on a Silhouette cutting machine, to using a 3D printer, video and audio production, or simply playing Minecraft or video games. The library has been able to provide another space for teens to go who might not have other after-school options.

Is this a great space? I think so. I visited there a few weeks back (my assistantship has a graduate student helping out at the Teen Open Lab so I went for a visit). The atmosphere was exciting. The teens seemed to be happy. They’ve reached a point in the Teen Open Lab where things are going well and they can keep thinking about where does this space go next. But, we can’t forget the process and time it took to get from point A (the teens had little space) to the idea of the lab, to the creation (and funding), and now the maintaining and sustaining. Perhaps what the Urbana Library Teen Open Lab teaches us is that we need to start having those conversations. If we look out at our community and see that our teens need a free space, we can start having those conversations about what a space for them might look like. I think it’s fine to say, “Look we have this income achievement gap and need to do something about it” but we need to do more than just say it. And maybe libraries aren’t the spot, maybe this conversation is meant for a broader audience, pulling in our education system and college admission process (which places value in extra-curricular activities and involvement outside of the classroom). What I’ve been thinking about in my community engagement class this semester is that libraries are the hub to have those frank conversations. We can open up a space to bring a community together to talk. We’ve been doing it since we first began as public institutions.

The Atlantic article does not offer many solutions and I am not sure I have many to offer either. I still think this is an important conversation to have, but we need to continue to think about the broader context and how we can help or at least provide resources to help. For additional resources on this topic, make sure to check out YALSA’s Professional Tool page on their website. Additionally, you can look at, Cool Teen Programs for Under $100, resources on YALSA’s Wiki page about Maker and DIY Programs, Making in the Library Toolkit, or A Librarian’s Guide to Makerspaces.

Do you have any ideas about how we can bridge this activity gap? I would love to hear your thoughts (or great articles to read and resources to use) in the comments below!

Those Wonder Twins were onto something.

A couple of posts ago, I mentioned the importance of equality. But what does equality really mean in the context of a community partnership?

Mostly, it means power sharing. Because when we library folk enter into a partnership, particularly a micropartnership with a small, grassroots organization, there will almost always be an imbalance of power that favors the library.

I know it doesn't always feel like it, but generally, public libraries are respected organizations. They are highly visible to funders and politicians. Everyone knows (or thinks they know) more or less who we are and what we do. Grassroots orgs, on the other hand, may have less name recognition in the community at large.

Also, libraries have mad bank--relatively speaking. As thinly stretched as we often feel (and are), libraries usually have at least some small degree of budget stability. We have assets like buildings, which tend to come equipped with computers, meeting rooms, and at least a couple of people to staff them. Our partners, on the other hand, may be working with shoestring budgets, few (if any) full-time paid staff, and a whole host of other constraints on their time and resources that are not necessarily visible to us.

And more often than not, the staff who are leading the partnerships on the library’s side are often white, middle class folk (like me)—in other words, part of the dominant culture.

In order to make our partnerships truly equal, we have to make it easy for grassroots organizations to work alongside us. That means conscious power-sharing on our part. It’s up to us to create the time and space for partners to tell us what their organization and their clients need out of the partnership to make it worthwhile for them. And then of course, it's up to us to deliver what they've asked for--or to be up front about why we can't.

We also have to be serious about sharing our concrete resources: budgets, staff time, building space, marketing channels, and more. It’s not enough to show up to a grassroots organization and offer a few resources that are easy for us to deliver, or to occasionally reach out to community groups to ask for feedback on an existing plan. Partners should be working with us to create the plan.*

After all, these orgs are helping us do something that would be incredibly difficult or even impossible without them: provide quality library services to the communities they work with. Community-based orgs are well-known and well-trusted in those communities in a way the library often isn’t, and may never be.

For example, think about how difficult and expensive it would likely be to use a traditional marketing campaign to reach a population of underserved immigrants in your town. Or to convince low income teens to come to a drop-in digital literacy workshop.** By working with community partners, you can reach those audiences at their point of need. Working together, you can create services that are tailored to their specific interests and goals.

When you look at that way, an investment in micropartnerships starts to look like a screaming bargain.

* A non-profit leader in my city has a great and also very funny blog post addressing this issue from the community-based org’s point of view. I highly recommend taking a look.

**If teens in your area would show up for a digital literacy workshop on their own time and without incentive, please know that they are magical and should be treasured.

Pizza Rolls not Gender Roles

Last week to celebrate Woman’s History Month several Youtube personalities created videos  highlighting some of the issues with America’s gender norms.

One of the vloggers, Kristina Horner, created a video about how YA literature has become gendered. From different covers to how we label genre’s there are many ways subtle clues are sent to potential readers about what books they are meant to read.

Part of the vlog was inspired by Maureen Johnson’s article in Huffington Post  talking about how boys were excluded from reading her books and attending author visits.

Goodreads released an infograph last year indicated that 80% of a female author's readers will be woman. Remembering the goodread article, after watching the video I had a conversation with my husband who is a fantasy/SciFi reader. We went through our reading lists from the past year and discovered that I’d read mostly female authors and he’d read mostly male. Of the woman authors he did read, they were books I had recommended to him.

I realized that not only should I be more proactive in promoting good books to my teens, but maybe I should create a blind date with a book that highlights female authors. My library did something like this for Valentine’s day for adults, and the display was frequently desolate since everyone kept taking the books home.

If nothing else, I plan to share books written by female authors with my coworkers, so they can recommend them in reader’s advisory moments.

The female authors I read in 2014:

• Leigh Bardugo
• Holly Black
• Gail Carriger
• Rae Carson
• Kiera Cass
• Joelle Charbonneau
• Rosamund Hodge
• A.G. Howard
• Amie Kaufman
• Lucy Knisley
• Melina Marchetta
• Lauren Oliver
• Liz Prince
• Rainbow Rowell
• Maria Semple
• G. Willow Wilson

Volunteers from a partner organization help students with college applications.

Last week we talked about finding your perfect community partner, the one who can make all your dreams come true. Once you’ve met a few potential partners and really gotten to know them, you may be ready to choose one and move forward on a shared program or project.

As you’re working with the partner to formulate the project, here are some questions to consider.

1. Do the partners play equally important roles?

This could shake out lots of different ways. Maybe you provide the space, the pizza, and the marketing, and the partner provides the expertise. Maybe you’re creating all of the program content, and the partner is bringing the audience. (Although ideally, you’d probably want to check in with the partner to make sure your content is relevant. If you can create the content collaboratively, even better.)

What matters most is that roles are clearly defined and both sides are making significant, meaningful contributions. If that isn’t happening, you may be doing something cool, but it’s not a partnership.

2. Does the project deliver something important to both partners?

Just as both partners have to put something in, both have to get something out. Outcomes should be clearly stated and deliver something that each side needs to further its mission. For the library, outcomes will often be concerned with promoting equity.

3. Does the project have an end point?

It took me a while to realize how important this is. Even if a project is relatively small and low-impact, set a firm date to pause and examine how things are going. If things are going really well, pat each other on the back and agree about how awesome you are. Make minor adjustments if necessary, then dive right back into it.

If things are not going so well, or if circumstances have changed for one of the partners, you’ll be glad to have a built-in opportunity to make big changes, start all over, or quietly pull the plug. Even in this worst case scenario, you'll have learned something valuable that you can bring to your next partnership.

4. Do the partners agree about how the project will be evaluated?

What are the top priorities? What kind of evaluation tool will you use: pre- and post-tests? Surveys? Interpretive dance?*

Who will design the tool? If you can, work with the partner to create evaluation tools collaboratively or, even better, empower the youth themselves to design the tools and evaluate the program.

And one last tip: Write it all down! We use a Memorandum of Agreement form to make sure that everyone knows what’s up with a new project. Better to tackle misunderstandings before you begin than in the middle, when it’s hard to adjust expectations, or at the end, when disappointment or resentment may have set in. Communication is key throughout the process, but good communication late in the game can’t make up for a lack of it up front.

*Note: Don’t use interpretive dance.

A partner brings some skeptical-looking teens to the library for a research workshop. (I'm pretty sure we won them over in the end.)

In my last post, I talked about the importance of relationship-building in outreach and community partnerships. It's not always easy to create the time and space necessary to figure out what a partner organization really needs from the library, but for a strong community partnership, it's well worth the investment.

But "community partnership" is a pretty vague term. I should probably clarify what I'm talking about.

For me, library partnerships fit into one of two main categories. The first is partnerships with other major organizations, like the symphony, the zoo, or the local school system at the superintendent/library director level. For the sake of this blog post, let’s call them macro partnerships.

Macro partnerships tend to be large in scale (duh), and are often designed to give current library patrons access to cultural or other enrichment that they might not otherwise experience. For example, a library system might partner with an art museum to provide occasional free museum admission for library card holders. This kind of partnership is incredibly important and worthwhile, but in general, it’s not what I’m talking about here.

The second category of community partnerships is the one that I engage in most often: working with nonprofits or government agencies that serve high needs, marginalized, or underrepresented groups. I would also include in this category those crucial partnerships between individual librarians and school teachers.

For fun, let’s call these micro partnerships—not because the organizations involved are necessarily small (though they often are), but because the partnerships tend to be built on relationships between just a few people, perhaps one or two library staff and one or two staff from the community-based org. The library’s goal in creating micro partnerships is usually to serve patron groups that it otherwise struggles to reach; in other words, to promote equity. Micro partnerships are the kind I’ll mainly be addressing in this blog series.

Of course, as I've said, building relationships with partners takes time and effort. It’s much easier to create our own programs and services, in our own buildings. So why not leave it at that? Our doors are open to everyone—isn’t that enough?

Well, not really. Because as we all know, it’s harder for some people to get to our doors. Some groups of potential patrons face barriers of income, language, transportation, and a whole host of other factors. So we have to do a little more to reach them.

For example, a library might open its meeting room to host a college application workshop that’s open to everyone. That’s equality, and it’s not a bad thing.

But it's often the case that the students who are most in need of programs like this one aren’t the ones who attend. We might end up mainly serving students who already have a lot of support in their college application process. Maybe those students were told about the event by their English-speaking parents, or their guidance counselor, or even their hired college admission coach. They may have their own transportation, and fewer after school and weekend responsibilities.

By also hosting the same program at an ethnic community center or in partnership with an organization that serves the rural poor, the library eliminates some of the barriers for underserved students. We commit resources in an attempt to “level the playing field" and promote equity.

Tell me how this looks at your library. What kinds of micro partnerships are you involved in? How are your partnerships helping you reach target audiences? I want to hear all your success stories!

About four years ago, my little department (just one other Teen Services Librarian and me) decided to make a big change. We wanted to make outreach and community partnerships the central focus of our work. We weren't sure exactly what that would entail, or how we should go about it. All we knew was that the Teen Center in our library wasn’t exactly packing in the teens.

A relatively empty Teen Center, from the days before we began our focus on outreach.

Our neighborhood in downtown Seattle has great access to public transit, but not a lot of families living nearby. Teens cruised through to use the computers or browse the manga. They were often reluctant to engage with us, no matter how approachable and friendly we tried to be.

We felt sure we could do better. So we started by asking a lot of questions, brainstorming with our manager. And the first question was: Who wasn’t coming to the library?

To find an answer, we did a community analysis--although to be honest, we didn’t call it that at the time. We just thought of it as taking a look around. We looked at census and demographic data, as well as information from the public schools and Seattle’s Department of Neighborhoods. We were interested in the whole city, but focused on our neighborhood in particular. What were the major trends? Who were we not seeing in the library—or at least, not seeing enough of relative to the overall population? For us, the answers included immigrant and refugee communities (especially East African), youth experiencing homelessness, and youth living in poverty.

This led us to the really big question: If those teens weren’t in the library, where were they?

To find out, we did something really scientific: we sorta asked around. We sent out some email, made a few phone calls, and just showed up in places where we suspected those teens might be accessing services: youth shelters, internship programs, schools and student support organizations, and youth arts nonprofits. We introduced ourselves to the staff there. We made follow up appointments. Staff were always happy to talk to us about their work, and we did our best to listen.

But at first, listening was the hard part. We were so bursting with information about all the great stuff the library had to offer that sometimes we barely let the community leaders get a word in edgewise. Did they know about our homework help program? The free standardized tests available via our website? What about our job resources?

At those early meetings, we jumped in with ideas for potential collaborations without fully understanding the needs of the organizations we were talking to. We were excited, and we were proud of what we had to offer. We were also in a hurry to produce results to prove to ourselves that this whole zany outreach plan was going to work.

Those initial meetings did produce some good outcomes, but not the best outcomes. We would partner with an organization on a reasonably successful program, only to realize that they had more pressing needs that we could have addressed. Or we’d discover that the folks we’d been meeting with at the organization weren’t the ones who could make a final decision about working with the library. Or we’d realize that the way we had structured the partnership wasn’t really equal.

So we slowed down and started doing a lot more listening. We made a rule for ourselves that initial meetings with new organizations should be informational only—we would use them to learn as much as we possibly could. We asked question after question. What was their organization all about? Who did they serve? What were their mission and goals? What was working well for them? What were their difficulties?

Only after we really understood the answers to all of those questions did we ask the big one: How can we help?

I’m still learning, and I’ll be sharing some of my thoughts here in an ongoing series about outreach and community partnerships. I’d love to hear your ideas. When reaching out to a potential new community partner, what works for you? What doesn’t?

This December, one organization is working to give girls a gift that will last a lifetime: resources to reach their potential in science, technology, engineering, and math. STEM is a prominent part of current educational models in the U.S., but girls are traditionally underrepresented in STEM-related professional fields. DeSTEMber aims to change that.

DeSTEMber is hosted by non-profit organization Girlstart. “Half of the world’s potential ideamakers—women and girls—are discouraged from developing their ideas because of social bias or inequity. More girls with more ideas create more solutions,” notes the organization. Girlstart has been working since 1997 “to increase girls’ interest and engagement in STEM through innovative, nationally-recognized informal STEM education programs.” Their work covers girls in grades K-16. (See their About Us page for more information.)

The DeSTEMber website offers a STEM activity for each day of December. The downloadable activity PDFs include instructions for the activity and a short explanation to go along with it. Each one also features links to additional resources, plus a Career Connection section that describes a profession relating to that activity. These are intended to be far more than one-time activities; they are springboards into the future, both for short-term learning and long-term education and career goals.

Interested in participating? Although DeSTEMber is almost over, these activities are relevant all year long. Girlstart also maintains a link to the DeSTEMber 2013 activity page, meaning users can access 62 free STEM resources.

Librarians and other educators interested in getting involved with Girlstart should visit their educator page.

Today, we often take for granted how teens use technology. It seems to be embedded into their every day lives and something they pick up easily. But have we ever wondered how teens use technology to help others every day, especially others who do not understand technology as well? A group of researchers at the University of Washington’s iSchool are investigating these teens, whom they refer to as “info-mediaries” (InfoMes). Karen Fisher, Philip Fawcett, Ann Bishop, and Lassana Magassa are working with mainly groups of ethnic minority teens in the Seattle area to gain a better understanding of how teens, as information mediaries are using information and technology to help others.

My group working on our app. We are in the visual stages where we are drawing out what our problem is.

To gain this insight, the research team created Teen Design Days (see video link for a longer explanation). This is a three-day workshop where the teens gathered to discuss, learn, and explore how they help people in their social networks with information and technology. The teens are paid for their time and by the end of the workshop, will have created a design project that would help them. The design days are structured around the developmental needs for teens, identified by J. Davidson and D. Koppenhaver in their 1992 publication, Adolescent Literacy as “physical activity, competence and achievement, self-definition, creative expression, positive social interaction, structure, and clear limits.” This means that along with the learning, the teens take an active role in shaping the outcome of the workshop. From designing the rules and expectations, to participating in “light-and-lively” activities (physical activity component), the teens are truly front and center. As they begin to move from discussing their role as information mediaries to more fully fleshing out designs and solutions to improve their InfoMe work, the teens talk with each other, share ideas, and revise their design.

Our prototype app, Don't Think Twice, It's Alright.

From a research point of view, these design days allow the group to collect large amounts of data in a short time, create friendships with the youth they work with and the larger community as a whole, and get an insight into what the teens are facing on a daily basis and what ideas they have to solve these problems.

One of the researchers, Ann Bishop, made a visit to University of Illinois in early October to share InfoMe. I attended one of her presentations in which she gave an outline of their research. At the end of the session, the group expressed interest in participating in the “train-the-trainer” workshop model. We hoped that a session like that would give us ideas on how to design similar programs for the teens we currently serve.

Telling the story of our problem (the stress of going home and visiting family and friends).

Our train-the-trainer workshop took place over a three-and-a-half hour time block at the Champaign Public Library. Bishop led us through a condensed design workshop, which included brainstorming problems we encounter daily and then splitting us into three groups based on the type of problems we identified. My group looked at the problem of visiting family and the hassles and stress that we confront. Through critical thinking, some storytelling, and using our limited drawing abilities (see photo, complete with stick figures), we more clearly defined our problem and then moved into thinking about what could help us out. My group created the beginnings of an app; one that would allow for family and friends to see your schedule when you’re visiting, for you to track your flight or train, and also a spot for stress relieving activities such as calming music or cat photos (whatever floats your boat). We created a prototype and if we had more time, would have continued to refine the app based on feedback from the rest of the group. When I left the workshop, I was energized and excited about the possibility of this for the future.

I believe the ideas behind InfoMe can be applied in our libraries. Not only is there potential for new designs to be brought forth, but also for teens to collaborate, and for librarians to gain insight into the teens they serve. I’m looking forward to following InfoMe and seeing what other insights they uncover with future Teen Design Days. For more information, make sure to visit their website, and read their various publications.

A conversation about Online Harassment.

For many teens, online is one of their 3rd places where they can find community and celebrate their various interests. These were safe places where they could find support outside of their physical community, especially if they were being harassed by peers.

Lately though many female content creators have been sharing their experiences which aren’t positive. Female YouTube personalities have sexually suggestive comments posted. Many women in the gaming industry have come under attack, with their personal information being released publicly, forcing at least 3 to have to leave their homes. A female researcher’s survey about sexism was corrupted by false data .We must also not forget the hundreds of celebrity photos that were released earlier this year.

Sadly, harassment isn’t anything new, but according to a new report from Pew Reserach Center

“Young adults, those 18-29, are more likely than any other demographic group to experience online harassment, and Young women, those 18-24, experience certain severe types of harassment at disproportionately high levels: 26% of these young women have been stalked online, and 25% were the target of online sexual harassment.”

The survey only included adults, so we have no data for teens, but even this information is concerning. Online harassment fell into one of two categories: personal attacks from someone you know and anonymous people on the internet (aka trolls).

There is a saying online don’t feed the trolls, but what do you do when they release your personal information as a way to silence you?

I decided to have a conversation with the teens at my regular programs about online harassment, and discovered that no one else was talking to them about this subject.

We talked mostly about GamerGate, and how this group is attacking women gamers and critics. GamerGate claims that they are doing this because they want ethics in games journalism, yet they don’t seem to be targeting men who speak out against them, or talking to the largest review websites in gaming journalism.

It allowed us to talk about censorship, how to properly argue, and gender equality. We discussed why someone would try to prevent someone from posting opinions online, and why arguments become personal attacks. We also discussed the wrong ways to convince someone that you are right. Specifically does attacking women improve ethics in games journalism, and what could GamerGate supporters do instead? One of my teens pointed out these excellent videos about common fallacies created by PBS Idea Channel’s Mike Rugnetta. We took a moment to watch them, and a few of the teens decided to take a break from gaming and were talking about Ad Hominem and trying to figure out whether you can separate a person from what they believe.

Pew Research indicated that 70% of adults have witnessed harassment online. Talking with my teen group revealed that all of them had experienced or known someone who has experienced harassment. While you can talk to a parent, teacher, or an adult about bullying, they shared the difficulty in reporting and stopping anonymous comments. Even the Internet Safety resources from NetSmartz and Onguard online have few resources to help with the large volume of attacks that have been targeted at some woman from individuals of GamerGate.

While the actions of some members of the internet are negative, I hope we can take this opportunity to have a conversation about anonymous harassment, and help give teens the tools to civilly interact online. As Emma Watson recently pointed out in a speech to the UN, equality for women is an important issue for EVERYone!

A new report from America’s Promise Alliance finds that students who leave high school without graduating are often overwhelmed by a cluster of negative impacts of poverty. You can read the full 72 page report (pdf) online, but here are some highlights (if that’s even the right word) to note:

• Approximately 20 percent of young people (that’s about 800,000 per year) don’t graduate from high school
• Toxic home, school, or neighborhood environments–sources of violence, disrespect and adverse health–lead young people to stop going to school
• Connectedness to others can lead young people both toward and away from school
• Even young people who are able to “bounce back” from an interrupted education are often unable to re-engage in the longer-term

So what does all this mean for libraries?

Libraries are uniquely poised to be an ideal space for young people looking to continue or re-engage with their education. We offer materials, programs and services regardless of income or whether a patron’s parent is incarcerated. Public libraries can be an island of consistency for young people who experience homelessness or move often, leaving little connection with the multiple schools in which they enroll.

Library policies, however, don’t always support young people whose educational path varies from the four year high school model. Here are three ways you can help teens at risk of dropping out or trying to re-engage with their education:

1. Reconsider “truancy.” Some public libraries immediately report or kick out teens who try to access books and services during the school day, but where does that leave a young person who may be trying to find out how to earn a GED, how to qualify for food stamps, or even how to enroll in a neighborhood school? In school libraries, students with unique medical situations or other tutoring needs may find themselves with alternative schedules and need a place to go for part of the day. Does your library support these teens?

2. Revisit your post-secondary resources. If your local school community is largely focused on getting students into four-year colleges, you may be missing students with other plans. Does your test prep collection include GED prep or materials for students interested in joining the military, like ASVAB for Dummies? Does your college section include information on local community or technical colleges? Also remember that older teens may be struggling to complete high school after their peers have already graduated; they still need your help!

3. Work with community partners. The America’s Promise Alliance report includes information on the 16 partner groups from each interview city, but there are many, many more–including groups that want to work with libraries. Some libraries now have relationships with hospitals and have social workers on staff. Which groups in your community could help address the unique needs of teens struggling to stay engaged or re-engage with their education?

Looking for help starting the conversation with a teen at your library? Check out Answering Teens’ Tough Questions, part of YALSA’s Teens at the Library series. 

A recent ruling by the U.S. District Court in Utah has repercussions for how libraries serve teenagers. As a result of the ruling striking down portions of an anti-polyamory law, and the growing public acceptance of polyamory, we librarians have a new diversity to incorporate into our public services.

Polyamory–meaning “many loves”– is a non-monogamous relationship type, wherein individuals may choose to romantically commit themselves to more than one person, rather than two people dedicating themselves solely to each other. Polyamory is practiced in many forms, from poly fidelity (a closed group of polyamorous people, not accepting new relationships into the current structure) to poly hierarchical (newer, secondary relationships bowing to longer-established, primary relationships) to poly anarchy (no strictures applied to any relationship or partner). Polyamory is inclusive of all sexualities and religions, and exists in all American socio-economic, age, and racial strata.

Though polyamory has existed for centuries, the term polyamory (as opposed to the gender-limiting polygyny and polyandry) was first introduced in 1990 and did not gain entry into the Oxford English Dictionary until 2006 (Poly in the Media, Jan 6 2007). Polyamory began gaining significant notice in the American cultural conversation in 2003, when the U.S. Supreme Court decriminalized sodomy in favor of the privacy of “certain intimate conduct” in the case Lawrence v. Texas (NY Times, Dec 15 2013). Today, polyamory features positively in reality TV shows (Showtime, TLC), newspaper columns (Dear Abby, Savage Love), lifestyle segments (Salom, Slate, Redbook, Newsweek), works of fiction, and as special segment pieces in other media (National Public Radio, TED talks).

What brought the relationship structure to my attention as a new diversity to be served in libraries was the U.S. District Court case Brown v. Buhman. Judge Clark Waddoups’s decision can be read in full here. In brief, the decision ruled that while an individual can only be legally married to one person at a time, polyamorous Americans may co-habitate, raise families, build businesses, and practice extralegal marriage with multiple partners, without interference from the government. Poly activists have further legal challenges planned for the near future, primarily centered around what they perceive as discrimination under the law (Psychology Today, Jan 18 2014) and in broader society (Reddit, Monogamous Privilege).

With polyamory socially and legally recognized, it is important to incorporate this family and romantic structure into our inclusive library services. Meaning, books and other resources featuring polyamory should be a part of our displays, recommendations, and programs; library cards, permission slips, and other forms for minors should accommodate contacts for more than two parents/guardians; and we should inform ourselves of polyamory so that when curious teenagers ask us about it, we can answer as knowledgeably and neutrally as we would about other relationship types.

If you’d like to learn more about polyamory, check out this bibliography from the Kinsey Institute (Kinsey Institute) or, for less technical reading, I would suggest the titles below.

• “Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships” by Tristan Taormino (ISBN: 157344295X)
• “The Polyamorists Next Door: Inside Multiple-Partner Relationships and Families” by Elisabeth Sheff (ISBN: 1442222956)
• “Polyamory in the 21st Century: Love and Intimacy with Multiple Partners” by Deborah Anapol (ISBN: 1442200227)

When we think about diversity, it’s easy to confine the discussion to diversity within the collection or within YA literature more broadly. And there are great conversations going on there, from tumblr to Twitter, with YA authors and librarians and readers talking about representation and privilege and our responsibility to serve all teens.

But what about diversity within your library programs?

The library is often an attractive meeting space for groups that otherwise have very little to do with the library. In my district, the library hosts town employee benefit fairs, career morning panels, nursing presentations and many other outside groups simply because the town doesn’t have much in the way of dedicated meeting space. The library also closes early once a month for faculty meetings largely because there’s nowhere else to put the entire faculty at once.

Similarly, the library became the home for the Gay-Straight Alliance more or less out of convenience. I moved both of the extra-curricular groups I advise–the yearbook and GSA–into the library so that I could attend meetings and still more or less keep an eye on the after-school crowd in the library. Holding GSA meetings and events in the library for five years, though, has taught me how well-suited the two are for each other.

1. Built-in meeting space.

We meet every week in a small room within the library, but we usually don’t close the door. At first I thought this might inhibit the students and keep them from talking about anything really personal, but in reality the open door means other students are more likely to poke a head in and see what we’re doing. Just last week the GSA students hollered at a senior and invited him to sit with us, which led to an amazing conversation about what it means to be out and whether we should be reaching out more to students who might not think they “need” a GSA.

2. Supplies!
This might sound silly, but not having to scrounge up supplies when you want to make posters or draft an announcement can be huge. My desk in the library is a treasure trove of arts and crafts supplies, and we have banks of computers and printers (including a wireless printer) that make it easy for us to design and create. Sadly I don’t have a color printer, and my photocopier bit the dust months ago, but it’s a good start.

3. Building relationships.
GSA students have become some of my best customers in the library, but before they started attending meetings regularly I never saw them checking out books at all. One of them has started a bit of a Dune trend, and they recommend titles to other all the time now. Unfortunately a lot of teens have had bad experiences with libraries and librarians (cough overduefines cough), but having a more casual, human interaction with the librarian can go a long way toward repairing that relationship.

4. Being there without being overbearing.
In previous years we tried to give students the reins completely when it came to running meetings and setting up events, but that didn’t always work. This year we meet every week, whether we have a big agenda or not, and sometimes if the conversation seems to be dying down I leave the room for a bit to see what happens. Some of our best ideas have come out of those moments, and having me nearby but not necessarily in the room means the students will tell me about the great conversation they just had as they leave the library.

5. Holding events in the heart of the building.
We just had a party on Friday–pizza, board games and music–and a GSA advisor from another school remarked on how great it was to have an event like that in the library. Too often GSA events get hidden away in a tiny meeting room or an advisor’s classroom. Ours are held in the library with huge windows, the first thing you see when you walk into the building. That tells students that not only is the library a place for parties, but that the GSA has a true home in the library.

Do you run a GSA in your library?