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I can take no credit in the creation of my library's longest-running teen-led program (teen programming guideline 3), and only a little for it's continued existence since I took it over in 2007. Project Playbill is an intense, 5-week summer theater program. Teens meet together at the library three days a week to write, produce and perform an original short play. Besides the inherent value in their participation, we also entice them with volunteer service credit.

In 2008, My then-supervisor told me that I could cancel Playbill if more teens didn't participate, because it sucks up a tremendous amount of time. In fact, because Playbill depends on teen leadership and labor to run, the fewer teens who show up, the more work I end up doing. That's one of the reasons why no teen is ever turned away: you can't host a teen-led program without teen participation. For the first couple of years I ran it, attendance hovered around five teens. I seriously considered putting Playbill out of its misery.

Then, in 2009, it took off. Three teens who I'd pulled in the previous year (a pair of sisters and one of their guy pals) were not only passionate about theater, but supremely talented and driven. They recruited new members on their own before summer even began. They set up a facebook page and cajoled their like-minded friends into joining. As their friends pulled in more friends, the program spread by word of mouth.  Attendance grew to the point where there wasn't a lot of work for me to do other than the occasional odd job that no one else could (to purchase spray paint in my town, for instance, you need to be over 18).

The teens do it all: write and edit the script, lead rehearsals, throw costumes together, paint the set, play sound effects, run the lights, and even decide on casting  -- with my okay, but I've never had to say "no" to their choices. Attendance at every rehearsal is not mandatory, but the teens understand that the success of their play depends on their active participation. The skills they learn go beyond the obvious writing and acting to sticking to a schedule, working as a team, problem-solving and decision-making.

One thing I've learned is that, for the most part, teens are good at self-selecting the right roles for them. Some teens know right away that they only want to be on crew, and others are ready to do a little of everything. The younger actors are sometimes disappointed when bigger parts go to older, more experienced actors; but are usually satisfied with their smaller assignments. As they come back year after year, the teens gradually take on more responsibility. It's gratifying to watch a goofy, misfit kid grow into a funny, talented writer who gets along with everyone.

Attendance does go up and down a bit from year to year, as teens graduate high school and move on. Some teens have gone on to study theater or related fields in college, and I've heard that those three key members from 2009 have started their own nonprofit to help other young actors.

Last year we had 18 participate, and I'm not sure how many to expect this year. Promoting the program and recruiting new members from schools and other organizations is one area where I could do better -- the truth is that I haven't needed to promote it much over the last few years. I'm determined that as long as the teens keep showing up, however, I'll keep Project Playbill going.

YALSA’s recently updated Teen Programming Guidelines encourage the use of evidence-based outcome measurement as a means of developing meaningful programs for young people. The Public Library Association - through its latest field-driven initiative, Project Outcome - is also working to assist with librarians’ efforts to capture the true value and impact of programs and services. At ALA Annual 2016, PLA will launch Project Outcome, designed to help any programmer measure outcomes beyond traditional markers such as circulation and program attendance. Instead, Project Outcome focuses on documenting how library services and programs affect our patrons’ knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviors. It will help librarians use concrete data to prove what they intuitively know to be true: Communities are strengthened by public libraries and patrons find significant value in library services.

Lessons from the Field:  Skokie (IL) Public Library

At Skokie Public Library, we participated in the pilot testing of Project Outcome in the fall of 2014 by administering surveys for 10 different programs. The surveys were conducted online, on paper, and through in-person interviews. In one example, teens attending a class about biotechnology were interviewed using a survey designed to measure outcomes for “Education/Lifelong Learning.” Participants ranked the extent to which they agreed or disagreed with statements measuring knowledge, confidence, application, and awareness. Results showed that 85% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that they learned something helpful, while only 43% agreed or strongly agreed that they intended to apply what they just learned. The results demonstrated some improvement in subject knowledge, information that can be useful for advocacy. But it also revealed that there’s room for growth in ensuring program participants understand how they can apply what they’re learning. In an open-ended question asking what they liked most about the program, teens mentioned the chemical experiments conducted during the program. This type of data is something that we can pay attention to when planning future programs.

In another example, we surveyed teens participating in a program titled, “Slam Poetry: Are We So Different?” Since this program was part of a community-wide initiative to discuss how race shapes our lives, we asked questions to measure the impact on participants’ knowledge, awareness, and application. 83% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that they felt more knowledgeable about the issues of race and racism in the community, while 67% agreed or strongly agreed that the program inspired them to take action or make a change. This type of outcome measurement goes much deeper into measuring the true influence of a program than simply recording the number of attendees.

Moving forward, we’ll continue to experiment with different Project Outcome surveys while also exploring other techniques. For long-term engagement, we are developing in-house digital badging systems. We prototyped a simple badging game for Teen Tech Week that provided data about the preferences of our teen patrons (see report). Not only do badges tally how many people are participating, they illuminate user behaviors on a granular level. Badges also make different opportunities throughout the library more visible and help teens track their progress toward mastery of a skill or subject.

Whether through Project Outcome or alternative techniques, evaluating outcomes is a fluid process. We’ll keep experimenting because the information we’re gathering is helpful for advocating for the library and improving what we’re doing so that we can have a greater impact on the people we serve. What we're learning confirms that the library plays a crucial role in teens’ lives, which is why it is so important to use outcome measures to make an even stronger case for funding, partnerships, adding staff, and garnering community support.

If you are interested in learning how to enroll in Project Outcome once it launches, please sign up for ongoing updates at http://www.ala.org/pla/performancemeasurement or contact Emily Plagman, Project Manager with PLA at [email protected].

For more information about Skokie Public Library’s use of outcome measures, contact:

Amy Holcomb ([email protected])

Amy is the Experiential Learning Librarian at Skokie Public Library and coordinates the BOOMbox and participates in other STEAM initiatives for learners of all ages.

Richard Kong ([email protected])

Richard is the Deputy Director at Skokie Public Library and helped implement the pilot testing of Project Outcome.

Shauna Masura ([email protected])

Shauna is a Young Adult Librarian at Skokie Public Library and facilitates a wide range of events and services for teens.

One of my favorite sections of the Teen Programming Guidelines (is it nerdy to have favorite sections?) is "Align programs with community and library priorities." But you have to be deeply involved with community agencies and activities in order to be ready to act on the community's priorities as they arise. This sounds obvious (and it is!), but it's taken me a few years to figure it out.

Several years back my coworker and I began working with the Seattle Youth Employment Program (SYEP). SYEP is a city agency that places youth with barriers in paid internships in a variety of environments in city government and the private sector. It also provides them with job training and academic support. We worked with SYEP staff to design a curriculum that would build the interns' digital and information literacy skills. We were sometimes surprised by the needs identified by SYEP staff and the interns' employers: touch typing, for example, and basic MS Word. We learned a lot about putting our own assumptions aside.

Over the years, we continually evaluated and adjusted the program. We dropped some pieces and added others to make it as relevant as possible to the youth's needs and the needs of their employers. 

This year, Seattle's mayor put forth a huge Youth Employment Initiative in which he asked SYEP to more than double the number of youth placed in jobs over the summer. Suddenly, the community had spoken: youth employment was a major need. Because we already had an ongoing relationship with SYEP, the library was poised to expand the partnership to serve more youth with our trainings. We also helped in other ways, like providing meeting rooms for SYEP staff trainings. Next summer, the mayor intends to make the program five times larger than it is this year (eep!), which will present a huge opportunity for library involvement.

Of course, being in the right place at the time is always partly a matter of luck. But you can't be lucky if you're not out there.

When we plan programs for teens, how do we create programs that will teach them something useful, but still fun and exciting? We can search the web, ask our colleagues for ideas, and look in old library school textbooks, but, ultimately, our journey begins with the Search Institute’s 40 Developmental Assets for Adolescents.

When we look closely at the 40 Developmental Assets for Adolescents, the general framework focuses on the external and internal assets that can be found in a teen’s environment, which helps them develop. According to the Search Institute:

“The 40 Developmental Assets follow “building blocks of healthy development—known as Developmental Assets—that help young children grow up healthy, caring, and responsible”

What’s great about these developmental assets is that we already offer programs that support one or more of these assets.  Although we can’t hit every single asset (much to our chagrin), we can cover many of these building blocks by creating programs that ensure our teens are getting the support, encouragement, and opportunity to grow and learn in the library; by incorporating several developmental assets within our programs, we can help teens discover new things, which will inspire and entice them to come into the library with their friends to learn more. If we want to lure new teens, and current teens, I highly recommend introducing these programs during the annual summer reading program.

The best part of summer reading programs are that they are themed; it definitely makes programming a little easier, or challenging, depending on the theme, but it forces us to get creative with how we craft and present our programs. As teen librarians, we always have to be on our feet so why not plan our summer reading programs around lessons that revolve around life skills using ideas such zombies, crafts, food, and robots. Here are a couple of programs that I have been able to implement, which utilize several of the 40 Developmental Assets for Adolescents to teach basic life skills:

Making a Difference @ Your Library Teen Summer Reading Program

Focus: Giving back to the community

Developmental Asset(s): Support, Empowerment, Constructive Use of Time, Positive Values, Social Competencies, and Positive Identity

1. SRP Closing Party & Care Packages
   1. Teens came to the library to celebrate the end of the summer reading program by making care packages for them men and women overseas; they also made greeting cards expressing their appreciation for all our military men and women.

2. Making and Donating No Sew Blankets
   1. This program I cannot to credit for because my colleague learned about Project Linus and it was a hit with the teens; they spent 2.5 hours making blankets to provide a child in need with a security blanket.

Zombie vs. Ninjas Teen Summer Reading Program

Focus: Learning how to care/defend one’s self and work in teams

Developmental Asset(s): Support, Empowerment, Constructive Use of Time, and Positive Identity

1. Zombie vs. Ninjas Food Fest
   1. Teens literally ate their way through this program by eating ramen and zombie brains and hearts out of Jello by strategically teaming up with other teens with very, very large appetites. It was hysterical and a lot of fun because we were able to motivate teens to read this summer since we had the chance to talk about the program and prizes.

2. Zombie Combat Training
   1. Teens learned how to defend themselves from attackers with the help a self-defense instructor. This program did require a waiver since it was a physical activity, but teens enjoyed the program (especially the young ladies) since some of them were going off to college.

Groundbreaking Reads Teen Summer Reading Program

Focus: Getting ready for college and adulthood

Developmental Asset(s): Support, Empowerment, Constructive Use of Time, and Social Competence

1. Sewing for Survival
   1. Teens continued to practice their sewing skills while making a super cute doll with the help of local artist, Liane Shih. This program allowed teens to have fun in an incredibly constructive way where they learned different types of stitches and techniques.

2. Cooking for Survival
   1. Teens learned how to make nutritious meals using items they can buy at the grocery store and make in their dorms/apartments using a microwave or rice cooker. Teens really, really loved the idea of making staples such as burritos, pasta, and other dishes so they wouldn’t have to rely on sodium-laden foods that were cheap and low in nutritional value.

3. Wilderness Survival Training
   1. Teens must work in groups to build a tent, or shelter, without any instructions or help from staff, make a proper first aid kit, and cooking with a toaster oven. After setting up each tent, we made basic first aid kits, which teens got take home with a list of supplies.

Spark a Reaction Teen Summer Reading Program

Focus: STEM and teamwork

Developmental Asset(s): Support, Empowerment, Constructive Use of Time, and Social Competence

1. Robot Building Workshop
   1. Teens had to team up and build a robot using a pre-fabricated kit and tools. This program took almost 2.5 for teens since they had to work together to make a robot (we had several options) and the results were awesome!

2. Food Science
   1. Teens came together to make food of all kinds (chewing gum, chocolate candies, gummy candies, and ice cream) with the help of science kits from Mindware.com.  This program was a lot of fun because teens got enjoy the fruits of their labor and lots and lots of ice cream made from a ball.

Source(s):

1. http://www.search-institute.org/content/40-developmental-assets-adolescents-ages-12-18

Staffing situations vary from library to library based on a number of factors including population served, budget, and organizational structure. So who gets to staff programs? YALSA's guidelines lay out a number of considerations to take into account whenever making staff and volunteer assignments for a program, no matter our size or structure. Points 6.3 and 6.5 in particular consider the different roles that staff and volunteers take.

6.3: Consider which tasks are best suited to librarians and which are more suited to paraprofessionals, community partners and mentors, adult volunteers or Friends of the Library, and teen volunteers and participants.

With any program, someone needs to take the leadership role and accept responsibility for everything (the good and the bad) that comes of it. I find this is most often the person (usually a librarian) who pitches the program, and who believes in it enough to carry through with it. Whether hiring a presenter or relying on a crew of regular volunteers, the program leader needs to know (or find how to find) the answers to any question anyone may have about it from the time it first goes on the program schedule to three weeks afterward, when someone calls to ask when the next one will take place. The librarian leading a program is also most often the person charged with enforcing the rules as in, "Sorry, this a teen program for teens only."

Other staff may be recruited to handle specific aspects of a program because of their expertise in a certain subject area; for instance, having the graphic designer (who also happens to be huge Doctor Who fan) design crafts for a Doctor Who oarty. Adult volunteers and mentors may serve in similar roles. When a local Star Wars cosplayer learned of a multi-fandom fest we planned last fall, she offered to not only come in costume, but bring her collection of hand-made doll costumes and accessories for display.

Community partners can range from a business that donates pizza, to an after-school program that arranges transportation for their group to all attend together. We love community partners at my library, and are generally happy with any participation they are willing to commit to. Outside groups always have their own policies; a business may ask that we display coupons or flyers with their donated food. As long as their policies don't violate ours, we are happy to comply. The program leader is the one who needs to step in and explain, for instance, that we cannot post advertisements on our community bulletin board.

Teen volunteers step into a number of roles depending on the program, their maturity level and skill set; always under staff supervision. Most volunteers are tasked with set-up and clean-up. Some are more enthusiastic about these duties tha others. Every now and then you'll find a volunteer who enjoys running the sweeper over the carpet. Most teens love to help their peers during the program. If it's a craft program they may even provide one-on-one assistance to participants who need a little more help.

Teen Advisory Boards and other regular volunteers should get involved as much as possible during the planning stages. Are you offering prizes for a contest? Talk to the board members to find out what they think their peers would like. In the case of our Fandom Fest, a couple of Anime & Manga club members came up with their own ideas for an informal trivia contest, so I let them run with it. They put questions together, dug through their manga collections to compile prizes, and ran the contest as one component of the bigger program. I had them announce the trivia contest winners, and made sure to thank them publicly at the conclusion of the program.

6.5. When hosting programs led by outside presenters, consider ways to ensure that teens also develop positive relationships with library workers.

This point goes hand-in-hand with maintaining your role as program leader. Sometimes leading means showing up early to assist an outside presenter with set-up and making sure they have everything they need. You can use this as an opportunity to learn just enough about what the teens will be doing during the program to assist them later if/when they need it. You can greet the teens as they enter, take attendance, and show  where to put their things. You can introduce the presenter, introducing yourself in the process. If you have a name tag or shirt to identify you as staff, then be sure to wear it. Then be an active presence  throughout program. I try to carry a camera or smartphone with me to document the program. Mostly I find myself answering questions, like, "Where is the restroom?"

With many programs, maintenance and/or security staff will be in the room periodically. This is a great time to introduce them to the teens, and vice versa. The relationship between teens and these staff can be filled with friction; I think mainly because maintenance  see teens as ones who make messes and break rules, and teens see maintenance as ones who scold them for natural behavior like eating and putting their feet up. It's during a program like the fandom fest where teens might learn that the maintenance and security are members of the same fandoms they are, and maintenance and security can see that teens are interested in making more than messes and noise.

When the email got sent around the bloggers about doing a 30 days of programming, my mind instantly went blank. I’m just a librarian-in-training and haven’t done a lot of hands-on programming with teens. What could I bring to the conversation?

Then I remembered I did have a program. A hypothetical one that is. I’m currently taking a Media Literacy for Youth class which has been amazing. One of our assignments was to create either a lesson or program plan about a media literacy topic. It could be targeted to any age group and should last 2-3 hours. We had to write about outcomes, lay out all the activities, essentially plan it so some librarian could do it with the kids they work with.

I’ll lay out my idea and then want your feedback. Is this program realistic? Would it work with the teens you work with? And if it’s not realistic, what needs to be changed?

So…here I go!

As a twenty-something, I would say I’m pretty well-connected in social media. If someone asked what my favorite social media platform is, I would say it’s Twitter. There something exciting about Twitter when you think about it like a cocktail party (shout out to blogger Dave Charest for this analogy) — there are hundreds of conversations going on around you and you decide which ones to tap into. And our teens are using it so why not have a program that challenges them to think about not only how they use Twitter, but how others use Twitter?

The program would stretch over several sessions, with each session being around an hour. I wanted to design a program that could be amended to fit the library and the teens. So each session has a big idea and it was my hope that librarians could pick and choose which sessions to do. Here’s a brief run-down of the sessions:

1. Twitter 101: Learn the basics. Set teens up with accounts if they don’t have one (or have dummy accounts they could use for these sessions). Talk about how you tweet, what the heck hashtags are, and how the people you follow can create a bias for the information you consume.
2. Creative uses of Twitter: Twitter doesn’t just have to push information out to people. It can be used to write stories, tell choose-your-own-adventure plots, and even poetry. This session would allow teens to explore these various avenues and try one out for themselves.
3. Using Twitter intentionally — how businesses incorporate social media: This would be the workshop where you could bring in community partnerships. Ask a social media coordinator for a local company to come in and talk about social media strategies. How do those companies use Twitter (it’s intentional as opposed to the ways the average Twitter user tweets). You could even ask the staff member in charge of your library’s Twitter account to either help facilitate this session, or come in to give a short presentation.
4. Tweet chats: Explore the world of tweet chats (or when hashtags trend and become a large conversation). Have the teens engage in a tweet chat or perhaps see if another library wants to team up and have the teens from both libraries talk via Twitter!
5. Live tweet: I see this session as the final one, but it doesn’t have to be. Have the teens pick out an event they want to go to (or suggest an event like a library or school board meeting). Have the teens create a common hashtag and have them live tweet the event. See if those tweets can get other people to join the conversation!

So…what do you think? If you want to know more about each individual session, you can check out my online portfolio where the whole plan is (it’s the first link on the page), including references for more information. Looking forward to hearing your comments!

Admission time: like many of us in Library Land, I am still figuring out the best ways to measure program outcomes. Marking attendance is relatively easy (although to be fair, sometimes the teens move do around a lot, which can make them tricky to count). It's a bit harder to identify the changes I want to see as a result of my program, and then accurately measure those changes.

The Programming Guidelines ask us to "Engage in youth-driven, evidence-based evaluation and outcome measurement." I'm not quite there yet. As I mentioned in my post about our weekly drop-in, we've been working with participants in that program to identify priorities, and now we're moving towards evaluations that will measure whether those priorities are being met. But it's still a work in progress.

What I have gotten better at is working with community partners to create evaluations for programs. For example, we regularly work collaborate with Year Up to build their students' information and digital literacy skills. Before each workshop, we meet with Year Up staff to make sure that we'll be teaching the skills they want participants to gain. Collaborating with partners on our evaluations and learning from them about their own evaluation methods has made a huge difference in the quality of our evaluations overall.

At Year Up, I give the students pre- and post-tests to see how much our classes are moving the needle on desired skills and knowledge. We send Year Up staff an early draft of the tests (same questions for both) and incorporate their feedback in the final evaluation tool. Seems foolproof, right?

Well, here's a graph I made from the results of an earlier incarnation of those pre- and post-tests. Can you spot the problem(s)?

Library jargon. Words like "catalog" and "keywords" muddied the results, because (especially before the workshop) students didn't really know what those words meant. My vague question about whether "all the world's knowledge" is available via Google wasn't great either. Students figured that the answer was probably "no"--because of course librarians hate Google. (I don't, honest!) As I phrased it, the question didn't measure the movement I saw in their understanding of WHY a lot of the world's best info isn't available on Google. (Which as we all know is about money, honey.)

This wasn't the best evaluation tool. The next time I created a survey for Year Up, I drastically rewrote the questions. But that's okay! This survey did measure some outcomes--e.g., a huge increase in library resource knowledge among participants. And I learned some pitfalls to avoid next time.

I'm a big fan of giving myself permission to fail, and I take myself up on it a lot--especially when it comes to measuring outcomes. The important thing is to learn and adjust, and get better data next time.

Are you a maker? With all the emphasis on high tech gadgetry, it can make you feel a little left behind if you can't swing a 3D printer on your budget or lack the skills to wield some soldering equipment.

But, like the science-technology-engineering- math portmanteau STEM which added an "A" added to encompass art and become STEAM, the expansion of the "maker" trend to incorporate arts and crafts as a creative and productive use of time and space is a step towards recognizing the wide variety of material production that libraries have long been supporting. And it's an easy way to get in on the making trend with supplies you likely have laying around.

We've had success with this sort of low-stress, drop-in crafting at our library.

Fairhope, a top-notch public library in south Alabama, coined the term "crafterfnoon" for this sort of activity, which I am appropriating.

Don't have a dedicated makerspace? Crafternooning can take place from a cart, as Shannon Miller RTed:

Last month at the Library Technology Conference, I heard middle school librarian Jen Legatt talking about starting her makerspace with jigsaw puzzles and origami paper...so expand your thinking about making. Any space that gets people interacting and collaborating around a constructive activity works!

So, your first questions might be, “Who is this? And why is he writing here?” Good questions. Let’s start there. My name is Miguel Figueroa and I work at the American Library Association on a new Center for the Future of Libraries initiative. As I’ve begun my work over the past year, I’ve been focused on three objectives:

• Identifying emerging trends relevant to libraries and the communities they serve
• Promoting futuring and innovation techniques to help librarians and library professionals shape their future
• Building connections with experts and innovative thinkers to help libraries address emerging issues

And if those objectives sound pretty obvious to you, I’m not surprised. I know that YALSA members, by the nature of your work and your audience, tend to be on trend, innovative, and outward-looking. In fact, over the past year YALSA members have been incredibly helpful in suggesting trends for me to explore, including Collective Impact, Connected Learning, and Emerging Adulthood.

Today, as part of “30 Days of Teen Programming,” I want to try to connect teen programming to an important and emerging view of the library as platform.

David Weinberg’s excellent article, “The Library as Platform,” proposed the potential for the library to serve as a platform by leveraging its data and information resources for members of the community to build from. And John Palfrey, in his forthcoming book BiblioTech: Why Libraries Matter More Than Ever in the Age of Google, encourages libraries to become platforms for hacking – engaging large communities of people with diverse skills and perspectives to remake libraries and their communities using the resources, information, and data libraries make available.

Given these descriptions, it may be very easy for us to think about the library as platform as belonging to the realm of the digital, the networked, or the technology-driven.

But the library as platform is also helpfully described in the Aspen Institute’s “Rising to the Challenge: Re-envisioning Public Libraries” as one of three key assets libraries possess – People, Place, and Platform.

• The library’s People (librarians and library staff) connect users with resources and serve as conveners for learning and creation opportunities.
• The library’s physical and virtual Place accommodates a wide range of purposes including reading, communicating, learning, playing, meeting, and doing business.
• And the library’s Platform facilitates individuals’ and groups’ discovery, creation, curation, and sharing of knowledge and innovation alone and together.

2 Platform is the participatory environment that opens the library’s technology and resources to experts from the community with an emphasis on addressing the community’s varying and expanding set of needs. The Platform emphasizes the opportunity for users to serve and be served not only by librarians and library staff, but also by other users, a rotating cast of novices, experts, teachers, learners, and peers.

It is the Aspen Institute’s view of the library as Platform that leads me to think about programming. Programming is one of the best opportunities we have to make the library a participatory environment. Programming is responsive, hands-on, collaborative, and open. But the process of programming can also be onerous, requiring that we develop, plan, practice, promote, and execute a successful program for an assembled audience.

As others have pointed out, to develop relevant programming, it’s important to look outside the library to find out what other people know and pull those ideas into our programming. I wonder, as we are thinking about the library as platform, if relevant programming won’t soon require that we pull not just the idea but also the content, the planning, and the presentation from outside the library.

As I do my work trying to look to the future, I keep returning to Joi Ito’s Principles for the MIT Media Lab, especially the concept of “Pull Over Push.” Ito helped explain this in an interview with Wired magazine as “pull[ing] the resources from the network as you need them, as opposed to centrally stocking them and controlling them.”

In a world that is increasingly networked, informed, and distributed, we can’t afford to centrally stock and control programming. In the terms of the Aspen Institute’s report, this would only utilize the People and Place assets of the library. The future, instead, might have us shift our roles toward the facilitation or “pulling” of relevant content from the community and redeploying it for the community. The expert programming librarian would then be the individual who is best able to spot knowledge, creativity, or innovation from among our users and give it a space in our library’s programming. There might be infinite opportunities available to us when we find ways to leverage all three assets – People, Place, and Platform – in their appropriate roles in our library programs.

I know that libraries are already doing this, finding ways to be a participatory platform. I also know that it is not easy. It’s a set of skills that aren’t easy to master. How are you using programming to reposition the library as platform? What are the benefits you have experienced? What are the challenges you have faced? How can we learn together? I hope you will share your thoughts in the comments section below or via e-mail ([email protected]). I’m excited to continue learning from my YALSA colleagues who are on trend, innovative, and outward-looking.

Miguel Figueroa works in the Center for the Future of Libraries at the American Library Association. You can reach him at [email protected].

As a librarian, you probably see the impacts of programming every day. You know your work is important based on interactions with your teens. And they probably make it clear – through their words or behavior – when a particular program has hit or missed the mark.

But what if you had more than anecdotal evidence? What if you had data to tell you what works, what doesn’t, and why?

In December, ALA’s Public Programs Office released a first-of-its-kind research study to quantify the characteristics, audiences, outcomes and impacts of library programming. The National Impact of Library Public Programs Assessment (NILPPA) describes the current state of library programming and proposes an ambitious, eight-year research plan for further study. NILPPA also poses a number of questions, including: What counts as “success” in library programming? What impact does programming have on participants and communities? What skills must programming librarians hone to maximize impact and reach underserved communities?

But let’s back up for a moment. What is the Public Programs Office (PPO)? Located one story up from YALSA in ALA’s Chicago headquarters, PPO promotes cultural and community programming as an essential part of library service. Operating on grant funding, our 10-person staff offers professional development activities, programming resources, and grant opportunities to help libraries fill their role as community cultural centers — places of cultural and civic engagement where people of all backgrounds gather for reflection, discovery, participation and growth.

Library programming has changed since PPO was founded more than 20 years ago. Back then, support for library programs for adults was limited and fragile, and the title “programming librarian” was most likely to refer to someone in tech services. Today, there is a robust community of librarians whose job descriptions include the creation of programs for all ages.

The fast-changing nature of the library field is one motivation for the NILPPA study. We want libraries to have the knowledge and tools they need to successfully reach their communities through programming. We want to help libraries develop best practices to advance the field; enable them to “make the case” for funding and resources; and most importantly, foster support for lifelong learners of diverse backgrounds.

After the NILPPA report was published, we asked readers to weigh in with their own experiences on the NILPPA website, listservs and social media. We collected more than 170 comments – feedback that will help us decide where resources are needed most as we move into future phases of this project.

One question we asked – “What are your library’s greatest strengths and weaknesses in regard to programming?” – elicited several responses about teen programming. Below is a sampling:

“At [library name], our programming strengths are programs for children.  We can almost always get an audience and they are up for anything.  We still struggle to find audiences for tween and teen programs.”

“Our weakness is providing programming for the millennials. We have a lot of things for youth, but once they graduate we have nothing for them…”

“Strength - programs for younger children and families; Weakness - programs for middle school/teens…”

“Strengths: children's programming including story time and summer reading. There is great awareness of what is happening in the library regarding this age group.  Weaknesses: YA and Adult programming.  Our YA programming does not exist and we get limited participation in our adult programming attempts.  Our library is in an affluent area and there are many distractions for teens and adults outside the library.”

“Strength: all baby, kid, tween and teen programming. We bring it and they come. After school clubs for school-age kiddos is particularly hot these days. As is our monthly lunch-time book club hosted at the high school.”

“Strength: Lots of good programming for kids & teens (i.e. Children's Book Club, Teen Writing Club, SDC Storytime, etc.).  Weakness: Non adult programming (due to lack of interest).”

“Youth and Teen Services manage their programming themselves and balance staff time with program needs well.  Our Teen Librarian constantly looks for programs that will bring Teens into the Library.  We are looking to increase tech services available to them.  YS librarians reach out to schools, summer camps, and youth program organizers to increase our outreach to underserved youth.  Our membership of the [program name] brings every kindergarten class in [School District 1], [School District 2] and [School District 3] into the Library at least once a year for special programming.”

While at some libraries, teen programs appear to be thriving, others seem to struggle with this young adult demographic. Do these comments resonate with you? How is your situation similar or different? What is making your teen programming successful? Please share your reactions in the comments below. You can read the full report and comment at http://NILPPA.org.

YALSA’s Future of Teen Library Service report and the new Teen Programming Guidelines are so valuable to the Public Programs Office’s work in this area. We are eager to hear from you about how you are working with these resources as well.

You can also stay up-to-date on PPO programs and initiatives at our website, www.ProgrammingLibrarian.org, or sign up for a PPO listserv

The Teen Programming Guidelines discuss the physical spaces of hosting teen programs in their eighth guideline.  When YALSA released its Teen Space Guidelines in May 2012, I dove into the wealth of information that the guidelines provided.  My school was in a transition period where we gained an additional media center space that needed to be completely renovated.  Our original media center also needed some updating, so the Teen Space Guidelines was the perfect tool for me to use in approaching our spaces.

The first teen space guideline states, "Solicit teen feedback and input in the design and creation of the teen space." Librarians and media specialists should always take into consideration the community they serve.  I needed feedback on what our students wanted to see in our original space.  A simple Survey Monkey survey was all it took to gain valuable insight into layout, furniture, needs, and wants for our high school students.  With their advice, we were able to rearrange furnishings and incorporate a few new pieces to freshen up our original media center.  Students also suggested that we move our manga section closer to the circulation desk.  Manga books are cataloged in the 740s in the nonfiction collection.  In our media center, this happened to put them in a far corner of our space and hard to see from the circulation desk.  Not only are these super popular books that are checked out frequently, but they became hot commodities that were frequently stolen.  (We do not have a book security system.)  After moving these books closer to the circulation desk, students have easier access to them, and we do not lose near as many to theft.  This also allowed us to promote the books more easily, which is also one of the guidelines in Teen Space Guidelines.  Teen feedback can never be underestimated.

In renovating our newly acquired media space, the main goal was to create a comprehensive digital lab that allowed us to add tools to "link" education with technology in a more efficient manner.  Thus our school's LiNK was created.  "Provide furniture and technology that is practical yet adaptive" is another guideline for teen spaces.  In creating the LiNK, I knew we needed mobile furniture that would allow students and teachers to work as individuals, small groups, and entire classes.  Teen Space Guidelines also states that teen spaces should "be technology rich and include both stationary and portable technology."  We are able to do that by having 21 Windows desktop computers available, as well as 35 Chromebooks, and 30 iPads.  Students have many technology options for researching and creating. Here is what we were able to accomplish as we took into consideration the Teen Space Guidelines:

Panorama of LiNK from entrance - couch pieces are sectional and movable

Panorama of LiNK from back

Desktop computer area; student artwork on walls

Collaborative table near dry erase boards that we made with plexiglass and paint

Teacher using interactive flat panel for demonstration to class

Teacher assisting group in another collaborative area.
Students LOVE the sofas with tablet arms, and they are on wheels to easily move around.

The Teen Space Guidelines are essential to librarians as they consider their library's physical space. Teens need spaces that allow them to grow intellectually and socially, and these guidelines will ensure that our libraries are able to meet their needs.

In the Fall 2014 YALSA journal (vol 13, number 1), I published an article about creating outcome measurement tools collaboratively with staff and participants for a teen program (Measuring Outcomes for Teen Technology Program, p. 25). The program I discussed is the Teen Tech Squad, tech workshops for teens led by teens at Hennepin County Library.

When I began working with the teen librarians to identify outcomes and measurement tools, an important step was relying on the expertise of the teen librarians. I did not assume that I knew what teens were doing in the workshops or what skills they were gaining. I relied on the expertise of the teen librarians to identify these things. I worked with them to make sure that they understood what outcomes are and we collaboratively created the outcomes and survey questions. We also took the time to get teens opinions on the questions we asked so we knew our questions would be understandable and effective. I empowered staff to take the lead on implementing the evaluation and continue to offer my assistance as they discover what is working and what isn’t.

This approach to evaluation is called “developmental evaluation,” a concept developed by program evaluation consultant Michael Quinn Patton. Developmental evaluation differs from traditional evaluation in many ways. For example, one way is the role of the evaluator. Traditional evaluation positions the evaluator as an outsider from the program they are evaluating while developmental evaluation positions evaluation as a job duty of the program deliverers. Developmental evaluation is most suited to programs that are innovative and adaptable; that is, not static.

Why this is important is that I see a need for libraries to have an in-house evaluation expert. It may seem easier (although more expensive) to hire an outside firm to evaluate. What library staff miss out when they do this is learning how to evaluate on their own. Knowing how to evaluate means that you can work evaluation into the biggest and smallest projects at your library. It can help you design projects intentionally, evaluate them, and decide what should continue, what should change and what can come to an end.

YALSA’s tenth teen programming guideline directs library staff to, “Engage in youth-driven, evidence-based evaluation and outcome measurement.” Now that we have measurement tools in place and used teen feedback to develop the tools, our teen workers are charged with using them and evaluating their results to improve workshops. Our library staff also use measurement tools to evaluate our teen workers’ experiences and improve the project.

I’m very lucky to be sharing my experience in developing the teen tech evaluation tools at this year’s Libraries Leaders Summit at the 2015 Computers in Libraries conference in Washington, D.C.  (April 27-29). If you’ll be there, I’d love to talk to you about evaluations. If you can’t make it, there are many resources you and your colleagues can access to learn more about creating evaluations. The Research and Institute for Public Libraries summer conference is focusing on outcomes and how to measure library impact. There are also a few books I’ve listed below. Finally, reach out to nearby universities to find out if they offer trainings for measuring outcomes -- I caught the evaluation bug after attending a one-day training at the nearby University of St. Thomas. It’s great to be able to talk to expert evaluators about your library’s work and get their feedback. Remember YALSA’s seventh teen programming guideline, “Participate in targeted and ongoing training to build skills and knowledge relating to programming.” You may intuitively know what works and doesn’t work about your teen programs. It’s also important to evaluate in a more formal manner to get new insights.

Dynamic Youth Services through Outcome-Based Planning and Evaluation, by E Dresang, M. Gross, L Edmonds, Holt. ALA Editions, 2006.

Evaluating Teen Services and Programs, by S. Flowers. ALA Editions, 2012.

Getting Started with Evaluation, by P. Hernon, R. Dugan and J. Matthews. ALA Editions, 2014.

Johannah Genett is the resource services division manager for Hennepin County Library. She can be reached at [email protected].

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.

Many libraries across the country are offering great STEAM programs for teens; but are these programs as accessible and interesting to diverse teens as we would like them to be? Teens identified as underrepresented minorities--i.e., African-American, American Indian, Hispanic/Latino, and Pacific Islander teens--routinely score below their white peers’ in math and science. It’s not about aptitude, though; it’s about whether these teens have adequate access to learning opportunities that prepare and inspire them to pursue and succeed in science, technology, engineering, and math. That’s where the library can step in with informal learning opportunities that engage all teens in STEAM.

To make STEAM programs accessible and motivating, directly involve teens in the process of “doing” STEAM. Hands-on learning is great, as it emphasizes that every person is capable of doing science. Even better is collaborative work, which allows teens to work together to create a product greater than they could accomplish on their own; this is often called “citizen science.” Hands-on activities also allow teens to prioritize the things they enjoy and find interesting in a program.

Library Landmarks Highlights Map

Program Length: 60-90 minutes

Supplies:

• map of the library
• digital cameras, tablets, and/or smartphones
• cords to transfer photos to the computer
• computer with an internet connection
• free Google account
• account with a web-based photo-hosting site (Google+, WordPress, and Flickr are options; talk to your IT department about the best option for you)
• cords to connect the computer to a projector

Program Itinerary:

After welcoming teens to the program, share a map of the library. What is typically shown on the map? What would teens rather have on a map of the library to show their friends the best parts of the library? Allow teens to brainstorm their ideal library map landmarks, then send them into the library with cameras--digital cameras, tablets, or smartphones--to capture these sites. While teens are out taking photos, log in to Google and any other relevant accounts in the program space.

When the teens return, upload their photos to the photo-hosting site of your choice; make sure each photo has a static URL.

In another window, go to Google Maps. Underneath the search bar in the upper left, click “My maps.” Click the “Create” icon that pops up. Give this new map a title, then use zoom functions to focus in on the library building. Make sure the entire library is within the screen view. Add markers to the map to correspond to the locations the teens photographed. (To add a marker to the map, click the “Add marker” button underneath the search bar. Then click the mouse on the point of the map you intend to mark.) After a marker is placed, name the place before clicking the photo icon. To add a photo, paste the proper image’s URL in the “Image URL” function. Repeat this process for all of the photos the teens took in the library. Have books available for teens to browse while they wait their turn to add their photos to the map (see list below).

When the map is complete, project it onto a screen or wall so that teens can share their library landmark highlights with one another. With any luck, teens will learn about places in the library they didn’t know previously. Since the map is hosted online, share the map’s URL with attendees; they can share it with friends who may be coming to the library. Share the link on library social media, too, to give other customers a chance to explore the library from a teen’s point of view.

Books on Display:

• Titles from the Building STEAM with Día 6th grade to 8th grade list
• Titles from YALSA’s Teens’ Top Ten
• Titles from in-house or state awards lists

For more information on Building STEAM with Día and the importance of making STEAM programs and services accessible and interesting to diverse youth, check out the free archive of the webinar Building STEAM with Día: The Whys and Hows to Getting Started. The full Building STEAM with Día toolkit will be available in summer 2015.

Amy Koester is Youth & Family Program Coordinator at Skokie (IL) Public Library. She blogs regularly as the Show Me Librarian, and she has written articles and given presentations across the country about STEAM programs and services for youth. Amy is authoring the Building STEAM with Día toolkit.

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.

Name: StoryCorps.me
Platform: iOS and Android
Cost: Free

Several years ago, YALSA Blog covered the original StoryCorps app, but recently StoryCorps released a new app that offers some great new features. The app allows you to create an account, but you can also proceed without an account if you would prefer. Once you make that decision, you can get started with your first oral history right away.

When you get started with your first interview, you can opt to either start recording right away or prepare your interview questions in advance. If you pick the option to prepare your interview first, you are offered several tips on best practices for conducting this time of interview. These are very approachable for those who are new to interviewing and cover the basic protocols that should be followed in a way that lets novices feel like experts very quickly. You are then prompted with the three preparatory steps for the interview: customizing a question list, selecting who you will interview, and setting the length of your interview.

When you are setting up your list of questions, you can choose from suggested questions on a variety of topics ranging from family heritage to serious illness or you can write your own questions. Adding one of the suggested questions to your interview is as simple as clicking the plus icon and once you have selected several questions, you can view your list and reorder the questions to suit your needs. You can also save your questions and then go back to editing them later.

The next step on the app is setting who your interview subject will be and this is the only one of the three steps that requires an account. Once you have done this, you can then set the length of your interview. The app allows for interviews of 15 minutes, 30 minutes, or 40 minutes in length, but you can also say that you don’t know how long the interview will last if you would prefer, though it is worth noting that the app will stop recording after 45 minutes. Even if you select an interview length shorter than 45 minutes, you can continue recording for longer, so this step doesn’t have to be too much cause for concern.

Using the app, you can set up multiple interviews before you record any of them, which can be useful if you are planning a single event where you will interview multiple people or if you are using a single (perhaps library-owned) device for multiple users. As you are conducting your interview, you will be presented with the questions one at a time and can swipe through them at your own pace. Once you have finished your interview, you will be prompted to take a photo with your interview subject. You will then be given the option to share it on the StoryCorps website and archive it with the Library of Congress for posterity. You can also delete your interviews after completing them if you would like.

This app has a lot of potential for use in library programming. Whether you want to plan a Bring Your Own Device workshop to introduce teens with iOS and Android devices to this app and the best practices for conducting oral history interviews or you want to host an on-site interviewing event to help teens find mentors and become more civically involved, this free app is a great way to achieve several of the goals in YALSA Teen Programming Guidelines 4.0. Because the app allows users to have so much autonomy in creating their interview questions and selecting who to interview, it is a great opportunity to bring in all types of teens with all sorts of interests and they can each make a contribution to local history while learning how to conduct interviews. The app is already very useful, but if you find bugs as you use it, feel free to submit comments; it is in public beta and they are actively soliciting input from users.

Have a suggestion for App of the Week? Let us know. And find more great Apps in the YALSA Blog's App of the Week Archive.

As the chair of YALSA's Programming Guidelines taskforce, I'm excited to announce that the Teen Programming Guidelines are now available! The guidelines cover all aspects of programming, from idea to evaluation. They were developed in alignment with The Future of Library Services For and With Teens: A Call to Action, and with input from YALSA members. Our hope is that these guidelines will be a valuable tool for you in your library work with teens, both as how-to guide and as an advocacy tool.

To celebrate, YALSAblog is hosting 30 Days of Teen Programming, a month-long series of posts to help get us all started thinking about the guidelines in concrete terms. Each post will tie into one of the ten guidelines with examples, ideas, best practices, or problem-solving.

We'd love to hear from you as well. How do the guidelines reflect the work you're already doing? How do you hope to use the guidelines in your library?