PLA 2010 Conference: Spicing Up Teen Services
RSSBy SLJ Staff -- School Library Journal, 03/25/2010
What's the best way to jumpstart your teen program? That's easy, says Shari Haskins, teen services manager of Wyoming’s Riverton Branch Library. Just find out what kids want. That's one of the practical insights that
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Riverton Branch Library. |
When Haskins first arrived at the small rural library, in 2000, there wasn't much happening teen-wise. But now "we have 45 teens a day"—between the hours of 3:30 p.m. and 5 p.m.—“and that's a lot of teens, especially for a community our size,” she adds.
What's led to the biggest spike in teen traffic for this library, located on the Wind River Indian Reservation? Gaming. Thanks to the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 and action-oriented games like Killzone 2, Call of Duty, and Halo Wars, Haskins has seen a surge in young adult visitors, especially among teenage boys who make up 95 percent of all gamers.
So what don't kids dig? "Kids think Twitter is for old people," says Haskins's colleague Holly Hendrix, who assists with teen services. And teens don't want to receive text messages from librarians. But librarians need not despair. Kids are still crazy about manga and graphic novels, which Haskins purchases with a sizeable chunk of her collections budget.
