I was amazed and inspired by the Judy Macaluso article heralding the success of the "We Empower Teens" program in Ocean County, NJ. The sheer accomplishment of pulling off such a large event involving so many details was impressive in itself, but the magnitude of it's influence on the teens and adults who were equally empowered by the program and it's lasting effects is dynamic!
While working on the "Talk to Teens" project for class I was surprised and disappointed to learn that neither public library in my area has a librarian specifically skilled to support teen interests, collection development or the teen room present in each library. When I inquired about speaking to the librarian that serves teens the response at both libraries was that the staff is small and they do not employ a separate teen librarian-I am sure that is a budget related decision and although it's a shame I can understand the reasoning. What I could not understand however was why neither library has a teen advisory board or any teen members on their regular boards. Both librarians expressed frustration with my questioning and argued that teens are not interested in being on boards, one librarian went as far as to say that "teenagers think libraries are for geeky kids and don't feel strongly enough to speak up about the library".
This made ME frustrated and sad, it also made me think back to the Peter Zollo description of teens needing "indi-filiation". The need for "individuality and affiliation", teens wanting to stand out in a crowd-having a voice and fresh ideas; but just enough to be recognized as unique rather than markedly different...This is what I felt the "We Empower Teens" program addressed, and it serves as a powerful model for anyone trying to reach teens. What was so amazing was the organizers' ability to bring together diverse groups of teens, all with unique backgrounds and interests and rally them together in a common cause and inspiring them to want to be leaders-this ability to get them to feel comfortable enough to step out and try something different, to meet new people, to LEAD!
I am not giving up at the local library here, I don't think it's fair to assume that teens are not interested in what goes on at the library- I doubt they've been asked in a serious manner...my hunch is that rather than making any enemies at my libraries it might be better to go at it from the other angle. The last statement by Macaluso was that through the program the entire library community realized that when "WE EMPOWER TEENS - THEY EMPOWER US!" and if this message can be passed on to the reticent librarians maybe they will be willing to give it a(nother) try...
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Your findings about your local libraries are not uncommon, but that doesn't mean change is impossible. It usually takes one person who infiltrates and educates.
Librarians make assumptions about teens. They don't ask teens directly what they are interested in but assume that teens act in certain ways and are interested in certain things. In this class I hope people learn that the only way to know for sure is to talk to the teens.
While it is great to have a full-time, or even part-time, staff person devoted to teen services, what's equally important is to have all staff in the library willing to empower and be empowered. Teens would love to have staff dedicated to them. But they would also love to have librarians who are interested in hearing what the teens have to say.
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