libraries

This summer PPLD has the wonderful opportunity to participate in the Summer Work Experience Program through the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. This program was developed to give young adults ages 16-24 valuable work experience in high-demand fields. For many of the young adults participating in this program, this is their first job and their first opportunity to gain work experience.

There's a rampant philosophy of sorts running around libraries these days concerning teens. Plan programming that's just for fun and once they're in the door they'll pick up some books and be back. The East Teen Center has been open for about a year and a half and I was afraid that the ETC was proving this mantra to be false. For the most part I see teens who come to the teen center to read and to study and then I see teens who come in to play video games. I don't often see the two cross these invisible lines. In fact, I was rather disheartened to see comments from the last ETC survey like, "get the geeks out of here" when asked how we could make the ETC better. I'm also not sure if that comment was calling the readers and studiers "geeks" or vice-versa :)

Spoiler Alert

Please note, this blog is most definitely full of spoilers so if you haven't read these books yet, please do so before continuing with this post.

Last Saturday was the Colorado Teen Literature Conference in Denver, CO. Attending were 300 teachers, librarians and teens. I'm always surprised at just how many teenagers actually come to this conference. Get up early on a Saturday to discuss literature with your teachers and librarians, what? I'm not sure that I would have been such a diligent student when I was that young.

For a while now, I have felt guilty for not having a professional blog. I consider myself a creative and forward-thinking librarian and while my library has had a teen blog and I read several blogs daily for my own professional development, I have resisted starting my own blog for rather lame and slightly self-deprecating reasons. Finally, I have decided to stop thinking of a blog as an option but rather as a professional necessity. So, what do I do and what should I write about?