There were staff from Whangarei, Auckland, North Shore, Rodney and Manukau libraries – all sharing knowledge and learning from each other. The agenda was fairly packed:
- an open forum about teen web pages (Whangarei, North Shore and Manukau are all in the process of updating their sites);
- Manukau and Rodney reporting back on their teen reading challenges;
- Rodney reporting on their Montana Poetry Day Poetry Aloud Competition;
- a discussion on teen reading trends;
- a discussion about building relationships with schools, with Liz, librarian from Whangarei Girls High; and managing teens on computers;
- and Jayne Gutry our professional development adviser also presented, via teleconference, a paper on the Dealing with Youth training Auckland City Libraries had implemented.
From all of those sessions, on such different topics, it seems to me that there were two major learnings:
- Communication
- Connection
The success of the programmes/challenges/competitions – all came down to good communication with the target market.
The success of the relationship between public libraries and schools – communication and personal connections
Jayne Gutry spoke about some workshops delivered to four ACL libraries earlier this year focussed on dealing with youth. Staff at Panmure, Glen Innes, Onehunga & Mt Roskill libraries had expressed concerns about youth behaviour in their libraries. The workshop focussed on stages of adolescent development and explored ways to communicate with youth. Staff said that they found the workshop to be useful and have since started to get to know youth in their libraries. Here is a link to Jayne's presentation
If the whole team communicates the same message – if you build personal connections with teens (or homeless people) – there is little chance for troublesome behaviour to brew.
How to keep on top of reading trends? Communication and connection – ask your teen customers.
The value of the day? We want it to continue. We value the chance to communicate with each other and to make personal connections with others in the field.
What do we want of it? We’re investigating the possibilities of setting up a list-serv for teens librarians (including secondary school librarians). There is an existing schoolibs list serv, and a kidzlist one… but nothing specific for teens.
What else? The lack of professional support for our specialist area. Many years ago there was a ChYPS SIG – Children, and Young People’s and Schools’ Special Interest Group – part of NZLIA (now LIANZA). That is now in abeyance. The ChYPS SIG used to hold annual conferences – alternating between children and youth. It was at one of these – ‘Sounding Off’ in 1995 – that my passion for working with this age group was cemented. It’s why I’m still here. As far as I can tell, the last conference was ‘Absolutely Positively YA 97’, held in Wellington. If anyone is interested, I have the information for these, and the 93 Conference in my desk drawer (I inherited some of the papers, promise).
I could give you all the facts and figures that were shared. But it’s not really what was important from the day. Manix (Manukau’s reading challenge) goes from strength to strength because they communicate with the audience, because they have connections within their community.
- Communication
- Connection
That’s what I came away with. Those were the messages that were reinforced.
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