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We so not serve our young adults as I wish we could. Being in a small school community, most students are involved in everything, with very little time for extras. But, I do have a good relationship with the middle school students who come in. They are teaching me to play their online games! I am planning a movie night around Halloween for them. Anyone have a good idea for a scary movie appropriate for middle school age? I have a couple of these guys who volunteer for small tasks around the library while waiting for a computer. Our 4-H group volunteers each year to decorate the library Christmas tree. This year they will be rewarded with hot chocolate and cookies.

We do not hire teens to work at the library.

As for collections, I really am not very knowlegable about our young adult collection. One more thing to add to my list of things to do. Oh, my.

leldred springville We offer a summer reading program and a winter reading program. I try to plan interesting activities for the kids, but I am going to form a youth advisory board to aid in ownership of future programs. I want their imput rather than plan something and hope they will come. We had a mystery party a year ago and I told the kids to plan a murder in the library of course they murdered the librarian Brittanica Webster and we had to figure out who did it (it was the custodian Monique Monet because she was fed up with the mess the librarian left all the time) The kids were great and the whole family got involved in interviewing the suspects. I know it would not have been as good if I planned the whole thing. We also use teen volunteers and have had good luck with them.

When I started in the Ellsworth Library, 15 months ago, a teen had previously been hired for Saturday hours. She was a shy girl who hid when people came in. All she would do was check in and out books. Then the boy friend appeared on scene and they laid around the childrens area on pillows. I finally couldn't stand it any longer - I told her there was work to be done, she was hired by the city to get it done. I started giving her assignments every Saturday of things she could do. You should see the difference in her now! She is very polite, meets the patrons with a smile and does the work assigned. I hope I have made a conscientious worker out of her for future jobs. I would recommend her. She also keeps me up to date in what is new in the teen world.

I also have made up forms and leave on the circ desk for teens to write in names of books, authors and DVDs they would like. They seem to know when an author has a new book out. Everytime I buy books, I have several forms to go through for my buyers list.

When I started, the childrens and teen books were shelved next to each other. I have moved the childrens books to the other side of the Libary and have made a new teen area in the YA section with table and chairs, board or card games to play (mostly donated by the local thrift shop) and new TV, DVD & video player. Some use this area while waiting for the computers, but some come in just to sit and enjoy. They are usually very respectful of the other patrons, being quiet, speaking in low voices.

Programing is non existant at this time but hope to change in the near future. I have several mystery scripts to start with.

I have recently started to order books for our young adult section. The young adult section needs to be weeded and updated. I would love to provide them with their own space but we don't have the space or money to do so at this time. Right now we don't offer any services or programming for young adults.
I have had a few teens help with decorating for different holidays. I also have had them help with crafts during summer reading.
It would be great to have a volunteer. I can use all the help I can get.

We do not have much in any of those areas for the teens. We only have a few that come in regularly. They use the computer and do some homework. Our collection is something I am working on. It is very outdated. We have had no programs since I have been here. Again, that is something I hope to change.
We are lacking in all those areas in our library. The kids that come in use the computer and do homework. Our collection is very outdated but I am changing that. Of course with the budget there is not much to go around. We seem to have to keep the adults that do read in new books all the time. I am trying to update the teen section. I just have to fiqure out how to get the kids to read that do come in and I hope to find something to draw more kids into the library. We are are so wide spread with our schools (three towns) that they seem to utilize other libraries. Well, the ones that read anyway. I know a girl in town that loves to read but does not utilize this library. Part of it is our outdated collection and part of it is the older librarian that thinks every kid should read books like Little house on the Prarie. Some how I wiil be working toward drawing those kid in the library with some kind of programming and some new books. We do have a couple of home schoolers that will help out. We have a girl that we did hire when the older library was recuperating from surgery. She helped put books away, checked out books and helped put some books into the computer. She does and excellant job. She did help out with a story hour as a volunteer.

What a great idea to get in touch with teachers to arrange for students to serve at the library. I also liked that article with teen section that had the beads.

We have public access computers and the young adults are the biggest users in the summer time. We don't see them as often during the school year because each high school student is given a lap top computer to use in school and at home during the school year. We have the Harry Potter series, Stephenie Meyer series, Maximum Ride books by James Patterson, the King of Hell graphic novels, R.L. Stine collections and Undercover Girl series to name a few of the most popular. Most of our teen readers are into fantasy books. We have not done any special programming for them, but would like to try something yet this fall if there is time. I think the younger teens would be more apt to get involved. We do not hire teens or anyone else in our library, it is a one person operation. I have had some teen volunteers help with the summer reading program; pre-school story time and one young man helped with the weeding process. He also is a good source for suggestions on books and authors to order. He knows the book sites to look up titles in the series. He uses the internet a lot in the summer, but he is also an avid reader.

We do not have any programming for young adults in our community. It seems they are busy with sports,music and drama. The school really keeps them busy. We also do not have any volunteers but would like to have some. I like the suggestion of contacting the confirmation class for community service. We don't have the money to hire a teen and would not need one for enough hours to make it worth their time. The grocery store or another town is where they go if they want a paying job.

I'd have to say the teens are my favorite. We have a great junior fiction and non-fiction section. Picking out junior fiction books is so much fun, because I enjoy reading junior fiction. My teens help me with the popular authors. I always have a couple of teens asking for different books.
The teens in our area are sooooo nice. They will come to my story hour programs and help the little ones with the crafts-without my asking! The school has a program in which the teens need service hours. I alway have half a dozen different students doing their service projects at the library. I have them process books, clean shelves, organize books on the shelves and even make promotional flyers.
Now that I've hired an assistant, we are going to have a teen advisory board and we are going to have both a youth's summer reading program and a teen's summer reading program. The majoriity of users in our library is under 20 years old, so it will be good to have strong teen programming.
We also did a scrapbooking program which was very successful. It did surprise me, though, how lacking the kids were in patience and artistic ability.
We do not hire teens at present.

Sharon, We have had good luck with boy scouts, cubs and girl scouts and brownies using our library for a meeting from time to time. They like to reserve our computers for research in order to earn a badge in a particular area. There is also a library awareness badge the girl scouts can earn, that takes several weeks and when they are done they know their way around the library. I also check with the school english department to see if they have any needs or would like to come down to the library to learn what we can do for them and get them used to using the library, Linda Eldred Springville