I’ve been working with 16 dedicated Idaho public and school librarians in an online class sponsored by YALSA to learn how teens’ use of technology to play, learn, and create improves their text-based literacy skills. This group met in Boise on September 28 and will get together again after the online portion of the course. The Idaho Commission for Libraries is partnering with the Young Adult Library Services Association to offer this training.

So far we have read, discussed and become much more familiar with the tools and techniques teens use. Everyone is now working on a framework for a program or service at each library to support teen technology-based print literacy. One of the first things accomplished at the face to face meeting was to set up Instant Messaging accounts at www.meebo.com. We’ve also set up MySpace accounts and dug into Flickr, LibraryThing, Wikis, Seocond Life and much more. After setting up a MySpace account (and pimping it a little) and staying up until 2 a.m. loading photos on Flickr last weekend, I could feel myself getting geekier by the minute! And, I was having fun using all of these tools.

I think getting library staff members to feel comfortable and even enjoy doing all of this is a real key to providing better service for digital natives. I hope my classmates will chime in with their thoughts. We’ve been having some great discussions on the class wiki and I’d like keep the discussion going here. We’re also hoping to do a podcast in November about what we’ve learned from the class and to talk about our plans for new programs and services. Stay tuned!

See

In case you're new to wikis:
- A wiki is an easily editable web page – no knowledge of HTML is required

- Wikis can be as open to editing as one would like

- Wiki software is usually free or low cost

- Wikis are truly collaborative, allowing several people to create and edit content on one page

If you're not familiar with wikis, here's a great one to get started with: Library Success, a Best Practice Wiki: http://www.libsuccess.org/ 

“This wiki was created to be a one-stop-shop for great ideas and information for all types of librarians. All over the world, librarians are developing successful programs and doing innovative things that no one outside of their library knows about. There are lots of great blogs out there sharing information about the profession, but there is no one place where all of this information is collected and organized."

"If you've done something at your library that you consider a success, please write about it in the wiki or provide a link to outside coverage. If you have materials that would be helpful to other librarians, add them to the wiki. Basically, if you know of anything that might be useful to other librarians (including useful websites), this is the place to put it. I hope this wiki will be a venue where people can share ideas with one another and where librarians can learn to replicate the successes of other libraries."

This wiki is not run by any commercial entity and does not represent any commercial interests. There's some great information about services to teens (under services to specific groups) and tons of other great resources. I got on the site for the first time last week and added information about The Scoop. It took me a little while to get the hang of it, but it was fun once I figured it out. 

We spent some time at a staff meeting talking about how Idaho libraries could share their success stories and the things they were trying with digital natives in their communities. We thought about creating a new Idaho wiki, but I think it would be nice to utilize this tool and share what we're doing here with others around the country as well as pick up some of their great ideas. What do you think?

Posted with permission from Greg Liken @ Meridian District Library. Be sure to check out their blog!

Librarians at Boise State University have the right idea. They've got their philosophy of service posted on a sign right out front: "Questions answered here, even the silly ones." How cool is that?

Imagine you're 18 (or 35, or 50), exploring your college campus for the first time. Imagine the impact that one simple sign would have on your impression of librarians. How great to think that instead of the scowling man in tweed you expected, you found a gracious staff of librarians inside, eager to help.

I've been thinking about that sign today as Meridian public schools begin their year. We're down the road from both the middle school and high school; so for many Meridian teens, back to school means afternoons at the public library. And I got to wondering what sort of "sign" those kids see when they walk into our building.

Do we brag about our service? Do we invent new ways to help? Or do we brace ourselves for the rowdy onslaught and shake our fists at the first mention of MySpace? I looked around our building and was encouraged by what I found--clean, well-lit study booths; large tables; big, comfy chairs; nothing besides the usual "no skateboarding in the flowerbed" signs to make us seem inhospitable. But when the teens rolled in after their first day of classes, I felt embarrassed that I'd done nothing to welcome them back. So I stood and greeted as many of them as I could. With so little forethought, the best welcome sign I could offer was a librarian's smile.

And I felt pretty good about that small gesture--until dinner. My regular restaurant had a new, hand-scrawled sign on the door: "Restroom for paying customers only." The convenience store down the block had two declarations of its own: "Two students in store at a time," and "Leave backpacks outside"--signs that left no doubt how these businesses felt about the students' return.

Suddenly my small gesture wasn't nearly enough. Our library is in a great place--has a tremendous opportunity--to offer our neighborhood teens engaging and inspiring service, free of the "paying customer" mentality. We're not there yet. But we could begin taking small steps today, and make long-range plans to give incredible service when the students return next fall.

We wouldn't even need a sign. After all, we shouldn't need one to make our service known--our reputation should scream it. --Greg Likins, Information Desk

A highlight of the newly remodeled Jerome Public Library has to be the new teen area. The library now has a dedicated space for teens, something that was lacking before the expansion. This area has a new “sound dome” where teens can select--by remote control-- from among  300 CDs and enjoy listening to their choices under the dome where the sound stays put.

The photo at the right shows (left to right) me and Erin McCusker along with Tina Cherry, Jerome Public Library’s Teen Advisor, posing as young adults under the sound dome. How cool is that? The library’s teen advisory group funded the sound dome and other improvements in the new space, including a light-up reader board and new displays and posters.

Tina reports that the space-age, silver platinum-colored bar height bistro is pretty cool. The hydraulic, adjustable scoop stools sit around the table under the "parabolic sound dome". The music is isolated as it is directed down through a speaker under the dome. Traditional headphones tend to get lost or broken and the sound dome just looks fun. The local Optimist Club is donating some money to help the teens buy more music for the 300-CD changer sound system. They are also actively looking for other donations, so download your CDs onto your iPod or MP3 and send them your CDs. They like old stuff too (or they gladly accept checks).

The teens and staff are working to add a fibor optic night sky to give the impression of a space skylight and are raising funds for a new sign for the area dubbed "The Flight Deck" to match their space-age feel.

I'd love to see more photos and ideas for teen spaces from other libraries!