Sunday, March 26, 2006

Teen Book Review Program

I have been working on a young adult project at work, in an attempt to bring some teens into the library. In my own head, such a thing sounds like a piece of cake - the town has a nice library with a good YA collection, and the town has teenagers - should work, right?

The first big hurdle was coming up with a program that won't cost us any money - we don't have a budget for YA programming, at this point. The second jump was coming up with a program that will be fairly self-sustaining and somewhat long-term - ie, not a one-shot-deal.

After putting together the new teen blog, Teen Spot, I thought it might be a good idea to come up with a teen blog that's a bit more "interactive" of sorts. I was also toying with the idea of having the YA crowd write book reviews (because though the reviews I read for collection development are "fine," they are definitely NOT all that useful for teens themselves) - I put the concepts together, and voila, Teen Spot Reviews!

So far, I have spent A LOT of time on this - the blogs alone took hours to get "right," as I wanted them to be somewhat unique in look. I have tossed numerous e-mails back and forth with the librarian and English Dept Head at the local high school, hoping they could spread the word, and maybe offer some extra credit to students who participate. I've made posters and flyers, and crafted a consent form, available online, in the library, and at the high school...

To date, I have one person signed up. But, I did hear that the school newspaper is doing a story on the program, so hopefully word will spread, and some kids will come in.

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