I have to admit I have young adults on the brain. Having just recently (last week in fact) been given the opportunity to take charge of Y.A. programming at my branch, I am feeling excited and motivated. My first order of business has been the summer reading program. Unfortunately, I am also feeling lost and unsure. It's not my lack of knowledge of young adult titles that's leaving me confused. I see which titles go out frequently, and I can always refer to book lists for help. This class gives me a great excuse to read titles I otherwise might not have gotten around to.
What's stressing me out is how I will get teens in to my branch, where we have never had a young adult presence. Last week I went to four area schools and the children's hospital at Bellevue, dropping off materials for summer reading. At all of these places I met with enthusiastic administrators and teachers, encouraging them to arrange class visits with me to check out books and get prizes. Although I have not yest heard back from any of them, I hope that I will before long. And I have managed to get a dozen teens to sign up at the branch, most of them were lured in by the grand prize of an iPod Nano. Whether or not they will keep coming back to the branch I don't know. My goal is to improve Y.A. services, but what if I never get any teens in the branch to see what I do?
I just want to prove that we can have a teen presence, even is I had to constantly ask them to be quiet. I'm envious of those of you in the class who are having to ask teens to leave or be annoyed by whatever the sword trading game is that came up in Monday's class. At least they're coming in noticeable numbers. My hope is that through this class I can get some ideas and make a whole lot of progress.
