The Librarian’s Creed: Sharing

At TLT we (I) recognize that libraries everywhere are facing staff and budget cuts.  We want to help you provide quality service to your tween and teen patrons while recognizing that today’s teen librarians are short on time, short on staff, and short on money – but not short on passion.

At the blog site you will find professional and staff development resources in addition to a feature I like to call Teen Programs in a Box (TPIB).  Here I provide program outlines with a variety of options for you to choose.  You can then customize each individual program to meet your own space, time and money needs.  You can find the various TPIBs by looking through the archives.

TPIBs:
The original post (includes Hunger Games programs)
Back to School with Style
Olympians Week
Zombies
Pageturners: Save my spot!
CSI: Follow the Evidence
Art Through the Ages
Monster Fest
Once Upon a Time
All the World’s a Stage
Picture It parts 1, 3 and 4 (I’m not bad at counting, Art Through the Ages was part 2)

In addition to the blog, there is a TLT Facebook page which I try and update with various newsbits daily.  Some of the information includes marketing tips, pop culture news relevant to tweens and teens, fun craft or programming ideas I stumble across and various campaigns (such as anti-bullying campaigns) aimed at the teen audience.  Some of the information is for librarians, other information is fun for you to share with your teens on your library FB page (or Twitter or whatever).

I chose a FB account because it is the easiest way to create and share many of the graphic resources that I create as a part of the TLT mission.  There are a variety of bookmarks, RA posters, smaller signs, and contest examples for you to download and use freely.  I also have created a couple of basic library promotion signs in 18×24 and 11×17 sizes.  You can print them out; they print out quite nicely and I have used them to decorate 2 teen areas now.  I have received feedback from a wide variety of librarians who have used them in their libraries, too.  To print them I recommend using a 11×17 color printer and piecing the posters together.  Unless you are lucky enough to have poster size color printing available to you (in which case I am totally jealous).  The images download as a .jpeg so you can shrink them to meet your needs.  You can also feel free to share them on your web or social media pages or in booktalks in the classroom.  I create them because I enjoy doing them and I want to use my passion to promote teen reading.

Occasionally we have fun contests.  Everyone loves winning stuff, right?  I try to do with the TLT FB account the things that I recommend doing with your teen services FB account in my post Make the Most of Your Teen Services FB Account.  You’ll want to join us on Fridays for Friday Fill Ins where I ask you to fill in the blanks with your favorite titles, stories, needs, and more.

If you or one of your teens would like to write a guest blog post talking about your library experiences or sharing programming success stories, please feel free to contact me at kjensenmls@yahoo.com.  I particularly like hearing from teens what they want and need from us librarians.

What Programs Do You Use?

I frequently get emails asking what programs I use to create my various images and posters, so here is the answer . . .

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