Maggots in your nose? No thanks!

Today the YALSA blog featured a post on Smoking Smarties referring to this New York Times article:

Just Say No....to Smarties? Faux Smoking Has Parents Fuming
Crush Candy, Suck In Dust, Blow Out Puffs; Schools Fear It'll Make Cigarettes Cool

Apparently this is a trend somewhere...hard to say if it is widespread or if the media is just blowing it up. Teens crush up Smarties and pretend the dust is smoke. Or snort them, in a clear reference to hard core drugs. Some teens argue it is a healthy alternative to smoking/drugs, and of course parents/school/doctors are freaking out. Seems to me this should be enough to dissuade any reasonable teen:

Oren Friedman, a Mayo Clinic nose specialist, cautioned that frequent use could lead to infections or even worse, albeit rare, conditions, such as maggots that feed on sugary dust wedged inside the nose.

EW!

But is this really about reasonable teens? Or is it just those kids who are trying to get a rise out of adults. I remember obnoxious peers doing similar things with crushed up Cheetos/candy/sugar packets when I was a teen. Is this really a threat to society? Or just another case of teens successfully freaking out adults over nothing?

If nothing else, it can be a great conversation starter with teens in your library!

Teen dating violence - in the news, and in books.

I was disturbed to read this article yesterday:

Teenage Girls Stand by Their Man
IN the hallway of Hostos-Lincoln Academy in the Bronx this week, two ninth-grade girls discussed the pop singer Chris Brown, 19, who faces two felony charges for allegedly beating his girlfriend, the pop singer Rihanna, 21. At first, neither girl had believed Mr. Brown, an endearing crooner, could have done such a thing. Two fans show their support for Chris Brown outside the courthouse in Los Angeles. Readers' “I thought she was lying, or that the tabloids were making it up,” one girl said. Even after they saw a photo of Rihanna’s bloodied, bruised face, which had raced across the Internet, they still defended Mr. Brown. “She probably made him mad for him to react like that,” the other ninth grader said. “You know, like, bring it on?”

I'm absolutely horrified by the onslaught of support teens are showing for this violent behavior, and how willing they are to blame the victim. The Times article supplies some good links, some of which I'm adding to our Sno-Isle Teens de.licio.us page. But I would like to do a booklist on this sadly timely topic too. What books would you include on a teen dating violence booklist?

Read*Write*Think

Ok, so I've known about this organization for a while now, but only recently have I really taken a good look at their website. The have a whole page for grades 6-8 and another for 9-12. The coolest thing? The podcasts. Which also have their own page, and is currently featuring a great interview with Laurie Halse Anderson (who will be in Seattle at the Ballard Branch on March 24th! I can't go, since I'll be visiting my brother in D.C., but you totally should!).

It's primarily designed for teachers, but I get a kick out of podcasts, so I thought I'd share.

Very cool TTW program

Johnson County Library (in Kansas) has a very cool Teen Tech Week program on their website: Teen Tech Bingo!

Want to experiment with some cool Web sites? Try out the activities below. Complete any five of the challenges and you will be entered in to a drawing to win tech gift cards from local businesses. Once you have completed your five challenges, submit them with any links to your work to let us share them on JoCoTeenscene. For every five challenges you complete, your name will be put into the drawing. Go for a blackout, completing all the challenges, and increase your chances of winning.

How great is that? I totally want to steal this idea next year :)

28 Days of Advocacy

Over at the YALSA blog, they have been doing a full months worth of sharing ideas on how we can all be better advocates for teens:
Topics on the advocacy schedule for this month include:

• ALA advocacy tools
• Why advocacy is important
• Everyday advocacy in the school library
• Why advocacy should be part of a teen librarian’s job description
• Creating Partnerships
• And more

We hope these posts will help readers to become better advocates in their own libraries and also help to spread the word about why advocating for teens and libraries is important.

Much of this you may already know, but there are lots of great fresh little ideas there to check out, too!

Audiobooks are hot!

The Audio Publishers Association released the results of their 2008 consumer survey, and the results are pretty exciting:

28% of adults responding to survey listened to an audiobook last year.
53% of teens have listened to an audiobook.
52% of people aged 18-24 listen to audiobooks.
63% of children listen to audiobooks.

I'm a little skeptical of the reach of this survey, but as a long time audiobook fan (I depend on them for my commute!) I believe they are getting more popular...especially since you can now easily download them to portable players.

What are some of your favorite recent listens?

I've really enjoyed these recordings for teens:

The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl by Barry Lyga
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart
Terrier: Beka Cooper by Tamora Pierce

And for adults:

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver
The Deportees & Other Stories by Roddy Doyle
The Devil in the White City : Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson

The 2009 Rainbow List

From the ALSC blog:

"The Rainbow Project announced the 2009 Rainbow List, a joint undertaking of the American Library Association’s Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered Round Table and Social Responsibilities Round Table. Featuring well-written and/or well-illustrated titles with authentic and significant gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered/queer/questioning (glbtq) content for youth from birth through age 18, this year’s bibliography presents 34 outstanding titles, published in the last eighteen months and representing a broad range of glbtq experience...

Four titles stood out to the selection committee as especially deserving of recognition for their characters, stories, and quality of writing and/or illustration:

1. Down to the Bone by Mayra Lazara Dole (first novel)


2. 10,000 Dresses written by Marcus Ewert and illustrated by Rex Ray (first picture book)


3. Last Exit to Normal by Michael Harmon


4. Skim by Mariko Tamaki (text) and Jillian Tamaki (artwork)

"

Read the whole list here.

Facebook tips for Parents?

What a great idea for a class this is:

Stanford class to help parents be better Facebook friends with their kids
Eric Eldon | February 2nd, 2009

In the class, parents will learn how to talk with their kids about practical aspects of using the site, like the long-term risks of publishing embarrasing photos (college admissions counselors might see them one day), or the benefits of letting friends comment on drafts of class essays.

What a great way for parents to get comfortable with technology, understand what they need to know to guide their kids, and really connect with them better. I love it!

Anyone want to teach it at Sno-Isle?

thinking about using Twitter to reach out to patrons?

snoisleteens is getting ready to launch our trial Twitter site. Some other libraries are already doing this.

Here is a great blog post about using Twitter effectively and entertainingly for libraries.

Making a good combo of funny and informative seems to be the trick!

What would you like to see?

Fresh new article on the teen brain

From the YALSA blog:

"U.S. News and World Report followed up on their 1999 article “Inside the Teen Brain” with a feature titled “Deploying the Amazing Power of the Teen Brain” that reports on a Duke University program designed to empower teens to use their brains. The article covers basic brain changes, other factors for teen behavior and a quiz you can take to see how much you know about the adolescent brain.

A little understanding goes a long way in coping with unwanted teen behavior; for example, knowing that teens are more likely to react to your emotion than to your words serves as a reminder to librarians to stay calm, and take stock of your tone of voice and body language, not just what you say, when working with teens — they may be reacting to cues you send out, not to what you say."

benefits of social media marketing

A nice reminder of why we try to reach out in non-traditional ways to our teen patrons:

More 2.0 Image fun!

The Blatant Bibliophile Blog has a great post up on copyrite free images, altering images and other fun word/pic meshes. Worth checking out!

Marketing in Libraries

One thing that libraries have always struggled with is marketing. WE know we're great, but somewhere in our natural introversion we have a hard time screaming from the rooftops that we will, actually, improve lives through our services.

SLJ, recognizing that libraries have a hard time promoting themselves, has created an inexplicably named blog, Bubble Room, to address marketing in libraries.

I don't know if it'll be useful, but hey, there it is, just in case.

I actually really like this post, which talks about how the Rochester Public Library has a calculator on their site that totals the amount patrons have saved by using the library rather than purchasing the books they've checked out. I've always thought that we should print their savings on the check out receipt. That's one way to achieve validation through knowledge. ;)

Spread your Holiday Cheer

Every holiday season, we look for ways to spread the cheer and help others have a better experience during what can often be a not so happy time of year.

Donating food to your local food bank is and easy way to help people in your community. There are probably donation bins all over town this time of year.

The United States Marine Corps are collecting donations for Toys for Tots, and the Salvation Army has their bell ringers and red kettles outside many stores where you'll be shopping.

I recently learned of another way to spread a bit of extra cheer. You can send holiday cards to wounded American soldiers and veterans through a program sponsored by the Red Cross called Holiday Mail for Heroes.

You can send your cards to the following address, but they ask that they are postmarked no later than December 10th. That's just two days away, but you've still got time to pop a card in the mail!

Holiday Mail for Heroes
P.O. Box 5456
Capitol Heights, MD. 20791-5456


If you're in the Oak Harbor Library during the next couple of days, look in the teen area for the cards to sign. I'll be sending them off soon.

~Anne

very blog post on bullying

From Danah Boyd's blog:apophenia

reflections on Lori Drew, bullying, and solutions to helping kids

The most important thing that we need are digital street workers. When I was in college, college students volunteered as street workers to help teens who were on the street find resources and help. They directed them to psychologists, doctors, and social workers. We need a program like this for the digital streets. We need college-aged young adults to troll the digital world looking out for teens who are in trouble and helping them seek help. We need online counselors who can work with minors to address their behavioral issues without forcing the minor to contend with parents or bureaucracy. We need online social workers that can connect with kids and help them understand their options.

Danah Boyd is a doctoral candidate in the School of Information at the University of California-Berkeley and a Fellow at the Harvard University Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

Her research focuses on how American youth use networked publics for sociable purposes.

Thoughts?

troubling teen trend

Here is a disturbing new teen trend to be aware off: self-embedding.

'Self-Embedding' a Troubling Trend Among Teens

WEDNESDAY, Dec. 3 (HealthDay News) -- Self-embedding, a disorder where people wound themselves and then place objects in the wound, is an increasing problem among American teens, especially girls, researchers say.

Has anyone seen this? I find it very worrisome :(

great article on M.T. Anderson

I'm a huge M.T. Anderson fan (though I confess, I have not yet found the time to tackle his newest installment of Octavian Nothing).

Here is a terrific article about him, and his belief that teens want to be challenged:

Tomes for Teens
M.T. Anderson Gives Young Adults What They Want: Complex Epic Tales They Can Get Lost In
By Bob Thompson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 29, 2008; Page C01

"It's insulting to believe that teens should have a different kind of book than an adult should... They know the world is complicated, and "they can tell when a book is simplifying life."

Friday afternoon humor

Have a great weekend...












...and drive carefully!

reassuring news about online socializing

The New York Times featured an article this week that has reassuring news for parents (and other adults) concerned about teens obsessive online communications, thanks to a study from the MacArthur Foundation:

Teenagers’ Internet Socializing Not a Bad Thing
By TAMAR LEWIN
Published: November 19, 2008

“It may look as though kids are wasting a lot of time hanging out with new media, whether it’s on MySpace or sending instant messages,” said Mizuko Ito, lead researcher on the study, “Living and Learning With New Media.” “But their participation is giving them the technological skills and literacy they need to succeed in the contemporary world. They’re learning how to get along with others, how to manage a public identity, how to create a home page.”

Thanks Penni for sharing this!

Morgue Files

I've just discovered Morgue Files, described as the "Public Image Reference Archive." Content is uploaded for public use - for free - and they only thing they ask is that the photographer is credited. These are usually high resolution images, something that isn't the norm on the internet - not for public use that I've found.

Seems like a useful site to know about. Goes along with the awesome Smithsonian Images and the Library of Congress' Flickr photostream (though not all of the last two are in the public domain).

(photo by Zach Carter)