Texting explosion

According to this article from the New York Times, text messaging passed up phone calls made from cell phones at the end of 2007, and from the looks of things, it will be double soon!

Letting Our Fingers Do the Talking
By ALEX MINDLIN
Published: September 28, 2008

Teenagers ages 13 to 17 are by far the most prolific texters, sending or receiving 1,742 messages a month, according to Nielsen Mobile. By contrast, 18-to-24-year-olds average 790 messages. A separate study of teenagers with cellphones by Harris Interactive found that 42 percent of them claim that they can write text messages while blindfolded.

How can we respond to this? I think it is time we started offering updates to teens by text message. Is we set this up as an option on our website, what choices do you think we should offer? Program reminders? New posts on their blog? If you were a teen, what would you want?

Squeeky clean fairy tales

There is a good article in The Boston Globe today about the sanitizing of fairy tales:

Fear of fairy tales
The glossy, sanitized new versions of fairy tales leave out what matters: the scary parts
By Joanna Weiss
September 21, 2008

Admittedly, this is nothing new and fairy tales are always evolving. I remember reading a collection of traditional fairy tales in third grade, and being shocked that the stepsisters in Cinderella were mutilating their feet to try and fool the prince. Certainly changed my view of things! Any more, when young girls come in asking for Cinderella, or Beauty and the Beast, etc...I always ask if they are looking for the Disney version right away. Too many years I tried to trick them into trying other versions, and 90% of the time they really only wanted the packaged princess.

Where do you see the shift, between kids who only want the squeaky clean Disney version of things, and teens who want the raw, disturbing fairy tales and their contemporary retellings? Are we softening things too much for children, leading to greater rebellion and distrust as teens? Or is society just adapting to trying to preserve innocence in a media saturated society?

I wonder what the other 3% are doing?

Survey: 97% of American youth play video games

The survey found that while young Americans don't necessarily play the same thing, nearly all of them -- girls included -- play video games of one kind or another.

And they don't just play by themselves. Nearly two-thirds play video games to socialize face-to-face with friends and family, while just over a quarter said they play with Internet friends.

"It shows that gamers are social people," says Amanda Lenhart, a senior researcher at Pew who led the report on the survey. "They communicate just as much. They spend time face-to-face, just as much as other kids. They e-mail and text."

Despite what some people might hope for, there's no going back. Gaming is a way of life for American youth. But as we know, it isn't all bad!

gaming and scientific thinking

Another encouraging article about great skills teens are building playing video games:

How Videogames Blind Us With Science

At one point, Steinkuehler met up with one of the kids who'd built the Excel model to crack the boss. "Do you realize that what you're doing is the essence of science?" she asked.

He smiled at her. "Dude, I'm not doing science," he replied. "I'm just cheating the game!"

Of course if they realized that their "cheating" was actually the scientific method, it might not seem half as fun ;)

A Teacher on Assigned Reading: "We're Teaching Books That Don't Stack Up"

Ok, I'll be honest, this article is directed toward teachers, and is written by a high school English teacher, but as it deals with how teens feel about the literature they are assigned in school. I think it's worth a read.

'"Butchering." That's what one of my former students, a young man who loves creative writing but rarely gets to do any at school, called English class. He was referring to the endless picking apart of linguistic details that loses teens in a haze of "So what?" The reading quizzes that turn, say, "Hamlet" into a Q&A on facts, symbols and themes. The thesis-driven essay assignments that require students to write about a novel they can't muster any passion for ("The Scarlet Letter" is high on teens' list of most dreaded). I'll never forget what one parent, bemoaning his daughter's aversion to great books after she took AP English Literature, wrote to me: "What I've seen teachers do is take living, breathing works of art and transform them into dessicated lab specimens fit for dissection."'

Strange, that's exactly how *I* felt in high school...

alarming report on teen girls

The YWCA has released a report called Beauty at Any Cost, which contains a lot of very disturbing information about the health, financial and the obsession with looks are costing the teen girls and women of America.

A discussion guide and non-fiction booklist can be found here.

Here are some recent fiction books on eating disorders, as well:

Looks by Madeleine George
Massive by Julia Bell
Perfect by Natasha Friend
More Than You Can Chew by Marnelle Tokio
Skinny by Ibi Kaslik

Any titles you would add if we were to do an eating disorders list?

how friendly is too friendly with teens?

One of the great challenges of working with teens is finding ways to show you care, to reach out, and to make connections...all while maintaining appropriate boundaries. These boundaries are important in helping teens develop into healthy adults, and when properly enforced they provide a sense of dependability and trust that is incredibly important for those of us trying to make a positive difference in their lives.

This article brings up some interesting points about friending kids online. Clearly MySpace and Facebook are wonderful places to connect with teens in an environment they are comfortable in, and I know many people who have had much success in these areas. But where is the line?

Online student-teacher friendships can be tricky
By Mallory Simon

CNN

"As an educator there is a line of demarcation between you and your student," Keith said. "It's a line that you cannot come close to, let alone step over. You've got to establish it from Day One and say, 'I'm not your buddy, I'm not your friend, I'm just your teacher.' "

As librarians, we have a slightly different position. We are authority figures, but not teachers. Where do you feel our line should be? How do you establish this line with your patrons? Have you ever been in a situation where it has been crossed? What did you do?

using texting to advertise to teens

This is something that has come up in conversations with teen librarians a number of times, but this article really hammers home the effectiveness and value to this approach:

Retailers know texting is the totally best way to reach teens
By Mark Albright

What do you think? I'm hoping in phase two of the Sno-Isle Teens: Your Library website we will have a form for teens to sign up for text notification.

How could libraries best use this? What sort of guidelines should we develop to insure the most interesting and effective communications?

looking for a fun activity for teen meetings?

Katy M. from the Selah (WA) Library suggested TAGAD-L trying pipe cleaner pictionary! I think this sounds like lots of fun.

What are some activities that your teens like to do at advisory board meetings and such?

a great response to a book challenged

I assume some of you have already seen this response to a book challenge as it has been making its way around the blogosphere for a few weeks, but I found it inspiring and a wonderful reminder of one of the many reasons we choose to work in public libraries. It would be a good addition to our training on intellectual freedom. Hooray for Mr. LaRue!

great article on video gaming in libraries

Thanks to Jeanne for passing this on!

Libraries' video games are teen magnet

Local program's success earns national attention

Thursday, July 31, 2008

By Elizabeth Gibson

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

"Libraries have gone through a lot of iterations since 300 B.C., when they were founded as a way to improve moral character," said Scott Nicholson, an associate professor at Syracuse who runs the Library Game Lab. "This is no different from when libraries first brought in fiction or started allowing children in."

Lots of good ideas to be copied from these guys!

what is "reading" in the digital age

Penni forwarded me this great article from the New York Times.

Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading?

As teenagers’ scores on standardized reading tests have declined or stagnated, some argue that the hours spent prowling the Internet are the enemy of reading — diminishing literacy, wrecking attention spans and destroying a precious common culture that exists only through the reading of books.

But others say the Internet has created a new kind of reading, one that schools and society should not discount. The Web inspires a teenager like Nadia, who might otherwise spend most of her leisure time watching television, to read and write.

Seems to cover both sides of the argument fairly thoroughly.

Thoughts?

summer reading humor

From Unshelved:












Thanks to Kathleen for sharing this one.

Hope your summer is going swimmingly...

fun contest for your library

Do you have great volunteers looking for something fun to do this summer?
Are your regular teens super creative?
Do you have mad decorating skills?

Then you should consider working with them to enter Unshelved's Pimp My Bookcart contest.

Check out last year's amazing winners. Better get started soon...deadline is October 31st.

Author Interview: David Lubar

Video interview with author David Lubar at Adlit - Adolescent Literacy for parents and educators.

David Lubar is the man behind the popular — and hilarious — "Weenies" short-story collections, and critically acclaimed titles Dunk, Hidden Talents, and Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie. Lubar is best known for his humor, but his young adult books are also filled with plenty of adventure and suspense.

Interacting in Virtual Worlds

One of the topics for discussion at the ALA Annual meeting for the YALSA Board of Directors was if the organization should devote resources to creating a presence on Second Life. In the end we decided it wasn't a reasonable investment at this time, but it did get me thinking about the future of online services to teens.

Are any of you active on Second Life? What benefits might there be for librarians?

Google is dipping its toe into the pond, but in smaller way:

Google Introduces a Cartoonlike Method for Talking in Chat Rooms

Facebook is working on something similar. In your dream world, what would libraries have?

Arg! Looking for a September program idea?

September 19 is Talk Like a Pirate Day! What fun programs could you have in your library? Here are some ideas for a pirate party.

And don't forget our pirate booklist! Make a great display.

D&D in the Library

Dungeons and Dragons groups and libraries can make great partners! Recently two Sno-Isle Libraries were approached by teen D&D groups about having regular meetings in their libraries. This is a fabulous opportunity and we are glad to be able to accommodate. And just in time, here is a blog post from librarian and gamer Ian McKinney about getting started:

Dungeons and Dragons in Libraries

Looks like he will have more on running the programs, so be sure to set up a feed to his blog if you are thinking about having one of these groups!

OMG FEED IS HAPPENING!!!

(You've read MT Anderson's FEED, right?)

This article poses the idea that because so many people's primary source of reading material is web-based that the source is beginning to affect not only how we READ, but how we THINK.

Add in the fact that more and more profit is ad based...

And then the fact that there's practically a whole language used just online (oh, and in txt)...

Pretty soon we'll all have the interwebs plugged into our brains...

It's a ridiculously long (do I think that b/c my brain has changed? Ugh.) article, but interesting.

A Little Late

But I'm just now reading SLJ's may issue. If any of you've missed it, I've found useful:

Jordan Sonnenblick's article about NCLB (I met him at Ballard library a week-ish ago. He's lovely).

Anastasia Goodstein's article about attracting teens through marketing tactics.

Highlights include:

• Ypulse,
• Muxtape,
• Mixwit,
• Crunchyroll (a site a couple of MY teens are always telling me about),
• Teenhut and
• some philosophy (clearly the most important part, ESPECIALLY if you aren't quite sure how to approach teens - or a good reminder).

Katrine Watkins' article about The Google Game taught me a few new ways to search and reminded me of ones I forgot.

Heard of MMPG? Christopher Harris' article is about PMOG - and how it might just be a harbinger of Web 3.0... I'm a little scared.