Our vision statement for teen services is

“Akron-Summit County Public Library provides customized library services that connect teens to their local community and the larger world.”

While it does not mention technology in any specific way, communication and connection is what drives many of the most popular technologies used today, and we try to keep that in mind when reaching out to our teens. Having a firm idea of the purpose behind our programming is very important to us.

We have a “Technology Committee” comprised of several teen librarians. Their mission is to keep our online presence relevant, to educate other librarians about trends in that area and how we can use them to our advantage, and to help create programming that utilizes computers and other technologies. Currently, they are working on expanding our teen volunteer program to include computer help volunteers.

We also have a “Gaming Committee”, who helped to organize four system-wide gaming tournaments last year – no small feat with 17 branches!

Our library hosts ‘Invent-a-palooza’ in the fall of each year, and this year we are hoping to use it as a jumping-off point for a robotics program in conjunction with our local Girl Scouts organization.

Essentially, basing a program or service around a certain use of technology should be a means to an end, not an end in itself. If a popular trend is being used by the library just because it IS popular, but doesn’t otherwise fit the vision or mission of the library, it won’t necessarily be a positive experience for library or patron.

You ask a lot of difficult questions, but I think asking them is the first step. I’m lucky to have an amazing administrative team who supports many of the new ideas we want to try, and understands the importance of teen services – I’m sure many other libraries have more of a struggle to promote teen services within the system than I do.

I was wondering if you could share what you’ll be doing after Teen Tech Week to keep the ball rolling. Sometimes I feel that dedicated weeks are good for advocacy, but they get forgotten after the week is over. What will you be doing to continue the dialog with teens about using technology with responsibility? What will you be doing to educate the rest of your library community about teens and technology? How do you think someone could expand upon Teen Tech week and make it an embedded part of what the library is and does?