Connecting Librarian

Apart from parents dragging them in to get stuff for their school assignment, how else do we get teens into our libraries. Well we want them willingly, so what are libraries doing that are getting them in and leaving them wanting more.

As I said in an earlier post, our library service has run a gaming night, which has been hugely successful. Held at 4 different libraries and with Runescape being the game of choice, it was great seeing the library full of young people - both willingly and happily. They left wanting it all over again. Each time (we have had it twice now), the kids were patient whilst awaiting their turns, helpful to less experienced players and generally well behaved. Wow, just the way we want our teens!

Gaming in public libraries is also a big drawcard in the US, where they have even started running conferences/seminars, such as the “Gaming, Learning and Libraries” Symposium in Chicago, as well as websites, library sites and blogs dedicated to these programs. Other particular gaming events which have been big drawcards include Dance Dance Revolution at
Thomas Ford Memorial Library.

That’s all fantastic and I am so glad our library is involved in gaming, encouraging it even, but how do we reach the kids who don’t game. What else can we do, how else can we reach them, because that’s what it is all about now, us reaching them where they are at, not expecting them to come to us first.

We can push our broadband access, the absolute minimum for any surfing teen. We can and have been out to schools: into classes and staff meetings, submitting and having printed, articles in school newsletters, all promoting our databases and website as the destination for research and assignments.

We can do more. We can get make Instant Messaging a necessary component of all our public PCs and offer an IM reference service. We can use blogs, its not that hard, to present library news and views in a format familiar to them, we can review our website for teen compatability and we can get past ourselves and talk to the kids as real people when they come in the door. With some of the trouble we have had with our teens, we have been getting some useful advice from our Council youth workers. Tap into those sorts of resources.

These kids are our users - potential and current, present and future. They deserve the same respect accorded our other users, all being fair and equal. However, because they are a different generation to most library staff, we will have to work a bit harder, so we can understand them and their needs, enabling us to create and deliver services that meet them where they are at. We want them using their local library - preferably by walking in the door, but we won’t be complaining about virtual visits!

We have staff in our service with some great ideas for teens. As they get off the ground and we see the results, I will keep you posted via this blog.

Before you can target and then market your services, you need to know the people you are marketing too. Although I know some of what our youth market is like from what I see at the desk and hear from other staff, that is only part of the total picture. What aspect of youth behaviour are we not seeing because we have nothing targeting it?

The good news is that I don’t have to do the hard work of research, because others far more qualified than I have already done so. This generation of youth, commonly known as the Net Generation or Millenials, were born between 1980 and 2002 (which encompasses my children - I don’t know if that’s good or not )

Stephen Abram and Judy Luther in their Library Journal article “Born with the Chip”, give an awesome overview and relate it back to the impact on library services. The characteristics of this current generation are: format agnostic - they don’t care what from their information comes in; nomadic - they expect to get their information and entertainment whenever and wherever they are; multitasking - naturally able to navigate multiple applications; experiential - learn through doing; collaborative - instant messaging is the big indicator here, as well as team games and more; integrated - no separation between content and technology to them; principled - well-defined value system; adaptive - the facilities are available to assist any learning barrier; and direct - demands respect and say what they mean.

As a generation, without thinking about library services, there are enough challenges in dealing with people of these characteristics already. They know more than a lot of library staff do in terms of technology and can be intimidating in the least. However, as I said earlier, they are still part of our market and we not only need to but are obliged to serve them - with the best service possible. That means providing service which is relevant to them. Abrams and Luther layout some great recommendations in “Born with the Chip”, which are well worth investigating further.

Pew Internet is a non-profit research organisation that produces reports that explore the impact of the Internet on families, communities, work and home, daily life, education, health care, and civic and political life. Two of their reports that have come across my desk and warrant further scrutiny are “Teen Content Creators and Consumers” and “Teens and Technology”.

“Teen Content Creators…” reports that more than half of online teens are content creators, nearly 40% read blogs, older girls are most likely to blog, teen bloggers are tech savvy and heavy Net users, big music and video downloaders and will pay for it online. “Teens and Technology” further reports that nearly 90% of teens are online, half of those on a daily basis; they are technology rich, have cell phones and use SMS, use email but prefer IM. Even if you just read the executive summaries of these reports and the many others that Pew Internet have produced, you will have learned much about this generation. All these conclusions have been supported by numerous other independent reports, too numerous to mention here.

All of these studies are North American based, but with the similarities between our teens and theirs, especially in terms of technology, they are definitely worth consideration.

So, before you can serve your audience, you need to know them. Mix this research with some one-on-one with your current youth users and you should have a good idea of what they want. Mix in a bit of observation and establish relationships with your local schools and you will have an even better picture of your audience.

How to serve them? In my next post I will explore ways in which library services are successfully reaching out to their teens.

I am not talking about the general problems involving youth in our society. I am no expert and don’t have the time or inclination to discuss it here. However, youth does impact our libraries today and will do so as our future adult users, so we need to be marketing ourselves to them.

Its no secret that young people think that libraries are uncool. That’s OK, that’s not a problem. We don’t need to be cool, we just need to be on their list of things to do. We have great stock on our shelves, in the way of books, magazines, CDs, DVDs and we have free internet access. So why aren’t the young people streaming in the door?

Well, some are, which is good and bad. At our libraries we have multitudes of young people coming into the library to use our free internet access - but a regular group of those young people cause a great deal of trouble, stress for our staff and discomfit for other patrons. It would be easy to just kick them out and get rid of the problem, but that could also result in getting rid of a large section of the market we are trying to reach.

Now I know that all young people are not trouble. I am friends with quite a few great teens, who love to read, or use the Net and who are no trouble at all. But when you are working with the public, it doesn’t seem like we have too many of them coming into our libraries.

So how do we get those teens to come in. How do we get more teens of every sort to use our libraries and make the most of all the resources we have available - not just the Net.

I guess getting them in the door first is the hardest part. Lately our library service has been having some success with a few events, namely Internet games nights, a knitting workshop, cartooning and more. We get invaded by a wave of teens, who have an awesome time and leave with good impressions of their local library.

Its a start, but in our area we have the highest proportion of young people in our State, so we have to do more. They are not only our current users, but our future users who will hopefully bring their children and their children’s children to the library, whatever form that is in. Knowing that, it makes it even more important to make sure we are reaching them now.

How? I will be exploring that issue in upcoming posts. So stay tuned!