Having read the YALSA core competencies, I was struck by how many of these points resonated with my quest in thinking about how to make the public library relevant to today's teens. Ever since a fellow SI student mentioned to me that she thought public libraries would disappear in our lifetimes due to lack of funding, I have been wondering how the public library can become of better use and service to young adults. For example, one of the YALSA core competencies says "Encourage young adults to become lifelong library users by helping them discover what libraries offer, how to use library resources, and how libraries can assist them in actualizing their overall growth and development." This point sums up a lot of the rest of the core competencies. In order to encourage teens to use the library, librarians must figure out how the public library can best serve teens in a public space - and make sure to incorporate teens in as much of the planning and services offered as possible.
In my role as a librarian, in thinking how to best serve the young adults of today, I need to figure out how I am going to best "Become familiar with the developmental needs of young adults..." The textbook How People Learn will perhaps help me understand how young people learn. So far the most interesting points I learned from the textbook are that students need to learn with understanding, in that actually understanding concepts rather than just memorizing facts will enable students to more readily use what they have learned and to better accomplish future tasks. Also, learning that enables the student to creatively adapt to new situations is more beneficial, rather than learning which only enables the student efficiently improve upon the same task over and over.
In order to further improve my service to the young adult population in a public library, I think I may want to look into taking a young adult psychology class or a comparable class in which I learn how young adults think and what exactly their brains are thinking about.
I agree Natalie--the key is making students realize that the library can provide relevant information and that it has information that will be useful to them throughout their lives. I think that understanding how teens operate would be very useful when coordinating teen library programming, and that part of that is staying current with teen trends. I've personally found that the best way to do that is to talk with the teens and find out their interests, likes, and dislikes. In relation to learning to understand, I think that the public library can play a key role in encouraging and supporting that learning by cooperating with local school districts and maybe even providing some suggestions. Coordinating with schools will also show teens that the library is relevant to what they are working on in class and the public library can offer that important link to show that what they learn at school is applicable to the outside world as well.
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