Some things we're starting

Hello YART folk!

Since this is supposed to be a blog that you'll want to come to for the newest and greatest, we are going to start a few things. There will be three different kinds of posts on this blog: The librarian interviews that we have already started; tips and information on building a strong teen collection and marketing that collection to patrons and students, including book reviews by guest librarians and school teachers and best practices for marketing and displaying; and thirdly, a real time experiment where a school librarian and a public librarian will actively plan and execute programming and other coordinating ideas and then share the results with you who are reading.

We hope that these three different areas of the blog will give you some ideas for your libraries and schools, as well as get a conversation started between teacher librarians and public librarians across the state on how to work together to impact young adults.

You'll be able to tell what the different posts look like because the subject will reflect what section if falls into followed by the topic. We look forward to getting you great information and helping ALL librarians working with teens do better for these very special patrons.

Jake

Meeting new faces

Hello all!

This is Jake. It know I have thus far been somewhat of a stranger to the blog. My sincerest apologies. I was finishing Comps and my final class for Grad school. Now that all of those other obligations are done I can be here much more often.

We're starting a new segment here on the blog in hopes of accomplishing two goals. The first: introduce the members of YART from all across this great state to one another. The second: begin to challenge librarians who work in the same city, or school district, or metro area to think about how they are collaborating with each other for programs and how they could better collaborate with each other on programs. Our first month will feature Cathy McMahon, Youth Services Librarian and Keene Memorial library in Fremont Nebraska and Kristine Woods, Library Media Specialist at Fremont Middle School in Fremont Nebraska.

If any librarians would like to volunteer to be a part of this segment, please send an email to the YART email address. nlayart@gmail.com. You can also post a comment to the blog and we'll get it that way too. Without further ado, I give you November's featured librarians.

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Name: Cathy McMahon

City and Library Position: Fremont Ne, Youth Services Librarian

What is a favorite program for Young Adults you’ve run: Speed Rating- students rate books by viewing trailers and book talks

What is one thing you’d like to do with the school/public librarian: Offer more after school programming.

What’s one project in which you think school/public librarians can work together: I think it would be fun to offer a nontraditional book club- what that is and what that means would be determined by the teens…

What’s your favorite book to suggest to YA’s right now: I loved Shiver and Linger by Stiefvater and TBR- Life of Glass by Cantor, Tell Me A Secret by Cupala and Beautiful Malice by James… on my Nook I read I Know A Girl- great read but lousy ending!

Have you joined YART? If no, why not: Yes I belong to YART.

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Name: Kristine Woods

City and Library Position: Fremont, Fremont Middle School, Library
Media Specialist

Favorite program for Young Adults you’ve run: “Dewey Decathlon”
- a reading challenge for students to read 25 books from the Dewey
Classifications, including fiction, biography, state award books, and
designated number of selections from 000-900. Students self-select the
books within the framework of the program. The purpose is to broaden
reading selections to increase vocabulary and background knowledge while
exposing students to genres and topics they might not otherwise pick up
and read.

What is one thing you’d like to do with the school/public librarian:

Coordinate resources and promotions to provide a saturation level in the
community for targeted programming.

What’s one project in which you think school/public librarians can

work together: Among others, Internet safety programming. We could
coordinate a program to provide learning at the school with the students
while the public library could provide seminars for parents and other
adults in the community.

What’s your favorite book to suggest to YA’s right now: Right now,
I think the publishers are flooding the market with post-apocalyptic or
global climate change plot lines. My current favorites are The Maze
Runner and the sequel, The Scorch Trials by James Dashner.

Have you joined YART? If no, why not: No. I am new to Nebraska and
just learning about the local opportunities. I am a member of ALA/AASL,
ASCD, NMSA, and ISTE.

Hello and an introduction to a new year

Good afternoon (-morning, -evening . . . whichever you prefer), fellow YARTers! This NLA saw the appointment of new leadership for the Young Adult Round Table. Gordon Wyant has been appointed to the position of Chair, Jake Rundle has accepted the role of Chair Elect, and Cathy McMahon has stepped up to take on the duties of Secretary/Treasurer. We would like to heartily thank Stacy Lickteig, Anna Bley, and Bridget Kratt for their efforts and leadership. They pulled this group through its initial growing pains and did a thoroughly commendable job. It is our sincere hope that they continue to add their knowledge and expertise to this group.

As the attendance at the YART business meeting showed, we are at a crossroads with this group. The initial fervor of being the "new kid" has died down and now we really need to step up. Given the wealth of experience and knowledge each member brings to this group, we have the potential to become a great resource for youth advocates across Nebraska. We have survived the initial growing pains, it is now time to reinforce ourselves as a presence in NLA, the state, and the lives of our students/patrons. Fortunately, there were some fantastic ideas tossed around at the meeting and the many impromptu meetings that happened during the conference that we feel will do just that.

It was clear to us that we need to redouble our efforts to increase communication and cooperation between school librarians and public librarians. We all have much to share with one another, be it resources, ideas, or expertise. While there may be differences in how we approach our missions, the end goal is the same: the betterment, education, and advocacy of Young Adults. Working together, we can accomplish so much more than we would by continuing to work relatively independent of one another. To that end, we are planning two YART sponsored events for this year that will bring our somewhat disparate groups together. Our spring event will have a main focus on public libraries as they gear up for summer reading programs and our event at the end of summer will focus on school libraries as they gear up for the school year. Both events will promote ways in which we can share our resources and knowledge to better support one another.

In addition to our events, we intend to create a program resource that can go from school to school and library to library. These "Programs in a Box" will have everything a librarian or school librarian will need to put forth an engaging, educational, and fun program for young adults. It is our aim to have a kind of roving depository of programs that can satisfy a wide variety of lesson plans, learning objectives, and themes available to any member of YART.

We would like to see more activity on our blog, as well. We intend for this to be a resource, not only providing information on YART, its members, and its business, but also be a source of pertinent information to better serve our young adult students and patrons. If you have anything you would like to add or any suggestions (be it programming, resources, aids, etc), please send one of us an email and we’ll do our best to get it up here quickly.

It is our aim to make YART membership worth a great deal more than the five dollars it costs to join. With your help, we can make this a reality and meet the great potential we all see in YART.

Annual Conference: New Officers and Wonderful Presenters

New YART Officers Named:

The YART business meeting was held on Thursday, October 14th at 1:30 p.m. during the annual NLA/NEMA Conference. Nominations were taken and elections held for Chair, Chair Elect, and Secretary/Treasurer. We would like to extend a warm welcome to our incoming officers:

Chair - Gordon Wyant, Bellevue Public Library
Chair Elect - Jake Rundle, Hastings Public Library
Secretary/Treasurer - Cathy McMahon, Keene Memorial Library

We look forward to their leadership and vision for YART during the next year.

Presentations Were A Success:

We want to extend a big thank you to the following individuals for presenting at this year's NLA/NEMA Conference. Their sessions were outstanding - and standing room only!

With Popcorn or M&M's? The Public Library's Mission to Entertain:
Jake Rundle, Keene Memorial Library
Micki Dietrich, Omaha Public Libraries

Hey Kids! Look What We've Got: Effective Marketing to Tweens and Teens:
Jake Rundle, Keene Memorial Library
Cathy McMahon, Keene Memorial Library
Gordon Wyant, Bellevue Public Library

Zombies, Cubeee and Gocks - Oh My! Teen Crafts, Back From the Dead and Hungry for Brains!:
Gordon Wyant, Bellevue Public Library
Lindsey Tomsu, LaVista Public Library
Jake Rundle, Keene Memorial Library

Novel Movie Trailers:
Laurie Konrad, Omaha Public Schools
Jan Campion, Omaha Public Schools

Upcoming Spring Event:

Stay tuned for more information on a planned upcoming Spring Event! In April (Date TBA), we will be meeting at Sump Memorial Library in Papillion to spend the morning with featured guest speaker Michael Sullivan, author of Connecting Boys with Books and Connecting Boys with Books 2: Closing the Reading Gap. He will share practical, proven, and sometimes off-beat suggestions on how to turn boys into life-long readers. The afternoon will be spent at LaVista Public Library where we will unveil our new Program-In-A-Box - a must have for all youth services, teen, and secondary librarians!

NLA/NEMA Conference

We hope to see all of you in Grand Island, October 13th-15th for NLA/NEMA. While at the conference, be sure and check out the sessions that we are sponsoring:

THURSDAY:
9:10 a.m.—10:00 a.m. SECOND THURSDAY SESSION

With Popcorn or M&M’s? The Public Library’s Mission to Entertain
-Jake Rundle , Keene Memorial Library and Micki Dietrich, Omaha Public Libraries
A discussion about the library’s new mission to be a source for entertainment (DVDs, Wii games, and other expensive media) as part of its public services in the wake of lost jobs, lower incomes, and a drooping economy. We’ll discuss the impact this has on the collection, and look at libraries nationwide and here in Nebraska that do a good job at providing these new services to patrons. Sponsored by YART. Audience: Public. Holiday Inn – Executive’s

2:00 p.m.—2:50 p.m. THIRD THURSDAY SESSION

Hey Kids! Look What We’ve Got!: Effective Marketing to Tweens and Teens
- Jake Rundle, Keene Memorial Library
With the library taking a much deeper look at marketing itself in order to bring in patrons, this program will look specifically at the Teens and Tweens of the community and present effective means of marketing to them. Since this is a traditionally under served population in the library, we will be looking at what the research has to say for marketing to this group, as well as our own experiences with marketing to Teens and Tweens. Sponsored by YART. Audience: Public, Secondary. Holiday Inn – Islander II

3:45 p.m.—4:35 p.m. FOURTH THURSDAY SESSION

Zombies, Cubees and Gocks. Oh My! Teen Crafts, Back from the Dead and Hungry for Brains!
- Gordon Wyant, Bellevue Public Library; Lyndsen Tomsu, LaVista Public Library and Jake Rundle, Keene Memorial Library
One of the most rewarding and effective types of program for teens is also one of the least implemented. Whether a result of a lack of ideas, lack of budget, fear of poor teen response, or a combination of factors teen crafts are often seen as not worth the effort. This session aims to change those misconceptions and bring the popular and social activity of teen crafts back from the heap of long dead programs. It is time to graduate from the paper plate masks! Rise against the decline of craft events and give those idle teen hands something to do! Come, comrades: JOIN THE DIY REVOLUTION! Sponsored by YART. Audience: General, Public, Secondary. Holiday Inn – Ambassador’s

FRIDAY:
10:45 a.m. to 11:35 a.m. THIRD FRIDAY SESSION

Novel Movie Trailers
-Laurie Konrad and Jan Campion, Omaha Public Schools
Bring novels to life for your students. Learn how to make movie trailers using powerpoint or moviemaker so that students learn plot, characters, setting, mood and theme. Use animations, transitions, free music and the art of finding good actresses and actors to play the characters in the book. Many student work samples are available to view along with a step-by-step instruction and handouts. It is a video booktalk with pizazz! Sponsored by YART. Audience: Public, Elementary. Riverside – Locust


We hope that you can also come to our YART Business Meeting, scheduled from 1:30-2:00 p.m. on Thursday, October 14th at the Riverside. We will be holding elections for Chair Elect and for Secretary/Treasurer. In addition, we will be discussing future plans for YART!