Imagine what your library's service to young adults might look like over the next five years. What are the services needed to meet the needs of the young adults in the school or community.
Developmental needs 2. Youth development
Learning and achievement
Equity of access and intellectual freedom
Developmental Needs
However, the primary method by which librarians will or will not respect the unique needs of young people is in the attitudes that underlie customer service. By respecting the unique needs of young adults, libraries are creating a collaborative context, rather than one.
Youth Development
Youth development is also about strengthening families and communities and involving young people in these efforts. When they do all these things and much more, they are supporting the development of young people.
Developmental Assets
The key is to put the things that librarians who work with young adults do every day into the asset framework: it fits easily. At the most basic level, what young adults need, and what libraries offer, is an opportunity to develop relationships.
Youth Advocacy
Youth advocacy means giving young people a voice, either directly by involving young people or indirectly by standing up for the rights of young people. Ultimately, youth advocacy means finding, celebrating, and sharing the value of young adults in libraries and in our communities.
Youth Participation
Youth advocacy means believing that teen services are a right, a given, and an indispensable part of every library's business, not an afterthought or "special program." Youth advocacy means believing that every young person who walks through the library doors deserves respect, attention and our efforts. Youth inclusion allows young people to interact with peers as well as adult role models.
Collaboration
Collaboration is often one of the keys to grant funding, improving the visibility of library and youth issues in the community, and another method by which the public library integrates into the larger network of human services. One of the keys to providing quality services to young people in the public library is to develop a quality working relationship with schools.
Information Literacy
The results of working together in the information literacy arena are adults who become lifelong learners and members of an information literate society. Collaboration between school library media specialists and teachers is the beginning, not the end, of successful information literacy instruction.
Adolescent Literacy
A young person's ability to use most of the resources available in school and public libraries depends on the ability to read. Supporting adolescent literacy starts with understanding some of the reasons why young people choose not to read.
Learning and Achievement
Until the power of technology changed the way public libraries saw their role in education, training and teaching was seen as the sole province of the schools, and within the schools as part of the school library media program. The need for constant training and instruction about new information technology has forced public libraries to re-examine their role in supporting student learning and achievement.
Equity of Access and Intellectual Freedom
Although there is no consensus on the extent of the gap (and whether the gap is growing or narrowing), researchers are almost unanimous in recognizing that not everyone in our society currently enjoys equal access to electronic resources. The Web-Based Education Commission's report, The Power of the Internet for Learning: Moving from Promise to Practice (2000), outlines a national agenda to address the issue of equal access to electronic resources.
The service helps young adults to ensure that investment in children's services and primary school libraries pays off. Young adult library services support student learning and achievement in all aspects of service. The visions and values presented in the previous chapters are important building blocks in planning library services for young adults.
General information. A library that offers general information helps meet the need for information and answers to questions on a
Most young adults are students and need libraries to help them find information to complete homework. Another key to success in this role is identifying and meeting the unique information needs of young adults. Libraries choosing this role must meet the needs of young adults through high-quality customer service, youth involvement in the collection development process, dedicated rooms, responsive collections, and marketing of popular materials to young adult patrons.
Formal learning support. A library that offers formal learning support helps students who are enrolled in a formal program of edu-
Libraries using this service response must meet the information needs of young adults through quality customer service, informational programming, school outreach, staff training in areas such as reference and reader counseling, responsive collections, and marketing of resources to young adults. customers. Libraries that choose this service response must meet the needs of young adults with quality customer service, collaboration with school staff, responsive collections, easy access to electronic resources, a strong reference collection, dedicated study spaces, hours that are convenient for young adults, and marketing. homework support service for young adult clients. Libraries that choose this response must meet the needs of young adults through collaboration with other educational institutions, quality customer service, easy access to electronic resources, well-trained staff, commitment to teaching, collaboration with school staff, and marketing. information literacy service for young adult clients.
Libraries using this response must meet the lifelong learning needs of young adults through high-quality customer service, programming that promotes reading and library use, involvement of youth at all levels, including volunteers and youth advisory groups, equal access to materials and services, dedicated study spaces , hours conducive to young adult use, community collaboration with other youth service agencies, and marketing of these resources to young adult clients. The other service responses, especially cultural awareness, community information and common areas, can also play an important role in serving young adult customers. Using these service responses together with the goals of IP2 provides a holistic perspective on library service to young adults.
Younger adults should be able to access any or all of them through interlibrary loan. Libraries can empower young adults to become members of a learning community and lifelong learners. Collaboration within the school and within the community is even more important when libraries serve young adults.
If a successful youth service program is creative, dynamic, and progressive, it will contribute to the overall needs of the institution. If all the strategies listed below are provided by a library, a high level of quality service for young people has been achieved. The single standard for serving young adults is that resources are distributed in a manner that responds to the needs of the young client, results in positive youth development, and supports student learning and achievement outcomes.
Upholds the value of equal access to buildings, resources, programs and services for young adults. Develops and adopts policies related to patron behaviors that do not single out or discriminate against young adults. Develops and implements specific goals and objectives to emphasize the institution's commitment to serving young adults ____ Supports all types of partnerships that will benefit young adults.
Develops and maintains non-fiction print collections that support a wide range of youth reading levels. Visual formats support the young media-savvy consumer as well as being easily accessible to young English-language readers. Develops and maintains collections, as appropriate, of youth materials in languages other than English.
Develop collections and services that increase access to the library and its collections for young adults who lack transportation to a public library. Develop and maintain collections that follow merchandising best practices to display the collection and generate user interest. Subscribe to the key review journals in the field, including Booklist, Voice of Youth Advocates, Kliatt Paperback Book Guide, and School Library Journal, as well as pay attention to books and media reviewed in popular media, such as Teen People and Seventeen.
Develops and administers after-school programs that provide tutoring, information literacy, and other activities to bond young adults with books, libraries, and learning. Develops programs that allow young adults to respond to what they read, such as book review groups. Develops programs that address the information needs of young adults in areas such as college, career, and health information, as well as personal enrichment.
SE ER RV VIIC CE ES S
Develops and presents programs that create community among young adults, allow social interaction and give young people a sense of belonging and connection to libraries. Young adults are seen by all staff as clients to be served, not as problems to be solved or clients to be "dealt with". Develops and provides opportunities that allow youth to participate in groups such as Friends of the Library, library board, and school library advisory committee.
Provides leadership, expertise, and advocacy in the use of electronic resources at the school, building, district, or system level ____ Develops a marketing plan to increase awareness and use. Networks library resources within the institution and with other educational institutions to provide access to resources from home as well as from the school or library.
Developmental Assets
Successful coalition building will broaden support for library services to young adults and expand resources. Lack of commitment within the profession to the importance of quality services for young adults. Demonstrate planning and evaluation skills in developing a comprehensive young adult program.
Apply knowledge of the reading process and types of reading difficulties to the development of collections and programs for young adults. Measures of Output and More: Planning and Evaluating Public Library Services for Young Adults.Chicago: American Library Assn.
