December Passive Program for Teens: What's Your Favorite?

I'm a big believer in passive programming. But it's not always successful -- there are passive programs I've tried to absolutely no response from the teens. 

Then there are the passive programs which I've put together without much thought or planning and they've gone over very well. This is one of them.

I worked the weekend of Thanksgiving and it was quiet. I got thinking about how much I want to know what my teens like a little bit more, and I was thinking about how fun it would be if teens told each other what it is they like. Because it's been a rough winter here already, I thought encouraging thoughts of favorite and good things would be worthwhile. 

Enter: tell me your favorite. 

I grabbed a snowflake picture, pasted 4 to a sheet, and printed off a pile of them. I cut them into squares, then tossed them into a brochure holder, along with a bunch of small pencils. I did not write anything on the flakes at all. Instead, I made a sign that simply asked teens to write down their favorite things on a snowflake. It could be a movie, a television show, or a book, and it didn't need to be anything new. They didn't have to put their name or any identifying information. 

I used one of our display cubes which faces the seating area in the teen section to put the flakes and sign up, along with our raffle box for completed flakes to be put into. I printed out duplicate signs about the program and hung them around the teen area and stepped away. 

Every few days -- I only work 3 or so days a week -- I would check the box. The first week or so, there was nothing in there. I didn't get too worried though.

Then in the second week, my box of teen favorites exploded, and it hasn't stopped seeing flakes since. As I've gathered them up, I've cut them into circles and then taped them to the sides of the stacks. And I think by seeing those flakes on the stacks, teens not only feel like they're being heard and cared about, but they're encouraged to contribute, as well.

There are flakes on the ends of four of our shelves. After I took the photos, I noticed that there were a few more in the box to be hung, too.

One thing I worried about with the program is the thing you always have to worry about with a passive program and teenagers: would there be something inappropriate?

Of the 50 or so flakes I've had turned in, there was only one thing that couldn't be hung . . . and I almost hung it anyway to embarrass the teen who wrote "I like secks :)". Instead, I put it in my file folder at work to remember that teens will always make you laugh because of stuff like that. Since I'm the one collecting, reading, and hanging these guys up, it was no big deal at all. 

The program took about 15 to 20 minutes to pull together, and because it's been so well-received, I think I'll leave it up through the winter, even as I swap out the actual passive programs next month. In the summer, perhaps I'll do the same thing. The cost was a couple minutes of Google image searching, copying and pasting, some white paper and black ink (I didn't even print them in color), and time to cut and hang them up periodically. 

There are no incentives, no prizes, and no rewards for teens who do this. But the value is they see their voices being heard in the library and they get to see that this is really their space. 

Revisiting and Revising a Teen Program: The Chocolate Wars

This week, I ran what was my most successful teen program event in my career. We had 40 teens show up on a Tuesday evening at the library. It was unbelievable. And awesome. And completely overwhelming and exhausting -- but in a good way.

I didn't do anything new to me for this event. Instead, I decided to rework an old program I did at a prior job a few years ago. You may remember my post about the chocolate olympics and death by chocolate. This time, I renamed it as "Chocolate Wars," and from my prior experience, as well as necessity due to program turnout, I made some modifications.

First, I should note that this is not an inexpensive program. We spent $100 on supplies. I had in my head that 25 kids would be a huge turn out, and I planned with that in mind. Fortunately, we did not lack for supplies at all. And in fact, when you break the cost down, it was quite an inexpensive program per attendee; I'd had in my mind that $4 a person for 25 teens would be a good average. Instead, the break down was just a little over $2 per attendee. Not too shabby.

So what did we do this time and how did we do it? First, I'll share the events we had, and then I'll share how we ran it. I use we because my coworker helped with the event, as did an intern who got her first taste of teen programming at the library.


What We Did

Chocolate Pictionary

Supplies:

- Construction paper
- A few packages of dark chocolate Hershey bars
- A list of pictionary words

This is pretty self-explanatory. The person in charge of drawing could only use the chocolate bar to do the drawing. The rest of the teens had to guess what they were drawing. The person who got it right was the next to draw.


Stack & Sort Races

Supplies:

- 3 large bags of regular M&Ms
- 4 Oreo packages
- Ziplock bags

For the "sorting" part, each teen got a bag of 75 M&Ms and they had to sort them by color. First to do it and put their hands up won the event.

For the "stacking" part, well. It was a bust. I had them work as partners to create Oreo towers, but they weren't interested in listening to directions (more to come on this). So essentially, it became four rounds of opening up an Oreo package and letting them grab and eat. Which was fine.


Chocolate Shuffleboard

Supplies:

- Masking tape
- One package of mini chocolate bars

I pushed two tables together and created a shuffle board out of the tables and masking tape. There was a starting line with the rules written on it -- the teens had 5 chances to earn 40 points. Some of the shuffleboard spaces were negative points. Some were 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, and 40. One was an automatic win.



Identify the Chocolate

Supplies:

- 10 to 15 different kinds of full-size chocolate bars
- Ziplock bags
- One half-sheet for teens to write their best guesses on

This was an overflow table and unstaffed. The teens would look at the bars and try to guess what it was they were.


Whopper Races

Supplies:

- Masking tape
- 2 boxes of Whoppers

Teens were split into four teams and had to race from one end of the room to the other pushing the Whopper with just their noses. Some teens were not into this idea AT ALL and chose to implement other means of getting the Whopper across the floor, including blowing on it. That was fine with me -- the key was the fact they had to crawl across the floor.


Hershey Kiss Races

Supplies:

- 2 bags of Hershey Kisses
- Masking tape
- A few pairs of oven mitts
- Plastic cups

Teens were split into four teams and had to walk from one end of the room to the other with their two kisses, then they had to unwrap them with the mitts on and place the unwrapped chocolate into one cup and the wrapper into another one. First team to complete won.


Worm Digging

Supplies:

- Pie crusts (graham cracker -- though we did frozen in a pinch)
- Chocolate pudding
- Gummy worms
- 2 plastic table cloths
- Plastic cups
- Napkins

We put together 11 chocolate pudding pies, each with 5 worms in them. Teens had to use only their mouths to dig out the worms from the chocolate pudding. They then deposited the worms into the plastic cups. The table cloths were used to cover the table and the floor. Let me tell you how easy cleanup was for that.


Miscellaneous supply need: Chocolate bars for prizes. We did the mini bars.



How We Did It

So the very first thing we did was wait 10 minutes before starting  the program. We scheduled it for 6, and we waited until 6:10. We made all of the kids sit on the floor -- at this point there were roughly 25 -- and we laid down hard and firm rules. You leave the room, you can't come back. You get too wild, we'll kick you out. Absolutely no chocolate leaves the room and enters the library, except at the very end when the teens could bring home their prizes.

In the past, I made all of these into station activities. But I knew it was not going to work this time. I decided instead to make the Whopper races and Hershey kiss races the first things we did, and we did them as a big group. We got the kids split into two teams, and then we were joined by 15 other kids. My coworker decided to take them out in the hall and give them the same speech we'd given to the kids already there, and she split them into teams for the second set of races.

This ended up working out okay. When the first round of teams were done doing the Kiss race (which we did first), they got a little antsy, but I kept them happy by giving them left over candy. We were then able to make the 40 kids get into 4 separate teams for the Whopper event.

After those two big team events concluded, we made all of the kids sit in the middle again for more instructions. We told them the rest of the program was fluid -- they could go between the Sort and Stack station, the Chocolate Shuffleboard, the Chocolate Guessing, and the Chocolate Pictionary events. And they did a great job of doing that. They listened and followed through. The problem came for me when they didn't want to listen to the instructions at the station I covered (the Sort and Stack) but I let it slide. I had to. Forty kids in one room is chaotic, and the kids had done a great job of listening over and over to new and changing instructions. I could let it go and I think they were happy for it. And so was I.

My coworker and I got worried about the Worm digging event since we only had 11 pies. We held off on figuring out a plan until the VERY end of the program, when our numbers dropped considerably. About 10 minutes before the end of the program -- which ran for an hour and a half -- we noticed we had roughly 20 kids left. So we told them they could do one last event, but only 11 could do it. We explained what it was and fortunately, ONLY 11 kids were interested (it's messy and kind of gross, so that made sense). We had them race in teams of 3 (and for the last one, 2). After they raced for the worms, we gave those kids spoons to eat the pudding if they wished to.

In the mean time, the other kids who didn't race? They had a BLAST taking photos and rooting for their friends. No one was bored.


Local Media Attention

Prior to the event, one of the newspapers got in touch with me to ask about the program. We got a really nice writeup about this event, as well as some of our forthcoming ones. I suspect that helped with some of the teens showing up.

But even better than that, a photographer came out the night of the event and shot pictures, too. Two of my teens got a nice picture in the print edition of the paper on Wednesday morning -- aside from being a nice boost to us, I suspect that will make them feel really good, too.

I took a lot of photos of the event, and I took a video of the Whopper race, and posted them on our teen Facebook page. The kids were talking about how they'd wanted to have some photos for their own Facebook pages, so I thought this would be a nice way for them to get them if they wanted.



Last Thoughts

I'd do this again, and I'd do it in a pretty similar fashion, but I would maybe have to do signups or limit the number of participants. I dislike doing that, but 40 kids, even with 3 adults, is a LOT of kids. It's a lot of hyper energy.

They did an excellent job of listening though, and when we said that if they left the room they were done and finished, they listened. They did not make a mess outside the programming room, and we only had to kick 2 kids out. They weren't being "bad," but they were being disruptive enough to merit the kicking out. Both were kicked out near the end of the event.

We had no leftover supplies, as the kids who stuck around were able to scoop up any remainders they wished to, including the chocolate guessing chocolates. We went over the answers to those in our final "sit on the floor and listen" session, prior to the worm digging event.

"Winners" for the stations, in theory, won a small chocolate bar. But because we were so busy, we never gave them to the kids. And you know . . . they never asked. They had plenty to eat and enjoy. All remaining Kisses and Whoppers were doled out as events ended, and we threw out the mini bars to the kids as we read the chocolate guessing answers.

Forty kids for me is amazing. We had a GREAT turnout at our zombie party this summer, but in no way did I expect this kind of turnout during the school year for an event. What a nice treat after feeling like I didn't know what I was doing with programming -- though it certainly has made me reconsider how to best approach programming again (in terms of numbers, cost, time budgeted to plan, and so forth -- I was lucky I'd done this before so the planning step wasn't too complicated).

I already had teens asking about what we were doing next.

Caramel Apples: A Teen Programming Success

image via amysdecadentchocolates.com

My first fall program -- caramel apple making -- was a mega hit this week, despite a few hiccups on the planning side of things. This program was very easy, inexpensive, and more than worthwhile. I had 25 teens show up for the one hour evening event. 

I picked up supplies the day before the event, except for the apples, which I picked up the morning of the event. They are as follows:

-- 2 bags of apples. I picked up red and green varieties, and there were roughly 20 in each of the bags. I bought smaller apples, as opposed to bigger ones. Because we don't do signups, I didn't know how many kids would show up. I figured in the worst case, the kids would each be able to have two or three. And even with 25 teens, there were enough for many of them to have two apples. The cost for the two bags was about $12. 

-- 3 or 4 tubs of caramel dip. They make pre-made dips in the fruit section, and I picked up four tubs. For 25 kids, I only needed three because I also decided to pick up one tub of chocolate dip and one tub of vanilla cream cheese dip. My thought was some kids will want to come and they don't like caramel. So, for all six tubs of dip, it was roughly $4 each, or $24. 

-- Popsicle sticks. I bought the bigger ones you get in the craft section, and they were roughly $2. 

-- M&Ms. They make mini M&Ms, and I ended up buying three bags, which was a little much. I didn't realize how many M&Ms came in the bags of minis, and I only ended up using one bag. That was about $3 for each (so my total cost was $9 or so, but for 25 kids, one bag was plenty). 

-- Sprinkles. We had leftovers from summer programming, so this was no cost to me. But for someone wanting to replicate, it'd be very inexpensive. 

Total cost for supplies: under $50.

We have napkins, forks, and plates in our programming room, so those might be extra costs. We also keep a supply of drinks, but I could see purchasing a couple of gallons of apple juice or apple cider, as well, and still keeping the cost low.

The set up for the program was simple. I wiped down each of the apples and de-stemmed them prior to the program. All of the apples were in good shape. 

We had two tables: the first had the apples, plates, napkins, drinks, and popsicle sticks. The second table had forks, the dips, and the toppings. While it would have been ideal to have spoons, we were out of them, so I improvised with forks. As the teens came in, they each helped themselves to an apple, put the stick through it (which was their favorite part, to the surprise of exactly no one), and then they had the choice of using a fork to spread the dips over the apples or putting the apple in the dip and turning it. Since they hadn't touched the apples beyond putting the stick through the center, there weren't germ concerns. 

After they put the dip on the apples, they could then top with sprinkles or M&Ms over their own plates. Some teens put the toppings right on their plates, as well as some extra dip, for when they got to the middle of the apple.

This was a little messy at cleanup -- the dip and toppings table especially -- but for 25 kids it was more than well-worth it. As the teens finished eating, they just hung out around the room with each other. Some played games, some of the girls had a blanket and just chilled with one another. For me, that's the definition of a successful program: your kids don't come only for the food. They come to socialize with one another, too. 

I'd debated bringing other topping choices for the event, but I am glad I stuck to what I did. It was more than enough, and, as I noted above, there were too many bags of M&Ms. I kept this event nut-free because I know allergies are always something to keep in mind. I didn't even want to touch it. 

Many kids ended up eating a second apple, and when the program ended, I had 2 full bags of mini M&Ms left, as well as one tub of caramel dip. Everything else was gone. 

Though the program went smoothly inside the room, there were some challenges outside the program that I think are going to change how I do things a little bit. Our security monitor came in to show me that a number of popsicle sticks had been found broken around the library (some of the teens were playing with them and I didn't realize they'd taken them out of the room). But the real downer was that he also found a caramel apple in the water fountain. As in, someone took it out of the room and put it there. Not cool.

So in response, I think I'm going to have to rethink my stance on in-and-out privileges to programs. There is a bathroom immediately across the hall from the room, so that's not a big deal. But once a teen leaves, I think it'll have to be the case that they're done with the program then. I don't like having to make rules like that, but I also don't like making work for other members of staff -- not to mention how disrespectful leaving program materials around the library is. I can write it off as teens being teens, but I also think it's my responsibility to make them learn how to be more responsible. 

That said, I highly recommend a program like this. My food events always draw the teens, and they are always thrilled to be involved with them. Is there anything better than teens asking when the next program is because they had so much fun? 

Program Success: A Low-key Zombie Night

The last post I shared was one about how I wasn't having a successful summer program, and I went ahead and followed it up by doing a successful program. The wills and ways of working with teens in the library.

I held a zombie event, but unlike a lot of the zombie proms or other zombie events I've seen, I kept mine incredibly low-key. The real reason behind that was because the actual big event of the program was watching Warm Bodies. But let me back up before I get to that.

Earlier in the year, I asked my teens what they were into. Zombies. Zombies all the time. They love The Walking Dead and did they ever tell me how much they were excited to see Warm Bodies.

This is why you ask your teens these things because they will hand your programming over to you.

To end summer reading club, I wanted to do a big finale. Watching Warm Bodies was a given, since they were enthusiastic about it from the start. But I didn't want to do just that. And given that my time at the library is limited -- I'm part-time -- I didn't want to invest too much time or money developing a program that had the potential to bomb out anyway (and that's not to say I wanted to be lazy, but it's why I decided against doing zombie makeup or having the kids learn the Thriller dance or doing a lock in sort of event).

So I decided I'd do an hour of programming and then show the movie, making the event a sort of two-part deal. Teens could come at 4:30 and do some zombie stuff, and then any teens who just wanted to see the movie could come at 5:30 and do that.

Most showed up at 4:30, and the few who weren't interested in the activities went out into the library and came back at 5:30. Not a big deal! I even had a couple girls come in full-out zombie dress. They told me they spent 4 hours getting the look down, and we were able to use them as zombies for a library campaign we're launching in the fall. . .which is awesome.

What I did

I set up four stations. Knowing how much my teens loved decorating cupcakes (which was another successful program I ran following my last post), I knew I wanted to do something with food. So we made zombie marshmallows:

I bought 2 bags of those super-sized marshmallows, along with food coloring markers (Americolor gourmet writer brand which worked well), red and black decorating gel, and eye-shaped sprinkles at the craft store (Hobby Lobby if you're wanting specifics). I purchased lollipop sticks and put out a small plate of light corn syrup which was used to attach the sprinkles. Everything was completely edible and the teens got creative here.

It was about $30 for all of the supplies and the teens loved this. I would do an entire program of marshmallow decorating, in fact.

The second station we did involved zombifying famous works of art. I printed out five or six classic works of art that would look awesome as zombie art, and I provided crayons. This is what the goal was, and my kids were pretty awesome about it:

Obviously, that was my model.

Cost to do zombie art? A few minutes Google searching famous art coloring sheets and printing them out. In other words $0.

My third station was one that wasn't quite as successful as I hoped, but frankly, since the other two were so popular already, it didn't matter. I pulled out our library's Zombigami book and put out paper and scissors for teens to make zombie origami.

Total cost: $0. I used paper we had already.

The fourth and final station had nothing to do with zombies at all. My very first program for the summer program was a duct tape crafts event. Since it was attended by only four kids, I had plenty of left over supplies, and since so many kids kept asking me when the program was happening after it happened, I figured why not? So I had out the duct tape and the kids went to town. Most of them covered themselves in duct tape (some pretty nifty Angry Birds duct tape suspenders were made) but I told them as long as they didn't hurt themselves or others, they could have at it.

(Spoiler: you give your teens freedom and most of the time they do not exploit it. We had no injuries at all here).

Total cost: $0, since the supplies were all recycled.  And guess what? The teens do not care if these things don't fit your theme.

After an hour with the stations, I called in the handful of kids who I knew weren't in the room but wanted to see the movie. I told them get comfortable however they wanted -- a chair, hanging at the tables doing activities, sitting on the floor. When I hit play on Warm Bodies, I left the room in the hands of my summer page and my co-worker and I went to Little Caesar's and bought 11 pizzas to feed them all dinner.

If you aren't taking advantage of a Little Caesar's in your area, which charges only $5 for a pizza when you want it, you should. I had a couple teens tell me they walked across town to see the movie and have dinner. I do not work in a small town.

I brought the pizzas in when the movie was about half over, meaning the kids had to hang tight while I went to get it and they weren't just there for the free food.

Total cost for the pizzas? $58. On top of the $30 or so for other supplies, the program ran for under $100 and it reached 30 very happy, very well-fed teens. Worth mentioning: we had our movie covered under our license. At the beginning of summer, it was not and we thought it would be an additional $100 to get the license. But luck fell on the right side this time.

If I could change anything, I'd probably have erred on the side of getting more pepperoni pizza, since those went fast. I'd also maybe do a more involved station at the beginning of the program for the teens who didn't want to do the stuff we had (maybe some sort of game -- I'd eyed picking up Zombie Dice or Zombie Fluxx but didn't because of time issues).

When the teens left, they asked when we'd be doing this again, and they were thrilled to hear we'd be having a Hunger Games showing the night before Catching Fire hits the big screen.

Teen Summer Reading -- The Plan!

The coworker I split teen responsibilities with is leaving the library before summer starts -- it's good for her and her family but I'm going to miss her because our minds were in the same place on a lot of things and, after working in 2 libraries where I was the only person doing teen services, it was so nice to share the job with someone else.

With that, we had to hash out summer reading programs quickly this year since, well, I'll be going it alone.

And I'm really excited about what we're offering. If you're still thinking or plotting or worrying, you're welcome to steal away. I'm not writing up lengthy descriptions or how-tos just yet, since I prefer to reflect upon after the fact, as opposed to plan it out.

Kickoff -- Duct Tape Creations

The teens keep asking, so I am providing. I'm lucky I know how to do a handful of things (wallets, hats, flip flops, and purses) but I told a couple of very eager and enthusiastic teens they have to come and show off their skills. Which I don't think will be an issue.

Pizza and a Movie

I'm feeding the kids pizza, and I'm going to show them Tremors. Because hello campy "beneath the surface" horror fun.

Book Discussion -- Rotters 

One of my goals after my 90 day evaluation at work was to run a summer book club for teens. There is a very active book discussion group at the high school, and they have been wanting something to supplement it during the summer. Enter the library!

I angsted about what book to do for a long time, then I realized that doing a true horror story about, well, things beneath the surface was the way to go. I haven't read Daniel Kraus's Rotters, but I have a feeling we'll have a lot to talk about and I am looking forward to it.

Pizza and a Movie 

Another round of pizza being served and a movie being watched. I haven't decided yet if we're going to show Jaws or The Sixth Sense. I asked on our teen Facebook page but they haven't weighed in with me here. So I'll pull a librarian's choice.

Cupcake Wars

I guess you can call this one right on the surface, as opposed to beneath it. I did a cupcake decorating event as part of my Mardi Gras party and the kids liked it a lot. So this time it's even bigger -- and I haven't decided yet if it will really be competitive or not.

Book Discussion -- Cinder

Another book discussion, and this time we're taking on cyborgs. I haven't read this one but am so excited to and I think it'll lead to a great discussion, too.

Summer Wrap Up: Zombie Party

I'm running a zombie party. And I am so excited about the things I have in mind for it. In addition to the party aspect, I'm going to show Warm Bodies. I'm completely unsold on the movie and don't want to see it, but my teens were raving about it and how cool it'd be if we could show it when it came out.

I aim to serve.

I'm still sussing out what I want to do in terms of passing programming and in terms of reader's advisory/displays, but I have a list of ideas in mind. I figure if I have them planned out now, I can be much more effective in implementing them during the summer.

I'm pretty excited about the plans. I get to thinking sometimes I'm not doing a lot that's super innovative or mind-blowing, but then I remember that these are the things teens want to do and love coming to. And that's what matters.

"Beneath the Surface" Scary Movie Marathon

Are your teens fans of scary movies? Mine are. And what could be more "beneath the surface" than the things that scare us in horror movies?

One of the programs you could do to incorporate this with the "Beneath the Surface" theme for summer is running a horror movie marathon. But rather than show off the latest and greatest, why not show some of the classic and/or campy horror movies out there? These are the kinds of things that aren't lame to teens. You could do a marathon in a day, showing 2 or 3 films at once, or you could make it a program that happens once a week on the same day and at the same time.

A challenge with scary movies is, of course, ratings. Which is why going back to the classic and campy horror is perfect. Many of the good ones are rated PG or PG-13. Here's a short list to get your mind cranking:

And two of my teens' favorites which are also in the appropriate rating category:

Passive programming ideas for "Beneath the Surface"

Passive programming is something I think a lot about. I've talked about it before at ALA, which included a lengthy list of ideas for passive programming. It's something I want to continue thinking about and implementing because the more opportunities you provide passive programming for your teens, the more they will engage in and with it.

While thinking about what programs I want to offer this summer to my teens, I've also kept a separate list of passive programs I want to implement. There are the obvious passive reader's advisory ideas, including book displays on mermaid books, on other worlds, on zombies, and on intergenerational stories (because our personal histories lie beneath our surfaces). Then there are a few others on my mind.

If you're looking for some easy passive programs to implement this summer, here are some of the ones I'm considering:

• Scratch art. Make up a bunch of homemade scratch boards, leave them out in your teen area, and ask the teens to make their own art. Yes, this will require some cleanup, but leave garbage cans in the area for the teens to do some of the cleanup themselves. Then display the art in the teen area. If you want to, you could employ some of your teens to make publicity out of their scratch art for other programs. 

• Black out poetry. But rather than use newspapers or magazines (which you can), why not rip apart some of those ARCs gathering dust on your shelves? Then if they happen to wander off, no one loses anything here. Leave out (or have a sign for where teens can ask for) markers, colored pencils, and crayons. Then display the art. Again, maybe some of your crafty teens can help you make some publicity for other programs through their own black out poetry. 

• You know the incredibly popular "Blind Date with a Book" display going around the internet right now? Take a spin on it. Cover your books with paper bags or construction paper, and in addition to the short description you might include to entice readers to check out the book, ask them to design a brand new cover for the book ON the blank paper. Display those covers. Put them on your social media, and hang them in your teen area. You could make an entire gallery of new covers for older books. This is the perfect way to also move some of those books that are still great but have dated covers. It's sort of like peer reviews, but instead of writing reviews, the teens are offering peer cover designs. 

• Something else that is "beneath the surface" is personality. How many of your teens know their Myers Briggs type? Pull together a bunch of personality tests in print or digitally and let the teens go to town. Let them share what their type is. Of course, provide information about what that means. There are great infographics floating around you could display in the teen area or share via your social media. 

• Origami. Do I need to elaborate? Leave instructions for how to make anything that might be "beneath the surface." Put out paper. Let them go to town.

• Trivia challenges. Let the teens answer a series of questions (and let them cheat, if they want to). Have them submit the answers and pick a winner or two every couple of weeks. Prizes could range from ARCs to earning extra points toward whatever the summer reading goals are or the chance to create a display of their favorite books or it could be just the sweet feeling of being victorious. 

• Haiku contests. Pick a topic. Tell the teens they have x-amount of time (a week, two weeks) to submit their best haiku on the subject. Display the best. Or, display them all and let the teens vote on the best ones. Good topics for haiku trivia this summer include the outdoors, zombies, anything under the ocean, and so forth.

• Post Secret. I introduced this to some of my teens a couple years ago and they loved it. They each made their own secrets using old magazines and pre-cut post card sized cardstock. Either let the teens do their own Post Secrets or give them a topic they have to do it on (you're a mermaid -- what's your biggest secret). 

This is a very small sampling of ideas. I plan on spending some time reading Austin Kleon's Steal Like an Artist and Phil Hansen's Tattoo a Banana to mine new ideas or flesh out some thoughts I've had which haven't come to fruition just yet. 

Do you have other suggestions for passive programs to try this summer that go along with the theme? Or which don't go along with it at all? 

Program success: Mardi Gras Party

I am very anti Anti-Valentine's Day parties. It's not that I'm against what the programs are, but I'm very against the terminology. Alternative Valentine's Day or other such titles? They're great. But anti makes Valentine's Day something to be against. Which is silly.

Rather than doing a party in that style this year, though, I decided to offer the teens a Mardi Gras party instead. It was a hit!

Here's what I did:

I set up the program station-style, offering the teens a few options for activities. I had a station for cupcake decorating. My co-worker ordered 3 dozen unfrosted cupcakes from a local bakery, then she purchased green, gold, and purple frosting (the squeeze kind for maximum decoration ability), gold spray frosting, and sprinkles. I provided napkins and plates.

One station was my bead station. I went to Mardi Gras a few years ago and had about 15 pounds of real deal beads. I let the kids have at them. I thought they'd want to take a lot more than they did, but the kids were conservative in their taking. Even if you had to buy the beads, they are quite cheap to acquire.

I also had a mask making station. Do not underestimate how much teenagers love unrestricted access to glitter, gems, and feathers. I provided card stock, colored paper, and markers, crayons, and pencils, as well as scissors, glue and popsicle sticks. The mask above is the one I made, but the teens were super creative. I printed out about 6 different templates in the event the teens wanted them. A few did, but not all. Some went to town on their own.

To show off the face masks, my coworker brought in an old frame and I took digital photos of the teens posing behind it (faces obscured for obvious reasons, but you can see the tips of their masks):

The teens loved this, and I think there could be an entire fun program in doing photos using various frames, costumes, and teen-designed creations. The opportunities then to play with those images digitally, too, could offer even more.

The final event I did for the teens was a scavenger hunt so I could name a King and Queen of Mardi Gras. I did it early in the program and wish I'd waited because it was such a hit. I hid 45 chocolate coins in the programming room, and I told the teens the person who found the most would be King and the second most would be Queen. When one of the girls had the most chocolate, I told her she could pick to be King OR Queen and she wanted to be Queen. So I let her.

I wanted to give the winners a baby (since that's what's traditionally hidden in King Cake) but we couldn't locate any babies. So instead, I gave the winners my big Troth Parade pendants. They totally loved it (the kid in the photo about on the left has one of them).

Of course, in the background of the event, I was playing some Preservation Hall Jazz Band. I asked if they wanted the music louder than it was, and did they ever.

I had the program at 4 pm, which was an ideal time to do this. The teen area was PACKED with kids at 4, so I wandered over there, told them there was a program with food, and they came. And they didn't just come for the cupcakes -- they stayed. We even had a visit from the local paper who took photos. I'm eager to see how those turn out.

The total cost of this program was minimal: cupcakes and decorations, as well as whatever supplies you may need for mask making. The music came from our collection, the frame from a coworker, and that is all. This was such a great opportunity for me to get to know our teens (since this was my first program at my new job) and I got to pick their brains for ideas for future programs. I talked to them about the books, movies, tv, and music they liked and didn't like. Not only did I get to pick their brains, I loved spending time talking with them while they were making masks and finding out what it is they love doing. The girl above? Duct tape fiend. Her brother ended up showing me one of her creations which was so impressive, I made him email me the photo so I could post it on the library's Facebook to her credit.

I would do this program again in a heartbeat. I might add another station or two, but really, the kids came to hang out and eat. I can't complain about that.

Next up for us? We're doing a Fan Art Night as part of Teen Tech Week. I already heard some of the kids talking about how excited they were to do it.

Program Idea: Rock Out

This year's summer reading theme for the CSLP teen program is "Beneath the Surface." It can be interpreted so many different ways which is kind of nice but it also lends itself to some, well, really lame sounding programs. But in the midst of thinking about how some of the program ideas I've seen popping up sound like the kind of things teens might never be interested in, I had an idea.

A "rock out" party.

I've seen a million program ideas for decorating rocks. You could use colored pencils on pebbles and protect the designs with sealant of some sort. You could also provide sharpies, white out pens, and other tools to make rocks that look like this.

Teenagers want more than a pet rock, I think. So take this a step further and play off the "Beneath the Surface" idea of doing rock art take the notion of "rock" a little further.

How about rock music playing in the background when you're making your rocks? Or maybe have a game of "Rock Star" or "Guitar Hero" for the kids and the rock decorating is part of the waiting time activity?

And of course...

You'd serve your teens pop rocks during the program.

This could be a cheap program -- the cost of pop rocks, as well as the cost of whatever supplies you provide for the decoration. The rocks are free. So is the music, if it's just pulled from the stacks. Since most libraries have gaming systems or access to them, that's also no cost.

I'm positive there are other ways to spin the idea of a "rock out" party. Rather than just make cool looking rocks, make it even more worth your attendees' while with other activities to do.

Keep your eye here. I plan on offering up some more program ideas for summer reading as the planning time gears up.

Easy passive programming for teens

I've not forgotten about this blog! I'm making it a goal to try to blog a couple times a month here with either programming ideas or something related to librarianship as a career. What better way to stick to that one that offer up one of my coworker's brilliantly simple and well-received passive programs!

With the election going on this month, we wanted to let the teens have a chance to practice democracy in the library. We talked about options for what the teens could vote on, and since we still have a wildly popular anime and manga collection, why not let the teens vote on what new series to add to the collection? 

The program involved creating a ballot of potential anime and manga titles (with a blank spot for a write-in candidate) and the teens filled it out, then stuffed it in the box. It ran for one week -- election week -- and the response was pretty darn good. Of course, the winners for both would be what's added to the collection.

So what was on the ballot? For the anime side, there was Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion, Durarara!!, Natsume's Book of Friends, and Shakugan No Shana and for the manga side, there was A Devil and Her Love Song, Durarara!!, Earl and the Fairy, and GA: Geijutsuka Art Design Class.

We're lucky to have a really nice display cube right at the entrance of the teen area, so it's easy to catch attention there. 

Aside from this being a very easy to develop teen program and one that runs itself, this kind of voting program really lets teens have a voice in their library. How empowering is it for them to know they got to help choose what materials are in their own collection? Plus, it helps you as a librarian figure out what is and is not popular (which is particularly helpful when neither you nor your coworker find manga/anime your strongest area).

Teen Read Week Program Idea

I had this crazy Teen Read Week program idea back during summer reading, and while I am sad I won't be running it, I wanted to pass it along for anyone looking for something exceedingly simple and quick to put together, especially if you're doing a last minute scramble.

If It Floats Your Boat is the name of it, and it's as straight forward as it sounds: feed your teens root beer floats. Buy some vanilla ice cream and root beer (or cream soda, red pop, etc.) and set the supplies on the table. Let the teens have all access.

In the mean time, pull together a pile of books -- both those that are new releases and those that might be lagging a bit on the shelves. Hop onto YouTube and build a play list of book trailers for those books. Put them all together so they'll stream one after another, then pull down your big screen and let the program be just that.

Is it subtle? Sure. Is it also straight forward book promotion? You bet. And the best part is that with the draw of free ice cream and root beer, you might bring in teens who would otherwise not go to the program. Since you're not putting together book talks yourself, nor are you pressuring kids to read or check out certain books, you might just capture their interest, even if by accident. For your big readers, what could be better than hearing about a bunch of good books, eating ice cream, then being able to check them out right away? It's all about whatever floats their boats!

The only tip is to make sure you pick good book trailers. It might take a bit of time on your part to pull the strong ones -- the ones that capture audience interest immediately and get to the point fairly quickly (under a minute usually) -- but the easy and low-cost aspects of the program should make it worth it. Bonus: it fits "Picture This" as a theme quite well.

Chocolate Olympics & Death by Chocolate

While last week I talked about programs that didn't cost money, today I'm going to share two programs I did (that were essentially the same thing) that ran me about $90 together. For drawing 60 kids, I think the cost was definitely worth it, but I think this is the kind of program that could probably be modified in many ways to be cheaper.

This is also a staff intensive program, unless you run it in a more competitive way than I did. I chose to do stations, rather than group events, except for the final contest. I had myself, two volunteers, and an additional staff member to help out, but again, I think modifications can easily be made.

I have photos from my tween stations, but I'll talk, too, about the other events I did for the teens.

The Set Up

I brainstormed and researched different ways of running this program until I found the right combination of events for my tiny space. I did plan it with the intention of doing it outside under our big tent, but with the weather throwing us a heat wave (and, um, chocolate not being good under those conditions), I had chosen the right activities to modify it for primarily indoor space.

Supplies
- Dark chocolate bars (I bought 2 of the 10 packs, but you can do more or less)
- 15 different types of candy bars (you can use more or less)
- 2 bags of mini candy bars for prizes
- 12 boxes of chocolate pudding
- Sour gummy worms
- 2 family size bags of plain M&Ms
- 1 family size bag of whoppers
- 2 large containers of chocolate sprinkles
- 2 family size boxes of oreos
- 1 or 2 bags of Hershey kisses
- Plastic cups
- Plastic spoons
- Pie tins (these were the most expensive items I bought)
- Napkins
- Construction or other painting/drawing appropriate paper
- Masking or Duct tape

The Program

Let's go station by station. At the tween event, two of the stations were set up to be unmanned, though we ended up manning one of them out of sanitary sake. In no particular order:

First up: the "Chocolate Puzzle." This was our unmanned station that we used in both programs (reusing the same materials). I purchased 15 kinds of candy bars, ranging from well-known Snickers and Butterfinger, to Kit Kat, and to the hard-to-guess Mars bar. I cut them into pieces -- halves for the smaller bars and quarters for the full size bars -- then put them into bags with a number attached. I then made up a guessing sheet that had 15 blank spots for the kids to guess which which kind of candy bar was in each bag.

I didn't put a sheet out for the kids to see the answers. Instead, I made them hold on to their response sheets until the end of the program. I had them take a seat as I held up each numbered bag and they told me their guess. I had written on the sheets that anyone who got 10 of the 15 correct would win a prize, but seeing I had a ton of prize candy, I let anyone who got 5 or more right win.




The next station I'll talk about is the "Stack and Sort." This table had two events, since they were each shorter ones.

First, the "sort." I went through the bags of M&Ms and sorted them into 30-some bags of 75 M&Ms each, with a variety of colors. I didn't count out colors for equality, just the number of candies in each bag. For this event, kids paired up and competed against another pair to see which group could sort their M&Ms by color fastest. Not as easy as it sounds, since they're working together as teams and need to have a plan. When one team finished, they were winners and got to pick out a prize. Both teams then got to enjoy their bag of M&Ms before diving into the second activity at this table.

The "stack" also relied on team work -- the pairs each took turns adding one Oreo at a time to create a tower. They were racing against another team doing the same thing. Whoever made the tallest tower won a prize. The challenge to this was, of course, the team work and the fact that the team across the table also shook the table, making the tower bases a bit unstable. When the kids finished this task, they didn't get to eat the cookies. . . until everyone had gone. Then they were able to help themselves if they wished.


What we thought would be one of the less exciting stations actually became one of the favorites: the "Whopper Relay." As you can see, we laid a piece of tape across the floor, and we had two kids line up along the wall opposite that line. They were each given one Whopper, had to get on their hands and knees, and roll the Whopper with their nose from one side of the room to that line, then they had to turn around and roll it back. The first kid to make it both ways would win.

This was easily the funniest part of the program, as we learned some kids were pretty darn good at using their nose to roll a Whopper. Even the teens loved this station and found it as funny as we did.

One of our non-pictured events was called "Chocolate Pudding Pie Surprise," and it's one we used for the teens only (due to attendance). In this program, we made up 15 pies made of chocolate pudding and dropped 6 sour gummy worms inside each. Two kids sat across the table from one another, their hands behind their back, and they had to race to retrieve the gummy worms from inside the pie using only their mouths and teeth. They were given a cup beside their pie tin to drop them into, and when they believed they'd fished out all of the worms, they were able to call stop. The person who pulled all six out first won, and they got to get a prize. We also let the kids keep their pudding pies if they wished, and I have to say, I was pretty surprised everyone wanted to keep them...and the worms.

This station wasn't one everyone wanted to do for obvious mess reasons, which is one reason I think setting it up station style was a good way to go. And keeping it for a smaller group, too, helped keep the cost/mess down. We told all of the teens if they dropped their pie from the table, they'd be responsible for licking it up off the ground.

None of the pies ended up on the floor!




Because I still wanted Tweens to play with chocolate pudding, their station was Pudding Finger Painting. This station was one meant to be unmanned, but due to sanitary concerns, we did man it.

For this, we set up a big bowl of chocolate pudding, construction paper, plastic cups, spoons, and napkins out. We told the kids they needed to spoon their "paint" from the bowl and use their cup of pudding to paint. They almost all painted something about loving chocolate, then turned to enjoying the pudding from their cups. I had worries they would lick chocolate from their fingers or spoons and put it back into the big bowl, but no one did.

Another unpictured event we had for the teens was our dark chocolate Pictionary game. Using the same yellow construction paper and two packs of dark chocolate bars, the teens pulled a clue from an envelope (where my volunteer and I had created 40 different clues) and they were to draw the clue with the chocolate bar. This was, by far, one of the favorite events, as the kids loved how the dark chocolate drew just like a brown crayon (and they loved drawing things from Harry Potter to zombies to hotels and mail boxes).

When someone guessed the correct item being drawn, they won a prize and became the drawer. Eventually, though, this program became sort of self-directed, as the kids really just wanted to draw (then eat...) the dark chocolate. Fine with me!



For the tweens, we also did a "Chocolate Shuffleboard." As you can see, I lined up two tables, not precisely flush with the walls, and I had my volunteer put duct tape down as point lines. The kids got to pick their puck from the bucket (which had Baby Ruth, Crunch, and Butterfinger bars -- think different shapes and aerodynamics!). We made four point brackets, then two extra spaces indicated as X's on the tables, and the kids lined up in groups of 2-4 at the end of the table pictured. They had three shots to score points, and whoever in the group earned the highest number of points won.

Though this was one of those last minute adds to the program, the kids enjoyed it a lot and came back more than once to do it.

Finally, we did three "Chocolate Relays" outside under the tent, despite the oppressive heat. The first involved chocolate sprinkles and cups -- the kids lined up in equal teams (we did multiple rounds for the tweens and one round with bigger teams for the teens). The first person to go was given a cup of chocolate sprinkles and a spoon, and on the opposite side of the tent, there was an empty cup. The goal was for the teams to transport the sprinkles by spoon from their side to the empty cup on the other. When the first team emptied the cup they held, the race was over, and we judged which team had gotten the most sprinkles into the other cup. The point of the race, of course, is determining if going fast was better than going slow and steady or whether it was worth doing big scoops or small scoops of sprinkles.

After that relay, we did a second one. The kids stayed in their same teams, but this time, each was given a pair of oven mitts. The first person in each team put them on, then they raced down to the table on the other end of the tent, where a bowl of Hershey Kisses waited. With the mitts on, they had to unwrap the Kiss, eat it, throw out the wrapper, then run back to their team and swap mitts with the next person up. While it sounds easy, opening the Kiss is challenging with the mitts on, ESPECIALLY when the chocolate has begun melting from the heat. Because the adults were laughing so hard at the kids, we were challenged to try it ourselves -- and we did, like the good sports we are. It was challenging, but in a very funny way. The first team to have all their players complete the task won a prize.

The final relay we did only with the teens, and it was one we came up with on the spot. Each player on a team was given a spoon and instructed to put it in their mouth. The first player needed to come down to the table then scoop a Whopper out of a plastic cup with the spoon in their mouth (we held the cups for them). They then raced back to their team, where they had to pass the Whopper from their spoon to the spoon in the next player's mouth. Then that person ran down and deposited the Whopper into the cup again and so forth. It wasn't an easy one for them, either, as we told them if the Whopper fell on the ground, they had to pick it up with the spoon in their mouths. And yes, this happened more than once. As usual, the first team to finish the relay won.

Lessons Learned

I actually had a lot more chocolate left over than I anticipated, so I was very loose with my definition of "winning." I let anyone who wanted prize candy take it, especially in the end, so it would all disappear (and it did).

One of the things I was worried about was not having enough activities and the huge mess that would come at the end. Here's the thing: because it was so staff intensive and we couldn't lead kids around from station to station, it ended up working out perfectly. The kids picked where they wanted to go, and we let them do any activity they wanted to do multiple times. As far as the clean up was concerned, there really was no mess. The messiest activity was the sprinkle race, but because it was outside, we didn't really need to clean up much of anything. All of our indoor activities were done on tables covered in the $1 table cloths that made clean up as easy as wrapping up the mess on the table and tossing it. Simple!

Without doubt, this was fun for both me and the kids, and it's a program I would not only recommend but would do again. I have a ton of other activity ideas to keep it fresh if I did it in the future. It also gives me a lot of hope that my fall "Minute to Win it" program will be as popular as this one was.

Of Note

The thing that probably surprised me the most was that we had more boys than girls in both programs. And I loved how easily transferable the activities were between the age groups, too, and both the tweens and teens had equal amounts of fun doing the silly activities.

I think this is a program that could work for the whole family, too. Pricey, sure, but for an activity that brings this much joy to both the participants and staff (and not to mention the incredible photos we've got!), it's worth doing it.

Going Green: A Recycled Costume Show

The theme of the week is no cost programming, and today's program at work was one of the favorites so far this summer: a recycled costume show.

I mentioned before that there are always programs you inherit when you start a new job, and this is one of the traditional summer programs at my library. I think it's a really cool program and one I plan on keeping around. It's easy to organize and cost free, and it lets kids of all ages express their creativity.

Supplies

This is an easy one: anything recycled. But start saving things well in advance of your program, and have your staff help out. I had bubble wrap, packing paper, cardboard, tinsel, toilet paper and paper towel rolls, cereal boxes, soda bottles, and other regularly recyclable materials. My supplies also included most of last year's summer reading club decorations, which meant there were a ton of shark fins, some plastic shovels and goggles, and, perhaps the crowd favorite, the wicker luau fans like these.

I then pulled out glue, scissors, yarn, stick on foam shapes, craft fuzz balls, tape, duct tape, and a handful of other supplies I wanted to deplete.

Set Up

In the past, this program has been held under our big outdoor tent, with a "red carpet" positioned in the middle so that at the end of creation time, the kids could walk the runway to the MC. That was the plan for this year until we had an extreme heat warning issued, and I decided it was best to keep this program inside. The contingency plan involved putting all the non-recyclables on the floor and the craft supplies on one table. We pulled together a punch of tables for the kids to create on, some with chairs and some without (as I've found, the kids are all different about their preference, so I leave it open).

I didn't want to miss out on the kids showing off their creations, so my contingency was a library parade. I told the kids 10 minutes prior to the end of the program, we'd go on a parade throughout the stacks.

Running the Program

Like with the beaded creations program, I made no plans. Instead, I made myself available to the kids for helping with cutting, knot tying, etc. I told the kids as they came to make anything they wanted to, and they did!

As soon as creation time was done, we lined up and took a tour of the library. Some of the kids thought this parade was the best part of the program because they got to have the attention of all the patrons. Everyone got to oooh and ahhh over their costumes. Costumes ranged from an incredible robot (body and helmit with a jet pack in the back!) to a mask with a straw attached (so she could wear a mask and still drink water), as well as crowns, wigs, and bubble wrap skirts. The teens who showed up made themselves an elephant hat (which she plans to wear for Halloween) and a mailbox hat. These kids were wildly creative and imaginative, and I'm eager to go through our photos, since I know I didn't get to see everything they made.

Once our parade was done, I took the kids back to our creation space and told them the program was over, but they should feel free to take any supplies they wanted to to continue their costumes at home. Lucky for me, many of them did, meaning I had fewer things to put back into storage for next year's costume show.

Lessons Learned

What I loved about this program was it really brought in all ages. I had very young kids and I had teenagers making costume pieces. They even helped one another out, which is always one of those end goals.

I had my intern helping me out with this program, but were I doing it again, I'd love more help. While it requires little in terms of set up and in instruction, it sure helps to have people around for clean up and for taking photos and helping kids with some of the harder tasks, such as cutting tape or making holds through cardboard, etc.

I'd also make the parade a bigger deal -- I can't get too down about this, though, since this was a serious last minute improvisation for the fact I decided not to hold the program outside in the heat. But the kids loved it so much, I do plan on doing that part again. The parents got a kick out of taking photos of their kids marching in the parade, and the kids liked to show off everything they'd made (and not all of them made costumes, so not having a runway show let everyone show off what they made, regardless of whether it was wearable or not).

This is a program I highly recommend for all ages, and it's one that can be done any time of the year, and one that could be particularly well done during April's Earth Week. What a way to encourage kids to recycle and to think about the ways the things they use every day can be re-purposed. We don't always have to teach through lecturing; sometimes, it's as simple as letting them create and discover.

Costs

$0.

Really, what do you have to lose?

Going Mobile

Pictured above is most of my new teen mobile collection, built thanks to the generous support of the Family Dollar/YALSA grant I won for the summer. I've been asked a lot about it, and I thought I'd give the run down of the whys and hows of going mobile.

How it started

One of the challenges of our community is that, despite being fairly small, we are spread out. We serve hundreds of square miles of farm land, and we live in a county where there is no public transportation. Despite our library's fairly favorable location in downtown and about a mile from the schools, no location is ideal in a rural setting.

That got me thinking about teen participation in the library. Many teens can walk over after school for programs, but what about teens during the summer? Then I started wondering why I couldn't make the effort to serve the kids and do it where they were: the school. Summer school here is one month long, Monday through Thursday, and every kid who attends also receives a free lunch.

And here, I thought, was an opportunity I couldn't pass up. I could go over to the lunch room for an hour once or twice a week, bring a selection of books, and bring all of the necessary summer reading club materials, and then I could get the teens involved in the program without them needing to trek to the physical library building. Moreover, I knew this would be an opportunity to get to know the teens in my area a bit more and it would be a chance to gauge what kinds of books my teens were reading. Since my teen collection is upstairs and my office and the desk I work at are downstairs, it's not always easy to know what is moving.

Planning

Admittedly, I didn't go about this in the most logical way. The logical manner would have been getting in touch with the school prior to applying for the grant to set this collection up. The challenge to that, of course, is what happens if the grant doesn't get approved. I knew I didn't have the budget to fund this myself (at least, I didn't think I did -- more on that in a minute), so my plan depended upon the grant.

When I found out I got the money, that's when I got in touch with the school's summer school coordinator, as well as the school librarian. We met to talk about the logistics of the collection. I had envisioned buying a selection of new books and having the kids check them out with their library cards, but after this meeting, I changed my plans, and I think I did so for the better.

Some of the considerations that needed to be talked about included the check out process -- did the kids need their library cards? It seemed like a hindrance, since many kids don't have cards for the precise reason I mentioned before: transportation. Then there's the issue of fines: how do you charge for late or lost materials? That could get the parents involved and get tricky. Then there's the issue of storage and transport. That was the easiest to tackle.

After that meeting, I brainstormed and came up with a plan of attack: I'd buy only paperback books, teens could check out books with their library card, school ID, or simply their name and phone number, and because I was doing a paperback collection, I wasn't going to charge overdue or lost fees. Of course, I wouldn't tell the kids that. I just gave them a due date (the last day of summer school) and it would be taking my chances. I was lent a book truck from the school library and given space in the administrative offices to park it. Easy enough!

Purchasing and Organizing

Creating my collection was actually very easy. I've done a ton of book talking this year, and I had a good sense of the kinds of books my kids were interested in. So naturally, those were first picks. Following those, I decided to really focus on titles that the kids wouldn't get quick access to elsewhere: popular teen fiction written in Spanish and a selection of titles with appeal to reluctant readers. When I budgeted for the collection, I gave myself about $600 to play with. I believe I ended up spending about $550 and came away with over 80 books -- keeping in mind that Spanish books are almost twice the cost of English editions of the same work, I thought that money stretched quite well. I also pulled a few personal copies of extra paperbacks I had at home since I knew they'd go to good use here.

As books rolled into the library, I pulled my copies from the tech room. I didn't know how I wanted to mark them, but after thinking about how I'd use the collection after this summer, I figured I should follow our standard marking procedure. Barcodes and stamps were attached, but I did not include spine labels. I wanted to make this a true browsing collection, and since that step is a quick and easy one, it could be saved for later, when we included these titles in our general collection post-summer.

Since I didn't want to add these books to my library's standard catalog because of the set up of the program, I went about organizing the books through LibraryThing. I kept it quite simple, and I included a private field in my login side for me to include the names of the kids who checked out the title (along with their phone number and a record of how many times a particular title checked out). You can see my entire library collection by going here, and then toggle the library collection on the top left to "Teen Mobile Collection."

Preparing For Day One

I knew I'd have a cart available to me, but everything else I knew was on my own. I made two signs to post on the book cart and brought an acrylic holder to include a third. They all were simple, explaining that these books were from my library and anyone could check them out. And oh, here's a chance to sign up for the summer reading club. I emphasized that since the kids were already going to be reading for homework, they should sign up and actually earn prizes for their homework.

That's the line that sells them.

Along with those items, I brought with me a paper check out log. Because I didn't want to have the liability of losing a computer nor did I know about the internet availability at the school, I thought writing out the books and kids information by hand would be easier. I could transfer that information to the LibraryThing account upon returning.

I also brought a handful of summer reading program registration cards, reading logs, activity sheets, and prize money, along with envelopes that showed what the prizes for that week were (so kids who checked in the first day or any time after could know what the choices were and participate right there). We'd, of course, put their prize entries into the real buckets when we got back to the library.

Day One in Action

When I got to the cafeteria, where I was setting up for the kids lunch hour, I had no idea what the arrangement would look like. I came in, took a seat at the table nearest the front of the door, and got all my materials in order. I was ready!

At first, there wasn't any interaction. But then, the kids started reading my signs and talking to me -- so many knew me from the classroom visits, they felt comfortable just walking up and asking what I was doing. And when I told them, it was like I turned on the light. They were thrilled, and they were asking how to check stuff out, how much they could check out, and how they could sign up for the club. It was a wonderful opportunity to be face to face with the kids for even 30 minutes!

Filling out the registration cards and explaining the program was so much fun, and on the first day, I registered 5 new kids for the program (many who came to see me were already a part) and I checked out books to 5 kids, too. For getting no advertising in the schools beyond what I mentioned in classroom visits, it was a huge success!

When I got back to the library, I simply input the student information into the private field of the LibraryThing account, slipped the registration cards into our library's bigger file for them, and was done for the day. I made the mobile collection registration cards a different color than our regular ones, to make retrieving them for our return trips easy.

Days Two and Three and On...

On day two (which was two days later), we were able to register 5 more teens for the program and we received nearly all of the checked out items from two days before and checked out material to a lot more kids, too.

Day three, I let my intern take over completely. I want her to have this project now, as a way to really work with teens the way I know she wants to. She came back that day having registered three more kids and checking out a wealth more items. We also had people check in their reading logs, meaning that when we go back tomorrow, kids will get their prizes delivered to them.

That's part of the deal, of course: we're bringing the prizes to the kids, making their participation in summer reading little more than doing the reading and showing us their logs.

Impressions and Take Aways

This program was so easy to coordinate that I hope it continues in the future. I want to make it happen next summer and maybe in a more regular way. Integrating into the classrooms could be a potential next step, even. But for now, here's what I'm really getting from it:

• Kids are dying to read. They're interested in the popular fiction (and fun non-fiction) titles, and giving them few restrictions is key. Because in the end, they're good kids. The books will come back. They have been coming back for us each time we return.

• Getting to spend one-on-one time with the kids helps me learn who they are and helps them learn who I am, too. I had a brother duo come up to me, one in 7th grade and one in 10th. The 7th grader recited to his brother all about the program, verbatim, from what I had shared during my school talks. The 7th grader signed up eagerly while his brother talked about how it was a scam. I assured him it wasn't, but it was his brother who convinced him to sign up because he trusted me and knew me. Honestly, this was one of those moments that made me realize how important going TO the kids was. It builds a huge sense of trust in me and in my organization.

• We signed up more than 12 kids in our 3 visits. That's 12 more kids actively involved in our reading program. Would they have signed up if we weren't at the school? Likely not. We're more mobile than them, and we're catering to their needs.

• Hearing and seeing what books excites the kids helps me in thinking about not only collection development, but also in programming. My kids are RABID about Raina Telegmeier's Smile and Zombie Haiku. I sense a worthy program in comics and in, err, zombies.
  

• We're tapping an opportunity that has huge growth potential. Why can't we have this collection at other events where we'll see the kids? Maybe events where we'll see kids AND their parents, where then we can also get kids who don't have cards their own cards? This experiment will lead to more experiments, which, if I remember correctly, is one of the key aspects of being a librarian: trying things out.
  

Conclusion

We still have a couple weeks left of the program, so I'll update again at the end. I'm eager to see what changes and improvements can be made for the future, and I'm eager to see how much involvement we gain, now that the kids know we're there.

This is a program I'd highly encourage other librarians who serve teens to consider, especially if you find yourself in an area like mine, where transportation is a huge issue. And though the start up costs are high, they can be cost effective for any budget. All you have to do is pull paperbacks from your own stacks. You can save good books that come into your donations, too. Once you set up the initial collection, it's yours to use however. I plan on popping mine back into regular circulation at the end of summer, but I plan on keeping the LibraryThing list so I can pull these titles out again for other outreach opportunities.