Making the Most of Teen Library Volunteers by Becca Boland

Author:Becca Boland
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ABC-CLIO

LITERARY-BASED SERVICE

I’ve said it before and you will not get me to stop saying it, so please stop trying. Don’t forget those teens who are at the library to volunteer because of their passion for books and reading. Make sure that they have an opportunity to use that love within their volunteer hours.

It is very hard to work in a library these days. We strive to be everything to everyone, and for most of us we do not have the staff, training, or resources to achieve these goals. We are not trained counselors, and most of our backgrounds are in fields that don’t help us to teach coding, engineering, or robotics. We aren’t trained educators. Most of us are teen departments of one. Just like we encourage our teens to “double dip” and use their required summer reading toward their summer reading program goals or use their lunchtime book club book as their free reading title in class, we too can achieve our volunteer goals by using our skills and strength. Starting with books. Books are our brand. Books are what we are known for and what we will always be associated with, so let’s embrace that and use it to our advantage.

Please note, while the root and foundation of some of the literary service programs I am going to discuss are in schools, they certainly can be implemented in any library. Use your imagination, training, and skills to expand your volunteer and literary services.

Stories to Service

At Johnson City Public Library in Johnson City, Tennessee, Katelyn Wolfe, the teen services manager, has developed a program called Stories to Service. The focus of this program is to “inspire service through literature” (Wolfe 2018). It does so by combining a book club with a service project. It is a quarterly program. There are four meetings for the planning committee, four meetings of the book club, and four meetings to conduct the service project. So, a teen can potentially have twelve meetings/volunteer opportunities to participate in throughout the year. The service project is chosen by the teen volunteers, and then they work together to choose a corresponding book. Teens are given the book to read and keep so that they can fully prepare for both the discussion and the service project. The discussion takes place first and the project follows.

The example that was provided in Wolfe’s grant submission was to use Shusterman’s Challenger Deep and then host a mental health fair at the library bringing in local organizations that could provide information as well as coping strategies. The group’s first Stories to Service focus was on the issue of the environment. They read Pacifica by Kristen Simmons and created bug hotels and birdhouses in conjunction with a local organization for the library’s garden. The next service focused on teen texting and driving. They read the book Goodbye Days by Jeff Zentner and created bumper stickers and lock screens to distribute to the community. Their next book and service combo will focus on homelessness.

Make

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.