State Library Services for Teens

Last year the State Library of Ohio conducted a needs assessment to determine who is providing library services to Ohio’s youth and the most crucial training needs of Ohio’s youth librarians.

The survey collected data from 576 librarians representing 287 public library buildings. The survey results were for both children’s services (birth to eleven years) and teen services (twelve to eighteen years). Key findings for teen services were:

• A total of 61.5% of respondents work with teens ages 12 – 18.
• Nurturing positive relationships between teens and all library staff is a primary concern for teen service librarians.
• Maintaining order when teens are in the library was a concern for teen librarians.
• Training and Advocacy for teens was also a primary concern, especially technology training.

Key recommendations for the State Library with regard to service to teens were:

• To offer training for both children’s and YA Librarians on working with “Tweens”.

• To develop customer service training with insights on teen development and psychology and tips on how to establish and maintain positive interpersonal relationships with this age group.

• To develop workshops and other training events for librarians on incorporating new technologies in their work. i.e. – creating and maintaining blogs and wikis; incorporating text messaging or RSS feeds into library service delivery; Advocating with the library administrations to use new technologies in library services to teens.

Currently, the State Library’s Youth Services section of the Librarians’ Tooklit, does not focus on teen services as much as we would like.  We do have on our Youth Services page (note: moved to WJOH in fall of 08') a small section of links on Young Adult Literature. We also link to YALSA on this page. We plan to explore a number of options for expansion of resources on our website in the area of service to teens. 

Ohio will soon become a WebJunction partner state.  WebJunction Ohio will be a wonderful vehicle to expand resources for services to teens. Since WebJunction allows for local experts to submit articles and resources, this should prove to be a very vibrant resource for teen services.  For example, recently WebJunction offered an  article on Teens and Technology which lists a wealth of resources from around the country. 

Download pdf: ASSESSING THE TRAINING AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT NEEDS OF OHIO PUBLIC LIBRARY STAFF SERVING CHILDREN AND YOUTH, July 2007 Report