Teen Advisory Board

When I started at my current position, there were very few things for teens. I wanted to change that. I used my prior experience working with teens in libraries and lots of research to determine what I wanted to do and how to do it. Many libraries have a teen advisory board. I knew I wanted to start one to get teens more involved in the library and to help me get a sense of what what would appeal to teens in the community. I established my goals for the group. I then created an application for membership that contained a description of what the group would do and the benefits of membership. Once the application was ready, I began to recruit members. I started by asking teens who use the library regularly. I then sent the application to teachers at the local middle school and high school and asked them to hand out applications to any teens they thought would be interested. I also took applications to school visits to talk about the summer reading program. The first meeting was in April 2014. Meetings are held once a month and have had attendance between 3 and 6 teens each time. The most recent meeting in October represented the six month anniversary of the Teen Advisory Board. There are five teens that attend somewhat regularly. My goal in the next six months is to have a core group of at least five regular members who attend five out of the next six meetings. I feel that the group has been a success. I will continue to build the membership and make the group into something that is valuable to both the library and the members.

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