Week 1: 12-15 Year Olds--too old to wave for attention, too young to stage protests about it

This week the reading (and thank you, UPS man for bringing me the book last night!) is about understanding the youth audience. Teens, to me, are a fairly mysterious entity. I have one cousin who is a teenager, but I'm not certain if she counts anymore because she's 19 and in college, so I'm pretty sure there's a cut off there. In any case, my primary exposure to teens en masse these days is on the subway or at CVS right when school lets out. I see them at their most raucous, when they have just been released from forced order and quiet and are letting all their energy out by out-talking each other and playfully shoving each other around.

I generally try not to get in their way.

This is not to say that teens intimidate me. I simply understand that I am encountering them in a moment when they definitely do not desire an adult to be butting in in any capacity. I used to think quite a lot about teen services (or Young Adult services, as surveys have shown older teens prefer to be called, so I should probably start doing that...) So. I used to think a lot about teen *and* young adult services in my hometown, which is very small and had wonderful library programs for children but none for kids twelve and up. The town itself had nothing for kids that age, so in reading over the chart of internal and external assets that young people need to achieve their full potential, I was silently checking off each one as 'no, didn't have that, or that one either...'

I think that the kids aged between 13-15 are too often ignored by society. It seems that people don't really know what to do with them. Here are the kids in an age range where they are forming their traits that will see them through their lives, and yet there is a veritable black hole of services and programming available to them. Are they children? Are they young adults? What must it be like for them to age out of a children's program and find that the young adult programs are not suited for them? This is what I saw happening in my town.

My personal goal for a YA services program would be one that could serve all ages from 12-high school graduation with divisions of appropriateness, at first glance by age level, but more importantly by what the patron needed. Libraries and librarians are a social cornerstone that can be vital in the transition from youth to adult. Especially in situations where teens are without parental guidance for the majority of their day, the library should be able to provide a place of support where they can feel able to be themselves, to play on the computer if they want, but especially to feel that they have the support they need and the opportunities they need to achieve what they want now and to feel important now. No child should have to wait to feel validated.