Pieces of Programming: Otaku Training Day

Teens are interesting creatures.  They have absolutely no interest in you until you're not paying them any attention.   

I've learned to use this to my advantage. 

If I visit the teen room and just start doing something, that's the easiest way to get them to wander over and investigate.  I try to remain as aloof as possible, or at least appear as though what I'm working on is truly no big deal and right when they start asking questions, BAM!, I've got them. 

Occasionally, they get me too. 

I am not an Anime or Manga enthusiast.   

By any means. 

In fact, whenever I see it plastered into teen services guides, I usually flip right past it. My teens here are very big on Anime and Manga, but our relationship has pretty much been that I won't bother them about it, if they don't bother me about it.  We live and let live in that way. LOL 

However, my teens don't care that I don't like anime.   

What they saw in my indifference, I've found, was an opportunity to teach.   

So I decided to exploit it.  

On a random day of being lovingly bugged about watching or reading an episode of whatever their latest fandom is, I finally offer them an olive branch; 

"What if I give you all a whole day to just completely engross me in all things Anime/Manga?"   

Eyes got wide.  Activity began to buzz.  There were monsters being created. 

As the weeks rolled on, I began to gently drop little pieces of responsibility on them: 

"You need to come up with a schedule, you know."  I'd say. 

As they began to see how serious I was about it, they would also have tasks for me: 

"We would like a projector and a laptop for the day." They would tell me.  They'd bring me choices to circle, so that they could meet together and decide on their plan. 

These little repartee's continued, and I have to say that their excitement did two things for me: 

1. It made ME a little excited about it also. 
2. It reminded me that it really didn't matter what the program was going to be about.  The most important thing was that these teens had an adult willing to sit and listen to them about something that was important and valuable to them, for an extended time period.  It was the driving force behind most of their excitement, and the ownership of it, made them not want to take it for granted.    

On the day of training.  I made sure that all of my work was out of the way.  The teens were in charge of schedule, setup, and even snacks.  At exactly 1:30pm, they were standing in my office giving me the "It's time", face. 

They served popcorn, arranged seating in our activity room to accommodate everyone, and setup the projector and laptop.  A couple of them greeted me by calling me an "Otaku Cadet".  By the time I came into the room, they had tabs open for each anime title they wanted me to view.   

Here's what they shared with me: 

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood  Fairy Tail Reborn Akame Ga Kiru Squid Girl  Medaka Box and Sword Art Online  

Some I liked: Fullmetal, Akame Ga Kiru 

Some I was kind of put-off by: Squid Girl, Medaka Box 

Three anime titles in, I asked, "I thought you all were going to show me Attack On Titan"?" A room of disgusted faces turned it me and said: "Nooooooooo, Miss Regina. Too mainstream." Then one put a hand on my shoulder and whispered, "Too mainstream..." 

So how did it go? 

I think it went exceptionally well.  There were over 16 participants(with males and females!), including two off-duty staff members who stopped in.  I was so proud of how they handled this event and a couple of hours in, I even ordered a couple of pizzas and sodas as a thank-you.  Throughout the day, they repeatedly asked me my thoughts on what they were exposing me too.  I tried to be honest, but was also careful to be mindful of their feelings, and particular shows they felt strongly about. 

At the close of the event, to show that I was fully respectful of the time they'd taken, I also took a moment to put in orders for any titles they'd shown me, that we didn't have full seasons of in the library.  I also offered them the opportunity to reinstate the long dormant Anime club.  They are going to get back to me about that. 

A full program executed by teens, reverse teen-advisory, and a crash course in Japanese.  Time well spent, I'd say.

Gaming Review: Watch Dogs

Aiden Pearce is a hacker.  He and his partner Damien decide to do a massive hack on the rich patrons of the Merlaut Hotel, a swanky spot owned by Lucky Quinn, notorious Chicago Mob Boss, and the premier destination for the elite and wealthy. During their electro-heist, the hackers become the hacked, and Aiden decides to bail before they get caught.  Unbeknownst to them, their little job did not go unnoticed, and a hit is put out on he and Damien.   

While traveling with his sister and her two young children to the neighboring town of Pawnee,  yes, Parks and Rec fans, Pawnee, the hitmen assigned to him, shoot out his tires, causing Aiden to spin out of control, causing an accident that kills his 6 year old niece, Lena.   

A year later, Aiden is still traveling down the revenge rabbit hole when he is found by Damien, who wants to blackmail him into finishing the Merlaut job.  This opens up the floodgates of Chicago corruption stories, with everything from human-trafficking, to political cover-ups, and even a little more blackmail.  All the while, you're allowed to hack into ctOS, the Central Operating System, owned by Blume (or Google if you want to call a spade a spade), which controls everything in the city from bank accounts to the bridges and steam pipes. 

Uh...I wanted to like this game sooo much more than I actually do. 

I don't hate it.  But it didn't quite fire on all cylinders the way its original E3 trailer did two years ago.  Let me explain. 

Pieces of Programming: Tween/Teen Flashback Day

While many of my library kids may never know much of the technology I did as a child, I've found that there is one definite way to bridge our generational gap: GAMING!  If I put a record and record player in front of my kids, there's a good chance only one or two of them will know how to make them work, but if I put an original Nintendo system in front of an eight year old, they'll beat a game that I never could.  In that frame of mind, I decided to host a flashback day for our tweens and teens to allow them a chance to look at how far games have come, and where they may go.  

Pieces of Programming: Drama Club Spring Session Wrap-Up

Aside from my duties as a teen librarian, I keep my connection with the tweens by running our Youth Services Drama Club.  I think I inherited the club just by it being an open opportunity but now that I've had it for a while, and can see some of my tweens reaching the age that gets them into teen activities and the teen room, I can appreciate the bond it has helped me form with them so that it will continue once they are full-fledged teens.

The Spring Session was my best to date, I believe, and in it, I introduced three great things that helped me maintain my sanity:

Summer Reading Has Begun! (And I Think They Actually Like it)

What a couple of weeks it has been!
Summer Reading has officially begun here in my library, and with it came our first teen-focused program.  Heroes & Villains is off to a booming start, with over 25 teens signed up (HUGE for teenagers), and some even having reached a checkpoint already.
There are a lot of little components, which confused me for a while, but I think I've finally gotten it to the point where it is easy to digest.
So, here's the final rundown of our Heroes & Villains SRP Kickoff!

Marketing & Materials

Each teen that signs up receives a contact card (punch card):

Teens can "check-in" with us once a week to receive a punch on their card for any ONE spaces.  They turn in a Debriefing form{below} with a short review and we check to make sure the space they're getting a punch for is the same as the one on their form.  A completed card is their entry into our grand prize raffle!  Thanks to a generous donation from our library Friends group, we are able to offer a Kindle Fire AND a Wireless Gaming chair as our 2 grand prizes.

Now, my other concern was how to keep them interested throughout the summer.  One huge draw for them is that they can turn in as many forms as they wish per week, so even though they only get one punch on their card, and can only win a grand prize from those, they can enter as many forms as they want for chances to win weekly raffles as well.  

Directly Integrated Research With Google Docs

So I'm sitting here working on a few of my final Summer Reading Program plans.  I rely extremely heavily on Google and Pinterest these days, so those are my everyday go-to sites.  I use Google Docs, Blogger (obviously), Google Calendar, etc.  I open up Google Docs today and there, in the corner is a shiny new bauble!

Meet the Google Docs Research Tool!

I have to admit that it sidetracked me long enough to lose focus on my actual document.  What a clever little minx Google continues to be!

Pieces of Programming: Making Puppets with Drama Club!

When I first started at my current library, drama club was thriving.  The kids had posed in front of our green screen, made great videos, and did a lot of reader's theater with the former librarian who served as their teacher.  One of my predecessor's last activities here was actually a drama club premiere party, where they got to watch themselves on the big screen (our projector screen), and see what they'd done all year.  I was impressed, and excited, but greatly intimidated.

I'd done drama club as a child myself, and I LOVE performance art, but teaching kids how to do it is not as simple a feat.  Kids are not only balls of energy, but tweens specifically are balls of emotions, and sometimes the drama part of the club is all I knew I could expect to see.  There were also the task of redefining what the club was for and how it ran for me, as opposed to what they were used to with the other librarian.  Her plans and outcomes were great, but I needed to determine my own goals.

2012 National Ambassador for Young People's Literature Named!

Thanks to K.C. Boyd over at MissDomino, I've just learned something amazing!
Walter Dean Myers has been named the 2012 National Ambassador for Young People's Literature!
The quote found on Read.gov is just ONE of the many things I love about Mr. Myers and is his platform policy.

For more information on the office of the NAYPL, click the above screenshot.
For a truly inspiring post that says what I was thinking far better than I ever could, check out K.C.'s blog.

Pieces of Programming: Zombie Week!

The idea for Zombie week started with the release of Dead Island, the ultra-horrific but greatly anticipated video game.  I knew my teens would love to get their hands on the game, and that it would have to be an after-hours event for them to really get the opportunity to play it in our teen room.  An exact week after I started working on their night, I got a visit from a dance instructor in the area who was trying to find ways to connect our library kids to her studio.  Her studio is actually a partner of our library, so I was more than happy to help in any way possible.  From chit-chatting with her, we finally decided to have one of her instructors visit the library during drama club and teach Thriller to my tweens!

Thus, Youth Services Zombie Week was born.

Though we called it a "week", the program really only consisted of two programs.  One for tweens and one for teens.  For the tweens, we had a very special Zombie edition of Drama Club, while my teens were treated to after-hours gaming that featured Dead Island{score}.

Our warm up games for Drama Club were Zombie based on this day and included a riveting round of "Don't Wake the Zombie"

Then came actually making our zombies.

Weeding: A Spooky Trip Through our YA Fiction

I often visit AwfulLibraryBooks.net to laugh at the ridiculous things some librarians find on their shelves during weeding.  This week, however, I didn't even have to leave my own library to get a good chuckle.  With the summer being so busy, there isn't time for things like weeding and reorganizing so it is one of the first things we're getting started on now that the kids are back in school.

Each member of my department has an assigned section to weed, and I am the proud gardener of our Young Adult books, movies, and series.  When I tell you I have literally guffawed this week at some of the things I've come across, I am not exaggerating.  While some of these were taken off primarily because of age, and the fact that I doubt any of our current teens would touch them, there were also a few that contained just enough bad or misleading information to make me cringe, but just enough ironic cover-choices or contents to make me laugh out loud.

I use the MUSTY system when weeding:
Misleading (factually inaccurate),
Ugly (covers or damages that make you cringe),
Superseded (a better edition has come about),
Trivial (of no merit),
Your collection (The book is not of interest to the members of your library community or out of place in your collection)

Some of the books I found were in fact still relevant, but the covers were so bad that I had to pull them anyway and put in an order for updated copies. Others were ancient, the oldest I found had been purchased in 1987, but hadn't been checked out in years, or not at all.  I've decided to showcase a few of my favorite weeds of the week.
Enjoy, LOL.