Question for teens (off-topic)

(lock and delete if it's against the rules)

I'm a librarian for high school students, and I just ended up in charge of getting the ball rolling on the summer reading kick-off, this year to be essentially a talent show (sounds geeky, but this isn't the flyer, just a question).

Anyway, what I wanted to ask the teens on the list is, what are the best places to get info on this up? Where are you most likely to hear an ad, or see a flyer? And what sort of thing would make this seem interesting?

And the award for Most Scientific Market Research goes to...

Anyway, any input would be more than welcome.

 

Definately the cafeteria and the main foyer. Those are the places where ads catch my eyes. Also, it may sound gross, but on the doors to the bathrooms.

 

Somewhere near the detention lists, everyone LOVES to see who got in trouble. Also outside a good looking teacher's room most will look in and then see the poster/flyer on door.

 

In or around the cafeteria and near doorways(especially the main lobby).

And JG, nothing's really off topic here, we talk about everything. Its' a community board.

 

Cool. Hopefully, we'll be able to do actual school visits this year (short-staffed the last couple of years), as well as just sending flyers, so I'll see about those places.

Anywhere out of school?

 

well I'm not a teen anymore,but you might wanna try places like Newbury Comics,Hot Topics,Comic book shops,skate parks and rinks,pretty much anywhere teenagers hang out.

Not sure about your funding on the matter but radio station adds always grab peoples attention.

 

Heh... my problem is that I was a complete geek when I was a teenager. (Still am, quite proudly.) I'd have probably actuallly looked at library bulletin boards. Also, I was from rural western New York, where the popular kids often hung out in cornfields or went cow-tipping... not, I suspect, popular pastimes in greater Boston.

Newbury Comics is a great idea -- I want to establish a better relationship with them, because I want to get more graphic novels and comic books into the library. I'll check the other places.

 

Movie theaters? I know when I was in hs if i went to see a movie i'd see about 1/4 of the school there.

 

Yeah, movie theatres.


Maybe I should be a librarian...

 

Well, we need people. There are two Masters programs in MA (Simmons is one; I think the other is in the central part of the state).

(Most of it is a lot of organizing and filing, and trying to translate the questions asked into the information needed, and the two are sometimes not closely related.)

I'll check what we'd need to do to get flyers in the area theaters, then.

Thanks.

As long as I'm asking weird questions...

Is there anything that would make people feel more comfortable in the library? Anything we can do? Magazines we ought to have? (Highly limited budget here, so for every one we get, we have to drop one, but maybe something we don't have would be better than something we do.)

 

Well, have the Internet. Try all different magazines...sports, music, skating, etc.

 

The 'net, we've got.

 

Get more tech magazines like Wired and 2600. Those two magazines will make anyone who's not even remotely a techie become interested. I've noticed that very few libraries carried Wired and NONE carry 2600 magazine. You can take out a suscription to 2600 magazine for 18 bucks a year it's a quarterly mag: www.2600.com

 

Video game magazines also .

 

We have Nintendo Power and GamePro. I've never heard of 2600... would it be a better choice than Yahoo!? (Gives me nightmares about the bps of my first modem... )

 

Well, you have some of the good magazines that would attract kids. Hmm...maybe Teen People?

 

Get Popular Science and/or Popular Mechanics.

Honestly, I love being in just about any library. I'm attracted to them because they are filled with books and they are quiet.

 

2600 magazine is a VERY good magazine. It's so much better then yahoo. It talks about applicable tech news and it even has a letters section where you can write about anything and they'll put it in the magazine. Or you can submit articles and they may put it in. I recommend going to the site and checking to see what 2600 is about some school's may not find it appropriate, but from a student's point of view I sure wish the faculty had an open mind about such things and had that mag.

 

I also enjoy Ski Magazine, but that's obviously only going to attract certain people.

 

Wait a minute, to attract just about anyone, all you need is like Playboy or something. Your guarenteed some teens in the library .

 

Yeah, but that would also be illegal.

 

On the other hand, more kids would come to the library .

 

Another off-topic question(if such a thing exists on our board)- Who is that in our librarian friend's icon? Is that Aunt Beru when she was young? I'm too lazy to check for myself .

 

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's a young Beru, but I could be wrong.

I have a couple more magazines:

Sports Illustrated
ESPN The Magazine

 

Yeah, that's a young Beru Lars(or, if she's not married yet, whatever her maiden name was).