Making Lemonade Out of Lemons - Part 2

Image by Rachel C from Pixabay

Our guest blogger again today is Stacey Brown, Young Adult and Adult Services Librarian at the Augusta (WI) Public Library.  In Part 1, Stacey shared the background on how the group of IFLS teen librarians got together to pool their energy and ideas for shared virtual teen programs. Here she shares more details on how it all works!

Making Lemonade Out of Lemons:  an opportunity from the pandemic - Part 2

The teen events have a variety of themes: cultural holidays, gaming and ‘adulting’, as well as exploring several types of art from music to photography.  Each event lasts about 2 hours divided into 15-30 minute segments so that each librarian has a chance to lead an activity.  For the events, we create grab bags with snacks and crafting supplies that teens pick up at their own library.  This makes it easier for them to participate since they really seem to enjoy making crafts.  One of our best attended events was when we created graham cracker cottages and made various crafts that they were able to give as gifts.  After our cooking demo, we received an email from a mom who said her son enjoyed our program so much that he made crepes for his family the next day!

An unexpected effect of the collaboration was how teens from different communities across Wisconsin got to know one another. They enjoy sharing their common interests, especially a love of reading! At one of our events, a teen asked if we could take a field trip to visit all the libraries in person.  We weren't quite sure how to work out the logistics of this - and still aren’t.  This would be a fun adventure, not only for the teens but also the library staff, most of whom have never met in person before our collaboration.

With the school year coming to an end, we are reassessing the need to continue our collaboration.  Some of the libraries are planning in-person programs this summer and don’t feel able to collaborate but hope to resume in the fall.  Others are planning virtual events this summer and will continue to share and collaborate.  

It has definitely been a learning process, and we’ve had more than a few things to figure out. For starters, we found out that 1-2 hours is plenty of time for this type of programming; if it goes too long, we tend to lose people.  We’ve also had to set registration deadlines. Often, teens will wait until the last minute to register then we end up scrambling to make another grab bag for them.  It’s important to keep in contact so that ideas and suggestions can be addressed when they come up.  The larger the collaborative group, the more difficult it can be to find a time that works for everyone to attend a meeting. I think about 3-5 librarians in a group is ideal.  

During the process of collaboration, we have learned a lot about ourselves and the teens that we serve.  For some of us, we didn’t have teens from our own communities that participated, but we nevertheless had the opportunity to engage with teens and contribute meaningful interactions and activities for them.  Many times after our sessions ended, the librarians stayed on Zoom and shared our struggles and offered each other encouragement and support. 

As librarians, we can all relate to the unusual circumstances and challenges of 2020-2021.  Even with these strange times, we have found new opportunities and solutions that will impact our future programming decisions.  The hope is to host hybrid programs, to reach out to those who can attend in-person and those who feel more comfortable participating virtually.  The pandemic forced us to look outside the box for new opportunities and gave us the initiative and interest for collaborative programming.  I think it’s safe to say that we are all grateful for the opportunities and new friends we have made because of challenges faced together.  We have learned to make lemonade out of lemons.

[YSS Blog Note: A special thanks to IFLS System Youth Consultant Leah Langby for sharing the news about this collaboration with us so we could reach out for this article!]