Teens, Libraries, and Social Networking: What Librarians Need to Know

Learn how teens use social networking technologies and how these same technologies can be used to engage them in library services.
Teens and Social Networking Now: What Librarians Need to Know is organized around ten major topics, including using social networking sites to connect teens to young adult literature, social networking and legislative issues, social networking and safety/privacy issues, and the social and educational benefits of social networking. Expert practitioners explain how such issues can and should impact library services to young adults, focusing on concrete suggestions and specific steps for best practices and program designs that will help librarians utilize social networking tools to enhance library services to teens, both online and in the library.

As background, the book explores the reasons so many teens use these sites. It also shares a profile of an award-winning public library's use of social networking to engage teen library users and a national survey of the ways YA librarians are using social networking to deliver public library services.

• The results of a national survey of YA librarians and technology managers in public libraries showing how librarians are using social networking in their work with teens and the specific types of technologies they use
• A list of suggestions that can serve as a planning tool for the use of social networking tools in the delivery of library services to teens
• A bibliography of professional resources and research related to teens, libraries, and social networking