Teen Volunteer Services in Libraries

by Kellie M. Gillespie

Today's teens are aware of the many benefits of volunteering, and their reasons for wanting to volunteer are as varied as they are. Some gather work experience for future jobs; some look ahead to college and scholarship applications. Some must fulfill schools' community service requirements; some wish to contribute to their communities. Other teens just want something to do in their free time. Whatever the reason, libraries can provide many volunteer opportunities to help young adults gain valuable experience as they enter a new stage in their lives.

This VOYA Guide offers practical advice about starting and maintaining effective teen volunteer programs in school and public libraries. Working with teen volunteers poses different challenges than working with coping with school schedules and parents' expectations, discovering incentives that interest teens, and dealing with the emotional and physical changes that occur during adolescence. Aware of these needs, Gillespie draws on her many years of experience in managing teen volunteers to provide the basics of volunteer management--recruitment, orientation and training, recognition and retention, and supervision. Her profiles of several successful teen volunteer programs and her interviews with teen volunteer supervisors add authenticity and flavor from the actual library world.

Gillespie's sensitivity to teens is heightened by humor and a clean writing style that enlivens the text. Sidebars contain quotes, statistics, true tales from "The Dark Side" that illustrate difficult situations when working with teens, and her own words of wisdom in the guise of an advice column, "Dear All-Knowing Teen Volunteer Guru." The featured library programs contribute examples of promotional flyers, applications, interview questions, evaluations, volunteer handbooks, and other handouts.

New to the working world, teen volunteers require extra supervisory effort, instruction, and understanding. Yet Gillespie convinces librarians that the benefits of teen volun

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[WendyMcP · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm always looking for new ideas and approaches to working with teen volunteers at my library. Provides a wide variety of programs and methods for small to urban libraries, single branch programs and to system-wide coordination. This 2004 pub is a bit dated, as it does not, of course, have anything about social media, or communicating with your teens via text (which has become my sole method since it's most effective with the teens in my community).

[Meg · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is pretty comprehensive when it comes to advice on how to structure, recruit, interview, supervise, and evaluate teen volunteer programs at the library. While many parts of this do not apply to me (I work as part of a large system with volunteer coordinator), I still found it helpful and informative as I gear up for summer reading.

[Trevor Oakley · Rating 3 out of 5]

A colleague and I are sort-of revamping our teen volunteer program at the library, and it's very exciting! So I'm reading some literature on the subject. This is a good starting place for anyone looking to revitalize how they think about a volun-teen program.