Making the Most of Teen Library Volunteers: Energizing and Engaging Community

by Becca Boland

When teens volunteer at the library, they gain new skills, make connections, and build their resumes, while libraries benefit from a new generation of advocates. This guide shows librarians how to establish or develop a teen volunteer program.

Advocating a flexible approach, this book speaks to every library, including both public and school libraries. From small libraries with no budget to large libraries with seemingly endless budgets and everything in between, all of the concepts covered can be scaled up or down to meet the needs of the community being served.

The book begins with the big picture, discussing benefits to teens, libraries, and communities; it then reviews volunteer types and volunteer possibilities for teens, including the traditional roles of shelving and programming as well as passion-led projects, programming opportunities, and special initiatives and drives. Specific volunteer roles are described in depth, with instructions for practical applications, and concrete examples and experiences from various types of libraries illustrate principles discussed. Readers will also learn how to establish volunteer partnerships within and outside of the library. The book ends with a discussion of methods for evaluation and assessment.

172 pages, Paperback

Published March 2, 2020

About the author

Becca Boland is a librarian in suburban Chicago who has been working with teens in libraries since 2006 which has always included teen volunteers. When not reading, working/ thinking about work, she’s usually with her husband, two boys, and dog. Or knitting. She does a lot of knitting. Or some combination of all of the above.

Reviews

[Maisie Iven · Rating 5 out of 5]

I changed jobs mid-pandemic, and I've been struggling to find ways to get my teen volunteers engaged and excited. Luckily, Becca has done an AMAZING job creating an approachable guide for starting (or revamping) your teen volunteer programs at your library.

One of the best aspects of Becca's approach is how she takes the amazing projects libraries have done with their volunteers and finds the universal elements of them. Sure, my library may not be able to create a community garden, but absolutely we can find spaces to pair up experts in our community with teens that have an interest in that subject. Ideas aren't theoretical, they're grounded in real examples and concrete advice and goals.

If you're in a teen volunteer rut (or even just a programming rut), this is a great resource to kick your creative juices into gear!

[Kelly Ferreira · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having worked with Becca Boland before (go ELA!), I already had high expectations on what I would learn from this book, and she absolutely met and exceeded them. Boland right out the gate has a go-getter tone that is encouraging, and what feels like 100s of ideas on how to manage volunteers. As a new professional in libraries, this book gave me more confidence in my ability to manage volunteers and expand our current volunteer program at my current library. Hopefully, post-COVID, I'll be able to put some of these awesome ideas into action! A must-have not just for Teen Librarians, but anyone in libraries managing volunteer teams. I'm glad we have this accessible at my branch, because I will be referring back to it in the months to come.