Recently we shared a post about all the resources and roles that libraries provide in our communities. This month, school and public libraries will be showcasing all the nonprint resources available for teens, and others, during Teen Tech Week. The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) has proclaimed this year’s theme to be DIY @ your library, and encourages teachers and libraries to highlight all of the great do-it-yourself resources available.

Getting teens to explore the eBooks, videos, music, online tutoring, and how-to classes that libraries offer can be done through class assignments, scavenger hunts, or other activities. Following the DIY theme, you might direct students to find a resource for exploring a hobby, building a solar cell, or learning another language. Or students can research careers in technology—from music production to rocket science. Check out this list of “50 Ideas for Celebrating Teen Tech Week”. You don’t have to visit the library to share the high-tech library message. Consider using social media to give students clues to finding projects or resources. Follow the Teen Tech Week Twitter feed at #TTW14.

For teens planning to move on to college, there is an extra benefit to exposing them to resources that go far beyond the picture books of childhood. Learning about journals, bibliographies, syntax searches, and online library databases early can help students when they are faced with their first college research project. Librarians everywhere are under-used resources, and a research study at a group of Illinois colleges found that very few students asked for help in finding or using tech or other resources at their libraries. Most college courses do not build in a “learning to use the library” component, so getting teens comfortable with asking librarians for help, as well as using all the tools in the library, can help them master that first research project. For more ideas, check out Learning to research in the library from ipl2.

Teen Tech Week can offer an opportunity for teens, teachers, librarians, and parents to share resources and find new ways to access information. How will you be involving students with library tech resources this year?

Have you entered our latest giveaway yet? Check out the recent post by Richard Cash and enter to win the book Advancing Differentiation: Thinking and Learning for the 21st Century by commenting on that post through March 7, 2014.

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