Being a Teen Library Services Advocate by Linda W. Braun
Dear Tabitha,
I'm baaack!
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| Being a Teen Library Services Advocate (2012) by Linda W. Braun |
No, I'm not here to talk about the 1980's horror flick The Shining--as fun as that would be, now that we're fully into October... I'm back on this blog to talk about an ebook. Specifically, the ebook Being a Teen Library Services Advocate by Linda W. Braun.
This resource is not intended to enhance your collection knowledge, programming efforts, nor to help in any way with teen readers' advisory. Instead, it is intended to get all library staff to realize the value of teen services, to see the value, to stand up, and to speak up…or was it stand up and speak out? You get the idea: picture a soapbox.
Throughout the seven chapters, some sections were highlighted and set apart from the main text in a bordered text box. I really liked these “pop-outs”
because the information was always presented in short chunks and often used to reinforce the critical ideas. On example is an “Advisory Skills/Knowledge/Abilities
checklist” found on pp.25-26 and repeated on pp.
91-92 of this ebook.
Aside
from the pop-outs, my biggest take-away lesson was the explicit differentiation
between advocacy and marketing. Marketing, Braun says, focuses on the what,
while advocacy promotes the why. This thinking makes a lot of sense to me and I
appreciate the simplicity of the concept.
Regarding
accessibility of this resource? This eBook isn’t very accessible.
I
was hoping for anchor links (aka jump links) to the different chapters and tables
within the resource. Alas, the best I could do was to skim through the table of
contents, like in a traditional print book, and, either scroll to the desired
page, or enter the page number in the PDF viewer (I used Adobe Acrobat Reader).
Unfortunately, the page numbers in the book and the page numbers assigned by
Acrobat did not match up (I later figured out that this was due to the inclusion
of the introductory section in the PDF’s page count (it uses Roman numerals).
Another drawback from having an older
eBook--with no special features--was that my place wasn’t saved between reading
periods (unlike EPUB eBooks, where is it). Thus, I needed to find the spot I had
left off each time. A bit frustrating. Tabitha, you also asked if this resource
is updated regularly. No, that’s a big no. As with print books, eBooks also lose
their timeliness immediately. A title is only published once and is “new” for a
certain amount of time. In this case, that was 2012. The only way this e-book
could be updated, is if there would be another, newer edition published. (There
isn’t, I checked).
Two
positives about this eBook/PDF format are that it doesn’t take up space on a
physical shelf and it was free for me to download (only because I have access
to the EBSCOhost eBook Academic Collection through my college library). While
there were many minor frustrations with the format of this resource, a
familiarity with the main concepts covered in Braun’s work would definitely benefit
both school and public library staff.
So,
who should read this eBook?
My
classmates, for starts; and any other potential library staff person for whom the eBook is free through a college or university library. (ASIDE: Classmates, I’d
suggest downloading it as a PDF before our access changes.) If you don’t
have easy access, don’t bother spending USD $40 to download the eBook from the
publications page of the YALSA website.
The most important thing is that you now know about YALSA!
The
YALSA blog Hub, the Journal of Research on Libraries and Young Adults (online, open-access, peer-reviewed), and the awesome Teen Book Finder
app, are all impressive resources that I found by browsing the YALSA website. In
browsing, I also noticed a lot of the same calls to action, and the same inspirational-tone
that Braun uses in her eBook—this makes sense. She was a YALSA past president
and former editor for their blog!).
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I’d
recommend that potential users look through the YALSA website at length—to see
if they can piece together what it means to be a teen services advocate today, while
also gathering RA tips, before deciding to download this slightly older, how-to treatise
which is hard to navigate if you only want to read bits and pieces. Braun tries
hard to not sound like she’s yelling from a soapbox, and instead, rationally explaining
needs; thus, appealing herself to a broader audience.
While Braun provides a good overview and clear start-to-finish methodology to develop an ethos of teen services advocacy, she offers few concrete examples helpful outside the USA, and is, ultimately, only one voice from back in 2012—albeit one with great credentials and experience.
If you have time and interest to read
this eBook start-to-finish, read! If you don’t, skip the guilt, but still skim
the YALSA website.
