Teen 2.0

Halifax Public LIbrary Teens Website

www.halifaxpubliclibraries.ca/teens

Genre: Teen Library Website

Use it if: You want to know what's happening at Halifax Public Library, you want to find book suggestions, and you want to connect with other teens in the community. 

Best for: All teens who use the Halifax Public Library

Rating: 3/5 (and rising)

Teen webpages have been cropping up on public library websites for a number of years now. Having a dedicated virtual space for teens is becoming an increasingly important way for libraries to connect with teens. Booklists, forums, contests and more all contribute to a space that teens can call their own. The best teen websites are interactive and allow teens to contribute to the site, rather than just take information from it.

Halifax Public Libraries (the home system of this future librarian) just launched their teen website in the new year. I was curious to see what they had produced, as I'm not particularly enamored of the HPL's main website: I find it hard to navigate, and not very visually appealing (the colour scheme is a rather matronly dusty rose and murky blue). Their kids' site, which I looked at for a class last year, is not a very useful resource either. 

So I was pleasantly surprised to see an attractive, easy to use teen site with lots of great features. The site includes:

• Contests - Features current HPL contests. The teen poetry contest is going on right now

• Creative Warehouse - teens can post drawing, writing, and other creative projects for others to check out.

• Teens RC - connects to the national Teen Reading Club online forum, where teens can discuss books, participate in author chats and create booklists with peers from across Canada

• Read: Book lists - book lists organized by themes like "Vampires" and "Chick Lit". Book lists allow you to access the catalogue so you can see what's in and place holds

•  Programs - links to HPL's list of current programming in various branches

• Volunteer - lists teen volunteer opportunities at the library

HPL has really stepped up to the challenge of a teen website, and created something that teens can make their own. I was really pleased with the interactive elements, especially the creative warehouse. Its great that teens have a place to display what they've worked so hard to create. The link to the Teen Reading Club is really great too - the TRC is probably the biggest and best run teen library forum in the country. Organised and moderated by librarians, teens are able to connect with the library, librarians and each other without having to physically be in the library. My only criticism of using the TRC is that it might be nice to have it in addition to an HPL created forum. Having both a local and national forum might help connect teens even further to their local library system. I don't think the interactive portion is finished - more could be added to make this truly the teens' site, like interactive booklists etc. But I think its a great start.

I was also really impressed by the book lists provided on the site. Readers' advisory is an important function of a teen website (many teens find choosing material a big challenge). The lists were attractive, available for download in PDF so you could keep them on your own computer or print them out, and connected to the catalogue so that teens can get the title they want quickly and easily. Covering a wide variety of genres and interests, these lists are balanced, up-to-date and useful. An cool extra feature on the bottom of the site is a scrolling display of "quick picks" - click on the book cover and you get sent to the catalogue record. Connecting teens to books is at the heart of young adult library services, and its nice to see the website supporting it. This portion could be further improved by highlighting other parts of the teen collection, like the audio and film collections.

The visual elements of this site are really pleasing too. Many library websites fall into the trap of trying way to hard to be hip. They scream in desperation LOOK! We are cool! Our website is LIME GREEN and there are NO ADULTS ALLOWED! WE ARE DOWN WITH YOUTH CULTURE!  This approach doesn't work. Teen sites are tricky because they should look appealing and distinct without trying so desperately to be young. HPL succeeds in this area. The golden background and graphic typeface are artistic and kind of funky but still pretty subtle. The layout is easy to navigate, and its the kind of site you'd want to explore.

That's not to say this is the paragon of teen library websites - it has some weaknesses. The programming portion just connects teens back to the matronly web page of the regular site.The volunteer portion of the site is a vague paragraph about one volunteer opportunity with a link to the sign up sheet. This page would be a lot stronger if it described volunteerism at the library more generally and thoroughly, and then had specific postings. Because HPL's teen services revolve a lot around teen volunteering, it is important that this part of the site be expanded.  And there is a glaring omission on the site - there is no homework help. Traditionally teen library sites used to be only homework help, so it is understandable that HPL wanted to get away from that - but this service is still important. It shouldn't be the whole site, but it should not be left out.

Because the HPL teen site is so new, I'd anticipate that it is going to grow and adapt as they gain feedback and figure out its strengths and weaknesses. It's off to a good start, and I look forward to seeing it get stronger as time goes on.