This week I want to share some of my ideas about Seth Godin’s Tribes and how I could use his writing to argue for teens as emerging library leaders. More specifically, ways in which libraries can identify the unique abilities of these digital natives and harness their skills and energy to create the next generation of library leaders and create opportunities for participatory service.  Looking at my notes from reading Tribes, a section I highlighted seemed to fit this situation. On page 25, Godin offers us solutions to “help increase the effectiveness of the tribe and its members.” They are as follows:

  • “Transforming the shared interest into a passionate goal and desire for change”
  • “Providing tools to allow members to tighten their communications”
  • “Leverage the tribe to allow it to grow and gain new members”

 While Godin’s statements are broad generalizations, they can be applied to this unique group of library users.  First, in order to “transform the shared interest into a…desire for change,” librarians/library staff need to start with the teens that are already coming into the library. Some libraries (I have specific examples for my paper) are instituting Teen Advisory Boards as a way to hear from teens about programming ideas, collection development suggestions, etc.

Second, in order to “provide the tools for communication,” we need to hone in on the tools teens want to use, not what adult librarians/library staff use. I found an interesting finding in the Pew/Internet study on Teens and Social Media (December 2007), which states that “despite the power that e-mail holds among adults as a major mode of personal and professional communication, it is not a particularly important part of the communication arsenal of today’s teens. Only 14% of all teens report sending e-mails to their friends everyday, making it the least popular form of daily social communication on the list we queried”(this list included landline phone conversation, cell phone conversation, spending time in person, instant messaging, text messaging, sending messages via social networking, and email).  This statistic is important for us, because it identifies one area where digital immigrants may need to get out of their email comfort zone and open up other mediums of communication that are more recognizable to today’s digital natives.

Lastly, Godin suggests that “leveraging the tribe to allow it to grow and gain new members” is the final way to increase effectiveness of the tribe.  This third step is the last phase for molding teens into library leaders. Once you’ve established an open dialogue, an agreed upon mode of communication, and a series of activities and programs, libraries can get other members of the library tribe on board by fostering and creating connections across demographic lines.

 A final thought. In the January/February 2008 edition of Public Libraries entitled “Teens – Perpetual Problem or Golden Opportunity” in which Nanci Milone Hill gathers essays from public librarians with ideas for serving teens in their communities.  One of the contributors, Nikki Ehlers, Director, Humboldt Public Library, Humboldt, Iowa made a statement that really hit home with me and I think echoes Godin’s thoughts about maximizing the effectiveness of one’s tribe. Ehler’s writes, “We welcome teens and we let them know they are valued. We give them a place to gather, a place to feel comfortable. We listen to them. We solict their ideas.  In return, they enhance out library with their vitality and energy” (p. 27).

 Articles/Books mentioned in this post:

 Godin, Seth. Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us. New York: Penguin, 2008.

 Hill, Nanci Milone. “Teens – Perpetual Problem of Golden Opportunity?” Public Libraries 47, no. 1 (2008): 24-32. http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.

 

 ”Teens and Social Media: The use of social media gains a greater foothold in teen life as they embrace the conversational nature of interactive online media” (Pew/Internet December 19, 2007) http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Teens_Social_Media_Final.pdf