January 2008
Volume 28 No. 7

• Teens and Technology- Creating and Interacting with Online Content
  Nearly 2/3 of teens online (64%) create content on social media sites, including blogging and posting photos and videos, and they report that they receive comments on their posts. Boys and girls use different media for their content, and many limit access to their personal posts.

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Events and Training
Mary Madden - Americans Online - February 6, 2008
The San Francisco Chapter of the Special Libraries Association (SLA-SF) in cooperation with Baynet presents an evening in San Francisco with Mary Madden, Senior Research Specialist at the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Mary Madden's recent reports have examined the burgeoning field of online identity management, the adoption of online video, and the arc of teen content creation fueled by social media. The cost for just the talk is $5. Details and registration

Spring Workshops

Peggy Sharp - What’s New in Children’s Literature - February 12 and 13 - Details

Duncan Smith -We Recommend-Readers Advisory - April 30 and May 1 - Details

Certified Public Library Administrator Local Courses
February 19-20, 2008: Budget and Finance, with Sandra Nelson
April 29-30, 2008: Fundraising, with June Garcia
Information, full schedule, instructor profiles, CPLA description and registration

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Reference Picks
Election 2008
Find your polling place, download voter's guides, order handouts and tent cards, research the propositions, and compare the Presidential candidates' positions on the System Reference Center's Election 2008 webliography.

Redroom - Online Salon for Authors
Redroom offers authors a free web page with links to photos, bios, writing, books, and appearances, including those at libraries. Authors speaking at library programs, discussed in book groups, or linked on del.icio.us booklists, can now provide a free newsy link to a library's site to Redroom viewers. Viewers can sign up for a free Redroom newsletter subscription and click on videos and podcasts.

Questions and Answers
System Reference Center's Quarterly and Yearly Statistics
Below are the statistics on the number of second-level questions received from each system last quarter, with last fiscal year, year-to-date, and same quarter last year statistics for comparison.

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News from Our Members
Oakland Public Library Reaches Out with Homework Initiatives
When the grant funding for Oakland Public Library’s homework assistance program, Partners for Achieving School Success (PASS!), expired, staff applied the lessons learned to develop and operate two new drop-in programs, Homework Assistance Program (HAP), for middle and high students, and Oakland Libraries After School (OLAS) for children in K-6 grades.

Unlike PASS! which employed paid teen mentors and two library workers at each site, both new programs rely on volunteer tutors recruited from the community and from local colleges, such as UC Berkeley and Mills College. With PASS!, staff discovered that children’s homework needs are often satisfied by small groups working with an adult tutor, in addition to peer homework support. Staff expect that this different structure will allow the service to reach more users.

At the beginning of the school year, Oakland Public Library (OPL) inaugurated the drop-in program, HAP, at four of its libraries. Funding is entirely underwritten by OPL, and the program is coordinated by Jessica Snow, Teen Services Librarian.

In January, OPL launched its four-days-per-week-after school service, OLAS, funded by OPL and individual donors, as a pilot project until June 2008. OLAS offers children in K-6 grades access to computers, drop-in homework help, and the opportunity to participate in a variety of enrichment activities. Tamar Kirschner, Children’s Program Librarian, and part-time OLAS Volunteer Coordinator Adam Twain, manage OLAS as part of their regular duties. In addition, each of the four OLAS locations is funded to hire additional staff for 12 hours per week.

In setting up OLAS, staff consulted with Jessica Snow about outreach strategies, volunteer training and management (database) tools, and they are sharing “best practices.”

In January, OLAS is offering workshops on Microsoft Word, Lego Engineering and searching the library’s catalog and databases. Community partners, such as the Oakland Museum of California, the city’s Parks and Recreation Department, Museum of Children's Art (MOCHA), the Berkeley Repertory Theater, the Alameda County Community Food Bank, and Helpers Engaged in Reaching Oakland's Excelling Schools (HEROES) contribute to enrichment programs in art, theater, dance, calligraphy, nutrition and computer literacy training.

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