What about tweens?

By now, many of you have heard about the benefits of creating a teen advisory committee for your library. Teen advisory committees give teens a voice in regards to library policies, programs, and materials that relate to them and by listening to their suggestions, libraries are often able to draw more teens into the library...which is always a good thing! Many libraries have already picked up on this and have started their own Teen Advisory Committees, but what about "Tweens"?

For those of you who may not not know, a tween is vaguely defined as prepubescent between 8 and 13. A child becomes a tween when they start to reject more childlike images and associations and aspire to become more like a teen. I'm sure several of you, parents or not, are familiar with this age...when Disney Princesses take a back seat to Hannah Montana and iCarly? I read an article recently about a 10 year old girl who noticed the teen advisory committee meeting at her local library and wondered why there was not something similar for her age group. So, she took action. She approached library staff with a written list of suggestions and with that, the "For Kids Only" youth advisory committee was created. The committee received funding from the Friends of the Library and local rotary clubs to purchase new books, games, and other materials for tweens...all this from the mind of a ten year old girl!

So why not gage the interest of tweens at your library? They may even still be coming to the Summer Reading Club...you know them...the older brothers and sisters who roll their eyes when you sing five little monkeys or pull out the finger puppets? Pull them aside and ask them what they'd like to see in the library. Even if you don't form an actual committee, their ideas could prove to be invaluable to your library.