We had over 50 Teen Librarians meeting up at the East Greenbush Community Library for the first meeting of the GOATS (Greatest Of All Teen Services). It was a fun-filled day of energizing ideas, problem hacks, and go-to colleagues from NY, NJ, CT, and MA.

This teen service focused meetup gave attendees the opportunity to attend discussion sessions on: Teen Summer Reading Programs, Building a Teen Advisory Group, Teen Spaces, Tech Programs, Teen Behavior, Staying Motivated, Teen Programs, Outreach, and Marketing.

That wasn't all. There was a live goat cam, goat trivia, and attendees could also decorate their own goat cookies. One of the highlights of the day was a live video call in from YA author Mitali Perkins in California on Race, Culture, and the Power of YA books.

Before departing the meetup we had attendees write on a post-it note one of their top takeaways from the day. Here is a list of some of their thoughts.

Takeaways from the First ever Teen meet up

• Lots of new ideas or tweaks to old ones.
• Attracting teens – programs for teens by teens.
• Go to PTA meeting.
• Use Snapchat.
• Program ideas.
• Nice to have somewhat informal conversations and to have librarians from a large area.
• I am not alone in my struggles.
• Best Take-Away. Awesome connections and networking. And… meeting excellent teen librarians.
• Great program ideas. Ideas for TAB and so happy to be surrounded by people who get it!
• Had a nice time getting great ideas! Thank you. Author was wonderful.
• Good new ideas.
• It was great meeting so many others in similar situations!
• Carpool karaoke idea!
• Author chat was engaging and informative!
• My notes! Got a lovely long list of new programs to try – especially for summer.
• School visits a must and we are all nuts!
• Great having the time for free form discussions!
• Good programming ideas. Being around other teen librarians.
• I need a tag!
• This was great! Thanks for everything and definitely do it again! GOAT II: BAAAA(ck) to the Future.
• New York librarians are non-competitive and very sharing. Thanks!
• Set public computer’s homepage to teen library program website.
• Please do again.
• Thanks for the invite! - CT

Other News

FYI you can watch Astronauts read picture books from the Space Station.

Yes for real. These are astronauts reading picture book while traveling 5 meters per second at 400 miles above the earth.

BeanStack

What to meetup and rock out with a a BeanStack workshop with your peers? If your interested please take this doodle survey and I'll try and make it so as many are able to attend as possible.

Near Field Fingernails!

Here is a Make project using near field fingernails with LEDs.

Have am enjoyable week.

Cheers ^^