Extreme Makeover: Teen Edition

I have no idea if any teens read this blog. DPPL has another blog just for teens, The Blog of Awesome, so if you're a teen or the parent/teacher/friend of a teen, feel free to pass that along. There's nothing more difficult, I think, than trying to plan Library events, design Library materials and choose Library resources for teens if you are not a teen yourself. It's been quite some time since I've been a teen! (Ugh, why did I have to remind myself of that?) We have a wonderful staff member who works with teens, Cheryl Gladfelter, who is not a teen but was one very recently, and she's got a great understanding of what teens like and appreciate.

Nevertheless, the young and not-as-young here at DPPL try our hardest to reach out to teens and engage them, get them interested in what the Library has to offer. We recently rolled out a whole new Web site for teens - designed, thankfully, by a bright and talented very young man who made me feel like a senior citizen when I met him. :) The site looks great, from the crumpled paper background to the handdrawn graphics on every page. We also did our part by improving the resources we made available to teens online and added lots of new features. If you, or the teen in your life, haven't checked it out, please do. There are places to write your own book and music reviews, information about the Teen Advisory Board, and links including the Blog of Awesome. Oh - not to mention great online homework help. We'll keep adding to it to make sure it stays interesting and relevant. We offer a lot of events specifically for teens, including a teens-only book discussion of American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang on November 15, 2008.

Right now we're also having a contest just for teens who are artistic and creative. We desperately need a new (and cool, please) logo for our Teen Advisory Board, to use on their t-shirts. Here's the scoop on the contest: We're looking for the best graphic depiction of the spirit of the Teen Advisory Board. To find out what that is, click here. Your design can be words, pictures or a combination of both. Be creative, but keep it simple, too. Teens from grades 7-12 are welcome to participate. RULES:

• Only original 2D artwork can be submitted.
• One submission per artist.
• Your design must be no larger than 8.5 X 11" paper. Submissions must be clean, dry and uncrumpled.

Submissions are due by 5 PM on November 7, 2008 and must be turned in personally at the Library's third floor Readers' Services desk. Voting will take place online on our new Teen Web Site, from November 10-14, with the winner announced on November 17, 2008.

If you know a teen with a gift for graphic design, please pass this info along - we're really excited about this contest and showing off the creativity of Des Plaines teens!