Week 12: E-Books for Teens

Ok... I have to put my personal biases aside on this topic but I will start by stating my view points.... I am not a fan of reading things online other than emails and quick information for research. I can't stand reading articles and books online or on electronic devices (mobile phones, Ipads, Kindels, whatever...I don't like it!). So I print off my articles and highlight them. I make messy notes in pen all over print out pages as I feel I can remember more information doing it this way. But what I do is not necessarily what teenagers do when reading.


Green, John. "The Future of Readings." School Library Journal. 56.1: 24-29.

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Braun, Linda. "28 Days of Teens & Tech #11: The State of Reading." YALSA Blog. April 6, 2011.

Retrieved from: http://yalsa.ala.org/blog/2011/02/11/28-days-of-teens-tech-11-the-state-of-reading/

Despite my personal views on choosing not to read e-books; teens are choosing to read     e-books. As librarians, we must acknowledge this fact and create library policies that include e-books in teen collection development. John Green however, is in my favour of "Team Print." In John Green's article, he states "I don't think books have anything to fear from movies, television, and facebook. I see no evidence that reading itself is in mortal danger, but how we read will change...because it is always changing (Green: 25). I believe there is a generational change of how individuals read, especially between myself who is 25 and teens who are 15. Teens are technologically savy. They use the computer for everything! With this being said, teens and adults both read but the way we find things to read and how was read them are different and changing. This gives librarians the responsibility of being a gatekeeper for children and teens. Librarians must try and bring in only the best books into the library (Green: 27). With this being said, we must also use different formats of delivering the best books to teens. Remember, one of the primary goals of a librarians is to make sure people in the community connect to what they need to connect to (Braun: 2011).   

In Linda Braun's article, she acknowledges how we must accept reading in different formats. Braun asks librarians to ask themselves tthis question: "How are you displaying ebooks and making sure that teens know what's available?" (Braun: 2011). We must be inovative and create library programs that have teens reading digitally, create booklists that focus solely on ematerials, and create ematerial collection development policies (Braun: 2011). Okay, so I dont personally like ebooks. But as a librarian, I MUST suggest tools and ematerials that will help teens become effective readers. Something I must begin (and so must other librarians) is to become familiar with how teens interact with content and not just how teens read for enjoyment purposes.