YA War Room: Strategies for Keeping YA Services Healthy at Your Library

Let’s face it: support for Teen Librarianship has gone the way of 3D printers and makerspaces. Shifting priorities, budgets, and political realities have caused many libraries to reduce the resources they devote to teen services. Reduction in staff has forced many teen library workers to devote time to children’s and adult services, often to the determinant of their primary job. Those of us on the front lines know how important teen spaces are for young people searching for places to belong and support structures for academic, social, and mental health. We can’t become that safe space without the resources and staffing to create those spaces.

This situation is not hopeless. Join the YA War Room roundtable to discuss how the current situation has affected your teen services work, celebrate our field's successes, and brainstorm strategies to protect and expand vital teen services in your library and the California Library community.