Will Richardson (www.weblogg-ed.com)has started a project called "Mapping the Filter: What Do You Block?" I would encourage Idaho school librarians to take a look at the site and add their data to his map if you can! He is just looking for a general sense of "low", "medium" or "high" level of filtering and any other specific information you care to supply.

On April 19, the Idaho Meth Project launched a statewide public art contest—Paint the State—that encourages Idaho teens to create artistic representations of the dangers of methamphetamine use. Idaho teens ages 13–18 will have the opportunity to create highly visible public art that communicates a strong anti-Meth message surrounding the theme: “Not Even Once.”

My first session at the ILA conference in Clarkston today was with Ray Lusk from The Madison Library District in Rexburg. He had some fun, creative and engaging ideas for teen programs. He provided lots of ideas and a CD with the materials for us to use. Look for links to some of these soon! (My favorite is Murder Mystery Night - they typically have about 150 teens participate in this program!!

Check out the final list of 2012 YRCA nominated books here.

Remember to vote for your favorites by April 15th, 2011. Get all the information for voting here.

Lorry Hernández, a Garden City Public Library teen, demonstrated how much she values her library with her “You Are Here” video promoting the 2011 Summer Reading program to other teens. Hernández’s video was selected at the state level to be Idaho’s official “You Are Here” Teen Video Challenge winner for 2011.

I liked this article on the challenges facing librarians due to ever evolving technology.  Love the title of a recent presentation he did called "When Did I Become Tech Support?: Shepherd in the Rural Digital Wilderness."

In a TechSoup for Libraries blog Jim Boyd writes:

I absolutely love this idea developed by teen services staff at Seattle Public Library. What a great way to engage teens and get them reading. Sounds like alot of fun too.  Here is a brief description of what they are doing:

Give somebody a scary book this Halloween. That’s the idea of All Hallow’s Read, a website hosted by author Neil Gaiman.

For the 2012 Summer Reading Program, the Collaborative Summer Library Program (CSLP), working through member states, will be soliciting amateur videos produced by teenagers, to serve as the official CSLP sanctioned summer reading teen videos.