So today I had a conversation with a patron about a Summer Reading Program I have coming up. It's the event for next Monday, where an editor from Bantam Spectra is coming in to talk to the teens. She wanted to know if she could come to the event.
I told her no and that the event was only open to teens. When she asked why that decision was made, I told her it was my decision. That it was part of the Summer Reading program I developed for teens and that I didn't want to open to the rest of the library patrons.
She then asked to talk to a supervisor. While this request normally makes my skin crawl, today it was even worse since my supervisor is out through next week. I knew that she would not be happy to hear that. The next person in line is the director, who has more important issues to deal with than this. I told her I was not able to connect her directly to the director and that she would have to call back to get through to her. The woman was in a rush for time and said she couldn't wait for that.
I tried to get out of her the reason for wanting to talk to a supervisor. She first claimed that it was not my concern (not exactly true since I assume she wanted to complain about me, but perhaps there was some issue she wanted to discuss that I could help her with), but then she said that she wanted to suggest that we have a program for adults on this topic.
I've had a lot of interest from adults in my two publishing programs, and I suggested to adult programming person that we run an adult program on publishing. Right now we don't have the space or means for that, but once the library's construction is done, we will.
She seemed surprised that I would not let her into my teen program. First, I have no idea who this woman is and I need to protect my younger patrons. This concept may surprise her, but I have to be distrustful of adults who want to take part in teen programming. What is their purpose behind wanting to be around the teens? Is it truly interest in the program, or is it something else? Second, as soon as I let adults into the program--as one of my colleagues correctly pointed out--the teens would be overwhelmed by the adult presence and get nothing out of the program. The adults would have questions and concerns that would be different from those of the teens and the adults wouldn't be shy about asking questions.
I was almost going to suggest she come by on the day of the event and I could see how busy it was going to be, but then I decided not to. I planned the Summer Reading program events for my teens. The events are not geared towards adults and not intended for adults.
I do think we need to hold a program for adults about publishing, especially based on the interest people have shown.
I'm curious to see what happens on Monday and if this person shows up.
Tags: libraries, programming, Summer Reading
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