Teens’ engagement with library services grows with their investment in them. BookMatch Teen offers an opportunity to take the lead on a core library service, as well as job training and workforce preparation. BookMatch Teen also hopes to address the lack of diversity in librarianship and publishing fields. According to the American Library Association’s 2017 Diversity Counts report, 87% of librarians nationally are white. Lee & Low’s 2019 Diversity Baseline Survey reported that 76% of the publishing industry is white.

Teens receive training in readers’ advisory (RA) resources and strategies, and meet library and publishing professionals. Teens then put their training into action, offering RA “live” and online, and selecting titles for BPL’s collection. This is a new library service: no other public library in the U.S. offers RA for teens, by teens. This year, the teens used BPL’s blog and Instagram to offer synchronous and asynchronous RA, creating an interactive program on Instagram Stories which featured book and music pairings.

• Sixty one teens applied for 20 slots; 80% reported having greater knowledge of library services and having received valuable work experience.
• The teens have created over 100 booklists. We have forged connections with authors and publishers, fellow teen internship programs and BPL staff.
• Two participants are now planning careers in librarianship. All appreciated the program’s continuation after the lockdown, noting their “community.” Ripley, 15, said, “It is really nice that we’ve had this as a constant through the pandemic.”