Teen Newsletter

An Interview with the Editor

Interviewer: I understand the teens at your library have published a newsletter?

Editor: Yes, over the years our Teen Advisory Board has published two newsletters. The first one, YAnonymous, ran for a year. The next group of teens weren't interested in doing a newsletter, so the project was dropped. The current group has started a new one called YA Today.

Interviewer: How did this project come to be?

Editor: I needed to prepare a presentation on writing newsletters, so I wanted to go through the steps myself so I could better explain the process.

Interviewer: What was the first step?

Editor: Teen newsletters were collected from many libraries by sending out a request on the listservs. Teens were asked at a TAB meeting if they were interested in publishing a newsletter. They responded positively so the collection of newsletters were passed out. After looking at them a few minutes, they were asked what articles interested them and what articles would they like to include in their newsletter. All of their suggestions were written on a flip chart.

Interviewer: So you had complied a list of article ideas they liked.

Editor: Yes, and the next step was finding writers for those articles. The teens were first asked to volunteer for the articles they were particularly interested in writing. They decided some of the articles would be standing columns. Remaining article ideas were either scrapped, tabled for later issues, or discussed and assigned.

Interviewer: They had their assignments, what kind of deadline did they have?

Editor: They were required to submit an article by the next meeting, either on paper or by email. Email is much easier since the article can be copied and pasted into the publishing program. The teens were reminded by email to get the articles in, yet a couple missed the deadline and were omitted from the first issue.

Interviewer: After the articles were collected, were the teens involved in the rest of the publication steps?

Editor: Oh, yes! At the second meeting, we brainstormed for a title. All ideas were recorded on a flip chart, discussed and a final vote tallied. We wanted a title that sounded like news and spoke to our intended audience. YA Today won almost unanimously.

Interviewer: What about the production process?

Editor: We sketched a layout of page one on a full page of the flip chart. We decided what were our top stories and where the contents and calendar would be placed. Flipping to pages two and three, we decided which articles fit together in presentation and what sequence they should follow. The back page had reserved space for contests and surveys and space for any over run of pages 2 and 3. Two teens who had experience with MSPublisher volunteered to come in and help type up articles, write headlines and design a banner.

Interviewer: How long did did they need to put the newsletter together?

Editor: I had typed in some of the articles to save the teen editors time. They finished the typing, wrote headlines, added a few graphics, did some editing and made a banner for the title in about 2 hours after school.

Interviewer: Any work left for you?

Editor: I did the final proofreading, printed a proof and helped a teen print the copies on our stencil copier.

Interviewer: How about distribution?

Editor: The teens could pick up copies to take to their schools and hang outs. Copies were also left in the YA room.

Interviewer: How was the experience?

Editor: I think we learned about teamwork and responsibility. We practiced our writing skills, added to our program publicity and the teen editors practiced using office machines under my supervision.

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