It all started when I was looking for material for our Tumblr’s Teen Throwback Thursday posts.  I suddenly remembered that I had access to a lot of retro YA material, including some stuff that’s older than I am.  I’ll give you a moment to wrap your head around that idea.

Usually for my Throwback posts I’ll choose pictures of teen programs that I photographed at the Kingsbridge Library over the years, or blog posts and booklists that I created.  But it wasn’t until I started to think outside the Kingsbridge box that I realized I was overlooking a valuable resource that I see every day when I sit at my desk.

Most librarians maintain some kind of a personal archive.  I’m not giving away any secrets; it’s part of what we do and who we are.  It’s in our personalities, our DNA, and the marrow of our bones.  A librarian’s archive can take many forms—for example, I keep copies of every booklist I’ve ever contributed to, publications from teen poetry workshops, deleted books that I couldn’t bear to throw away, and even copies of the book reviews I used to write back in the typewriter-and-carbon-paper days.  But if you’re an especially lucky librarian, when you move into your new office you might end up inheriting the archive of the last librarian who sat at that desk.

When I first came to the old Kingsbridge Library and was shown to my desk, I started looking through the stuff the last young adult librarian had left behind, and I found a file of material dating as far back as the 1960s.  I recognized it for what it was—a small but significant treasure trove—and held on to it.  Most of the file was made up of booklists, but it also contained other material geared towards young adults, like overviews of teen services at the New York Public Library and even other materials that were available for young people to check out or use at the library.

I never had a specific idea for what I would do with this material other than just hang on to it.  Archives can be difficult to share unless you have a locked display case (which we don’t), and besides, if you share them that way only a limited number of people can see them.  But since social media can serve the function of a virtual display case which can be shared with a much wider audience, I thought that these lists might be cool to feature on our Tumblr.  But since I’m always looking for ways to create ANY kind of social media content, I started thinking about how I could use this material in a blog post.  And since I’m always looking for new activities to do with my Teen Advisory Group… well, you see where this is going.  

So I brought in a bunch of stuff from my archive to our last TAG meeting.  I thought my teens would get a kick out of seeing this old stuff (with varying definitions of “old,” of course, since they range from 12-18).  I wanted to see how modern teens would react to teen material of olden times.  I passed the booklists, pamphlets, and papers around the table and asked them each to pick something that looked interesting to them.  I asked them to look at it for a few minutes and then share something about the item they chose—what caught their eye?  What was cool, or ugly, or amazing, or weird?  Here were some of their reactions to these unusual treasures:

For the Teen Age (1974)

This isn’t actually a booklist, but an overview of teen services at NYPL.  Highlights include references to libraries that no longer exist and formats that no longer exist.  Okay, I guess those are some of MY favorite highlights.  My teens, though, reacted more along the lines of Wow, look at that artwork!

Easy-to-Read Books For Teenagers (1981)

This was done on a typewriter!!!

OMG, these are the SHORTEST book descriptions!   Listen to these: Will Mike become one of them?  A young couple in trouble.  Is the guest in room 13 a vampire?  An unfortunate marriage for Joan.  When Eddie feels and acts like King Kong.  

This then led to a side discussion when I asked them why they thought the annotations might be so short.  Their answers started with some less than complimentary ones (The librarians were too lazy?  The librarians procrastinated?)  but then they came up with So they could fit more books that way?  I also pointed out that a longer list would have cost more money to print, which shows one of the major differences between the way librarians think and the way teenagers think.

Books For the Teen Age (1993)

Their main commentary was reserved for the picture on the cover: That cover is kind of ridiculous.  How is that guy supposed to concentrate on reading while all those kids are being idiots right outside the window?  I take the opportunity to point out that the Books For the Teen Age covers used to be designed by teenagers, and as they look at the other BTA lists on the table their reactions range from Yeah, you can TELL!  to Oh, that’s pretty cool!

More Books For the Teen Age lists

You see the way the list is divided up into sections?  You guys should do that again!  

They then proceeded to discuss some of their favorite categories, including Humor, Make Up Your Mind, Music, and Mind & Body.  They also laughed about some outdated categories (The USSR?  Really?)   I tell them that we definitely want to have booklist categories again in the future, but that since our current YA booklist (Best Books For Teens 2014) has just 25 books, each category would have been too small.  

Books, Films, Recordings By and About the American Negro: A Selected List for Young Adults (1968)

Didn’t I tell you that there was something older than me in this archive?  Okay, I know you’re thinking that this list inspired the most discussion in the group.  And it did … but probably not for the reason you’re expecting.  First, there was the knee-jerk reaction of  every teen who saw the title of this list.  Their reactions ranged from silence to WOW!!!  to How OLD is this list???  

Then they started flipping through the list and describing it more, noticing that the annotations were longer on this list than some of the others we’d looked at before, and that it was unusual that this list included prices.  But that wasn’t the big discussion ...

The big discussion started when one of the girls asked, What does a “recording” mean?  And there was this weird pause while we all looked at each other.  I gave them a chance to come up with some answers, and they came up with a few ideas (Like … a video?)  I pressed them to think back to what a “recording” would have meant in 1968, and finally I started dropping hints.  Okay, years ago there were these things … that went around … in a CIRCLE … [Now you have to visualize me moving my hand around and around in a flat circle like it’s on a turntable while my teens stare at me like I’ve gone off the deep end].  It took another minute to get past their first guess (cassettes?)  before they arrived at the idea of a record player, which then led them to the idea of a record.  Thank goodness I didn’t bring up the subject of 8-tracks!  

*SIGH*  Okay, go ask your parents what an 8-track is … or maybe your grandparents.

We hope you’ve enjoyed this brief trip down memory lane.  Stay tuned to the Kingsbridge Library Teens Tumblr, where items from this archive will be appearing in future Teen Throwback Thursday posts which appear every Thursday morning at 10 a.m.  And if you’d like some NEW reading recommendations, make sure you check out our Best Books For Teens 2014 list!