Plan Your Event

For more activity ideas, and to add your own, visit the Teen Tech Week Wiki.

Download YALSA's 25 Ways to Celebrate Teen Tech Week flyer (PDF) and post it in your library!

General Teen Tech Week Activities

Internet Scavenger Hunt

Have teens complete an internet scavenger hunt and hand out raffle tickets for correct answers. Create questions that introduce teens to recreational and educational Web sites and databases. School librarians may choose to gear the subject matter to the curriculum. Use the scavenger hunt to teach them a few new searching strategies as well as to gather information about their favorite places to go on the web.

Host a Gaming Event

Hold a video game tournament, meet-up, or free play session for teens. Dance Dance Revolution and Mario Kart are popular choices for tournaments. If handhelds are popular in your area encourage teens to bring their PSPs or Nintendo DS’s to the library to play against each other. For more information on tournament play, view Eli Neiburger's presentation materials from the 2005 Gaming in Libraries Symposium (Download the PDF).

Beauty of MySpace Workshop

Provide an opportunity for teens to decorate their spaces using templates they build themselves or from various online resources such as Create a Blog . Follow up with a MySpace Fashion Show where teens show off their decorated spaces. Invite parents to attend the event and use the workshop to teach Internet safety skills.

Computers Inside Out

Partner with a local custom computer or computer repair business to give teens a look inside a computer. Teens can learn the different parts that make up a computer and build one hands-on with donated materials.

Revamp Your Web site

Gather some teens and get their input on how to bring your library’s website up-to-date. Add a Flickr badge, RSS feed for new books, links to podcasts and webcomics, or a polling area. Try to incorporate teens in creating the new content.

Tune In Activities

Numbered Chairs Game with Technology or Music Trivia

Create a Teen Tech Week themed version of Numbered Chairs.  In Numbered Chairs teens are read trivia questions for which the answers are somewhere in a large number of strips of paper in front of them.  When a question is asked each team needs to find the correct slip and rush to sit in one of the chairs set at the front of the room.  Each chair is assigned a point value and a correct answer earns the first team to sit in the chair with the corresponding amount of points.  Looking for music trivia? Start with these twenty questions (PDF).

New Music Tuesdays

Generally new music is released in stores on Tuesdays. Visit your local music store for the hot new releases and have a program for teens to listen, rate, and discuss the albums. See what's coming up at Billboard Upcoming Releases. 

Song Programs

Host a library idol, karaoke, or singing bee contest at your library. Recruit music teachers or other adults to judge or let the teens judge their peers. In a singing bee it’s not the quality of the singing, but how well the teens know the lyrics. Singshot.com allows users to record and share their karaoke performances with the world.

Local Music Podcast

Provide the equipment and expertise to allow local or school music groups to record their performances in the form of podcasts.

Literary Soundtrack

Have teens pick a favorite book and individually or as a group create a soundtrack with songs they feel fit the action or mood of the book.

Do-it-Yourself iPod Covers

Invite teens to the library to make covers (otherwise known as skins) for their iPods or MP3 players. There are patterns available online for knitting, sewing, or using duct tape to make the covers.

Team Up

Get in touch with your teens’ favorite radio stations and invite them to events for publicity and to pass out their promotional materials. Create PSAs (Public Service Announcements) and get them on the air to promote library programs and services. See the Publicity page for sample Teen Tech Week PSAs.

Additional Resources

YALSA Teen Tech Wiki

For more Teen Tech Week activity ideas, and to add you own, visit the Teen Tech Week Wiki.

Good Better Best Handout

At the ALA Midwinter Meeting in 2005, YALSA held a large Kick-Off celebration for the first annual Teen Tech Week. One of the resources distributed at this event was the “Good Better Best” program handout (PDF). The handout gives examples of different Technology library programs for teens, from good to the very best.

Get Connected: Tech Programs for Teens

Get Connected: Tech Programs for Teens is a compilation of tech programs from YALSA and compiled by Rosemary Honnald. The book offers detailed snapshots of the most cutting-edge technology-oriented programs sure to draw teens into the library – and keep them reading and accessing library resources. Topics include recreation- and education-based programs, working with special teen populations, drawing young readers in the social networking scene, tips for working with teen advisory groups, and YALSA’s innovative ideas for celebrating Teen Tech Week! Both novice and tech-savvy young adult librarians will find this book an essential resource for connecting with their patrons.