Super Happy Fun Orientation

The teens have returned to our library. They are like a pack of locusts, sweeping in, causing chaos and then flittering away as quickly as they came. For now our library property is protected by the nice weather; they stay outside to guzzle their Mountain Dew but as soon as it gets nippy they'll take the party inside.

Right now we are going through Library Orientation to teach the new students the library rules and refresh the regulars on what they're supposed to be doing. To get a teenager to come to anything that has the word "orientation" in it you have to resort to the time honored tradition of bribery. Perhaps we should have named our orientation the "Super Happy Fun Time" but then the teens might think we were hosting a Japanese game show in our auditorium and be gravely disappointed.

To bribe the teens we tell them "we promise it will be VERY short" and say "there will be treats." This convinces most of them. To get the rest in we refuse to let them get a guest card to access the Internet.

In the orientation we speed through at an auctioneer's pace the rules of the library accompanied by PowerPoint. We stress that the library is a public place and we want to have them there but not causing havoc. Most of them respond well but when I finished with one group and paused to have them ask questions they stared at me expectantly and asked: "So where's the candy?" Oh well, I tried.