Librarians who work with teens need information and a big-picture perspective on adolescence that reflects the latest knowledge of cognate fields and the contemporary realities of young people’s lives. As I wrote in the introduction to the earlier volume, “this book explains what others who work with adolescents have learned from their professional activities, how that knowledge might revise our thinking about teens, and how to encourage new priorities and partnerships in youth services” (p. 2). Then and now, I argue that “Library services to young adults should aspire to two fundamental objectives: to engage young people through meaningful and appealing responses to their recreational and informational needs, and to simultaneously support good developmental outcomes” (p. 2). The literatures of other fields, with their different methodologies and approaches, provide a useful context to these ends. They help us understand teens, rather than supplanting our own knowledge.
