Visual Media for Teens: Creating and Using a Teen‐centered Film Collection

Citation

Isfandyari‐Moghaddam, A. (2010), "Visual Media for Teens: Creating and Using a Teen‐centered Film Collection", The Electronic Library, Vol. 28 No. 3, pp. 463-646. https://doi.org/10.1108/02640471011052034

The theme of 78th IFLA Conference “Libraries Now: Inspiring, Surprising, Empowering” reminds LIS society that both libraries and librarians are shouldering increasingly heavy responsibilities. This can be interpreted in line with Ranganathan's fifth law “the library is a growing organism”, meaning that nowadays, libraries and their resources, librarians and their activities, librarianship and its aspects, and users and their demands are growing organisms. In such circumstances, among the various activities librarians do, collection building and development is of high importance. Yet, considering different services offered by libraries for different audiences, it is evident that teenage users are generally neglected especially in terms of providing them with film‐centered collections. To bridge or diminish the gap existing between children and adults' literature in LIS, to compensate low attention to building a film‐oriented collection in the process of collection building, to fulfill teens' potential and creativity, to support parents to enable them to assist in their teen's learning and development, and above all, to take a stride towards the realization of 78th IFLA Conference's slogan, this valuable annotated subject filmography and guide book has been written as a starting point to draw LIS professional's attention, spark teen interest, and inspire related individuals' recommendations. It consists of seven chapters. The first chapter “Creating a teen film collection” deals with useful issues from teens' taste and features to selecting and organizing a film collection for them. Additionally, some selection guidelines for librarians and the necessity of dealing with emerging technologies and formats are discussed. The second chapter “Getting teens involved” shows how to stimulate teens' interest using talking with and listening to them, and acting on their suggestions. To do this, some programs are offered. The third chapter “Exploring issues of identity: suggested films” provides readers with suggested films in three groups concerning issues of identity: “Who am I?” films, “Lost in a group” films, and “Other cultures, other times” films. The fourth chapter “The appeal of heroes: suggested films” is based on the idea “heroes come in many forms”. Accordingly, related films and how they can be selected are categorized in “Sports and competitions films”, “Live action heroes plus films”, “Anime and other animated films”, respectively. The fifth chapter “The appeal of strong emotions: suggested films” attempts to teach audiences how to stimulate and control teens' emotions in the face of horror and humour by means of relevant films. Thus, related films in the format of “Horror and suspense films” and “Comedy films”, and how they can be chosen are indicated. The sixth chapter “Education and the arts: suggested films” is concerned with films adapted from books, plays, and novels so that education can be empowered and facilitated in the shadow of different arts embodied in the films. Finally, the seventh chapter “Film reviews and resources” lists up‐to‐date resources for print and online film reviews. A list of web sites for teen filmmakers is also included to help readers contact and interact with them. As a closing sentence, the effort at present is excellent and admirable, but in the future, it will be necessary to update and republish this work, which is deserving of support by buying and reading.