Welcome to TRAP!!

TRAP is our newest (and maybe coolest) volunteering opportunity at MPL. As many of you know from the Teen Summer Reading Programme, the idea for TRAP came from the TSRP blog. It is meant to be a forum for teens in Markham to discuss books, CDs and DVDs, and to earn volunteering hours doing it. It is also a readers' advisory tool for the Teen Services staff - what that means is that your reviews will be used to help create reading lists, displays in the teen department, and hopefully a peer review page on the upcoming Teen Website. The Teen Services staff will also use this blog to keep you posted about upcoming events at the library.

Here's what you need to know...

1. Members are expected to contribute one (or more!) reviews a month
2. There are no regular meetings in person
3. You can review a Book, CD or DVD that we have at any of our branches in the MPL system
4. You are also encourage to post recommendations for items you think the Teen Librarian should purchase for the system (these don't count as reviews for the purposes of volunteer hours, though.)
5. There's no word limit on reviews, but please try to include the following: title, author, # of pages, plot summary, what you thought about the book, the main themes and subjects, who you think the target audience is, and how you would catagorize it in terms of genre (e.g. sci-fi, romance, etc.)
6. Any questions or concerns can be directed to the Teen Services Department at teens@markham.library.on.ca

For those of you counting this service towards your mandatory community service hours for school, here's how to count your hours:

• each CD or DVD review counts as 1/2 hour of volunteer service
• each book review counts as 3 hours

However, you must contribute book reviews - not all your hours can be from watching movies or listing to records. Remember: only reviews of materials in the library collection count towards your hours. You are responsible to keep track of your hours and to contact us if you need volunteer forms signed.

Finally... Have fun! We look forward to reading your reviews.
Andrea Cecchetto - Teen Services Librarian
Catherine Glynn-Anker - Teen Services Assistant