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Austintown library hosts tween scavenger hunt
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Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.Youth services librarian Ashley Potopovich helped Lilia Bowden (right) and another girl find the first book for the tween scavenger hunt at the Austintown library.
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Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.Austintown library youth services librarian Ashley Potopovich helped 9-year-old Lilia Bowden (back) of Austintown and another girl get started in the tween scavenger hunt.
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Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.Lilia Bowden (right) and another girl worked on finding the next book for the tween scavenger hunt at the Austintown library.
By TIM CLEVELAND
In another creative way to get children interested in the library, the Austintown library hosted a tween scavenger hunt on Sept. 8 for children in grades 4-6.
Each child was given a sheet with a clue about a type of book. They had to get on the library’s PAC [Public Access Computers] system to look up a book that matched the type described. After finding it on the shelf, they moved on to the next clue. The clues were broken up into the categories of nonfiction, fiction, special [fairy tales, magazines, encyclopedias], media [DVDs and CDs] and the library [events at the library].
For example, one clue was “Find a book about the moon.” The children had to look up nonfiction books about the moon on the PAC system, find it on the shelf and remove it to be able to move on to the next clue.
“Just trying to get tweens into the library, having them explore the catalog and have them find information,” Austintown library youth services librarian Ashley Potopovich said of how the idea of doing the scavenger hunt came about.
Andrea Bowden of Austintown brought her 9-year-old daughter, Lilia, to the scavenger hunt.
“We’re here in the library every week and I saw the advertisement last week so we came out,” Bowden said.
Bowden said Lilia doing the scavenger hunt will help her find library books on her own in the future.
“She’s pretty good at finding things on the computer, but I think actually finding them on the shelf after doing that would be really helpful for her,” Bowden said.
Potopovich agreed that the scavenger hunt would help children navigate the library shelves.
“To learn how to use the library, because a lot of them aren’t familiar with the online catalog and they’re not sure how the nonfiction is organized or the fiction,” she said.