Getting kids away from the video games and into the library is a goal for lots of parents, but what happens to them once they get to the library? They could get caught up in more “screen time.” Or the could end up in a program headed by someone like Susan Conlon of West Windsor, the teen services librarian at the Princeton Public Library.
Conlon’s current project: Advising a student-led group raising awareness in the community about Darfur, a program that Conlon hopes will be a model for other public libraries to increase advocacy for long-terms solutions to the genocide in the Sudan.##M:[more]##
The next event on the program’s agenda is a “Jam for Sudan” at the library’s outdoor plaza on Saturday, June 9, from 1 to 6 p.m. Performers include high school-based musicians including Beatnik, a band of musicians from High School South.
“I try with many of our programs to involve teens in developing and running programs by welcoming ideas they have and then working with them, to develop and provide programs and events that are open to a general audience and broad audience, like our Environmental Film Festival we had this winter,” she says.
“Teens are ready for more responsibility and are looking for ways to be more involved, in meaningful ways, and many of the programs I develop are based on fostering and inviting their participation, and probably the best and most sustainable example of this is our long-running annual summer volunteer program for teens, which brings more than 100 local youth into the library to assist our staff in facilitating our summer reading clubs for younger children and other teens,” she says. “It is an excellent way for teens too young for paid employment to spend some of their free time and get some work experience, meet new people outside of their schools, as well as get community service hours.”
Conlon has followed the multitude of crises in Africa and thinks about their impact on Africa and on the world as a whole. “How we solve the HIV/AIDS epidemic, or stop genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan, is really the burden but also more importantly the challenge of our current and next generation of youth to take on,” she says, “so I think it is essential to help youth become aware and help them learn and become informed so that they can face this challenge, and consider the potential of their actions in context of the consequences of inaction.”
Earlier this year Conlon helped organize a screening of “The Lost Boys of Sudan,” a film that follows the journey of two young men from the refuge camps of the Sudan to the U.S. A new program continuing on this focus will be a joint library-university film series in the fall co-sponsored with the Princeton African Students Association at Princeton University. All of the films, selected by the students, will examine Africa from a perspective of African filmmakers. The three screenings will connect with Sankofa, a campus event on October 5 and 6.
“There is full support, from everywhere in the library including the library director Leslie Burger (also a West Windsor resident) to foster a really open door attitude for teens at the library,” she says.
Born in Pennsylvania, she moved to New Jersey when she was in middle school. Her father, now deceased, was first a teacher and then a school administrator for the Camden City School District. Her mother is a retired registered nurse. She has an older brother and two older sisters.
Conlon received both her bachelor and master degrees in library science from Rutgers. After college, she worked for a brokerage firm where she worked in options; and later worked for a couple of publications, doing editorial work, writing, and selling advertising.
Her husband, Joe Conlon, has worked at New Jersey Network (NJN) for more than 20 years and he is currently the Newark station manager. They lived in their first house, on the Island neighborhood along the Delaware River, for six years before moving to West Windsor in 1993. They chose West Windsor because of the “great location, public schools, and living close to the train station.”
Their children are Nick, 21, a High School South graduate who just finished his junior year at Berkeley and is majoring in philosophy; Erin, 19, also a graduate of South, who is finishing up her freshman year at Stanford and rows on the women’s varsity 8 for the Stanford lightweight crew team; and Mary, 17, a junior year at South.
During the four years that Erin rowed for the Mercer Junior Rowing Club for four years, Conlon became involved in the program. She also joined the masters program in 2003 and learned to row. “We practice mornings on Mercer Lake and I love it and look forward to going out on the water, even though it is very early (5:30 a.m.) — but it works for me to get up and out early for exercise,” she says. “We are home to U.S. Rowing and the Olympic training center and it’s a great treasure right here in West Windsor.”
Conlon, who has worked at the library for eight years, has been the teen services librarian since 2002. She was formerly part of the Youth Services and Reference departments. Before that she worked at Plainsboro Public Library.
“One of the challenges of working with teens is to recognize that you are working with a group of people who are in a key transitional point of their lives so you have to be able to adapt to change and have a flexible attitude and encourage their growth and moving in new directions,” she says. “Like many of my colleagues who work specifically with teens in the library world I see my job as teen services librarian as an advocate for youth within the library and the overall community.”
Conlon has been active in many volunteer activities through her adult years. She helped to start the West Windsor Bicycle and Pedestrian Alliance (she is the second vice president and a trustee) and the Princeton Junction Neighborhoods’ Coalition. She is a former president of the Berrien City Neighborhood Association.
“In some ways the same mix of reasons that made me want to be a librarian are part of what drives my motivations in community organizing as both are ways to respond to work with people, and to find and use information to improve quality of life and broaden and share perspectives,” she says.
“I’ve learned that the best way to achieve positive change is by working with other people who share your enthusiasm and like to take on problem-solving and are results-orientated, and that you can do this by either joining an existing organization that needs help or if you see that something that is important to you that is being overlooked, then go out and start it!”
Jam for Sudan, Princeton Public Library, 65 Witherspoon Street, Albert E. Hinds Plaza, 609-924-9529. www.princetonlibrary.org. Open to the public. Free. Saturday, June 9, 1 to 6 p.m.
