I mentioned in my post about how important support networks are that I’ve been a part of an incredible and tight group for a couple of years now.

This week, one of the members sent an email with the subject “HELP WITH CRAP.” She wanted to know how to make something work design-wise for a publication she was making for a program. She also asked how we felt about her program being named the “Anti-Valentine’s Day Party” or “The Broken Hearts Party.”

We all rang in our thoughts, and in the midst of it, we realized that, while we’re strong in our little group, we’d love to offer up an extension of something like this for a larger group of professional librarians who work with kids and teens (or who are invested in them). In other words, we wanted to develop a means for getting more input and more voices, without it turning into a massive listserv where the questions that were answered six years ago are still being asked and answered today.

Are you a youth services or teen librarian looking for a supportive and active group of similarly-minded people to exchange ideas or vent frustrations to? Welcome to Code Name Awesome*.

This is where we can talk about how those Printz-winning books are indeed titles that appeal to readers and how we can promote them among our teens. Where we can ask how to make something work in Publisher or where we can figure out how it is we can promote our own blog posts and creative ideas in bigger venues.

We are totally cool with blatant self-promotion, too. This is about supporting one another’s ideas.

You can join our listserv by applying here, and we are also on Facebook.

* If that reference is lost on you, be glad we didn’t go with our original idea for a group name, which was “help with crap.”