Teen Resource Center

"Helpful life hacks for today's teens" is the tag line for Omnigraphics' Teen Resource Center and this new online subscription service delivers just that. This database offers over 2,000 articles ranging from 28 different subject areas such as gender identity, opioid abuse, applying to college, voting, and driving. The three broad areas of this resource are health, financial literacy, and personal growth. This database even includes over 500 common teen questions with real-world answers to help put relevant, relatable information in the hands of teenagers.

Teenagers often believe they know the best way to find the best information and sometimes they want to find information on topics in a more private manner. This resource allows them to navigate a user-friendly, digital platform to find the answers to those questions or topics they may feel uncomfortable having a verbal conversation about. The "Q and A" section features common questions, such as "how can I avoid credit card debt?" Once the question prompt is clicked, students will see a box appear with a short, bulleted list that clearly answers the question in an informational manner. Students will find this to be useful and may even be inspired to research further on the topic being searched. Another feature is the inclusion of hundreds of additional resources with links and information about organizations, online communities, and hotlines under the "useful contacts" section for each article topic. Consider this a type of resource directory that allows high school students to get connected to other reputable and reliable resources more so than a simple search engine search. The lists located for various topics is extensive and could be very helpful for educators and school library media specialists as well. Each article contains a "References" section at the bottom which allows students to copy and paste the information for citation purposes.

An idea for application of this resource in the Future Ready library media center would be integrating the robust "career" topic to a lesson or activity with students. School library media specialists can highlight the information that provides in-depth articles on internships, inventorying interests, hottest jobs for college graduates, and also technical and soft skill training development information. This can be extremely helpful in assisting in early college and career lessons and activities within the library or with collaboration with school guidance departments. These articles can create a wonderful opportunity to create dialog with students as they begin to think about their futures and possible career and college decisions.

This site interface is visually appealing to a teenage audience and its simplicity in layout and color choices make it a stand-out resource when it comes to high school appropriate databases. The variety of relevant information and the manner in which it is presented truly makes this is a resource to investigate purchasing for high schools.