'Twihards Take Sides at the Library'
RSS
That's the headline that caught my eye when I was browsing through RSS feeds. It led to an article in the Trib Local Deerfield (IL) about a contest in which teens at Deerfield Public Library (DPL) voted with plastic fangs for either Team Edward or Team Jacob. I couldn't resist, and I soon got in touch with Colleen Seisser, a teen services librarian at DPL, and asked her a few questions about how this great event came together. How did you come up with this idea? How many teens participated? How long was the voting open? How close was the final vote? What happened to all of those fangs?
I wanted to get the cardboard cutouts of actors Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner for the Teen Space, but I also wanted to do something more than just have those hang out. Karen Kleckner, head of public relations and reader's services, suggested that we do some kind of vote for Deerfield's choice: Team Edward or Team Jacob. We both agreed that the cutouts would attract the attention of patrons to vote, and that we would want the public to see progress as voting took place. It needed to be visual. I found fangs in bulk from Oriental Trading Company, and IKEA has very affordable large glass vases. We put out cardboard Jacob and Edward for photo ops (there were many patrons who took advantage of staging a photo) and set up the two vases with a box of fangs in the middle. It's an easy event to put on that requires little attention, as long as you are willing to accept that it's not going to be a scientific survey!
We had no intention of keeping track of the number of participants, though I know we made about 800 fangs available for voting. We just wanted people to vote so that visitors would see fangs piling up. It wasn't just teens who participated, either. I observed all ages, from young kids to seniors, voting for Team Edward or Team Jacob—and some voting handfuls at a time!
Voting started June 1 and closed on June 30, the day Twilight: Eclipse premiered.
It was not close at all—Deerfield, IL, is clearly on Team Jacob, by hundreds of fangs.
After the winner was announced, we celebrated by offering free fangs to the public—the very ones that were used to cast votes!
