The student Maellynn likes practical activities
Maellynn: I just paint a canvas or I make bracelets, which is really cool for me. And also, they have video games, which is cool because I like to play Mario Kart.
Ki sung: Adam, 14, likes to do online content, after finishing your homework, of course.
Adam: I sometimes record the gameplay with my voice and it’s really fun because I’m quite good in this area, but the games I like to play makes me happy.
Maellynn: As if I never heard that no one says like Oh, we will spend time in the library. It’s just like, oh, I’m going to spend time mixing but not many people know the mixture.
Ki sung: The mixture has its own entry to the second floor of the library. Inside, there is everything you can imagine to promote creativity. There is a room with 3D printers, sewing machines, models and cabinets full of art supplies.
There are two soundproofed rooms with instruments where adolescents can make studio quality music recordings, podcasts or make green screen videos. There are tables to play games like dungeons and dragons, a “carpet garden” living room to cool or scroll through phones; Nooks with seats for large and small groups; A row of computers to play video games; And of course, shelves full of manga.
While I am there, I see teenagers occupy all the sections of the mixture that do activities or simply drag
In today’s episode of the Mindshift podcast, you will hear how three libraries have transformed their services to create third spaces, which are neither at home nor at school, where adolescents can flourish. Stay with us.
Ki sung: In order to understand the mixture in San Francisco, you have to go back in 2009 to Chicago.
Ki sung: It was at this point that Chicago’s public libraries launched a bold plan through a program called Youmedia. It was part of a broader initiative called digital media and learning. Youmedia was designed to give students access to technology and digital media in a safe environment with confidence adult mentors. Remember that it was at a time when there were fewer computers with WiFi at home for children, so having these services in libraries made a lot of sense.
The idea was to rely on technology and build a bridge between letting adolescents do what they want, and make sure that adolescents are in a positive environment. And it was very new idea at the time.
In order to teach the skills of the digital media, the educators tried a structured program similar to the school, but found that it was not very popular with young people.
They therefore deployed workshop models that adolescents could explore at their own pace.
Eric Brown who helped carry out research on the impact of Youmedia, explained how the staff brought about adolescents to engage with technology, during a 2013 seminar:
Eric Brown: They don’t force it in your throat. It’s a good place that gives you the option. You can continue it or you can just relax. And you continue it when you are ready. And it is really the philosophy of adolescents that go to the media.
Ki sung: The Youmedia model was so successful that the Chicago public library system extended it to 29 branches.
Other library systems across the country quickly followed their example.
But adolescents will always keep you on your guard. So being on the lookout for what they need is something that librarians are always concentrated. And in New York, they saw one of these needs emerge recently. Here is Siva Ramakrishnan, Director of youth services at the New York Public Library.
Siva Ramakrishnan: The pandemic as really brought in relief the need for spaces where adolescents can start the community again.
Siva Ramakrishnan: After all this isolation, you know, it was so difficult and weird and for many teenagers like traumatic weather, right? And so at Nypl, we have done a number of things.
Siva Ramakrishnan: So, one is that we have really invested in our spaces. It is sort of, you know, historically a trend in libraries on a national scale is that often there is no space that is really reserved for adolescents, right? Historically, there could be a general children’s area that tends to compete, quite young and adorable, right? But there is an adult area, right? And it tends to be very silent with adults who are in depth, right?
Siva Ramakrishnan: So we have really engaged in work in recent years in the size of the spaces in our libraries for adolescents.
Ki sung: What is important is that the library is not only a space, but offers programming. And in adolescent centers of the New York public library, which are in several branches throughout the city, they focus on programs that teach civic engagement, university and career preparation as well as interesting things like how to manage a 3D printer or facilitate a prohibited reading club, or how to organize fashion design start -up camps.
Siva Ramakrishnan: We actually see a ton of adolescents in our libraries. NYPL has more than 90 neighborhood libraries. And as the last school year in summer, we saw nearly 120,000 teenagers who chose a great day at school after coming to the library of their local branch and participating in a program after school.
Ki sung: Critics of adolescent spaces that focus on other things than literacy can take heart because there is a really fascinating advantage for New York teenagers. According to Ramakrishnan, they don’t just come to the library, these adolescents actually read more.
Doreen: Hmm, there are so many different types of supports that we consume now.
Ki sung: It is Doreen, student ambassador of the New York public library whose work consists of Tutor children.
Doreen: I think people perceive reading only as books or physical books. I know many people who read on their kindles or me personally, I have a bag of heavy books. I take my iPad and download a pdf from my book or my manual and I read there.
MUSIC
Ki sung: It turns out that being in a library can help facilitate reading even if your initial reason for presenting yourself is completely not linked.
Ki sung: Back in San Francisco to the mixture, the Ambassador of the Library of Students Shane Macias considers his current relationship with reading.
Shane: As if I had checked the books and took books that were there, they get free. I read them at home.
Ki sung: The mixture has really reinvented what a library could be for its community. But when it started about ten years ago, the concept behind an adolescent space was also contrary to a traditional understanding of libraries as a place that houses books.
Eric Hannan: Some people were against this project in the community and expressed their concern, as it looks like a leisure center and a daycare center for adolescents.
Ki sung: It was Eric Hannan, a librarian who helped start the mixture.
Eric Hannan: And I worked in 35 -year libraries, this is not what libraries are supposed to do, but often it ends up being part of your work that you have what we call the children of Latchkey in the library after school, they have nowhere to go, the two parents working or the single -parent parents, they will relax in the libraries. So they will be there anyway, so we could also be adapted.
Ki sung: In order to respond to adolescents, the library obtained their entry. A youth board of directors (Baie) weighed and designed the San Francisco space around the idea of Homago (Ho-Mah-Go), an acronum to drag, spoiled, geek out. This board obtained the last word on specific aspects of space such as furniture preferences, programming and they even pleaded for a bathroom dedicated in the mixture. For Shane, a space designed by adolescents corresponds to the invoice.
Shane: I would say to have a space like this is very important because for me, at school and in other libraries where I went, I was stuck with adults or small children, which was not uncomfortable, but it was not with people my age, so it was really annoying and I suppose that I felt uncomfortable. It just disturbed me why adolescents don’t have many places to go. As, of course, we can relax in the park or go home, but sometimes maybe we want more, I would say.
Ki sung: It turns out that more libraries act as community centers for adolescents, they meet the needs that schools, among other institutions, are unable to serve.
Eric Hannan: The library has a big role to play in helping adolescents in particular to adapt to stress, stressors in life, whether political or, you know, organic covored or simply development. They just go through a unique moment which is very short in their lives, six or seven years. And there are a lot of libraries to help relieve part of the pain.
Ki sung: The Mindshift team includes Me, Ki Sung, Nimah Gobir, Marlena Jackson-Rertondo and Marnette Federis. Our publisher is Chris Hambrick. Seth Samuel is our sound designer. Jen Chien is our podcast chief. Katie Sprenger is the Director of Podcast operations and Ethan Tove Lindsey is our editor. We receive additional support from Maha Sanad.
Mindshift is partly supported by the generosity of the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation and Kqed members. »»
Some members of the KQED Podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, the American television federation and radio artists. San Francisco Northern California Local.
