Student Maelynn likes the hands-on activities

Maelynn: I just paint a canvas or I make, like, some bracelets, which is really cool to me. And then also, they have, like, video games, which is cool because I love playing Mario Kart.

Ki Sung: 14-year-old Adam likes to make online content, after he finishes his homework, of course.

Adam: I just record gameplay sometimes with my voice and it’s really fun because I’m pretty good at it, but and the games I like to play just makes me happy.

Maelynn: Like I don’t ever hear nobody say like oh We’re gonna hang out at library. It’s just be like, oh, I’m gonna hang out at The Mix but also not many people know about The Mix.

Ki Sung: The Mix has its own entrance on the second floor of the library.  Inside there’s everything you can imagine to foster creativity. There’s a room with 3-d printers, sewing machines, mannequins and cabinets full of art supplies.

There are two soundproof rooms with instruments where teens can make studio quality music recordings, podcasts or make green screen videos. There are tables for playing games like dungeons and dragons, a “carpet garden” lounge area for chilling or scrolling on phones; nooks with seating for large and small groups; a row of computers for playing video games; and of course bookshelves full of manga.

While I’m there, I see teens occupying every section of The Mix doing activities or just happily hanging out

On today’s episode of the MindShift Podcast, you’ll hear about how three libraries have transformed their services to create third spaces, that are neither home nor school, where teens can flourish. Stay with us.

Ki Sung: In order to understand The Mix in San Francisco, you have to go back in time to 2009 in Chicago.

Ki Sung: That was when Chicago Public Libraries embarked on 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 tech and digital media while in a safe environment with trusted adult mentors. Remember, this was in an era when there were fewer computers with WiFi at home for kids, so having these services at libraries made a lot of sense.

The idea was to lean into tech and build a bridge between letting teens do what they want, and making sure teens are in a positive environment. And it was a really new idea at the time.

In order to teach digital media skills, educators tried a structured curriculum similar to school but found that that wasn’t widely popular with youth.
So they rolled out workshop models that teens could explore at their own pace.

Eric Brown who helped conduct research about YOUmedia’s impact, explained how staff gets teens to engage with technology, during a 2013 seminar:

Eric Brown: they’re not forcing it down your throat. It’s a good place that gives you the option. You can pursue it or you can just chill. And you pursue it when you’re ready. And that’s very much the ethos of teens who go to YOU media.

Ki Sung:The YOUmedia model was so successful that the Chicago Public Library system expanded it to 29 branch locations.

Other library systems around the country soon followed their example.

But teens will always keep you on your toes. So being on the look out for what they need is something librarians are always focused on. And in New York, they saw one of those needs emerge recently. Here’s  Siva Ramakrishnan, director of young adult services at the New York Public Library.

Siva Ramakrishnan: The pandemic really like brought into sharp relief the need for spaces where teens can build community again.

Siva Ramakrishnan: After all of that isolation, you know, it was such a difficult and weird and for many teens like traumatic time, 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. This is kind of a, you know, historically a trend in libraries nationwide is that often there isn’t a space that is actually reserved for teenagers, right? Just historically there might be a general children’s area and that tends to skew, fairly young and adorable, right? But then there’s an adult area, right? And that tends to be very quiet with adults who are like in deep focus, right?

Siva Ramakrishnan: So we have really engaged in work over the past few years in carving out spaces in our libraries that are for teens.

Ki Sung: What’s important is that the library isn’t just a space, but offers programming. And in the new york public library’s teen centers, that are in several branches all over the city, they focus on programs that teach civic engagement, college and career readiness along with cool things like how to run a 3d printer or facilitate a banned book club, or how to organize fashion design boot camps.

Siva Ramakrishnan: We actually see a ton of teens across our libraries. NYPL has like over 90 neighborhood libraries. And like last school year in summer, we saw almost 120,000 teens who chose after a super long day at school to come to the library to their local branch and to participate in an after school program.

Ki Sung: Critics of teen spaces that focus on things other than literacy can take heart because there’s one really fascinating upside about the teens in New York. According to Ramakrishnan, they’re not only coming to the library more, these teens actually read more.

Doreen: Hmm, There are so many types of different media that we consume now.

Ki Sung: That’s Doreen, a New York Public Library student ambassador whose job is to tutor kids.

Doreen: I think that people perceive reading only as books or physical books. I know a lot of people who read on their Kindles or me personally, I have a heavy book bag. I take my iPad and I download a PDF of my book or my textbook and I read through there.

MUSIC

Ki Sung: It turns out, being IN a library can help facilitate reading even if your original reason for showing up is totally unrelated.

Ki Sung: Back in San Francisco at The Mix, student library ambassador Shane Macias considers his current relationship with reading.

Shane: Like I’ve checked out books and taken books that were there, they get for free. I read them at home.

Ki Sung: The Mix really reinvented what a library could be to its community. But when it started about a decade ago, the concept behind a teen space also ran counter to a traditional understanding of libraries as a place that houses books.

Eric Hannon: Some people were against this project in the community and voiced concern, like this sounds like a rec center and a daycare center for teenagers.

Ki Sung: That’s Eric Hannon, a librarian who helped start The Mix.

Eric Hannon: And I’ve worked in libraries 35 years, that isn’t what libraries are supposed to do, but often it ends up being part of your job that you have what we used to call latchkey kids in the library after school, they have nowhere to go, both parents working or single parent working, they go chill in the libraries. So they’re gonna be there anyway, so we might as well kind of cater to that.

Ki Sung: In order to cater to teens, the library got input from them. a board of advising youth (bay) weighed in and designed the San Francisco space around the idea of HoMaGo (ho-mah-go), an acronum for hang out, mess around, geek out. This board got final say on specific aspects of the space like furniture preferences, programming and they even advocated for a dedicated bathroom in the mix.  For Shane, a teen-designed space fits the bill.

Shane: I’d say to have space like this is very important because for me, in school and other libraries I’ve went to, I was either stuck with adults or little kids, which wasn’t uncomfortable, but it’s like, I wasn’t around people my age, so it felt really awkward and I guess did feel uncomfortable. It just kind of bothered me why the teens don’t have many places to go. Like, obviously we can go chill at the park or go back home but sometimes maybe we want more, I’d say.

Ki Sung: It turns out, as more libraries act as community centers for teens, they are meeting needs that schools, among other institutions, are unable to serve.

Eric Hannon: The Library has a big role to play in helping teens in particular adapt to stress, stressors in life, be they political or, you know, biological COVID or just developmental. They’re just going through a unique time that is very short in their life, six or seven-ish years. And there’s a lot libraries can do to help ease some of the pain.

Ki Sung: The MindShift team includes me, Ki Sung, Nimah Gobir, Marlena Jackson-Retondo and Marnette Federis.  Our editor is Chris Hambrick. Seth Samuel is our sound designer. Jen Chien is our head of podcasts. Katie Sprenger is podcast operations manager and Ethan Toven Lindsey is our editor in chief. We receive additional support from Maha Sanad.

MindShift is supported in part by the generosity of the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation and members of KQED.”

Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. San Francisco Northern California Local.