Introduction

One of the major developments in public libraries in the last few decades is the growth of teen/young adult services as a separate entity from both children’s work and adult offerings. Major reasons for the trend include the growing concern over the quality of education offered to our young people, increased attention paid to youth culture and youth spending by the business sector, and pioneering librarians devoted to appropriate service for this population. Aside from serving the needs of young people, there are other motives for developing teen services in public libraries. Some do it to keep teens, who are talkative and social by nature, out of the way of other library patrons. Other libraries boast teen services, but simply carbon copy their children’s offerings and complain when teens ignore them. Regardless of the different motives and desired outcomes, there are many more public libraries attempting to provide teen customers with legitimate service, targeted programs, collections, spaces, and outreach than ever before.

While some librarians’ endeavors to serve young people are more successful than others, as a profession we have yet to solidify coherent strategies for work with young people. Librarians still struggle to agree on why we are serving teens, and whether teens are detriments or assets in a library environment. At the same time, we are experimenting frenetically with different implementations as to how to serve teens. One of the most common evidentiary items a public library can use to exhibit their commitment to teens is a dedicated space in the library for teen use. Along with these teen centers libraries develop advisory groups, homework/tutoring centers, one-time programs, book clubs, volunteer programs, and provide computers, video games, specialized collections, and a variety of other services designed to attract, educate, involve, and utilize young people.

About the Project

Teen centers provide a unique opportunity to understand the attitudes, priorities, and efforts of public libraries towards young people. Unlike programs, collections, and outreach, teen centers can be compared based on statistics and begin from a common objective of designating space for the teen population. For the purpose of this study, a teen center is a library space that caters to the teen population, holds at least a portion of the library collection for teens, and is in some way distinct from the rest of the library space. The study takes data from the recurring Voices of Youth Advocates (VOYA) article Teen Spaces of Your Dreams, covering 39 libraries beginning in 1999 and terminating in October, 2007. The data is then used as a benchmark to compare the plans of 3 libraries designed with money from the California Library Bond Act of 2000. Not every library covered by the VOYA is included. Some pieces did not include sufficient statistical information, and others did not focus on an individual teen space.

About the Data

All the data included from VOYA was self-reported by featured libraries or compiled from supplementary information included elsewhere in the articles. The data collected was separated into thematic tables, which may be sorted by a particular statistic by clicking on the corresponding column heading.

The thematic tables, Fundamentals, Use Attractions, Visual Attractions, Youth Participation, Circulation, and Youth Response, each measure the library’s self-reported successes in a particular area.

Introduction	Fundamentals	Use Attractions	Visual Attractions	Youth Participation	Circulation
Youth Presence	New Bay Area Teen Spaces		Discussion	Sources	All Data (75 kb download)