Category: Young Patrons

About them and what libraries can do for them.

YOUmedia Name-dropped by Chance the Rapper

I recently downloaded the second mixtape – Acid Rap – from Chicago’s up and coming Chance the Rapper.

Listening to the track “Acid Rain,” a line made my ears perk up: “And I’m still Mr. YOUmedia.” Whaaa? Rap Genius confirms: And I’m still Mr. YOUmedia. Sure enough, Chicago Public’s YOUmedia was one of the places Chance the Rapper started performing.

He’s spoken at length about the role YOUmedia played in his music’s development:

“It was a really ill thing because it was smack in the center of downtown, so anybody from any school could come there because every train comes to the loop [downtown]. I met damn near all the producers on #10Day through this library. It was the spot.”

Consider this a complement to the “I graduated from the library” Bradbury quote we like to trot out. Clearly, a lot of creative output is the result of some sort of library use. But in most cases libraries have been neutral in that they don’t care if they’re for enjoyment, learning, inspiration, etc… or any combination. So what makes this example so great is that YOUmedia isn’t neutral in this way; it has the goal of helping kids create content. This example illustrates that creation focused libraries can have a significant impact.

Pop Up Podcast

popup podcast

The goal is to provide a fun, creative environment for teens to engage with audio recording technology and explore their own self-expression and presentation skills.

Another winner from Escondido Public Library.

Our most exciting news is that our Teen Librarian, Joanna Axelrod, has teamed up with LibraryYOU’s Viktor Sjoberg to start a Pop Up Podcast program for teens in two locations on the east side of Escondido that used to be served by our now-closed East Valley Branch.

Letters to the Children of Troy

“In early 1971, Hart wrote to dozens of actors, authors, artists, musicians, playwrights, librarians, and politicians of the day. She asked them to write a letter to the children of Troy about the importance of libraries, and their memories of reading and of books.”

See more of the 97 responses at the Troy Public Library website.

[via Letters of Note]

Bosch & Fjord’s Ordrup School

Can you tolerate a few more pictures of a brightly colored school?

Inventing a new language to describe this new pattern of learning, Bosh and Fjord galvanized their design concept around three central themes: “peace and absorption,” “discussion and cooperation,” and “security and presence.” With these three central modes of learning, a diversity of education spaces for children unfolded—colorful “hot pods” for group discussion, organically shaped tables for group work and creative play, personalized learning “booths” for reflective work, and playful circular tubes for reading and contemplation. Bosh & Fjord recognized that we all learn very differently, and they transformed Ordrup School based on this conviction. The form of Ordrup School, albeit playful and beautiful, now follows the function.


More pictures and info about the design process at Co.Design

information behaviour of the researcher of the future

Here’s another report to read. It was produced by the British Library and the Joint Information Systems Committee. It is on my reading list for this afternoon but I’m recommending it now because when I scanned through I saw some interesting statements like:

CIBER’s considered view is that the real issue that the library community should be concerned about is the rise of the e-book, not social networking. It should certainly continue to experiment and to keep a watching brief on these tools, especially for examples of best practice from serious business use (e.g. in marketing) and in course delivery. [p. 17]

Another reason I’m writing about it is so that I can show you the cover of the report.

scary cover

Woah! That is intense.

Ars Technica has an article about the report titled The “Google generation” not so hot at Googling, after all in which they list some findings about people born 1993 or later.

  • They like to cut-and-paste. “There is a lot of anecdotal evidence and plagiarism is a serious issue.”
  • They prefer visual information over text. “But text is still important… For library interfaces, there is evidence that multimedia can quickly lose its appeal, providing short-term novelty.”
  • They multitask all the time. “It is likely that being exposed to online media early in life may help to develop good parallel processing skills.”

this big library called barnes & noble

In preperation for a workshop I’m facilitating at the PNLA conference I watched a DVD titled “Idaho Digital Natives Focus Groups 2007.” It is a selection of footage from work done by the Idaho Commission for Libraries through an IMLS grant.

The full report is available here: “Perceptions of Idaho’s Digital Natives on Public Libraries”[pdf]. I haven’t read it yet, but considering how blown away I was by the video, I’m looking forward to it.

It might be easy to look at this comment from one of the digital natives and think “Young kids LOL they don’t get it” but that wouldn’t be fair and it isn’t my intention. Knowledge about libraries isn’t something that people can just intuit. The existence of libraries is not an a priori truth, right? When people mistake Barnes & Noble for a library it says more about LibraryLand’s marketing efforts and people’s expectations than it does of their intelligence.

Expect some more great quotes as I delve a bit deeper into the video!