'Millionaire' Will Help Ohio Teens

Considering how helpful the teenage Carey found the library, it seems fitting that the Ohio Library Council recently decided to spend all of his game-show winnings--nearly $600,000 from two Millionaire stints and a turn on Hollywood Squares--to help Ohio libraries better serve young adults.

Carey has been told of the decision and "was very, very pleased," says Linda Murray, director of public relations for the Ohio Library Council, which is made up of the Ohio Library Association, the Ohio Library Trustees Association, and Ohio Friends of the Library.

The state's young adult librarians, for their part, are thrilled. Now "the community will see what teenagers are capable of doing when they're given a little bit of support and encouragement," says Mary Arnold, a young adult librarian at Ohio's Cuyahoga County Public Library and president of the Young Adult Library Services Association, a division of the American Library Association.

Though teens are generally viewed as "underserved" by the nation's libraries, Ohio is known for having some of the best young adult services in the country. (Cuyahoga, which serves a broad swath of suburban Cleveland, has a YA librarian in each of its 24 branches.) Still, according to Arnold, the bulk of Ohio's YA librarians are concentrated in the northeast. "When we began looking at where things were happening, we discovered that in fact there were... still large groups not getting consistent service and libraries that did not have people with the title 'young adult librarian,'" Arnold says. In fact, only 20 percent of libraries in the state have designated teen librarians, according to C. Allen Nichols, former president of the Ohio Library Association and a longtime YA advocate.

That fact helped convince the library council's board of trustees--which wanted the Carey money to reach an underserved population--that even in relatively teen-aware Ohio, young adults fit the bill. It also helped that when the board was mulling its options, Nichols, as then-president of the state's library association, held a seat at the table.

The bulk of Carey's gift--$400,000--will go toward programming grants for public libraries. Nichols says he and the others involved in figuring out how to spend the money hope libraries will think long-term in their project applications. "The idea is that starting a program for young adults is not a one-time thing. There has to be a firm commitment from the library, staff, and community," Nichols explains.

Another $50,000 will go toward training librarians in the art of serving young adults. It's hardly a secret that some librarians are not comfortable working with this age group. The idea of the training money "is to help foster a welcoming atmosphere for teens," Nichols says. "We want all staff to develop a comfort level and, at least to some degree, to understand that teens are good."

Another $50,000 will go toward scholarships for Ohio residents who plan to enter young adult library service. The remaining $82,000, meanwhile, will be spent on more airtime for the public service announcements that Carey made for the library council earlier this year.--Andrea Glick