Site of the Month: Teen Central

Teen Central
www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/web/teens

Phoenix Public Library's Teen Central is both a YA space at Phoenix's Burton Barr Central Library and a YA Web site. Open since April 25, Phoenix's 5,000-square-foot space features surround-sound music, cable TV/video, a dance floor, a café area with vending machines, and more than 20 unfiltered Net stations. Carol Finch, Phoenix PL's youth services coordinator (carol.finch@phoenix.gov), advises anyone interested in the creation of this space to check out a PowerPoint presentation at pac.lib.ci.phoenix.az.us/web/teens/staff/powerpoint/ppindex.html .

A great space, a great site: Finch and the YA staff wanted a great Web site to go along with the great new space, so in September 2000, they surveyed local teens to find out what they wanted online. Phoenix PL's Web developers used the results of the survey to create several test versions of the site, and staff convened focus groups to try the test pages and provide feedback. "All of our teen services in the past two years have been developed with direct input from teens," says Finch. "Our motto is 'for teens by teens.'"

The Teen Zine: The site includes a comprehensive collection of subscription databases for homework use, most of which are remotely accessible to cardholders. It also includes a Teen Zine that posts poetry, prose, artwork, and photographs by local teens. Finch says that the Teen Zine has been quite successful. Parents must sign a release form before the zine material and the creators' names are posted on the site. In the future, Finch hopes to add online book reviews by teens.

Trends change fast: "Maintaining a Web site for teens requires a lot of staff time," Finch says. "Teens like change and trends change fast." Although the site's been up less than a year, the YA staff is already planning a redesign and hopes to add YA pages for each of the library's branches, streaming video, author chats, and "teens writing a [collaborative] book, chapter by chapter, online." Finch and her staff also plan to work more closely with Phoenix-area schools to remind teens the site is there.