Chinatown Zine Lures Teens to Library

The Chinatown branch of the San Francisco Public Library has lured dozens of teenage immigrants in recent months with a Teen-zine project aimed at helping them to better assimilate. Twice a week, kids ages 14 to 18 gather at the library for an e-journalism class in writing, reporting, and editing skills. They're also taught HTML programming, Web design, and other computer-related essentials.

Although the Chinatown Teen-zine is still a work in progress, it's already attracted more than 40 teens who travel from neighborhoods near and far just to participate in the workshops, says librarian Terry Carlson.

But it's not as if the Chinatown branch has ever had any trouble attracting patrons—with an adult collection split evenly between English and Chinese, it's the most trafficked of all the 27 libraries in the San Francisco Public Library system. It also boasts a circulation of upwards of 11,000 items per month, 40 percent of which comes from teen materials, Carlson says. Still, branch librarians felt the need to create a program that specifically targeted teens who might not have had a tradition of visiting the library, says Toni Bernardi, the library's chief of children's and youth services.

With the help of a $50,000 two-year grant from Libraries for the Future, the project was unveiled last April. And since then, the kids have been learning the intricacies of creating their own zine. The goal is to create an online walking tour of Chinatown, and in the process, recent immigrants get a chance to learn about Asian-American history, while native-born teens learn about Chinese language and culture.

Log on to www.youthaccess.org/sfte on December 7, when the Chinatown Teen-zine plans to go live.