Solomon's Gift

The public library is filling the life-skills void for teenagers in many communities, offering programs ranging from personal finance workshops to health and career seminars to college prep courses as well as summer employment. An increasing number of these programs are including teens in the planning and implementation of their own programs, thanks to a teen advocate from East Orange, NJ, named Solomon Steplight.

Steplight, a 28-year-old robotic engineer who is entering the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business this fall to earn his MBA, got hooked on the idea of better teen programming as a 22-year-old technology mentor in the Free Library of Philadelphia's teens and technology program in 1997. While the program held promise as a way to help teens serve the community as technology helpers and trainers, Steplight realized something was missing.

Putting himself in the place of the teens with whom he worked, he realized the library had offered enhanced technology training, but neglected the needs of the teens themselves, according to Steplight, a former UPenn football player. "There was no autonomy, nothing to empower teens to provide programs for libraries." Steplight imagined professional development training to equip teens with the skills necessary to enable them to become a vital part of the program-planning process.

"Solomon's gift is understanding that by inviting them into the creation, that someone is betting on them like nobody else ever has," says Joey Rodger, president of the Urban Libraries Council. "The key is in creating jobs that are more useful to the library and more developmentally significant to the kids."

Steplight's philosophy of helping teens to help themselves derives from a two-month study he conducted at the MIT Media Lab exploring how low-income communities could best utilize technology. He found that when these communities were involved in the process as stakeholders, they became more proficient technology users. Drawing on his MIT experience, Steplight reasoned that the library, already identified as a community asset, could be tapped to develop programs to enrich the lives of teens—with their participation.

Traces of Steplight's core philosophy can be seen in the teen programs at more than a dozen public libraries nationwide, including two institutions profiled in this issue's cover story ("Preparing Teens for the Future," pp. 46–49), the Public Library of Charlotte–Mecklenburg (NC) County and the Phoenix Public Library.

The Free Library of Philadelphia has created a program that embodies Steplight's teens-first philosophy: the Youth Empowerment Summit, a daylong event with workshops and networking opportunities planned by and held for teenagers. The library held its fourth annual summit in May, attended by more than 300 teens.

The public libraries heeding Solomon Steplight's message are the ones experiencing more progress among teens. Librarians now understand that by working with kids—rather than for them—to educate, train, and employ them, they are building the pathways teens desperately need to become productive, enlightened adults.

Evan St. Lifer Editor estlifer@reedbusiness.com