A Teen's Safe Haven
How far should a public library go to improve its community?
Evan St. Lifer, Editor -- School Library Journal, 7/1/2004
The role of any library is to make its community better," says librarian and author Patrick Jones in our cover story about working with unruly teens (see "Here Comes Trouble," pp. 32–35). "So the role of librarians working with teens is to make that community better."
We've heard this sentiment so often, it's easy to accept Jones's assertion at face value. But is the mission of the public library to "make the community better"? Or is this task far too ambitious? Are we placing unrealistic expectations on already overburdened library staffs? Should a public library offer services that don't directly relate to providing access to information? Ultimately, should a public library serve as a holding pen for teens, even the most recalcitrant ones?
I say yes, unequivocally, to all of the questions above. Here's why:
I randomly culled mission statements from three public libraries. Alabama's Huntsville-Madison Public Library endeavors "to enrich the educational, recreational, and cultural life" of its community. The Normal Public Library in Illinois uses a similar phrase to describe its mission "to be an educational, informational, recreational, [as well as a] cultural community resource." The Seattle Public Library declares its intent to "provide highly responsive service," and "reach out to all members of our community."
All three public libraries' missions point to enhancing community life. In the absence of any qualitative research that proves the relative value of the public library to its constituents, or that correlates public library use to improved test scores or academic performance, we need to reinforce the public library's role as an indispensable community hub. If community libraries want to "talk the talk," they need to "walk the walk," even when that means being a hangout for some teens and a boundless after-school resource for so many others. Plus, there is a small possibility that an intriguing graphic novel may serendipitously catch the eye of a wayward 16-year-old—launching him into the world of knowledge and learning, a much unlikelier occurrence outside the library.
The role of the public library as a safe haven for kids actually spans back to the genesis of public libraries in America in 1855. At the time, as smaller private libraries began to wane, public concern for education and social welfare grew, leading to local funding for public libraries, says Jesse Shera in Foundations of the Public Library. The public library's founders had specific objectives: "to promote equality of educational opportunity, to advance scientific investigation, to save the youth from the evils of an ill-spent leisure, and to promote the vocational advance of the workers."
Nearly 150 years later, public libraries must continue to save children and young adults "from the evils of an ill-spent leisure." Libraries need to do this by providing teens with myriad programs that are alternately challenging and creative. Today's libraries must invest themselves in the care and feeding of teens—both literally and figuratively. The most successful public library teen programs are in sync with adolescents' needs, and that includes accounting for their boisterous, impulsive nature and voracious appetites, as our cover story notes. Public libraries have the challenge of balancing teen services with their many other programs so that they can play a significant role in making their communities and neighborhoods better.
