CANADA
All summer, teenagers have been playing video games at London's public libraries -- and staff couldn't be happier.
Faced with the challenge of bringing teens to the library and pitching literacy to them in a new way, employees made popular video games such as Rock Band and Dance Dance Revolution available at library branches throughout the city.
Don't scoff at the idea: Staff say those video games are actually promoting reading. "It's all literacy, but it's meaningful and it's fun and that's really key with teens, because if it seems like school, then we're going to turn them off," said Julie Brandl, the library's co-ordinator of children and youth services, and a member of the Child and Youth Network. "Literacy doesn't have to be rote, it doesn't have to be boring," she said.
Libraries held focus groups with teens to ask what they wanted from the library. The message was clear: traditional literacy wouldn't work with them. "Because they are so technologically savvy and because the world that they live in is often sound bites . . . they're communicating in a different way," said Brandl.
Teens need to know literacy isn't just about sitting down and reading a book, said Gage Layne, 17, who sits on the Teen Annex committee at the Central Library. "When I'm in school and they talk about reading, they make it sound like it's just sitting there reading a book," he said, adding Rock Band and Dance Dance Revolution change that perception. "It's more active and it gets you involved in the community."
The focus groups also revealed other surprises. Though they asked for book blogs and video games, for example, teens also asked library staff to remember they still like books and reading. That was proven this summer when 229 kids, ages 12 to 18, read 546,288 pages in two months as part of a reading contest held by the library. "Literacy is not dead, but it's how to reach them," said Brandl. "It's going where they are in terms of technology. It's all about making it easy, accessible and relevant."
The library has both a Facebook and MySpace page and holds contests through its website where teens can discuss nominated books online and vote for their favourite one.
Layne said he reads the book blogs from home to help choose titles he's interested in. "They've made it more accessible and more exciting," he said. Brandl said staff heard that teen message over and over. "They said don't expect us to come to the library to do something we can more easily do somewhere else," she said.
To support teens with their schoolwork, the library dedicated part of its website to help them study, critically evaluate web sites and search electronic databases. Ask On, an online research tool, was created to allow teens to chat live with a librarian and get homework help.
Teen advisory committees were also formed at five library branches to help figure out what the youths want. The efforts are paying off. "It's just amazing," Layne said, adding the library has done a good job of combining social and educational events for teens. "Seven years ago they never had this for teens."
Kelly Pedro
8 September 2008
http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/News/Local/2008/09/08/6696981-sun.html
