- an under-utilized building in a neighborhood of young people
- an already existing Young Friends group
- a good relationship with area schools
- the willingness of library administration to devote local money to refurbishing the building and expanding the young adult collection
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Essential Elements: The Lessons We Learned
Youth Participation
Involvement of young people is the critical element in successful library service to young adults. It should start with a needs assessment, and continue in meaningful ways through analysis, design, development, and operation of an effective plan.
The advantages are many. Specific feedback from teens allows library staff to set workable priorities for their resources. Further, when young people are involved in creating and revising service, they are likely to accept and use the library, and will be more willing to contribute time and energy to its operation. Just as important, the staff and the young adults come to understand each other in more than a superficial way, and from that understanding comes mutual respect.
Community
It is a rare community these days that is not concerned with safe, purposeful activities for junior high and high school students. A library offering young adult service will benefit from partnerships with schools, parks and recreation departments, boys and girls clubs, and other community organizations. Each group will profit from sharing experiences and information. At the same time, the young people of the community become aware of the network and the way groups can work together to solve problems. Ideally, the community can pool resources, or at least, each organization can use its own resources more effectively.
Build on What You Have
Spending the time to make an honest evaluation of what the library already has to offer toward development of young adult services is well worth the effort. As we built A PLACE OF OUR OWN, we took advantage of:
As we began to make the changes, we also found that we were supported by neighborhood adults with a history of fighting for their library. Even though the small number of hours is not always convenient for them, and the services are sometimes unlike any they have previously seen, the branch's adult neighbors have supported the increased YA use.
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