HISTORY

A New Focus

The Santa Cruz Westside is home to about 3000 young people between the ages of 10 and 16 whose families are ethnically and economically diverse. Most come from homes of wage working families, and the majority of these do not have computers at home or easy access to information not provided by television.

There are two elementary schools, one junior high school, and both a traditional and an alternative high school in the area. All the schools have libraries, but they are only open during school hours.

In late 1993, there was no opportunity to increase hours at the Garfield Park Branch, so they were rearranged to better serve young adults. The fourteen hours available were stretched over four days, with all the hours in the afternoons and evenings. For the first time in its eighty-one years, the branch opened on Saturdays.

A young computer-literate branch manager experienced in youth services and able to speak Spanish was assigned to the branch. The collection was heavily weeded, and as shelf space became available bequest and local grant funds paid for the addition of new Young Adult fiction and nonfiction. As materials that weren't being used were removed from the building, magazines covering young adult interests were added. Space was reorganized so that materials could be better displayed. People noticed that the branch was more open and organized and far less dusty, and they began to feel that they were getting better service.

Some of the adults who had been used to quiet morning hours at the library were initially displeased with the changes, the increased number of people in the library, and the noise they were allowed to create. But few people could argue against the increased use of the facility, and even fewer could argue that young people shouldn't be in the library in reasonable numbers. Circulation figures climbed steadily from January 1994 on.

One of the biggest changes at Garfield Park was the use of young adult volunteers, working under the system-wide Young Friends program. By late 1994, there were six volunteers between ten and fourteen years of age helping at the branch. There were no meetings of volunteers at that time, but these kids became an integral part of the library, and helped to make the library part of their community.

With new hours, new staff, new volunteers and some new materials in place, the question for the staff became "What next? More of the same, or a new approach?" So we asked the young people we hoped to serve.