The role of youth librarians has undergone a massive shift driven by new technology

Lisa Heggum began her career as a teen librarian in New York City, but when she returned to Canada in 1997, similar job opportunities were “basically non-existent,” she says. At a typical medium-sized Canadian library at the time, young-adult collections consisted mainly of tame paperback series, access to technology was limited and strictly monitored, and teen patrons were expected to use the library for quiet study and little else. More often than not, services for the 12-and-up set were lumped in with those for younger kids. “It’s really a different job, working with teens versus working with children,” says Heggum, now the Toronto Public Library’s children and youth advocate. “Its important, as far as the teens are concerned, to associate them with adults. They’re looking forward, not backward.”

In the decade and a half since her return to Canada, the role of youth librarians has undergone nothing short of a paradigm shift. In its Teen Services Benchmarks and Statistical Report, the Ontario Public Library Association states that, in 2013, all Ontario libraries have a dedicated young-adult budget, compared with just 20 per cent in 2003. Today, 74 per cent of branches have a lounge or “leisure” area for teens, compared with just 29 per cent in 2003. Creating space for teens – both physically and in the budget – has allowed libraries to offer diverse programming for youth, from summer reading challenges to creative writing groups to collaborative digital workspaces. As the OPLA’s child and youth services committee co-chair Christine Dalgetty puts it, “Libraries are now recognizing teens as patrons to be served and valued rather than problems to be solved.”

Like most Canadian library systems, the Hamilton Public Library now offers volunteer opportunities such as a teen advisory group, which allows youth to give feedback on collections and resources, and help coordinate youth-centric programming. HPL director of technology and youth services Lita Barrie says that, in tandem with changes in youth programming, there has been an overall shift in the role of youth librarians from authority figures to community organizers.

“Historically, children’s librarians were the experts in children’s literature, and people would come in seeking their expertise,” Barrie says. “That expectation of being the expert is no longer a realistic one, nor is it really what our community is looking for. If they need an exact answer to a question, they can Google that. What they’re looking for are librarians who can help guide and support them in their learning journey.”

In many respects, the shifting social dynamic between librarians and young patrons reflects a broader trend in education toward self-directed learning, a strategy that prioritizes student autonomy. But changes in the roles of youth librarians have also been brought about by a new sense of what it means to be literate in the 21st century.

“Support for digital literacy and media development is really critical,” says Canadian Library Association vice-president Sandra Singh, reflecting on trends she has observed at the Vancouver Public Library, where she is chief librarian. “Increasingly, opportunities to engage in community consultations and social networks are moving online. It’s really critical that people have not only the basic computer skills to engage with the online world, but the digital-literacy savvy to know what to trust online, what to share.”

Singh points out that, with new and pricey technology being out of reach for many teens, there is a growing “digital divide” between the affluent and everyone else. Particularly in dense urban areas, where the socioeconomic status of communities varies from block to block, librarians are cognizant of their role in addressing that divide. Singh notes that the VPL’s collection of nearly 1,000 video game titles – from Xbox 360 to Nintendo Wii – was acquired with this issue in mind. “When [young people] might not be able to afford the games or technology themselves, they can often come to a gaming night to play Minecraft,” she says. “When the kids at school are talking about Minecraft, they have that common language and that common experience. There’s a really important social equalizing role that we can play for our communities.”

The library’s role as a “social equalizer” has endured, of course, since the earliest lending libraries. Historically, libraries have offered citizens access to books in order to support literacy and foster a culture of reading. But the contemporary understanding of literacy is not just about one’s ability to read and write. According to a recent report from the Young Adult Library Services Association (a division of the American Library Association), “[L]ibrarians no longer view literacy merely as a technical competency that can be added to people as though they were machines, but rather as a social practice that varies from one context to another and is part of cultural knowledge and behavior. This more fluid understanding of literacy has meant that librarians’ work with teens now falls under a larger umbrella of multiple literacies, which encompasses information literacies, critical literacies, digital literacies, media literacies, and much more.”

Acknowledging this expanded definition of literacy, librarians have incorporated new technology in ways that are meant to encourage young people to experiment and create. Makerspaces, loosely defined as collaborative workspaces for projects incorporating computers, technology, science, and digital art, have become popular at libraries both large and small.

Serving a town of roughly 32,000 inhabitants, the Innisfil Public Library, for example, runs the ideaLAB, a community space equipped with areas for 3D printing, green screening, audio recording, photo and video editing, video gaming, and more. In 2013, the library announced its inaugural “Resident Tinkerer” – new media artist Alan J. Groombridge, who is drawing on the library’s resources during his residency to create robots with the aim of eliciting emotional responses from humans.

In addition to makerspace clubs at several of its branches, the Toronto Public Library this year plans to launch the first of three “Digital Innovation Hubs” equipped with a wide variety of digital media tools similar to Innisfil’s ideaLAB. “That whole idea of teens participating, directing the work, and creating content is really important and definitely a trend,” says Heggum. Similarly, the TPL publishes an annual magazine of teen writing called Young Voices and offers writing groups at many of its branches.

As ever, the goals of public libraries continue to be about supporting literacy. But as the notion of literacy evolves, so do the various ways of supporting it. While much of the new technology offered to youth at libraries, such as ebooks and video games, is about consuming content, new programming and facilities offer opportunities for youth to become the authors of their own media.

At the HPL, two digital media labs will launch this summer. “We’re seeing the evolution of our public computer offerings,” says Barrie. “When computers first came into being, we had them available in our libraries for people who didn’t have them at home. When the Internet first came into being, we had it available for people who didn’t have it at home. Now we’re kind of evolving so that people who want to use the technology not just to consume but to create will have the opportunity to do that.”