“We took a dark, dingy reading room and turned it into a bright, attractive octagonal space with a fireplace, a teen media center, and tables for group study,” says Karin Bricker, youth services supervising librarian. “We spread iron filings on the walls and then painted over them, so now kids spend hours making poetry on the walls with magnetic words. We also have a bulletin board that displays the best local teenage art.”

Bricker says that the library consulted junior high and high school students from the very beginning, asking for their help in planning the Teen Zone. A teenage advisory panel meets once a month to continue improving the center.

A grant-funded teenage homework assistant helps students with their homework in the Teen Zone, which also has a half-time librarian assigned to it. The library works closely with local schools, which provide the library with current school textbooks, so that students do not have to carry their textbooks to the library. The library also sponsors an inter-generational program of knitting and crocheting and an informal teenage book club that meet in the Teen Zone.

The Teen Zone is open from 3:30 to 6:00 p.m. on weekdays during the school year and two weekday evenings per week. It also is open on weekends. The Teen Zone is open whenever the library is.