August 24, 2010
Guest Columnist @ the Library
Caroline Tesauro, Youth Services Librarian
Although summer doesn’t officially end until September 23rd, it effectively ends with the beginning of school. We’ve wrapped up our Summer Reading Program (although kids can pick up prizes until August 31st) and are ready for the new school year. Most long-time residents of Radford know that many Middle and High School students come to the library after school and wait for their parents to pick them up after work. This means for most of them approximately two and a half hours of unsupervised freedom – and for many it’s their first experience no after school care. The word unsupervised is chosen carefully. While the Radford Public Library constantly strives to provide a safe environment for all of our patrons at all times, we do not attempt in any way to provide after school care for children and teens.
When it comes to the crowd of Teens in the library in the afternoons, library staff is available to answer reference questions, for reader’s advisory and help with the hundreds of little questions that come up each day. We keep a lid on the noise level – which got much easier to control with the recent addition of a Teen Center and shoo the kids off the stone planters in front of the building – for some unfathomable reason teens constantly want to sit on them. Library staff, however, is not keeping track of how the Teens are coming and going.
The level of hustle and bustle in and out of the building after school is high. Kids come, drop off their books (although we do not encourage this and theft has been an issue in the past) and then walk to Sonic or CVS for a snack. Then they come back with their food and we make them leave again to eat it outside. The no food or drink rule never does sink in with our patrons. Then the kids come back in and socialize or check their Facebook page, then they go out again – maybe to walk through Wildwood, or to see who else is around the building. Not every teen follows this pattern, but what they do have in common is that they can’t sit still – and who can blame them? They’ve been still and quiet in school for hours and now they have a few hours of unsupervised freedom.
Some would argue that Teens aren’t using the library properly if they aren’t sitting still reading or doing homework, but that’s an old notion of what libraries are. As we’ve transitioned into the computer age libraries have adapted and we offer a community space just as much as we offer access to information and free internet. As we start a new school year we welcome back the kids we didn’t see over the summer and look forward to meeting a new group of teens that will be regulars in our Teen Center this year.