Library Spaces & Project Milestones
The concern for library spaces with young adults (teenagers) appears on YouthFacts as a continuing case study in how public institutions consider youth as a marginal, if not dangerous, population and how this view is manifested in the built environment – particularly in public libraries.
Content mounted onto YouthFacts is the result of an on-going scholarly investigation into how libraries consider youth. Funded in part by a 4-year National Leadership Grant through the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) this study involves a team of eight researchers and master’s degree research assistants in library and information science at San Jose State University in California.
This project intends to inform library design by advancing the notion that young people (not merely children and adults) deserve their share of spatial equity in public space and hopes that others in the spatial arts (architects, urban planners and designers, geographers, among others) can benefit from these insights as well.
The core of the current project gathers and investigates evidence from new and recently renovated public libraries through surveys and video profiles of youth spaces furnished by library staff and young people, as well as data collected through virtual experiences such as Second Life. YouthFacts readers will find not only the publications stemming from this work but access to the actual raw data used to arrive at their conclusions. Readers are heartily invited to examine this data and arrive at their own conclusions and are welcome to enjoin this conversation by posting them on YouthFacts.
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