My trip on an orange boat

Yesterday was a perfect day for a bit of a sail on the water, so that's what I did. Well it wasn't a sail really, just the very orange Staten Island Ferry over to St George. The town of St George is a lovely little place just a couple of skips from the ferry terminal, and up on the hill. The St George library is housed in quite an old building with lots of character. After a lovely trip on the ferry and a quick salute to the the lovely lady of liberty, I ventured into the library which houses a successful teen space. I was shown around the library by Scott, the Librarian in charge and we chatted about many young adult issues. It's quite nice to know that most things are the same here as they are at home. Scott summed up the success of the teen space, by saying that libraries must stay relevant in order to ensure an ongoing relationship between the library and the community. To ensure the teen space was going to be utilised, a teen advisory group was set up and meetings were held so the teens could express what their priorities were in regards to furniture, technology and the collection in general. This clearly worked very well. The teen space is located in a space which is basically a basement area and which was once the reference collection area. The area has been redesigned, so that the teen space is now in a windowed (soundproofed) and very light and bright space. I visited during the school summer holidays, yet the area was still constantly used by local teens who were obviously comfortable hanging out in the space. A group of young men (approx 14 years old), were playing some type of board game, a couple of young teenage girls were updating their facebook, and there were a couple of other young people kicking back and just relaxing. It has a fantastic atmosphere and the time I spent in the room was very positive. The ceiling design in the photo above was designed to indicate the close relationship with the water. The wave like floating panels signify a maritime theme which works very well. The furniture is great, with some chairs having small bench panels attached, which is a great idea. The teen space has been operating for 3 years, and the furniture has certainly been well worn during that time, but with an average of 200 teens per day using the space, this is not surprising, and a small price to pay for the wonderful involvement the library has in the lives of the young people on Staten Island.