Grant greenlights Teen Center for Lynn

LYNN – Fifteen-year-old Diana Sharifi loves to come to the Lynn Public Library, where she does her homework, reads voraciously and rents movies. But the Lynn Classical student said not many of her friends share her passion for the library.”People think library is nerdy,” she said.Sharifi, together with library officials and other local teens, are hoping to change that.Last week, the library announced it won a national competition for a $98,000 grant that will fund an innovative teen learning center. Starting in January, a group of teen volunteers will spend a year and a half designing exactly what they want in the center.”This is a really cool idea,” said 14-year-old Meegan Robertson, also a Lynn Classical student, as she and Sharifi learned about the grant in a meeting Saturday with Lynn library officials.The grant comes from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. More than 100 libraries applied for it, and Lynn was one of 12 cities to receive it – one of the smallest cities alongside winners from San Francisco and Dallas, said Library Director Theresa Hurley.”We proved to them that our community needs this,” she said Saturday.Hurley said the plan is to create a dynamic teen center where the library’s third-floor reference room stands now. It’s up to the teens to decide what to put in the center, but possibilities include a video game design corner, music recording software, big, comfy chairs to read and the latest multimedia tools.The key, said Katelyn Cole, Lynn’s young adult librarian, is to create a place where teens actually want to hang out.”It’s about breaking teens’ preconceived notions about the library,” she said. “We’re not going yell at you for talking, we’re not going to look at you and think you’re trouble.”Lynn’s youth could use a place like that, Sharifi said. Besides the mall, she said she and her friends have a hard time finding safe places to spend time at.”There’s a lot of good kids (in Lynn) and they don’t have a lot to do,” she said.But she may be very busy over the next year. Mentors from Salem State University’s, who helped write the grant, will guide Sharifi and other teen volunteers through layers of the design process, including basic research, site visits to digital media centers, product testing and budgeting.By June 2014, Hurley hopes to pitch a formal proposal to build the teen center to city officials as a line item in the library’s budget.If everything works out, Hurley thinks Lynn’s success could be a model for other diverse, lower-income communities.”This is our time to shine,” she said.Amber Parcher can be reached at [email protected] THE FUN! Any Lynn teen from 6th grade through 12th grade is welcome to participate in design process of Lynn Library’s teen center. The library is recruiting a Teen Advisory Board and will hold a second introduction meeting 3:30 p.m. Tuesday at the library, 5 North Common St. For more information, call 781-595-0567. For more information about the grant, visit youmedia.org.