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Traditionally, partner programming at libraries is short-term. A presenter or partner organization might stop by your library to present one program, but a formalized structure for ongoing collaboration is rare. The Labs @ Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh has been seeking to change this fact by developing programs that are collaboratively planned with partners based on local youth interest. These programs aim to facilitate deeper exploration (or \u201cgeeking out\u201d opportunities) on the topic of interest.<\/p>\n
As we expand our maker-centered learning programming to new locations (and create supports in the original sites for staff learning and youth leadership) the important role that community partners play in providing informal learning in our library spaces becomes increasingly clear. While we seek to deepen opportunities for professional development for all staff, we realize that our colleagues can never be expected to know how or provide all services.<\/p>\n
A more reasonable expectation is to guide patrons toward their goals, including making quality connections to suitable community partners and helping them start down a personalized learning pathway. This is why CLP recently invited key program partners (local youth-serving organizations like 1Hood Media<\/a> and the YMCA Lighthouse Project<\/a>) as well as local artists and professionals working in relevant fields to co-lead the planning and facilitation of week-long programs known as The Labs Summer Skills Intensives<\/i>.<\/p>\n These programs were designed as \u201cdeep dives\u201d into topics of interest to teens at each neighborhood library–Monday-Friday, four hours a day, working on one big project. This structure is a marked difference from our usual approach where the weekly workshops have aimed to ping-pong between topics in order to engage youth with a variety of interests. While these facilitated \u201cmessing around\u201d opportunities are not without value we realized that youth who have been engaged in the program for a while needed a trajectory toward deeper learning in order to continue their growth within the space.<\/p>\n The best way to provide this was to leverage the strong relationship between Teen Specialists, Labs mentors, and local youth in order to identify a topic of interest for programming. For staff engaged with youth, a picture soon emerges of youth interest among the teen cohort at each library allowing us to zero in on the right community partner for the job. Workshop topics were decided upon through the following formula: studying successful past workshops at that location on that topic, availability of partners with that specialty, conversations with the location Teen Staff and Library Services Manager (LSM — the CLP term for branch manager), and conversations with the youth themselves. The following topics and partners were chosen for our five weekly Labs sites:<\/p>\n Labs Summer Skills Intensives<\/b><\/p>\n