In some U.S. schools, librarians are no longer saying, “Shh!”
Buffy Hamilton speaking at a conference on digital media and education in Chicago. (Photo by Nick Pandolfo)
Buffy Hamilton, who calls herself “The Unquiet Librarian,” holds the phone receiver away from her ear at Creekview High School library in Canton, Ga., revealing a cacophony of noise in the background.
“It sounds like that a lot of the time,” says Hamilton, who welcomes what she calls “the hum of learning”—students talking about projects, watching videos and even singing “Happy Birthday.”
In 2009, Hamilton began re-imagining her role as a librarian at this new high public high school of 1,800 in the
Louder libraries for a digital age to open across U.S.
High schoolers work on projects at the YOUmedia lab at the Harold Washington library in Chicago. (Photo by Nick Pandolfo)
CHICAGO—Imagine walking into a public library filled with PlayStations, Wii game consoles and electric keyboards pumped up to maximum volume. Teenagers are munching on snacks, checking out laptops and slouching on sofas or beanbags. A carousel of computers sits in the middle, navigated to Facebook.
That’s exactly how one enormous room on the ground floor of the Chicago Public Library’s main branch functions. And this noisy library model is expanding around the country. The Miami-Dade Public Library in Florida is opening a high-tech teen room next month (December). The Hartford Public Library of Connecticut will open one next year. Four museums and eight libraries—from California to Missouri to Pennsylvania—recently