Teen Center Opens at Chesterfield's Library

Whether they're reading, working on homework, playing video games or just relaxing with friends, teens have a new space to call home at the Samuel C. Sachs Branch of the St. Louis County Library.

The Nancy Greenwood Teen Center opened at the library Monday. Tucked into the back corner in its own room, the brightly colored space is the new home of the library's teen collection. It also features two computers for teen use only, plenty of outlets for teens to plug in their laptops, seating for relaxing and reading, and a mobile video game cart. 

Branches at six other St. Louis County libraries have a similar space. Each space costs about $25,000 to design, renovate and furnish. The costs were covered by grants or a fund established by the St. Louis County Library Foundation. In 2009, the foundation pledged to fund five new teen centers. This is the second it has funded; the first was at the Florrisant Valley Branch of the St. Louis County Library. Another will open at the Bridgeton Trails Branch of the St. Louis County Library later this month.

"The whole point of the initiative is to keep teens engaged with the library," Jennifer McBride, communications manager with St. Louis County Library, said. Often, she said, people begin to drift away from the library in their teen years. They're engaged as children and come back as adults, but in the time period in the middle, they don't come to the library as often. "We want to keep them plugged in, so we make sure they're invested in the process," McBride said.

At the Sachs Branch, anywhere from five to 20 teens would come to meetings and give their input about the design of the new space. Mackey Mitchell Architects created three plans for the former computer lab. Teens then made changes to the plans to fit what they wanted out of the space, Marsha Ramey, the branch's manager, said. The kids' input started last spring. They looked at photos of the other St. Louis County library teen centers  for inspiration, too.

"Every teen space varies based on the community," Ramey said. Many teens come to the Sachs branch to work on homework, she said, so it was important that this space provided room for them to use laptops. Of the seven teen centers, this is the only one to have its own enclosed space within the library, McBride said. Others are tucked into a corner or more out in the open. 

Most of the library's teen program—such as teen book discussions, the teen reading club, and a regular Friday night program called Teen After Hours—will still be done in meeting rooms, Ramey said. All of the bookcases and chairs in the center of the teen center are moveable, so hosting a game night there is an option. Mainly, the space is for down time. 

"It's for them to come read, hang out, study or use the Internet," Ramey said.

The teen center is named after a former mayor of Chesterfield, Nancy Greenwood. Greenwood was mayor from 1997 to 2001 and was a Ward 1 city councilwoman from 1990 to 1994. Kathy Higgins, president of Sachs Properties and a St. Louis County Library Foundation board member, called Greenwood a few months ago about naming the space after her.

"I was thrilled and humbled and all of those words," Greenwood said. She said she's been an avid library user for most of her life. Her grandmother was the sole librarian in a two-room library in the small town of Erie, KS. During the summers, she would work weekends there so her grandmother could have a break, she said. She also worked in libraries as a student at Pittsburgh State University and comes into the Sachs branch weekly to check out books and CDs.

She's long wanted a gathering space for teens, she said. "I've always felt there needed to be a place for teens to gather other than the mall," she said. "This is a place where teens can come, gather and do, as they would say, their thing."