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QUESTION

Why are teens especially important in your anti-banning efforts?

0:20:53

·

5 min

This chapter begins with Council Member Carlina Rivera acknowledging the significant work done in anti-banning initiatives targeting teenagers, and asking Anthony W. Marx, President of the New York Public Library, the reason behind the specific focus on teens. Anthony W. Marx explains that teenagers and their literature are targeted by those attempting to suppress voices, emphasizing the need for resistance and availability of diverse literature to support teens' growth and vulnerability. The conversation expands with contributions from Dennis Walcott, President of Queen's Public Library, and Linda E. Johnson, President of Brooklyn Public Library, both underscoring the importance of libraries as open democratic institutions and the role of diverse literature in fostering teens' intellectual development and social awareness. They highlight the risks to teens from book banning and the proactive steps taken by libraries to engage teenagers meaningfully. The chapter culminates with personal reflections from Carlina Rivera on the impact of certain books during her teenage years and an anecdote shared by Linda E. Johnson about a recent event celebrating the 40th anniversary of the House on Mangostreet.

Carlina Rivera

0:20:53

You all have done a lot of work with teens in your anti banning initiatives, and you have also done a lot of work more focused on supporting teens generally with your teen centers and more.

0:21:04

Why are teens especially important in your anti banning efforts?

Anthony W. Marx

0:21:10

Jeans and their literature are being targeted by those trying to close voices.

0:21:15

That means we have to target and resist and make those options more available.

0:21:20

Teens are at a moment of growth and a vulnerability.

0:21:25

They need to be able to see themselves.

0:21:27

They need to learn about each other.

0:21:30

I'll put it simply as a author said at a panel this topic that I think we cohosted with Pan America and the Atlantic.

0:21:38

Teens are, you know, are at this vulnerable place, and we need to make sure that their effort, that that they are not foreclosed from learning.

0:21:48

The fact that books are being banned says something about those trying to ban them seeing how powerful books are.

0:21:59

Those folks are scared of that power.

0:22:03

And of teens, others, and their own, learning and expanding their world.

0:22:09

And that is the business we are in to ensure.

Dennis Walcott

0:22:13

One of the beauties of libraries and Linda and Tony talked about this and we all know this is that We are truly the only open Democratic institution in the world where people can walk in the door.

0:22:26

We don't ask you if you are background.

0:22:28

We don't ask you for any ID.

0:22:31

We don't ask you for anything.

0:22:33

And with teenagers, we want teenagers to come in, come in.

0:22:37

Come in.

0:22:38

We want to have material available for them to take a look at, to read, to discuss, to debate, to know how to engage.

0:22:47

And having a variety of types of books allows that type of development and energy and intellectual discussion to take place and that's who we are and that's what we've done and that's what we continue to do as a library system.

0:23:02

We want more people to have library cards here in New York City throughout the country.

0:23:07

We want them to use those cards to take advantage of whether it's ebooks or those books that are on the shelves, and having that diversity to us is extremely important as far as how we increase the social awareness and involvement, the intellectual development, of our teenagers as far as people who are different, people who have different ideas and thought processes.

0:23:29

That's what we're about as a library.

Linda E. Johnson

0:23:32

I I would just add that it's not an accident that teens are, you know, being targeted.

0:23:38

It's it's, of course, because they're the most impressionable moments of their lives, and they're at a time when they are searching to make sense of their own identity, their own place in the world.

0:23:49

Long before this started, the 3 library systems were very focused on the notion of doing more with teenagers because the sort of traditional cycle of library usage has always been to kind of lose teens when there are exciting, maybe not so healthy things.

0:24:05

Out on the streets that are more interesting than coming to your local library.

0:24:09

And so over the past 5 years, I would say we've really stepped this up with technology and sort of trying to meet teens in places that they find engaging, recording studios, music, gaming as a way to learn more technology, and all of these things were in place when these book bands really started to proliferate.

0:24:30

And the the moment is important because teens have been put at the center of the battle, because these folks who are so fearful of what might be contained in these books and fearful of what understanding these stories can mean to this country, they they are in fact putting teens at risk.

Dennis Walcott

0:24:51

So tomorrow, we at the Queen's public library will be celebrating our sweet 16 party for our Far Rockaway teen library, and it's been in existence for 16 years.

0:25:05

And it's the beauty of having teenagers being able to go to their own library, not just their own program, but their own library to feel safe, to feel the comfort of being able to express themselves and trying to make sure that others understand how they're respecting themselves and expecting that ability for them to be teenagers.

0:25:29

And that's what we're about with the teen centers, with that Mayor did with the investment in teen centers and expanding our capacity to do that.

0:25:38

Focusing on teenagers to us is really so key as far as the development of a future society and what it means.

0:25:44

And I think all of us in a variety of different ways really thrive on that because book banning is, as Tony and Linda indicated, really, is going to the heart of cutting up that lifeline, cutting out that lifeline from our teenagers.

Carlina Rivera

0:26:00

I I mean, I will just say my own personal experience being a teenager first time I read the house on Mangold Street, the first time I read Fahrenheit 451, the bluish eye, song of Solomon.

0:26:11

These were all life changing experiences.

0:26:16

And I actually got them from my library.

0:26:19

You know, Hamfish or

Linda E. Johnson

0:26:21

We had Saunders' Narrows, I think, just a week or 2 ago, come to the Bray, it's incredible.

0:26:26

40th anniversary of the publication of the House on Mangostreet, and the crowds were as fierce and dense as they were back when the book came out.

0:26:35

I think there was a a line that took 2 hours for her to sign all the copies that people wanted to sign.

0:26:41

So it's the work is is happening.

0:26:43

Amazing.

0:26:44

Alright.

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