Wood Green Library Assessment

A team of 6 Youth Mark assessors completed an assessment of the Wood Green Central Library in Haringey.

Maria Stephanou, Library Service Delivery and Development Manager for Haringey said "we are absolutely delighted to be awarded the Youth Mark for the work we are doing in our teen library.  We are planning to follow the young people's recommendations to further improve our work and involvement with young people and are looking forward working with Youth Mark and our young people to do this."

The team really enjoyed observing the day to day running of the library, finding out from young people about their experience of using the library and interviewing staff.  They valued the opportunity to deliver their findings in a presentation directly to a captive audience of senior management and staff from the library.

The assessors hope that the findings will also be of use to other libraries in developing their services.

Their findings highlighted:

• The appreciation young people felt for having their own space in the library; a separate teenage section.
• The exceptionally positive atmosphere in the teen library; a place where young people from variety of backgrounds mixed well and felt happy, safe and comfortable.
• The good range of activities available to young people and suggestions for more appropriate activities for those aged 14-18.
• The informal consultation that is carried out with regular users in the library.
• The recommendation to enable young people to help develop the service by:
  • involving them in decision making structures of the library;
  • setting up an advisory group of young people to advise on improvements to the teen library service;
  • carrying out regular surveys of young library users and young people in the local community;
  • involving young people more in allocating resources.
• The recommendations included involving young people in delivering the library service, including:
  • A mentoring scheme;
  • Developing promotional materials;
  • Managing website content;
  • Further developing a young librarian scheme.