THE NATIONAL YOUTH AGENCY: COMMENT - Libraries of the future

The NYA's YouthBOOX programme, run in partnership with The Reading Agency, has pioneered new approaches to supporting young people's reading, but a new focus on young people is needed in the public library sector if this work is to be sustained.

CABE's vision for the libraries of the future includes cafes, lounge areas with sofas, and chill-out zones where young people can watch MTV, read magazines and listen to CDs on listening posts.

Somewhere, in short, to hang out. Some libraries, of course, have already gone some way down this path, creating spaces and an ambience that welcomes all-comers, including young people, to what might well in time become the heart of the community. Public libraries often boast prime city or town centre locations: a vibrant, late-opening venue with plenty of activities and services for a wide range of users might help to revitalise the sometimes threatening deserts many towns become once the shops have closed. Of course, all this pre-supposes the shift from the hushed atmosphere of the book repository to the energy - and, yes, noise - of an information and community centre. And what of provision in rural areas? How to realise CABE's vision of "a living room of the city" for a dispersed population with poor transport links? E-technology can, and is, doing a lot to bring communities access to information, but fundamental to these new proposals is the face-to-face interaction that is central to everyone's personal and social development and that so much of our modern "entertainment" precludes.