Tewksbury's New Teen Librarian Ready To Listen

TEWKSBURY, MA — When the Tewksbury Public Library was hit with severe budget cuts in 2009, one of the positions that was eliminated was the teen librarian. It took years to bring it back. But the role is reestablished, and with their new teen librarian, it's time to start "dreaming" about what other services they can provide to teens, said library director Diane Giarrusso.

"Teens are a member of our community. They also need our support and services," said Giarrusso. "Plus, teens are so much fun to have around."

To provide those services, they hired Emily Leggat following the departure of their last teen librarian. Leggat spent the last four years as a teen librarian in Georgetown, Ma., and said she was excited to join a library so committed to supporting the teen library.

"When I first started doing this, a lot of places didn't have teen librarians," Leggat said.

Teen collections and programming were instead left up to children's librarians, she said, and teens inevitably got less attention.

"You can't serve children and adults and not serve teens. That's not how you keep people involved in libraries."

Leggat began just last week, but is already planning new programming. On Oct. 21, the teen library will host "Design-a-Pumpkin." The library has a new anime club, and she'll be the Dungeon Master for a Dungeons & Dragons game during International Gaming Week next month. She also touted other options the teen library has — video games including a switch, graphic novels and manga, and even the components to make slime.

Leggat said she recently had a teen come in who had literally never been to the library before, who thought they just had books. "No, no, no," she laughed.

It's a goal of hers is to figure out what else the teens want, she said. As Giarusso said, "Adults are great at telling us what they want. Teens are not always as comfortable."

"They're part of our community and they need to be served. They need adults to be like, I hear you, I see you, I'll listen to what you need," said Leggat. "I think they don't get it from adults as much. It's such a stereotype that teens are loud and obnoxious."

"They get dismissed a lot," Leggat continued.

Being willing to listen to a teen talk about something important to them, be it role playing games or Bob Ross, can mean a lot, she said. As long as it's not going to damage the library, they're open to whatever teens want to do.

Leggat is still new — she doesn't necessarily know yet who she the teen library might not be getting to, and she doesn't have the relationships with the teens that she did at her last library. And getting information out is always difficult, "through the noise," she said. But she's enthusiastic about breaking those barriers.

"It's a big job, but she is more than ready for it," said Giarrusso.