Tech-focused youth library coolest place in town

By SIMON COLLINS

Music has made New Zealand's first high-tech youth library "a cool place to hang out" for the young people of Flat Bush in Manukau.

The glass-walled library in Dawson Rd, named Tupu (new growth), provides free access to all New Zealand websites and several hundred other sites chosen to help with homework.

But Tupu manager Rosetta Reti Simanu told the country's second Flaxroots Technology Conference in Auckland yesterday that one of the most popular attractions is the "listening post".

"The kids come in and listen to the music that they like - the kind of music that really gets them to come in," she said.

"We could have all the books in the world and no one wants to come in. So you have to have technology to get the kids in and slowly introduce them to technology that will help them with their education."

The $1.5 million library is the only one to put half of its resources into books and the other half into digital technology, including CD-Roms, internet terminals and computers for word processing.

It had a "phenomenal" 113,600 visits in its first seven months after opening last August in a suburb which is nearly 80 per cent Maori or Pacific and 44 per cent aged 18 or under.

"It's a cool place to hang out, and after school you see all the young kids hanging out there inside and outside," Mrs Simanu said.

"This community didn't have a library before. The library is not part of Pacific Island culture, it is not part of Maori culture, but it is becoming that way."

She said that at first there were those who thought the computers would not be used or they would be wrecked.

As it turned out, no computer had been damaged, no glass wall had been broken, and solid walls, painted hip-hop style by local artists, had been left untouched.

"At first there were some problem kids," Mrs Simanu said.

"Those kids still come in but they don't have that sort of attitude any more. It's an increase in respect for the place and the staff."

A Victoria University researcher who is studying the library, Dr Dan Dorner, said this reflected both the largely young and Polynesian staff and the Pacific theme design by architects Andrew Tu'inukuafe and Harry Street of Auckland's Creative Spaces.

Mrs Simanu said senior students from nearby Tangaroa College were helping to train younger students in using the technology, a youth club called 'OTS' (Otara True Students) had started, and a Tangaroa teacher had volunteered to start a study evening for teenagers.