Bruton Memorial Library’s TeenSpace Myspace Profile was created with good intentions, I’m sure. Heck, the page is even linked to from the library’s homepage! However, it looks like Selena Coller, BML’s Librarian for Computer and Teen Services, tried a little too hard to fit in to the overly media-loaded profile design sported by Myspace’s teen users.
There are three PhotoBucket slideshows playing simultaneously within inches of each other, and if that wasn’t enough to make you shield your eyes from the screen, Coller also added graphics from an online quiz called The Super Villain Personality Test. It is neither a relevant quiz, nor is it cool enough to give the profile credibility with teens. The slideshows are horrendously misguided attempts at coolness as well: a slideshow showing graphic novels at the library is not something anyone would watch for entertainment, and it’s too slow to keep anyone’s attention for longer than a couple seconds.
Design aside, the page is hardly functional. There is nothing to link the users to the library’s homepage, nor is there a catalog search function. The profile has a calendar of events, which is useful to teens, but nothing else on the page seems to be aimed at that age group. The blog is written from Coller’s perspective as a librarian trying to reach out to teens: she writes about visiting schools and trying to find movies she can legally play in the library.
Coller’s “Who I’d like to meet” section lists teens first, and then librarians, library-related organizations, and authors and publishers of young adult literature. The so-called “TeenSpace,” however, seems to be a bit of a misnomer. Even the TeenSpace’s “Top Friends” section is full of profiles that teens would find boring. YALSA, the Young Adult Library Services Association, is in the number one position, and it is another boring profile that pretends to have a youth focus.
Pages like these are the worst kind. They are like a room decorated with pop culture posters but filled with dissertations on the strange cultural habits of wild teenagers. They are patronizing, boring, and they shouldn’t exist.
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