Bernier, Anthony2025-09-242025-09-2420141. Cited in Ehrenhalt, A. (April 2014). Keeping cities from becoming “child-free zones.” Governing. http://www.governing.com/columns/assessments/gov-cities-families-and-places-to-play.html [accessed 2 May 2014] 2. Jason Reid, “’My Room! Private! Keep Out! This Means You!’: A Brief Overview of the Emergence of the Autonomous Teen Bedroom in Post-World War II America”, Journal of the History of Children and Youth 5, No. 3, Fall 2012, p. 419-443. 3. For commentary on the historic exclusion from library spaces in particular, see Anthony Bernier, VOYA spaces of your dreams collection (Bowie, MD: Voya Press, 2012). Young people as a demographic, though, are widely feared and excluded from public spaces and, in portrayals by the news media, by interest groups, and even by commentators in library publications, are subjected to relentlessly negative publicity, segregation, and demands for ever-greater control. See Carolyn Vander Schee, “Malls”, in Nancy Lesko and Susan Talburt (Eds.), Keywords in Youth Studies: Tracing Affects, Movements, Knowledges, Chapter 23, New York: Routledge. 4. Paulina Billette, “Indicators of youth social capital: The Case for Not Using Adult Indicators in the Measurement of Youth Social Capital”, Youth Studies Australia 31, No. 2, June 2012, p. 9-16; Soo-yong Byun, Judith L. Meece, Matthew J. Irvin and Bryan C. Hutchins, “The Role of Social Capital in Educational Aspirations of Rural Youth”, Rural Sociology 77, No. 3, Sept. 2012, p. 355-379; Catherine A. Johnson, “Do Public Libraries Contribute to Social Capital? A Preliminary Investigation into the Relationship,” Library & Information Science Research 32, Apr. 2010, p. 147-55. 5. Bernier, A. (2000 August). A library ‘TeenS’cape’ against the new callousness. Voice of Youth Advocates 23, no. 3, 190-191. 6. Steele, K. (2013). “What we think actually matters?”: Teen participatory design and action research at the Free Library of Philadelphia. Young Adult Library Services, 11(4), 12-15; Agosto, Denise. (2013). “Envisaging Young Adult Librarianship from a Teen-Centered Perspective.” In Transforming Young Adult Services, edited by Anthony Bernier. Chicago: Neal-Schuman. 7. The average square footage for YA spaces reported in our data: 3% of total assignable library square footage.https://repository.ifla.org/handle/20.500.14598/5324Given recent technological innovations the notion of serving teenage populations obliges libraries to aspire to new design and spatial visions. Youth, historically not deemed entitled to an equitable share of public environments, has frequently been viewed as creating conflict in libraries, or as librarian Lynn Cockett observed, “Inviting young people to a library that is architecturally not prepared to handle normal adolescent behavior can have some pretty negative consequences.” Even under some of the best design processes, however, a kind of “Naïve Triangle” develops: architects, who frequently know little about libraries or youth aesthetics, work with librarians (with little architectural backgrounds or knowledge about youth spaces) try to work with young people (who know little about libraries or architecture). The results are seldom distinguishable from conventional designs. This paper presents the first evidence-based research in pursuit of spatial equity for youth in libraries: surveys and video transcriptions from librarians and youth involving new libraries built between 2005-2010 in the U.S.. It focus on three important topics: the degree to which libraries incorporate youth participation in space design; youth seating options; and, what young people tell us is most important about library spaces designated for them. This project also launches discussion in architecture, urban planning and design, and education, among other fields, provoking connections between space, culture, history, and power. The library’s physical environment thus represents valuable spatial capital. And in such discussions libraries do not need to follow. They can lead.enAttribution 3.0 Unportedhttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/Articlehttp://conference.ifla.org/ifla80/open accessYouthLibrariesSpaceDesignResearch