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YOUmedia Miami In 2011, MDPLS applied for, and received, a grant award from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation (Knight Foundation) to be used to create a 21st century digital media teen learning center at the North Dade Regional Library. The project was based on the YOUmedia center at Chicago's Harold Washington Library

be accessible to teenagers countywide. 

MDPLS plans to create a 21st century teen digital media learning center housed at the North Dade Regional Library based on the YOUmedia center at Chicago’s Harold Washington Library. The design of the YOUmedia space is based on studies that show young people “participate with digital media in three ways: (1) they “hang out” with friends in social spaces such as Facebook; (2) they “mess around” or tinker with digital media, making simple videos, playing online games, or posting pictures in Flickr; and (3) they “geek out” in online groups that facilitate exploration of their core interests.” MDPLS’s digital media center will enable high school age teens to access hundreds of books, laptops and desktop computers, and a variety of media creation tools and software, all of which allow them to enhance their digital media skills. By working both in teams and individually, teens have an opportunity to engage in projects that promote critical thinking, creativity, and skill-building. The MDPLS plans to work in conjunction with Miami Dade College to ensure that programs offered in the center are in alignment with the skills necessary for students to enter the academic degree programs offered by the College (see attached letter of commitment). College staff is committed to provide the required collaboration and hands-on technical expertise to ensure that the programs offered by the center are a unique educational project that yields outstanding success.

Building upon this model, MDPLS opened its second YOUmedia location at the South Dade Regional Library in January 2016. YOUmake Miami

Santiago, R. (2012). YOUmedia Miami: Engaging Youth in Powerful New Ways. National Civic Review, 101(4), 36-38. Bookmobile Service

Boldrick, S. J., "Miami-Dade Public Library System" (1990). Digital Collection - Florida Studies Center Publications. Paper 64.

http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/flstud_pub/64

FILKINS Herald Staff Writer, D. (1992, Aug 3). SHELVING BOOKMOBILES. Miami Herald, The (FL), p. 1B.. Retrieved from http://infoweb.newsbank.com/resources/doc/nb/news/0EB3472DF1D867E5?p=NewsBank

https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/299125

EASON, H. H. (1956). Sand in their shoes. Wilson Library Bulletin, 30759.

HARTMAN Herald Staff Writer, T. (1992, Nov 29). BOOK MOBILES RESCUE S. DADE READERS. Miami Herald, The (FL), p. 1.. Retrieved from http://infoweb.newsbank.com/resources/doc/nb/news/0EB348224AE668FA?p=NewsBank

It seems oddly out of place on this corner of fashionable South Beach, a lumbering green hulk amid energy and youth, a dinosaur in the wrong eon.

The Bookmobile: bearer of books, carrier of culture, missionary of the great read.

And now doomed by budget cuts.

County budget directors have decided that the $359,000 in tax money spent each year to maintain Dade's aging fleet of mobile libraries would be better spent on other things. Namely, libraries that stay where they are.

"It's just not cost-effective anymore," said Bill Urbizu, assistant director of the Metro-Dade library system. "It's time to move on."

Slated for retirement are five bookmobiles that still make the weekly rounds at 17 different stops around Dade. County officials say the unwieldy buses break down too often, cost too much to replace and have lost their usefulness in an age of local libraries and modern technology.

Last week, one of the buses slated for mothballs made its regular visit to a little parking space at Collins Avenue and 11th Street in Miami Beach. Folks who came out to meet the bookmobile said it was like they were losing an old friend.

"I've been coming here for years," said Rebecca Schneider, who lives across the street in a public housing complex for the elderly. "It's nice for the older people to have something like this."

Schneider, who describes herself as "over 80," said she probably wouldn't go to the branch library about a mile up the road.

She doesn't drive. She can't walk that far. She's a little nervous about taking the bus. So are her neighbors in Council Towers, the apartment complex. Schneider sometimes picks up books for her friends who can't make the walk downstairs.

Schneider checked out a copy of Danielle Steele's novel, Jewels, which she ordered a few weeks back. The bookmobile librarian had called ahead to let Schneider know the book had arrived.

"They are so nice here," she said.

In Metro's tight budget, though, the numbers stack up against the bookmobiles.

At the program's peak in 1979, the county maintained about 20 bookmobiles that fanned out all over Dade. People checked out 293,000 books from them that year.

At the time, the county also maintained about 18 libraries. Today, Metro operates 31 libraries. Last year, the number of books checked out from bookmobiles dropped to 64,000.

When you check out a book from a county library, it costs about $2 to record the transaction, catalog and shelve the book. In a bookmobile, the price is about $5.50.

With costs rising and the library system opening extra branches, bookmobiles have been on the wane for years. Metro is now down to five buses. Last week, the bookmobiles stopped making the rounds in South Dade altogether.

They are just too expensive to maintain, assistant director Urbizu said. It costs $15,000 to replace a generator alone.

"It's sad. Some of these people are like family to me," said Lillian Dunbar, a librarian who has worked the Miami Beach van for 20 years. "They ask about my children."

Every Friday, a woman greets Dunbar at the bookmobile stop in El Portal and gives her a bag of old clothes. Dunbar drops them at a homeless shelter in Miami Beach.

The van parked in South Beach was a trove of literary pleasures. Its air-conditioned cavern holds 3,000 books: The Perfect Spy by John Le Carre, Parting the Waters by Taylor Branch, The Kitchen God's Wife by Amy Tan. There are books for people with bad vision, books for children, books for feminists and books for fly fishermen.

On Friday, the van checked out about 25 books in 45 minutes.

"This is reality and this is fantasy," said Mary Alice Mark, displaying the two books -- one novel, one autobiography -- she checked out from the bookmobile. "It's convenient for me, but there are still a lot of old people around here. They need the bookmobiles."

A final decision on whether to close the bookmobile program must be made by Metro commissioners. They will not approve the 1993 budget until September. The cuts are contained in a budget recommended by the county manager.

Urbizu said he hopes people will take advantage of other library services, like the books-by-mail program and branch libraries.

"Service is getting dramatically better," Urbizu said.

Don't say that to Anastasia Romano, 28, a free-lance producer who lives in South Beach. She walked away from the bookmobile with Pat Booth's Palm Beach and Kings of Cocaine by Jeff Leen and Guy Gugliotta.

"I don't have a car, and it's too hot to walk," said Romano. "If they shut these down, I'll probably fall behind on my reading." Decade of Progress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Muir_(reporter)

Super-Millage

Arva Moore Parks Op-Ed