Library Promotes Digital-Media Skills

November 11, 2012 | Read Time: 1 minute

The San Francisco Public Library wants young people to be active creators of digital media, not just passive consumers. So the library is planning a learning lab to give teenagers access to the equipment, software, and instruction they need to become tech-savvy.

“Youth are going to need these skills going forward,” says Jon Worona, digital-initiatives manager at the San Francisco Public Library. “The résumé of the future might not be a Word doc. It might be a Web page that has images, video, Web pages you’ve made, code you’ve written.”

To help with planning, the library staged a two-day digital-education event to test different activities. Co-sponsored by the library’s partners on the learning-lab project—the Bay Area Video Coalition, the California Academy of Sciences, and public radio station KQED—the “pop-up lab” gave participants the chance to experiment with video editing, claymation, 3-D printing, and Web-page development.

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About the Author

NICOLE WALLACE

Features Editor

Nicole Wallace is features editor of the Chronicle of Philanthropy. She has written about innovation in the nonprofit world, charities’ use of data to improve their work and to boost fundraising, advanced technologies for social good, and hybrid efforts at the intersection of the nonprofit and for-profit sectors, such as social enterprise and impact investing.Nicole spearheaded the Chronicle’s coverage of Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts on the Gulf Coast and reported from India on the role of philanthropy in rebuilding after the South Asian tsunami. She started at the Chronicle in 1996 as an editorial assistant compiling The Nonprofit Handbook.Before joining the Chronicle, Nicole worked at the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs and served in the inaugural class of the AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps.A native of Columbia, Pa., she holds a bachelor’s degree in foreign service from Georgetown University.