Imagination Portal nearing completion

Friday, October 3, 2014
Artist Bruno Bareto of NatureMaker works on installing the branches and leaves on the 1,000-pound poplar tree, which will be the focal point of the new youth services area at the Putnam County Library.

The Putnam County Public Library's Imagination Portal is nearing completion as the focal point of the area, a 1,000-pound poplar tree designed by artist Gary Hanick, was installed this week.

The large-scale tree, which patrons will be able to climb inside, was designed by the California-based company NatureMaker, which creates large-scale nature themed works of art for airports, hotels, museums and zoos around the world. The tree itself took several months to design, before being shipped to the library in pieces and took approximately three days to put together.

"It reflects childhood and nature and lends a striking visual impact for both children and adults," Library Board member Lisa McCoy explained. "The symbol of the library has been a poplar leaf, so we wanted to play that symbolism up in the youth area. I imagine kids grabbing a good book and curing up to read underneath the tree, even on a snowy day in the middle of February."

The transformation of the children's room into the Imagination Portal has been a fairly smooth one with only minor hiccups such as the choice of paint color. With the goal of the new area being to combine the spirit of discovery and learning inherent in the traditional literacy experience with the excitement of technology, the space is well on its way to fulfilling that mission.

"The new space will allow for collaborative digital creativity such as movie-making and music production in small groups and in individualized settings," Library Director Grier Carson stated. "As well as exploratory learning through emerging media, including video games, eBooks, web applications, movies and hands-on experimental programing including performances, arts and crafts, cooking and culinary studies and lively story-time events."

The Imagination Portal will still have tons of books for children to read and will continue with its regular programming such as baby time, toddler time and pre-K prime time. However, the new youth services will is aiming to teach children how to use technology in age appropriate, educational ways.

"We're going to incorporate technology more," Youth Services Manager Mollie Beaumont said. "We're going to show how it can be used as an educational tool rather than just a recreational tool. Story times will now have more of a visual component with the technology with the projector and everything, which is something we are looking forward to."

With that focus more on technology, patrons will also be able to visit the library at any time during the day and be able to play video games, a recent addition at the library.

"Video games are not only an incredibly rich art form full of enormous potential that we haven't even come close to seeing develop yet," Carson explained. "But, it's a literary tool and platform. It's analogous to choose your own adventure books from the '70s and '80s. It's a form of story telling. Almost any game that you pick up is a narrative. You're just not reading text, you're reading bits of text here and there and combining it with bits of sound and visual and interactive elements that altogether make a narrative experience that engages the viewer in a way that I think a lot of writers and filmmakers have wanted to engage their audience."

Along with the addition of not only a video game collection at the library, but a space for children and teens to game throughout the day, the library will also be hosting several programming events, incorporating them when the space is complete.

Bruno Bareto works on applying epoxy to the seams of in the inside of the massive 1,000-pound tree, which patrons will be able to climb inside.

In hopes of creating a more exciting space for children, Beaumont recently formed a teen advisory board, which will not only come up with new programming ideas, but volunteer in the Imagination Portal throughout the week and during events.

"I have started a teen advisory board recently and those guys will kind of steer the area to where we want it to go," Beaumont explained. "They're going to help volunteer with some of the children's programs. This is one of the newer programs that I've started and it's turning out pretty well. A lot of the kids are excited because there are some benefits to it, which the kids like."

In hopes of enticing more people to join, benefits for members include having first choice at new video games and DVD's that come into the library as well as being able to have their discs cleaned. The teen advisory board itself, currently has 15 members with ages ranging from 13-19 years old that meet on the first and third Saturdays of the month at 4 p.m.

"They get dibs on video games and DVD's," Beaumont explained. "They also are able to have their video games and DVD's cleaned, but they have to volunteer a minimum of 10 hours a month to get that service, which is easy to do."

Only two meetings in, the board has already begun coming up with new ideas to utilize the Imagination Portal and its components such as the kitchen space.

"They're already talking about using the kitchen -- making sushi, pizza and tacos," Beaumont added. "You can be told this that and the other 'til you're blue in the face, but they won't understand it until you actually see and realize how much fun it can be to do these things. My goal is to make these things fun, I enjoy cooking and baking and things like that."

The new kitchen area in the space will be vital to new programming events, not only teaching children the basics of cooking itself, but possibly creating a children's cooking show.

"I'm really looking forward to space," Beaumont said with a smile. "Space to move and breathe. It's just going to be a whole new world. Kids are going to want to come to the library, which is my goal -- to get them to want to come in and continue learning."

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