Bucyrus Public Library now offers an audio recording studio for teens development

Bucyrus Public Library started its Ready for Hire programming that was made available through the partnership with Mid-Ohio Educational Center and SPARC nonprofit that supports open and equitable systems for research and education.

The goal of the program, said the Bucyrus Public Library Youth Services Manager Kolter Kiess, is to provide the teens who've been negatively affected by the COVID-19 virus with opportunities to continue exploring different career paths in the future.

“The goal of that once again is to give teens the opportunity to explore what different types of career paths they want in the future,” said Kiess. “These are useful skills that will help prepare them in life; in the future, they can be transferable to whatever job they have.”

Although the original grant is intended to support the teens in the grades nine through 12, the library takes an extra step to extend the program to the children starting from grade six.

“The library is stepping in to provide some extra incentives to make sure that grades six through eight can participate as well,” said Kiess.

Kiess said the library was approached by the representatives of the Mid-Ohio Educational Center in March and suggested to provide an additional opportunity for the local youth to learn essential skills in high demand in such cutting edge fields as technology, engineering, and art.

More: Bucyrus library's November programs are focused on Thanksgiving festivities

A variety of programs available to learn

The programs that the participants of the program will learn to use are graphic editor app Procreate, Photoshop, Adobe Creative Suite, professional music recording program Logic Pro, and 3D design and coding program Tinkercad.

“The idea is to teach them how to simply develop their own 3d models,” said Kiess. “The goal is an activity and project based approach for career exploration.”

Kiess said with the grant funds the library managed to purchase such equipment, nine Chromebooks, 10 iPads, an iPad Pro, and a new iMac, as well as to install the necessary software for the programming.

“You could record an entire music album here, you could do an entire podcast and audiobook,” said Kiess. “I would describe it as entry level professional equipment.”

The programming is on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday from 3:30 p.m. The children can choose what classes they want to participate in. They can also opt for guided learning with the supervising librarian or a solo project with the use of the library resources and staff help.

Meeting the students where they are ready to learn

“I would say a foundational component of this program is meeting students at their current level of readiness - it is what this program is all about,” said Kiess. “We're really open to feedback on what teens want to do as well.”

The library is also already looking into the next semester when the librarians are exploring the possibilities of extending the classes they offer to coding and video game design.

“Things on those lines that not only are useful skills and experiences that teens can have and take for the future, but also using the type of technology that is engaging right now,” said Kiess.

Kiess said he thinks that this kind of programming helps the children explore their passions and find ways to include that in their lives either as part of their career or in other ways. In addition, it returns the library to its spot of being a resource for the community.

“A library is a resource; it provides resources, free resources, to everybody,” said Kiess. “And I think this is an amazing resource that the vast majority of the population, including myself, doesn't have access to.”

This article originally appeared on Bucyrus Telegraph-Forum: Grant to Bucyrus Library for advanced technology learning