The Youth Library Goes Blue!

Based on three separate measures, the project “The Youth Library Goes Blue!” by the Tübingen municipal library plans to redesign the youth section for and in cooperation with young people. The aim is to participatively design a fully climate-neutral youth library which investigates the climate impact of media usage and organises climate-neutral events.

With this project, the library wishes to take advantage of its prominent position in the city to propagate sustainability goals. With some 400,000 visitors annually, it is one of the most frequented public libraries in Germany, a lively meeting place and popular extracurricular learning venue. The library would like to build on this potential in connection with the municipal sustainability campaign “Tübingen Goes Blue” as well as the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

The focus of the project is to build the first-ever “green”, i.e. entirely climate-neutral, youth section at a municipal library. The organisers plan to collaborate with local youth groups already committed to climate protection and team up with the scenographer, furniture and model builder Stephan Potengowski to design and furnish the new space in the youth library. The second part of the project consists of an investigation into the climatic effects of individual media usage under the supervision of Prof. Dr Zurstiege from the Institute of Media Studies at the University of Tübingen. The third project component is the event area, for which young people will be developing various concepts (e.g. repair cafés and writing workshops) and organising nine events based on aspects of sustainability.