For a second city, Birmingham has more than its fair share of firsts. For one thing, it has the longest bus route in Britain. For another, it has more trees than any city in Europe. And then there’s the public library. Housed in a 1970s concrete building in historic Chamberlain Square, it is one of the largest in Europe - which is why Phil Burns is never at a loss when it comes to entertaining his clients.

Mr Burns is a youth worker employed directly by the Central Library (another first for Birmingham), and his clients - teenagers who might otherwise never set foot in such a place - are here courtesy of a crime-cutting initiative, Splash Extra, that has been running for the past few months in several cities, including Liverpool, Manchester, Bradford and London.

In youth service terminology, these young people are known as “disengaged”, but, of the hundreds Phil has worked with since taking on the job, he says few have failed to be inspired by something in Birmingham’s vast collection of words and music. Nevertheless, even by his standards, what’s happening today in and around the library’s new purpose-built learning centre is impressive. All week, a group of 13 to 17-year-olds identified as potential offenders, together with some who have already offended (and who have the tag to prove it) are using the centre’s state-of-the-art facilities to do things they might normally only dream about. They are writing songs and recording them in proper studios, burning CDs and designing covers for them. They are writing scripts and devising plots, shooting videos, or perhaps composing voice-overs.

At the end of the week, all the participants will take part in a live performance of their work in the Conservatoire across the square. And to prove that all this really did happen, they will have their own personal web pages, a business card, and a CD to impress their friends and family - and perhaps even to show their potential to future employers.

Splash Extra is co-ordinated by the newly created charity, the Reading Agency, which was officially launched yesterday (September 26) by Tessa Jowell, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, and aims “to inspire, challenge and support” libraries. As well as diverting potential offenders away from crime, the idea behind Splash Extra is to address literacy targets and open up a new world of creative imagination to young people whose homes are all too often book-free zones.

The project, funded from the New Opportunities Fund, and being administered by the Youth Justice Board and the Arts Council of England, has helped to create pioneering partnerships between libraries, youth services and youth offending teams all over the country.

In Birmingham, the initiative has pulled in artists, performers and facilitators from the community music company, C21VOX, to work alongside library staff and the city’s youth offending team.

To begin with, three one-day taster sessions were each attended by a dozen young people. Sixteen were then selected to take part in the week-long project - although only nine have made it. This is largely due to the near impossibility of navigating a course between court appearances and the other demands on participants and their key workers.

Halfway through one workshop session, it emerges that one participant is about to have his gas supply cut off, and this demonstrates what everybody already knows: that these young people lead troubled lives, and that those troubles don’t stop just because they are spending the afternoon shooting digital stills for a CD cover. Yet for all the disappointments, disruptions and distractions, exciting things seem to be happening along every corridor.

In a quiet rehearsal room, seated behind a grand piano, one teenager is deep in conversation with two professional musicians - a pianist and a flautist. At her taster session, she didn’t want to sing, but, drawing on library books and her own love of fairy tales for inspiration, she instead wrote a powerful piece of verse. Having auditioned male participants to find one with a voice she liked, she is now helping the musicians set her words to music. Everybody is amazed by her talents, and she is clearly having the time of her life.

In another part of the building, a striking young woman is working with a guitarist and a keyboard player on an arrangement for her song. Nobody can quite believe the quality of her voice. There is a buzz in the air and a sense that maybe - just maybe - a star is in the making, right here in the Central Library.

Two girls at a computer are tapping in some backing lyrics. “How do you spell chorus?” one asks the other, as a professional arranger at the next computer puts an electronic rhythm section through its paces.

So varied is Birmingham’s ethnic mix that its music library boasts a broader range than any other in Britain. And, thanks to Splash Extra, it now has sophisticated music-writing software that will be available for public use once this week’s project is over.

Sometimes, it seems as if the technology itself is having a transforming effect on the teenagers. Three lads are producing a short drama film, drawing on material they’ve found the library - everything from graphic novels to video catalogues - to devise the storyline, then acting and filming each other at various locations around the city. One of them, a 14-year-old, is a tagged offender. “Put a camera in his hand and he’s a changed person,” says Carolyn Morton, who manages multimedia projects for marginalised young people with C21VOX. One reason for involving so many artists and facilitators, she says, is that activities can be adapted to the requirements of each participant as these emerge during the week.

“We are trying to tailor things so that people get the best opportunities,” she says. “If it’s a one-off diversion for them - something they’ve never done before - that’s great. If it’s an opportunity for them to reflect on where they are in life and their situation, that’s fine. And if it’s a serious career opportunity for someone to have, say, professionally arranged and recorded tracks, we need to be flexible enough to encompass that.”

According to the Reading Agency, previous summer programmes across the UK “have shown dramatic evidence that inspiring and imaginative work through arts and sports can be effective in the overall drive to reduce crime levels”. While such an assertion is difficult to quantify, few would question the likely benefits for the participants. And least of all Phil Burns, who knows from first-hand experience that nobody walks away from Europe’s biggest library without feeling a tiny bit richer.

For more details about the Reading Agency (a charity formed from the amalgamation of Launch Pad, Well Worth Reading and the Reading Partnership), visit www.reading agency.org.uk. Details of next year’s summer reading challenge for children, the Reading Maze, organised through libraries by the Reading Agency and the People’s Network, can also be found on the site.