Free PlayStation (just for 20 minutes, and you have to be 13 to 18, so don’t all rush at once), comfy seats, graphic novels and, just next door, a vast DVDaudio collection with listening posts and plasma screens: the Young People’s Lounge in Brighton and Hove’s stunning new pound;14 million Jubilee Library has to serve its elusive clients well, or nobody would ever graduate from the alluring children’s section and its “wall of a thousand stories” (pictured) by ceramic artist Kate Malone.
The section for teenage readers aims to have the appeal of the more cutting-edge book and music stores, so it’s a shame it doesn’t have their opening hours (the library opens at 10am, and is closed at 2pm on two weekdays and all day Sundays, with one late night till 8pm and one till 7pm). The hours may be revised after the first year. I suggest a move to lunchtime opening one day to give time-poor students and teachers another chance to get along after school and climb aboard the “magic carpet of knowledge”, otherwise known as the reference library. See www.thewordproject.info for details of the Jubilee’s year-long literature festival including the “Words, Words, Words” sound installation, community projects with crime writer Peter Guttridge and encouragement to pick up the year’s “City Reads” book: Alice in Wonderland.
