Guitars, dancing and teenagers: Not the average night at the library

I wasn't surprised to hear a throng of teens is expected to gather this Friday night to play Guitar Hero: the wildly popular video game in which players indulge their inner rock star by frantically pressing buttons on a plastic guitar, synching to their favorite riffs.

And it made sense the same crowd also will get down to Dance Dance Revolution: another hot video game that requires dancers to flurry across a platform, their feet following arrows on a screen to keep step with an electronicbeat.

What raised my eyebrows -- and the corners of my mouth -- is where these kids will be acting out their rock 'n' roll fantasies: at the library.

You read that right.

On Friday, the Bluffton library will host a night of musical activities for 13- to 18-year-olds, continuing the branch's effort to alter any ideas teens might have of their public library as some sleepy,

lifeless spot.

"We're not (an) old, stodgy place with dusty old books, where you just come and sit and that's all you do," said Scott Strawn, the library's youth services

director.

When I was in middle school and high school, the thought of playing air guitar in public, much less attempting to perform some rapidly choreographed dance in front of strangers, would have made me queasy. As an adult, that sentiment hasn't really changed. Always a wallflower, never the Eric Clapton/Lenny Kravitz/Jimi Hendrix-impersonating gal.

Still, there's something heartening about knowing the local library is trying to shake up the reputation that daunts such institutions:The sanctuaries are often thought of as buildings for "Quiet, please" signs, not venues for boisterous fun. In May, the library hosted a "Teens Rock the Library" bash, featuring live bands and a chance for youth to get airbrushed tattoos. In June, the building turned into the setting for a fake crime, and teen readers had the chance to play detective using clues from the scene to solve a mystery while library staffers acted as characters embroiled in the plot.

"We're trying to make it a place to be, as well as a place to go when you have problems with homework," Strawn said.

Before the "shush" police among you get too alarmed, the noisy activities typically take place after the library has closed. But like an awkward teen trying to muster up enough confidence to be the first one on the school-gym-turned-dance-floor, the Bluffton library is taking a chance -- on how it accomplishes its mission, and on the budding readers it hopes to attract.

So plans are in the works for movie nights. Super Bowl parties. Adding more computers for exclusive use by teens.

Those may seem like unorthodox measures to get youth to visit 120 Palmetto Way. But it may not be a bad idea, if you believe a June 2007 Harris Interactive poll. According to the nationwide data complied for the American Library Association, 93 percent of the 8- to 18-year-old respondents said they had access to a local public library or a local library Web site. But 19 percent had never visited their library, either in person or online.

So maybe movies and faux-crime scenes and video games aren't such far-out ideas for library activities. It can be hard for people and institutions of any age to alter their public images without losing sight of their purpose in the process. But the Bluffton library is trying new ways to catch teenagers' attention, in the hope that more will notice the books and periodicals and computers and tutors available at their neighborhood branch.

So if Guitar Hero and Dance Dance Revolution end up roping teens into more reading, then it seems the library event may be worth an encore or two.