We partnered with Public Libraries Victoria to co-design the Young Adult Playbook, a practical resource that helps public libraries across Victoria confidently engage young people aged 12–25.

The Opportunity

Public Libraries Victoria (PLV) wanted to strengthen how its member libraries engage young adults, a group libraries often lose somewhere between primary school and adulthood. Staff across the network care deeply about young people, but many told us they don't always feel confident, equipped, or supported to engage them well. As one librarian put it: ‘We lose them between primary school and adulthood. We need to think differently to keep them connected.’

PLV needed a partner who could recruit and genuinely involve young people aged 12–25, capture the realities facing frontline library staff, and turn both into a single, practical resource libraries could actually use. The brief came with real challenges: young adults are hard to reach and quick to disengage when something feels tokenistic, and library systems, spaces, and rules weren't built with them in mind.

Presenting the Young Adult Playbook in Brisbane at Amplify: Young Voices in Libraries, State Library of Queensland.

Our Solution

Recruitment: We advertised the opportunity openly and received 164 expressions of interest from young people across Victoria. We screened and onboarded 22 participants (average age 17) with plain-language information packs, welcome materials, and volunteer agreements, and provided each with a $150 honorarium as thanks for their time and insight.

Consultation: We delivered two online co-design workshops with young people and ran interviews with library staff, supported by a working group of nine staff spanning community engagement, youth services, and programming across metropolitan and regional library services. Engagement was strong: a 100% attendance rate, and 95% of participants wanted to stay involved as the project developed.

Synthesis and design: Workshop outputs and staff interviews were coded into four insight areas, each paired with real quotes and practical opportunities for libraries. From there we co-created the Playbook itself, iterating the structure and content, and testing drafts with PLV stakeholders and youth advisors through showcase sessions, so recommendations were drawn from patterns rather than imposed on them.

Young Adult Playbook workshop participants at Amplify: Young Voices in Libraries, State Library of Queensland.

Our Insights

Space x Environment

Young people read the physical environment as a signal of whether they belong. They want comfortable, sensory-friendly spaces that balance quiet and community, and feel pushed out by harsh, rigid, or unsafe environments. As one staff member reflected, ‘The library system wasn't really built with teenagers in mind. It's built for quiet, structure, and order - which isn't always how young people move through the world.’

Programs x Activities

Young people see libraries as more than a place to borrow books, but most programming is aimed at children or older adults. When young people don't see themselves reflected, they disengage. They were eager for dynamic, identity-affirming events tied to their interests- music, writing, study support, and connection.

Communication x Visibility

Libraries are a vital third space, but young people often don't know what's on because events are promoted through channels they don't use. In one participant's words, libraries ‘don't really get talked about or promoted, and only after people experience the library space [do] they realise how helpful and resourceful it is.’

Access x Participation

Complex rules, restrictive hours, and adult-oriented systems make libraries feel like they belong to someone else. Stigma and stereotyping, "especially perpetuated by rises in youth crime and negative media depictions", compound the barrier and discourage young people from engaging at all.

Our Impact

We translated these insights into the Young Adult Playbook, a practical, ready-to-use guide for library staff across Victoria, built entirely from young people's and staff voices rather than assumed on their behalf. Rather than a set of rules or a checklist, it's a resource staff can return to and adapt to their own role, library, and community. It includes:

Practical guidance on understanding young adults, designing programs that resonate, building trust, and creating inclusive, culturally safe, and trauma-informed spaces.
An Event Toolkit (a Rapid Event Builder and a full Event Planner template) and three event prototypes: Zine Lab, Future Ready, and Open Doors.
Resources to use straight away, including a Young Adult Fiction Guide, a Conversation Guide, and a Youth Services Navigator.
Letters and advice written directly from young people to library staff.

PLV's member libraries now have an evidence base and a toolkit drawn from young people themselves. In June 2026, we took the Playbook further at the State Library of Queensland’s Amplify: Young Voices in Libraries conference, running a hands-on ‘Event Dreaming’ session where library staff used the Rapid Event Builder to design real events for young people in their own communities, putting the resource straight into practice.

The Future

YLab will continue to support PLV and its member libraries as they put the Playbook to work, whether that's onboarding staff, sharing it across the network, or bringing young people back to the table to keep the resource relevant as youth engagement evolves. This includes expanding the impact and reach of the playbook interstate.