Connecting Teens with Technology at the Library

Kelly Czarnecki completed her MS in 2002 and MEd in 2001 at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana. She worked at the Bloomington Public Library in Illinois for four years as the young adult services librarian. Czarnecki started at the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library at the ImaginOn Branch in 2005 as the teen librarian and is now the teen loft manager. She has over twenty years of experience in working with persons experiencing homelessness who are sheltered. Czarnecki has contributed extensively to the literature on teens and libraries, particularly with technology as a focus. She is currently a columnist for Tag Team Tech with VOYA.

Marie Harris completed her MLIS at the University of North Carolina Greensboro in 2018. She began working for Charlotte Mecklenburg Library in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 2012 in the Loft at ImaginOn as a teen library services specialist. While in this role, she worked with Kelly Czarnecki to plan many technology-related programs for teens, including facilitating the use of Studio i digital media lab for individuals and groups, planning and implementing a Google Maker Camp series for preteens and teens for two summers, collaborating with community experts to bring coding to the library, planning and implementing dozens of technology-related programs for the public, and partnering with a community teen robotics team. She is currently employed as a branch leader at the Cornelius and Davidson branches of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, where she manages a team of fourteen library staff members.