Chicago teens can thank the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and Mayor Rahm Emanuel for an expansion of YOUmedia—an innovative digital-learning program with several programs in the Chicago Public Library (CPL) system that embrace food, noise, and video games such as Guitar Hero. (See SLJ's March, 2011 cover story on YOUmedia.) Five CPL branches currently have YOUmedia labs, including the original 5,000 square-foot lab in Chicago’s main Harold Washington Library Center, where the initiative started in 2009. With an additional $2 million from the MacArthur Foundation and $500,000 approved by the Chicago City Council, CPL will open and staff YOUmedia programs in six more branches this summer, along with temporary “pop-ups” in 12 branches. Teens may tackle challenges such as building a robot or making a movie in two days, says Andrea Saenz, first deputy commissioner of the CPL, who is overseeing the expansion...