By Della Hasselle
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
EAST VILLAGE — The New York Public Library introduced a new online social networking program Tuesday afternoon that allows teens and kids to make avatars, post reviews and keep track of the books they’ve read and the videogames they’ve played.
Summer Reading 2010 gives a digital face lift to the NYPL’s children’s summer reading program, and was introduced with a kick-off party at the Ottendorf Branch on Second Avenue at E. 9th Street.
“That’s so cool!” Nikki Cores, a 17-year-old volunteer for the NYPL said about the new initiative.
The program encourages kids to track how long they read for and to catalog the number and titles of books they read.
The younger kids, however, still enjoy coming to the branch and handwriting their names on the library’s book-counting list, librarian Thea Taube, 44, said.
For every ten books they read, kids get to pick a prize — like stickers or miniature toys — from the branch’s “treasure chest.”
“It keeps them coming back in,” Taube said.
At the kick-off party, kids of all ages were invited to enjoy face-painting, story-hour with performer Bob-A-Loo and an ice cream social hour.
“It’s really nice and family-oriented,” Cores said about the library. “It’s just a comfortable place to be.”
