美国国家公共电台 NPR Xbox Bowling For Seniors? Visit Your Local Library

KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:

There's a place where older people can go to upgrade their computer skills, make art and play games. You're probably thinking senior centers. You could also think the library. NPR's Ina Jaffe covers aging, and she went to Brooklyn for this report. As the population in New York ages, the library system there is finding new ways to serve seniors.

INA JAFFE, BYLINE 1: On a Wednesday morning, the Brooklyn Central Library's lobby cafe is crowded with young mothers and kids in strollers, friends meeting for coffee, singles poring over a book. But upstairs, there's some serious work underway.

DAVE JOHNSON: What I'd like you to do, as you tell the story, I want you to also use simile 2 and metaphor 3. I mean, you might say, yeah, he's a little bit like a porcupine 4, right? Or...

JAFFE: That's poet Dave Johnson leading an eight-week workshop in memoir 5 writing. Everyone in the class is at least 50, though most are much older than that. For this day's class, they're supposed to write something about the differences between members of their families.

JOHNSON: Of course, you can make it up. Right? People are not going to know the difference.

JAFFE: But 77-year-old Laurence James, a retired 6 New York Transit 7 bus mechanic, doesn't make anything up.

LAURENCE JAMES: My mother very religious, God-fearing, good provider but distant like Africa.

JAFFE: James says he comes to the library a lot. He prefers the mix of people here to the traditional senior center, though he concedes he doesn't go to any senior centers and probably has an unfair image of what they are.

JAMES: I have this stereotype 8 in my head because sometimes some centers limit the activities of seniors to, like, bingo, yoga and some things that I'm just not interested in.

JAFFE: The memoir class is sponsored by an organization called Lifetime Arts, which develops arts classes for older adults. Contrary to Laurence James' image, Lifetime Arts also works with senior centers, but the organization is best known for their work with more than 80 public libraries in 13 states. Maura O'Malley is the CEO and co-founder. She says that whether the classes are writing or painting or choral singing or salsa dancing, all of them are taught by professional artists and structured to result in a final project or performance.

MAURA O'MALLEY: And that's, I think, the exciting thing about this work. It's about rebuilding connections as you age and about finding new ways of living and expressing yourself. It's not about entertainment.

JAFFE: Not that there's anything wrong with that.

(CROSSTALK)

JAFFE: At the Macon branch library in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, about a dozen older adults seem pretty darned entertained by bowling 10.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: I need strikes. Come on.

JAFFE: Virtual bowling, that is, using Xbox. They face a large screen that shows the alley 9 and pins and go through the moves as if they had a ball. There's a lot of team spirit here. They even have matching bowling shirts. And there are tournaments with teams from other libraries. Seventy-four-year-old Alice Baker 11 has been coming to virtual bowling since it started three years ago, but she's not at the library just for that.

ALICE BAKER: I learned to quilt at the library, and now I quilt a lot. They also have exercise. They have classes for kids - brings everybody in. You can bring your family with you.

JAFFE: If you question what Xbox bowling has to do with the mission of a library, well, Nick Higgins has heard those questions before. He's the director of outreach for the Brooklyn Public Library system.

NICK HIGGINS: I'd say a good library really reflects the needs of their particular community. And so for instance, as some of our patrons are aging, they're starting to exhibit some mobility 12 issues. And they're looking for opportunities other than, you know, movie night - something active and social. And the public library is a perfect space for that to happen.

JAFFE: In fact, all of the programs for older adults are growing. The number of older people involved in arts programs is up more than 50 percent since last year. And the number of branch libraries with bowling teams has doubled.

UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Chanting) Get that spare. Get that spare.

JAFFE: Which just goes to show that older people want a chance to write new chapters in their life stories one way or another.

(CROSSTALK)

JAFFE: Ina Jaffe, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF THE POLISH AMBASSADOR'S "TAKE WINGS")