The topic of this thesis is the joint premises of new Jääli library and Laivakangas youth center, later referred as library youth center. Jääli is part of the Oulu region, and the Jääli library is one of the branch libraries of Oulu city library. The librarian and the youth employee form a work pair; hence the aim of the thesis was to improve both their pair work skills and customer satisfaction of the library youth center.

To study the pair work between the librarian and youth worker, observation and semi-structured interview were used, both of which are qualitative research methods. The work pair was observed in action, and after three observation sessions the pair was interviewed. The intention was to find any of those key points for example in the working habits and communication skills which possibly required improving. Another aim was to discover those practices which could be used as a good example. Several practices were already efficient and functional.

A customer survey using Google Forms was also created. The survey was semi-structured and both quantitative and qualitative, since the survey form consisted of both close-ended (structured) and open-ended (unstructured) questions. The structured questions had limited response options in a written scale of “Extremely unsatisfied” to “Extremely satisfied” and “I don’t know”. During the processing of the results the answers were converted to a numeric scale (1–5), in which “Extremely unsatisfied” was number one (1) and “Extremely satisfied” was number five (5). The form was available for the customers both online and as paper versions. The purpose was to find issues from different sectors – such as customer service, premises and library collection – that needed improving, and to possibly come up with solutions.

In the thesis it was discussed why it is important for young people to spend time in public libraries. The concept of pair work in general and the main reasons for it to succeed or fail were also explained. The applied research methods were described.

According to the results of the pair work observation and interview, both the librarian and youth employee enjoyed their work among the youth. They both were open minded from the beginning. However, cooperation with the school and the staff could be even more intensive. Customer satisfaction could increasingly be paid more attention to; in the questionnaire the customers mentioned that both the library and the collection were too small. Nevertheless, the staff and the customer service of the library youth center were appreciated.