Intentionality, Interactivity, and Community: A Conceptual Framework for Professional Development in Children’s Librarianship

Abstract

Public libraries are increasingly being recognized as community anchors, sites of crucial and significant informal learning for children and families. Within children’s services, early literacy storytimes are perceived as a mainstay of public library programming. That said, there is increasing pressure on both formal and informal prekindergarten learning environments to significantly improve the literacy skills in young children. Moreover, there is an expansion of library programs being designed to incorporate early literacy research. It is important for storytime providers to have a conceptual understanding of the purpose for the work they do. And yet they often lack a sufficient understanding of how to support learning for young children. Project VIEWS2, through its quasi-experimental intervention, provided a research-based framework—intentionality, interactivity, and community–that can support the work that storytime providers do to support children and families through early learning-rich storytime programs in the public library. Follow-up interviews and a survey of VIEWS2 participant storytime providers demonstrates the impact of this framework in the field, through discussion of intentional and interactive practice and the effects of community on sustaining and growing the work storytime providers do to serve their communities.