Create, Innovate, and Serve: A Radical Approach to Children's and Youth Programming

Library services are transforming to emphasize interactive, innovative, participatory, and often production-centered programming. It's a truly radical approach, and tomorrow’s LIS graduates in children’s and youth services need a resource that helps them understand this programming as it pertains to these age ranges. This text meets that need, bringing together a wide range of perspectives from both practice and research to survey this new landscape of programming for children and youth. Providing in-depth information crucial to those who will soon encounter these programs in library settings, this contributed volume

• delves into a wide variety of different programs, discussing their crucial elements and how to develop, plan, and deliver them;
• uses case studies of innovative practices to address such key issues as diversity, equity, media mentorship, community partnerships, dedicated library spaces, discussion-based programming, and assessment;
• presents annotated bibliographies of research, organized by young children (birth to 5), middle childhood (ages 6 to 12), and teens (ages 13 and up); and
• examines children and youth programming trends, teaching how to recognize and incorporate these trends into all types of programs.

Emphasizing an inclusive approach to programming that incorporates research-based theories and frameworks, this text will be a valuable orientation tool for LIS students as well as a holistic guide for current children and youth services professionals.

Kathleen Campana is a doctoral candidate at the University of Washington Information School. She has a background in school and corporate libraries. Her research focuses on the learning that occurs for children and youth in library programs and the role that family engagement plays in that learning. She has served as a research assistant on the VIEWS2 research grant for all four years. J. Elizabeth Mills is a doctoral student and a MLIS graduate from the University of Washington Information School. She has a background in children's literature as an editor and author. She studies how librarians are planning and presenting their storytimes in terms of learning theory and interactivity with respect to technology in storytimes. She has been a research assistant on the grant for three years.