Early Literacy Station in the Children’s Room at the San Francisco Public Library: Discovering How Kids Learn Through Play

About five years ago, a multicolored object with many wooden panels sprang up in the children’s room at San Francisco Public Library (SFPL). While it was built, the chief of children and youth services and the library’s early literacy specialist watched closely. I wondered what it was doing in the library and how much it cost.

I got a clue about its purpose while observing a children’s librarian conduct a story hour, called “baby rhyme time,” for a group of parents and their babies. It took place in the storytelling room, adjacent to the mysterious structure. They started out singing “I’m a little baby, I fly high, Down to the floor and up to the sky.” I noticed the repetition of the sound of words and thought about alliteration in poetry. Could demonstrating the sounds of words be a way to teach babies about language, I wondered.

I went back to the panel. I noticed the many plastic, colored letters and numbers on its walls as well as poems in English, Spanish and Chinese. One I remembered from my childhood: “Wynken, Blynken and Nod one night sailed off in a wooden shoe: sailed off on a river of crystal light, into a sea of dew.” This is a poem about dreaming which was also made into a song:

https://youtu.be/sal_pp_ptJQhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sal_pp_ptJQ&rel=0

I wondered if librarians could use songs because they convey sound to teach children how to read and write (Balderas, R. personal communication, 2013). I also noticed other poems on the panel, including the Carl Sandburg poem, beginning with “The fog comes on little cat feet,” and “Twinkle, twinkle, little star.”

One librarian said that during his story hours he tries to promote awareness of print, show children that they see writing in their environment and teach them that print is important (Balderas, R. personal communication, April 13, 2013). His approach to story hours offers some clues about understanding this site.

Next to the letters on the site were words that included letters, such as “B is for bugs and beetles,” next to to a picture of a ladybug. I also noticed that some sentences like “G” is for garden” were next to images of flowers. Placing these letters next to images helps children connect everyday images with words and sentences.

Another feature of this site is called “spin a story,” and teaches children about story structure and narrative skills (Anderson, M., personal communication, April 12, 2013). It has four wheels with categories like “what happened on baby’s birthday;” ‘who came;” “which present/what was inside;”? and “how does baby feel?,” and includes images of these concepts on each wheel.

I also noticed a slide ruler where children can measure their height, next to the sentence, “H is for height.” This ruler provides a way for children to develop their concept of quantity (Diamant-Cohen, B., Prendergast, T., Estrovitz, C., Banks, C., & van der Veen, K., 2012 ). A three dimensional wooden structure, a replica of Lombard Street, the crookedest street in San Francisco, is another feature on this site. A curvy track on each side borders the raised wooden panel and kids can throw wooden balls down it or push them up it, but the balls stay on the track. Words like “back and forth” are written next to the track, so children can connect words with the structure of Lombard Street. Here, children can learn about spatial relation as well as how gravity works.

This play to learn site reflects the library’s early literacy initiative based on the Every Child Ready to Read (ECRR) curriculum that the Public Library Association (PLA) and Association of Library Services for Children (ALSC) launched.(Estrovitz, C. personal communication, April 10, 2013). Every Child Ready to Read began in 2004. The most recently revised Every Child Ready to Read @ your library includes play as a way to learn early literacy skills. Play involves the use of imagination and experimentation rather than memorizing information. (Diamant-Cohen, B. et al 2012). A movement among children’s librarians to advocate play began in part, as a reaction against the No Child Left Behind law, which required teachers to prepare students to take standardized tests, or lose their funding (2012). This philosophy of education seems to have filtered down to some members of the early childhood community (2012).

Vancouver (Wash) Community Library Early Literacy Space

Early literacy spaces have sprung up in various libraries across the country. The largest one is in the Vancouver (Wash.) Community Library, which opened in 2011 (2012). The Burgeon Group, a Phoenix- based company, created both the early literacy space for San Francisco Public Library and the one for the Vancouver Community Library.

Another way that children learn about language is by interacting with adults about its features (Jeske, Jim, personal communication, April 11, 2013). I watched one afternoon, while a boy who was about four-years old played at the site. He pushed the wooden balls up and down the track next to the model of Lombard Street. He also picked up one of the colored letters, noticed that I was writing, and came over and said the name of the letter. He then asked me to write the letter. He watched, then picked up another letter, and asked me to write it, and this game continued until I had written five or six letters and  said that I wanted to stop. I speculated that this boy might be learning to read or write. Later that day, I noticed several children, who kept pushing the ball up and down the curved tracks on the model of Lombard Street, as if it was a never ending game.

According to Diamont-Cohen, B. et al, “Since play is truly how children learn, the time is ripe to explore how that play relates to collections, programs, space and how play can be integrated into the library” (p. 10).

References

Diamont-Cohen, B., Prendercast, T., Estorvitz, C., Banks, C. & van der Veen, K.(2012, Spring). We Play Here! Children and Libraries. pp. 3-18, &52. Retrieved from http://burgeongroup.com/burgeonpublication1.pdf

Public Library Association & Association for Library Services to Children. (2011). Every Child Ready to Read @ Your Library. Retrieved From http://www.everychildreadytoread.org/project-history%09/literature-review-2010

Stephens, M. (2013). Library Learning and New Literacies. {Lecture}. LIBR 287-The Hyperlinked Library. Retrieved from http://thehyperlinkedlibrary.org/hyperlib/readings-and-more/learning-new-literacies/

Expanding the Boundaries of San Francisco Public Library (SFPL)

A Committee at the San Francisco Public Library is part of the library’s continuing effort to expand the reach of the library beyond its walls. This Committee, called 50+ began several years ago and its goal is to serve library users that are over 50, as well as the blind, the deaf, patrons with physical disabilities and home bound patrons.

The committee’s efforts are relevant to the needs of San Francisco’s citizens. Almost a third of San Franciscans are over 50-years old and over one third of people in San Francisco over 65 are disabled. This group is working on several fronts to increase these users’ access to the library.

Resources For the Blind:

One of its goals is to increase the number of resources in the Library for the Blind and Print Disabled (LPBD). This library serves about 700 users, says Jane Glasby, a librarian and the program manager for the LBPD. This library has a magnified catalog interface: (for a miniature view, see the image above).

This library also has several technologies for blind people,  including video magnifiers, text-to-speech readers and internet computers with large print keyboards, she says. It also has reference resources like talking dictionaries: (see the image below).   In addition, The LBPD has held yoga classes for blind people for almost a year.

Resources For the Deaf:

The Deaf Service Center is located on the first floor of the main library and has information about hearing loss and sign language as well as staff who speak sign language. This library also made a video called “Deaf Culture an American Perspective” and has resources on deaf culture going back to the 1960’s. Its web site also lists classes from Bay Area colleges about sign language and deaf culture.

Resources for Adults over 50:

SFPL also has a partnership with City College of San Francisco (CCSF) to offer regular Brain Fitness/Mental Aerobic classes that are very popular, says Glasby.

This class started about three years ago, and 124 people showed up for the first class, says Cora McGovern, another librarian from the LBPD. The teacher has a video on her blog from YouTube  with a study about how elderly nuns stay mentally alert.

Improving Physical Access to the Library:

More than 100 volunteers help seniors with mobility problems move around the library, says Kai Wilson Forsley, the volunteer programs coordinator for SFPL. In the new fiscal year, the library will also buy “rollators” or wheeled walkers which patrons can use  to browse the stacks and move around the library, says Marti Goddard, the library’s access service manager.

Transporting the Library to Patrons:

SFPL has several ways to bring its collections to people with limited mobility, including the library on wheels, (LOW) a bookmobile for seniors or people with mobility problems, says Amy Perry, a librarian with SFPL’s mobile outreach services. LOW has a range of materials, including  fiction and non-fiction, large print books and books in other languages, movies and music, she says. “We do everything a brick and mortar library does except handling fines or offering computer access,” says Perry. Some active people also use LOW because its convenient, says Goddard.

A Broader Role for Librarians:

Other outreach services for patrons include Friends for Life (FFL) and Books by Mail (BBM). Currently 80 library customers use these programs, says Cora McGovern, a librarian with the Library for the Blind and Print Disabled. These patrons include people with mobility disabilities due to age, injury or medical conditions, and debilitating treatments for illnesses such as cancer, says Goddard.

Getting to know these patrons is both a blessing and a curse, says McGovern. “Selecting reading materials for someone can be quite intimate,” she says. “You have to learn what would please them and keep an eye out for new titles and authors they might like. Many home bound folks are in such poor health, frail or isolated. You send them articles and books that keep them informed about their conditions — if they share that information with you. If they are in a rut, you send them something that will make them laugh or keep them engaged. …You help them with phone numbers and forms and tell them about services that might make their lives easier.” (You) “check in on them if they haven’t been in touch to make sure they are alright and see if they would like anything to read. Even if they don’t want anything from the library, it makes them feel better that someone cares enough to check on them. Every time one of them dies, it hurts. But I remember that their lives were better for having participated in this program,” she says.

Future Plans:

Another goal of the 50+ committee is to create a database for users in these populations, which resembles one that the city of San Francisco has. It would contain resources, contacts, and event calendars, including trainings, classes and programs.

The Irony of the Organization of San Francisco Public Library (SFPL)

San Francisco Public is becoming a more transparent organization than it was a decade ago. But ironically, its structure is both transparent and bureaucratic..

In his article called “Participatory Networks, The Library as Conversation” David Lankes says that libraries are in the conversation business ( Lankes, D.R., Silverstein, J. Nicholson, S. &Marshall T. 2007, p. 2) While his article describes a participatory model of libraries, “transparent” and “participatory” are closely related terms. According to Lankes, a participatory library is one that furthers a conversation between its users and the library ( p. 4). The library is both a participant in and facilitator of conversations (p. 5). On the contrary, he says that key structures in the library, such as the catalog, are often “one-way conversations”(p. 5). A participatory library has features which promote interactions and communications between users and the library, including wikis and blogs.(p. 6-8).

Casey and Stephens describe a concept similar to Lankes’s (Casey, M. & Stephens, M. 2007, p. 2.) They say, “the transparent library establishes ways that our users to talk to us and among themselves with tools like blogs and wikis, community open houses, outreach events and surveys”(p. 2). The shape of SFPL as an organization is that of a . At the top of this pyramid is the library commission, a seven member body that the mayor of San Francisco appoints. “The Commission sets policy and is responsible for the library budget..” according to an email from Sue A. Blackman, the Library Commission Secretary. The commissioners or library staff initiates policies, she says and it takes a majority of commissioners to approve each policy. .

The organization of SFPL like many large, urban public libraries, is closely tied to city politics, which might explain the type of discourse that occurs at its meetings. Seventeen years ago, people packed the hearings to protest the massive weeding of library books when the main opened a new building. About ten years ago, the library employees union and the librarian’s guild organized the library pages to protest the administration’s plan to fire 15 hour pages and demote 20 hour pages to 15 hour employees without health insurance.

Perhaps its close connection with city politics angers some library users. At least two individuals regularly attend commission meetings and denounce the commission. At one recent meeting these users said the commissioners were corrupt to be reelecting the current president of the commission who was cited by the City Ethics Commission for shouting down a member of the public who was challenging the commission. At another recent meeting, a branch librarian said that the deputy city librarian’s plan to expand hours at the branches was unrealistic and would erode the quality of branch library service. Another member of the public, a teen librarian’s daughter, spoke in favor of opening a new teen center at the main library.

Though sometimes angry, the dialog at the commission is open and transparent. Public comments take place during the first part of the meeting. Audio files of these hearings go back almost two years and meeting minutes go back 12 years and are posted on the library’s web site. A local cable television also broadcasts them. The atmosphere at the commission shows that the conversation between members of the community and the library’s governing body is transparent.

For the first time, last week, I observed on the library’s intranet that the library is composed of a variety of teams, task forces, and committees. I saw a team based structure which differed from the horizontal organization of the workplace, as I know it. The focus of many of these groups is the needs of local library users.These groups include the “Literacy and Learning Area Focus Team.” A goal of this team is to “Provide nimble responsiveness to changes in formalized education that affect our users; and support for literacy needs of residents, regardless of educational level.” Another team is called the “Diversity in Programming Steering Group.” This team’s mission is to create “a balance of programs, exhibits, and outreach to all age groups and communities, system-wide.” Another team is the 50+ services to adults and seniors. It’s goal is to engage in outreach to and programming for the “growing population of active older adults (50+) and isolated senior citizens in San Francisco. Another group is the Digital Media and Learning Task Force. One goal of this group is to create a design for a new teen learning lab at the main library. Yet another group is the adult large print committee which selects large print books for branches.

These staff organizations are focused on meeting the needs of library users from different communities, backgrounds, and age groups. They are similar to what Lankes calls “participatory networks”(p.1). Their existence suggests that the library is trying to engage in a conversation with the surrounding community, and suggest that SFPL is both participatory and transparent.

Another quality of the transparent library is that it provides ways for users to talk to the library and among themselves using blogs, wikis, outreach events and surveys (Casey, M. & Stephens, M. 2007 p. 2). SFPL has all these avenues for interaction between staff and users, except wikis. The twitter page reflects a one way conversation with tweets the library staff about upcoming events. However the Facebook page includes a conversation between library pages and users about book carts and card catalogs. SFPL also has a page of a dozen blogs from different departments and branches. These include a blog from the Chinatown Branch, primarily in Chinese, and a blog from the book arts and history department with historical photographs of San Francisco. While these blogs contain messages mostly from library staff to users, they have spaces for comments.

Another characteristic of the transparent library is that its staff is open to anonymous feedback.SFPL has a user survey its web site which users can take without revealing their identity.

Another quality of the transparent library is that it measures the usage of the technologies on its web site ( Casey, M. & Stephens, M. 2008 p. 2). SFPL counts the number of patrons who visit its web site says Stephen McLaughlin, a librarian who gathers statistics for the library. The library also gets statistics from vendors about the number of searches patrons do in different databases, he says. “I know that data on web hits it used in tweaking the SFPL web pages and that data on the use of the online subscription databases is one of the factors used in deciding to keep or cancel individual databases,” he says.

A teen librarian weighed in on the question of how transparent SFPL is: “I would say SFPL is definitely becoming more transparent,” she writes in an email. She is one of the librarians who is planning the new teen center. Teens are involved in designing this new space and the library is paying these teens who are part of the project, she says. User participation in the planning of services is another sign that a library is transparent.

Now for the note of irony that affects the question of whether SFPL is open and transparent or closed and opaque. The structure of the workplace at SFPL is hierarchical and people who work there have distinct roles defined by San Francisco’s civil service commission. These roles are rigid and involve following rules that are set by the people at the top of the organization. The library commission which the mayor appoints is at the top of this organization, followed by the city librarian, librarians fours, threes, twos and ones, technical assistants, library assistants and library pages This kind of organizational structure, is opposite to the structure of a library which is flexible and transparent.