What Works-Kids on Campus

One might not think of Lubbock, Texas, as a hotbed of library innovation. But I recently launched a family story-hour project at the Texas Tech University (TTU) libraries that may inspire other colleges and universities to follow suit.

What motivated me to reach out to the community's children? I've worked at two academic libraries in the last eight years, and I've noticed that although colleges often occupy huge tracts of land and employ thousands of people, the schools rarely become a part of the community. That's because the public often doesn't realize it has a right to use the state university's libraries, which are supported by taxpayer's dollars. As the children's literature liaison for TTU's libraries, I wanted to tell our community, "You are welcome; your children are welcome. This library is informal, fun, and committed to the literacy of the children of Lubbock County."

The idea for our family story-hour project began in March 2001, when I spent a day at the San Jose Public Library's Biblioteca Latinoamericana branch. The children's librarian, Armando Ramirez, had invited me to participate as a guest reader in a bilingual family story hour. While I was reading, I looked at the rapt faces of dozens of youngsters, who, in the company of parents and grandparents, were visibly entranced by the stories they were hearing. I returned to Lubbock with a mission: to make reading to children a regular part of my job.

With the help of E. Dale Cluff, former dean of TTU's libraries, we contacted the nearby Lubbock Public Library (LPL) to make sure the staff didn't feel our program was intruding on their turf. LPL's director, Jeff Rippel, was enthusiastic about our proposed story hour. So, in the spring, my colleagues Amy Chang, April Cowie, Carrye Syma, Jake Syma, and I test-piloted our first story hour with our staff's children. Soon after, we launched our first public story hour: the session attracted 14 kids, ranging from 10 months old to seven years, plus their parents. Two mothers, who had found out about our story hour from fliers distributed at a literacy fair, said they were thrilled there was another option to expose their children to good books. One of the mothers, who homeschools her two children, checked out 20 books that day. The TexShare program allows us to circulate our materials to public library cardholders.

Our story-hour attendance has been predictably unpredictable. Last August, we hosted our biggest group—53 people, including 25 children. But typically, we attract approximately 10 kids each time we meet. We've discovered that children tend to take home the books that we read to them, and boys love anything to do with dinosaurs or the solar system. I recently taught a little boy, Richie, his friend, Frank, and Richie's mom, how to search our online catalog for books on dinosaurs and fossils. Richie's mom ended up checking out nine books, and I loaned Frank one of my own books about stars and planets. TTU's children's book budget has been slashed this year to $2,000 from $3,500, and as an avid children's book reader, I gladly lend books from my own personal collection if the library doesn't have a copy.

Last summer, the director of the local public library asked me if some of our students would like to participate in story hours at Lubbock's downtown library and its three branches. I contacted one of our professors, and she designed a children's literature course that encouraged her students to visit the public library. As a result, 36 education students are now guest readers at the public library, as well as in our on-campus story-hour program.

One of the goals of our project was to demystify the library and change peoples' perceptions of it. Some people still think of the library as a stuffy place, and that image severely limits our ability to attract community support and to recruit vibrant, innovative people into the profession. Our family story-hour project encourages children and their parents to read, watch entertaining videos, snack on cookies, come to the library in costume a few days before Halloween, or play a dinosaur card game. Most importantly, we hope that children and families will develop a lifelong love of libraries and books.