Little Free Library Meets the Museum

A small wooden box full of books on a post in front of a house, in a field, or on a country road may not seem immediately inspirational. Yet, somehow these book exchange boxes popping up everywhere through the Little Free Library (LFL) have captured imaginations and inspired strangers to share books with others.

Little Free Library at Settergren's hardware store

Ever since I saw my first one outside of Settergren’s Hardware in Minneapolis about 7 years ago I’ve been following the growth of these book hutches with curiosity and interest. Not long after seeing one at Settergren’s, I saw one in Richland Center and another one in Mineral Point (WI) and made my then 90-year old parents stop so I could take pictures of them. Knowing of my delight in Little Free Library, my Dutch pen-pal sent me a photo of one in Leeuwarden where she lives.

Little Free Library was started by Todd Bol and Rick Brooks in 2010 in Hudson (WI), just across the river from the Twin Cities. As of fall 2016, there were over 50,000 LFL in all 50 U.S. states and in 70 countries. 

LFL’s 3 commitments–increasing book access, building community, and sparking creativity–reinforce one another with natural ease.

The on-line introduction to LFL and how to get started are both practical and inspirational. Five easy steps for setting up a library include a material list, plans for building, directions for installing one, and guidelines for finding funds. More tips for building support, filling shelves with books, and replacing them are easy to find. Registering a Library brings with it an official charter sign and charter number.

In sharing the plans, tips, and videos of designs and construction from others, LFL expands the range of solutions for making books accessible, highlights creativity, and supports a community joined by passion, whimsy, and a love of reading. Builders have improvised designs and customized decorations that reflect personal interests, local architectural styles, and regional pride. Libraries are fashioned as an Amish shed, a Vermont covered bridge, and a British phone booth. Some stewards add reading lights and benches; others create small gardens around the library’s post; and some even leave power bars and snacks for hungry readers.

Once books fill the shelves, a library takes on a life of its own, strengthening connections between people

Tudor style library matches its house

who know one another and creating connections between book friends who will probably never meet. Neighbors gather at a library and chat. When passersby stop, browse, take a book, and sometimes leave a book, there’s a sense that someone who cares about reading left this book for a reason. Fans and book friends leave notes of thanks. Reluctant readers leave messages about being inspired to read. At least one homeless reader left a note of thanks for access to books.

   

LFL also inspires significant community efforts. In 2013, the Minneapolis School District collaborated with LFL to establish a library on every block in north Minneapolis, one of the most impoverished districts in the city. A group in Lake Worth (FL) set a goal to place 100 libraries in the city, a project that involved school children, neighbors, and the Vice Mayor. An even bolder vision is being realized by a Sudanese woman who has set a goal to establish 1,000 libraries in her country.

Where are LFL at museums?

The Pink Palace Museum Little Free Library

Museums seem to be natural hosts for libraries with their interest in building community connections, being a good neighbor, activating community partnerships, and in nurturing reading. Several museums have installed libraries on their sites including the following.

• The Little Free Library at the Blairstown Museum in Blairstown (NJ) is “designed to inspire a love of reading, build community, and spark creativity by fostering a neighborhood book exchange.” 

• The Little Free Library in front of the Pink Palace Museum in Memphis (TN) is a replica of the museum’s façade including its distinctive pink Georgia marble and green tile roof. The museum hopes that by hosting a place for people who visit and those living next to exchange books it can be an active part of its community. 

• The Children’s Museum in Bloomsburg (PA) is a collaboration between the museum and the 4 county branch libraries.

• The Neville Public Museum in GreenBay (WI) installed a library on its grounds in spring 2017 built to look like its original home.

Almost any museum could install a library in front of its building inviting passersby to pause, browse, and take a book. Selected books could relate to museum exhibits and programs, feature local authors, or celebrate the region's history. Designed to be consistent with the museum’s brand and possibly offering seating, a museum can make its library into an inviting and distinctive place. Inside, libraries might be located in exhibits as book nooks offering visitors opportunities to dig into a topic or pursue a question or read for the joy of it. Designated spots for collecting books can help support the exchange.

For some museums, LFL could be more than a rotating collection of free books. Rather it might be an opportunity to advance a museum’s broader interests and goals and create greater impact for children, families, neighbors, or residents. (Check out LFL’s Impact Library Program.) Just as the LFL organization’s 3 commitments (increasing book access, building community, and sparking creativity) readily reinforce one another, a museum’s LFL initiative could be a strategy aligned with broader goals, linked with other museum initiatives, and at the heart of an established partnership. Goals might include increasing access to books for community members and encouraging a love of reading; building awareness of local resources; strengthening a sense of community; introducing the museum to new audiences; sharing resources; or extending learning beyond the museum’s wall. Partners and collaborators might be a neighborhood group, community clinic, libraries, the parks department, the school district, or a local clinic.  

Community-based projects in North Minneapolis, Lake Worth, and Sudan are evidence that these libraries are scalable. They can be laid out across a neighborhood, city, county, or country. The possibilities of a geographic focus are open-ended as an example from Visit Seattle that has 9 LFL library book exchanges shows. A strategy to promote Seattle and invite visits, these libraries are in Austin (TX), Boston (MA), and Chicago (IL). Each library is stocked with books that relate to Seattle (by author, subject, or setting). While a museum might not be marketing to tourists across the country, it may be trying to reach and serve audience in rural areas, connect with a nearby tourist area, or have a sister city relationship in another country. Just as the Visit Seattle libraries are thoroughly Seattle (one is made to look like a Seattle ferry), a museum’s libraries could be made to look like the building, an exhibit, local icon, or a popular landmark. 

Book exchange boxes can offer information and activities as well as books. Depending on the focus of the library or selected themes, there could be bookmarks or booklists to pick up; question of the week to investigate; program or event flyers for the museum; simple directions for how to make a book or a cardboard gizmo; or maps of where other libraries are located. Possible extensions are likely to emerge from topics, collaboration, location, and frequenters of the library.   

Mineral Point, (WI)

In taking a LFL project out into the neighborhood, community, or countryside, a museum starts a journey that could go almost anywhere. It might be possible for…

• Libraries to be a project in a museum’s maker space

• Neighbors to paint the boxes to celebrate their neighborhood

• Community members to study the area proposed for the libraries and decide their locations

• Museum partners to collect books to keep the supply going

• Libraries to be located along a bike trail

• Library users to send photos of themselves and their books

What other ideas do you have about how museums could use the Little Free Library?

Book Sculptures

 "There is no Frigate like a Book, 
to take us Lands away,..." 

(EMILY DICKINSON)

For the ingenuity, beauty, and delight books bring and the unexpected possibilities they offer in their many forms:

Books for hiding 

… for relaxing 

… for play 

… for the garden 

… for the garden wall 

… for fashionistas 

… for celebrating

… for contemplation 

Some of these creations I have come across on my walks and travels. Some have been sent to me by friends and colleagues. A few have shown up as design precedence for projects. All suggest possibilities.

Related Museum Notes Posts

• Anywhere and Everywhere… Books

• Playing with…Paper

Anywhere and Everywhere… Books

Books, front, center and stacked

Years ago I wrote about Anywhere and Everywhere Play in children's museums in an issue of Hand To Hand about creating opportunities for and inviting play to happen in varied and unexpected places. Since then, the anywhere and everywhere phrase and its rhythm have thrummed through my mind, picking up and finishing with possibilities of what, like play, could be anywhere and everywhere. For instance, books.

Like yarnbombing and guerilla gardening, like Peace Poles and bluebird houses, on-the-spot book stops, mobile libraries, reading places, and neighborly book exchanges are popping up anywhere and everywhere in big cities and small towns, in the US and around the world. Inspired by literary, civic, and political spirits, this is a populist echo of Andrew Carnegie's construction of public and university libraries in small towns and big cities across America a century ago. The mobility and versatility of these book spots mean they can, and do, show up anywhere and everywhere as well as go places. They deliver the delight, generosity, and civic joy of people getting into the act to share a love of books, reading, and stories. Passing on transforms readers and booklovers into citizen librarians.

Little Free Libraries

Identifying label with contact information

Little Free Libraries has great ambitions. With a mission to promote literacy and the love of reading and to build a sense of community, its goal is to surpass the 2,500 libraries around the world contributed by Andrew Carnegie. The Little Free Libraries’ world map lists–with GPS coordinates–libraries in 11 countries (including 7 Canadian Provinces) and in 43 of the united States.

The micro-libraries are wooden boxes approximately 23”w x 24”h x 15-7/8”d mounted on posts and filled with books. Built by amateurs and expert carpenters, they are humble and elaborate, creative, practical, and personal. They are constructed of found materials such as cranberry boxes and barn wood and are sometimes muraled and adorned with distinct hardware. Winter hardy, their gable, gambrel, and shed roofs and front doors with latches keep out the elements. Sometimes they are lit and occasionally are accompanied by a stool or bench. I even found one with energy bars.

Books, art, and a place to sit

These are free books, but not simply free books. They are books to borrow, share, pass on, return, and restock that fulfill the meaning of a circulating library. Hardbacks, paperbacks, poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and children’s books, books come from family bookshelves, book drives, and sometimes, as a memorial, from a loved one’s book collection.

Little Free Libraries (LFL) are suited for places people relax and might want a book but forgot one: in parks, playgrounds, plazas, public squares, beaches, and campsites. They are a true gift in places where people wait, in dentists and doctors’ offices, Laundromats, and bus stops. They reinforce the message of places people go to enjoy themselves, connect with others, and learn something, at museums, art centers, and nature centers.  Little Free Libraries have the potential to bring libraries to rural towns and remote places.

This one also offered energy bars

Last week was a good week for finding Little Free Libraries. I came upon 3 in Minneapolis and 3 in small Wisconsin towns. In Minneapolis, one was in front of a house on a leafy street. Settergren’s Hardware has a Little Free Library; it’s located just 2 blocks from the Linden Hills Library in one direction and 2 blocks from Wild Rumpus children’s bookstore in the other. Another LFL is in front of Uptown's Soo Visual Arts Center. In Wisconsin, I found one in a big corner lot in Spring Green and 2 in Mineral Point, one in front of a gallery and the other across the street in front of a hotel.

Referred to as little churches of the mind, water coolers, and bird houses, neighbors gather around the book boxes in front yards, children stop and peek inside, runners pass them along trails, and students find them in the school garden. Little Free Libraries offer a pop-up surprise, a very personal invitation to read, and a generous act from a book-loving stranger.

Book Friends

Expressing the spirit of anywhere and everywhere…books and giving new meaning to pop-up books are two versions of libraries cropping up in urban settings.

Out on a Limb for Books. When the Evanston Library Board (IL) voted in early 2011 not to continue funding the South Branch Library, Friends of the Evanston Public Library were not content to do without a branch library. In less than a month, they funded an experimental space, donated books, and opened The Mighty Twig. Smaller than a branch library, the Mighty Twig circulates books on an honor system and takes donated books to community centers, coffee shops, and schools throughout Evanston.

Portable Reading Room. In 2009, an under-visited Street Lab storefront library created by Sam and Leslie Davol in Boston’s Chinatown was moved two blocks away to the Greenaway because that’s where the people were. That move inspired the Davols to think about how to create a portable outdoor library. They commissioned local architects and Massachusetts Institute of Technology students to create a mobile modular outdoor reading room. The result is a modular library system called the Urban Neighborhood Institution (shortened to Uni) that was financed with donations from Kickstarter crowd-funding website.

The Uni at Boston Children's Museum

The goal of the Uni is to share books, showcase the act of learning, and improve public spaces. 

Modular cubes hold books, objects, and activities on topics related to a specific location, like the Louis Armstrong book cube at the Queens (NY) location. Uni-librarians mix and match the cubes, but some cubes are curated by organizations, educators, and individuals with a passion and knowledge on a particular subject. The Uni has been installed at multiple locations in New York City including the Queens Museum of Art and Queens Library. In June, 2012, it popped up at the Boston Children’s Museum’s waterfront plaza. The Uni is headed for installation in Afghanistan.

A book stop at Bookworm Gardens

More on Micro-libraries

• Book Booths in the UK: www.epublishabook.com/2012/08/05/micro-libraries-the-bookboth-or-phone-booth-libraries/#axzz24gf7aqkk

• The BookYard in Ghent, Belgium: www.epublishabook.com/2012/07/22/micro-libraries-when-books-camp-outside-the-bookyard/#axzz24gf7aqkk

• Corner Library in New Haven, CT: www.emceecm.com/libraries.html

•  Book Bikes: www.shareable.net/blog/the-book-bike-rides-again-video

•  Book Stops: www.shareable.net/blog/how-to-create-a-low-cost-pop-up-library 

 

Learning + Literacy

Several years ago, as part of developing the master plan for the Minneapolis Central Library’s Children’s Library, I researched and summarized connections between learning and literacy. I wasn’t surprised to find connections, but seeing how closely learning and literacy map onto one another was striking.

While I developed this for a library, the close connections between museums and libraries and the relationship between learning and literacy also brought the public value of museums into sharper focus. The same life-long, active, social, meaning-making process that characterizes both learning and literacy is very much at the foundation of what museums do that matters. Engaging with objects, art, artifacts, in family, school, and community groups are the active ingredients of learning and literacy. These activities and experiences are fundamental to the 21^st century learning of museum-goers as well as to the long-term priorities of communities. Every day in museums, millions of people look, point, talk, remember, imagine, and question; they listen, observe, notice, wonder, compare, investigate, reflect, build, and create. In these countless moments are the opportunities for museums to build and strengthen the life-long arc of learning for a five-year old in Cranston, a 12-year old in Norwalk, a family in Bozeman, grandparents in Madison, and couple in Los Angeles.

The interactions between literacy and learning in museums are more than just interesting. They point to where we need to pay close attention, understand and follow the connection, and deliberately shape experiences that invite, encourage, support, extend, and document moments of learning and the span of  learning across a lifetime.

Learning	Literacy
The early years last a lifetime. From birth to five, children rapidly develop foundational capabilities on which later development builds.i. Research on early brain development indicates that organic changes in the brain and environmental effects work together.ii The neural system is activity-dependent, affected by smell, touch, movement, social interaction, talking, singing, cooing, and reading. The adults providing nurturance and support, security, predictability and encouragement are essential for infant learning.iii	Early experiences with language lay the foundation for later literacy iv. Children take their first critical steps towards reading and writing very early in life.v From birth, babies are learning: developing knowledge about spoken language from the sounds they hear, hearing their names repeatedly and listening to simple songs. The sounds and touch that go with speaking and reading to infants and toddlers expand neural connections that are used in reading and writing years later.
Learning begins at home. Long before children arrive at school, the foundation for learning and reading is established. In asking and answering questions, taking children to libraries and museums, spending time on homework, parents convey the value of learning. Dispositions, the tendency to exhibit frequently and voluntarily a pattern of behavior, are more likely to be acquired through modeling by the people around children than by didactic processes.vi	Parents play a key role in raising readers. From early interactions with their parents, children hear sounds, use words, identify letters, and process letter-sound relations–all before entering school. The young child who hears and enjoys many stories is also beginning to read, from learning how to hold a book, to knowing where to begin to read the text, to developing early concepts about print, to understanding narratives.vii
Learning is an active process. Learning is not the passive acceptance of knowledge that is out there but involves the learner in engaging with the world. Learners use sensory input to construct meaning.viii	Literacy skills develop through active exploration in settings rich with images, words, objects, views, and people to talk with.ix  Wider access to books, and objects, exploring spaces that are engaging, varied and sensory rich, and using authentic props and materials that extend engagement encourage children’s language.x
We learn to learn as we learn. Learning is both building meaning and building systems of meaning. For instance, learning a chronology of dates of historical events also teaches the meaning of a chronology.xi	The more we hear and read, the more we know. Hearing more language and richer language, enhances children’s language development xii. Talking to and reading to children increase their language development xiii  that in turn encourages reading and talking.
Constructing meaning is mental. Making meaning happens in the mind. Hands-on learning and other physical activities may be necessary for learning, especially for children. But learning must engage the mind as well as the hands.xiv	Language is essential for making meaning. Language gives order to thought. Many types of talk help the child to make connections between the meanings and language forms of text and his actual experiences, including the use of language in other familiar contexts.xv
Learning involves language. Language and learning are inextricably enmeshed; language does not just express thoughts but actually helps form thoughts. Learning is mediated by language, socio-cultural context, artifacts, and people.xvi	Talking, reading, and writing build literacy skills and broader understandings. Being read to introduces young children to the parts of a book, to new people and places, ideas, and possibilities. Reading and playing engage children with spoken and written language in a constant back and forth between thought and word.xvii
Learning is a social activity. Learning does not occur in a vacuum but in a social realm in which ideas are shared and shaped through expression and discussion.xviii From the very start, children’s social relationships affect their learning.	Positive social interactions related to reading create a disposition to read. Language, the foundation of reading, is by nature a social activity.xix Parents talking to their infants; a young child being read to in a parent’s lap; a new reader reading aloud to a grandparent; and readers of all ages talking about stories and characters develop and strengthen the habit of reading.
Learning takes time. Over time, meaning is built up layer upon layer, bringing greater depth to understanding.xx  Revisiting an idea; pondering it, playing it out and connecting it with other ideas; testing, reflecting and putting ideas to use take time.	Early, regular, and on-going exposure to language and books builds literacy. Even with very young children, reading a story takes time: time to read, talk about the story, letting the child hold the book.xxi
Motivation is essential to learning. Learning is associated with movement toward an optimal level of neural stimulation.xxii Rewarding activity, a balance between challenge and success and an understanding how knowledge can be used help encourage the effort required to learn.	Personal interests motivate people to find out what they want or need to know.xxiii Interests in hobbies, sports, vehicles, crafts, arts, music, or travel are starting points for reading, finding books, asking questions, and looking up references.xxiv An otherwise reluctant reader may be motivated to read to learn about flight, look up amazing facts, or read about a sports champion.

 

 Now What?

After you have looked over these learning and literacy connections, consider what you might do as you: develop an exhibit, write the annual report, greet a visitor, talk to your board, set materials out for an activity, sell a membership, hire staff, write a proposal, speak at a school board meeting, orient new staff, cultivate an organization to partner with, write job descriptions, introduce an activity in a program, evaluate staff performance, write label copy, develop the budget, update the museum’s FaceBook page, plan a donor event, answer a parent’s question, develop project goals, revise membership benefits, orient interns and volunteers, work with faculty at a college or university, evaluate an initiative, talk to the Chamber of Commerce, convene advisors, or visit your state representative or town councilor. 

______________________________

ⁱ Shonkoff, J. P., & Phillips, D. (Eds.). (2000). From neurons to neighborhoods: The science of early child development. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

ⁱⁱ Shonkoff, J. P., & Phillips, D. (Eds.). (2000). From neurons to neighborhoods: The science of early child development. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

ⁱⁱⁱ Vygtosky, L.N. (1962) Thought and Language. MIT Press: Cambridge, MA. (As cited in Hein, George. (1992). Proceedings from ICOM/CECA Annual Conference, 1991. ICOM.)

^iv Neuman, Susan B. and Donna Celano, (2010). Every Child Ready to Read. Public Library Association., American Library Association: Chicago, IL.

^v Zero To Three: Early Literacy. (2003). www.zerotothree.org/child-development/early-language-literacy/earlyliteracy2pagehandout.pdf.

^vi Katz, Lillian G. Dispositions as Educational Goals. ERIC Digest. 1993.

^vii International Reading Association and The National Association for the Education of Young Children. (1998). Learning to Read and Write: Developmentally Appropriate Practices for Young Children. Young Children. Young Children. Washington DC.

^viii Hein, George. (1992). Proceedings from ICOM/CECA Annual Conference, 1991. ICOM.

^ix Roskos, Kathleen and James Christie. (2001). “On Not Pushing Too Hard: A Few Cautionary Remarks About Linking Literacy and Play.” Young Children: 56:64-66.

^x Roskos, K., & Neuman, S. B. (2001). Environment and its influences for early literacy teaching and learning. In S. B. Neuman & D. Dickinson (Eds.), Handbook of early literacy research (Vol. Volume I, pp. 281-294). New York: Guilford.

^xi Hein, George. (1992). Proceedings from ICOM/CECA Annual Conference, 1991. ICOM.

^xii Hart, B., & Risley, T. (1995). Meaningful differences. Baltimore, MD: Brookes.

^xiii Huck, Charolotte S, Susan Hepler, and Janet Hickman. (1989). Children’s Literature in the Elementary School. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers. New York.

^xiv Hein, George. (1992). Proceedings from ICOM/CECA Annual Conference, 1991. ICOM.

^xv Wells, Gordon. (2003) Children Talk Their Way Into Literacy. In J.R. García (Ed.) Enseñar a escribir sin prisas…pero con sentido. Sevilla, Spain: Publicaciones M.C.E.P.

^xvi Lee, C. D. and P. Smagorinsky (Eds.), (2000). Vygostkian Perspectives on Literacy Research. New York: Cambridge University Press.

^xvii Forman, George E. (1992). Research on Early Science Education. In Seefeldt, Carol (Ed.) The Early Childhood Education Curriculum. Teachers College Press. New York.

^xviii Lally, J. Ronald. (1998). Brain Research, Infant Learning and Child Care Curriculum. Child Care Information Exchange. 5/98. Redmond WA.

^xix Zero To Three: Early Literacy. (2003). www.zerotothree.org/child-development/early-language-literacy/earlyliteracy2pagehandout.pdf.

^xx Hein, George. (1992). Proceedings from ICOM/CECA Annual Conference, 1991. ICOM.

^xxi Huck, Charolotte S, Susan Hepler, and Janet Hickman. (1989). Children’s Literature in the Elementary School. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers. New York.

^xxii Huck, Charolotte S, Susan Hepler, and Janet Hickman. (1989). Children’s Literature in the Elementary School. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers. New York.

^xxiii Falk, John H. and Lynn D. Dierking. (2002). Lessons Without Limits. Altamira Press: Walnut Creek, CA.

Can Museums Say That?

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The US Census recently reported some good news about children and reading. Parents are reading more with their children than they did a decade ago. In fact, according to the report, low-income parents in particular are more involved in reading and talking with their young children. Summarized in the August 9, 2011 Education Week article, Census: Parents Reading More With Their Children this is encouraging news for children, parents, schools, employers, libraries, museums, and communities. Parents' time reading, playing, and talking with their children is considered “quality time” and can have a positive effect on children's developmental progress and success in school.

Some of the largest increases in reading together, playing, and having frequent conversations were for low-income parents of toddlers. This is important and promising for two reasons. First, by far (80%) the greatest variation in public school performance is from family effects, not from school effects. Second, a 1995 study by Betty Hart and Todd R. Risley showed that children of parents on welfare heard significantly less talking by age 3, than children of professional parents. Professional parents engaged their children significantly more in frequent, positive, elaborate verbal interactions that resulted in larger vocabularies before entering school.    

The article points to a convergence of efforts to make parents aware of how important their involvement, in general, and to reading with their children, in particular, is for children’s solid foundation for school. During the past decade, an explosion of programs intended to help parents engage with their children has taken place, from federal literacy initiatives to private non-profit book and literacy programs, including....

...Museums...

…  and children’s museums in particular. The young children and their parents mentioned in the article are the primary audience of children’s museums. They are the toddlers, preschoolers, and kindergarteners and their families served on site in interactive exhibits and family programs; off-site at locations in the community; and through extensive partnerships with early childhood programs and agencies, including Head Start, other programs serving-low-income children, and libraries. Early literacy development is, and has been, a central piece of what children’s museums have been delivering in their role of being both nice and necessary.

A summer 2011 Early Literacy Survey conducted by the Association of Children’s Museums (ACM) summarizing the literacy-based activity of museums that serve children reflects wide-spread activity in this area. Of the 75 museums that responded, 88% and 80% reported that they offer programs or exhibits, respectively, that encourage early literacy efforts and support children’s reading proficiency by the end of 3^rd grade. Relevant and significant to the US Census report, over 69% of children’s museum respondents work with parents and caregivers to promote parental support for early literacy and reading. Nearly 80% of the programs are targeted to under-served audiences. Most of the programs, 92%, serve the same children and families multiple times. Evidence of measurable results is reported in the survey. Nearly 40% of responding museums report conducting evaluations using qualitative and quantitative measures. A small portion of the museums reported powerful educational outcomes.

Long, Deep and Wide

Literacy-based messages and activities have been integrated into virtually every aspect of children’s museum’s reaching back almost two decades. Literacy was the clear priority in establishing the Treehouse Museum (Ogden, UT), which opened in 1992, with a focus on family literacy and children’s literature. In the early 1990’s, Chicago Children’s Museum supported an extensive multi-year literacy initiative for children and their parents in the Robert Taylor Homes housing project on Chicago’s Southside. In 1994, Minnesota Children’s Museum began its long-term literacy initiative, Ready? Set. Read! that, like similar initiatives in other children’s museums, has served as an umbrella for exhibits, programs, and partnerships. In partnership with the American Library Association, the Museum developed Go Figure!, an interactive book-based math exhibit that began traveling in 2000 to more than 75 museums and libraries across the country.

Besides story times, children’s museums post parent messages about reading, train staff to facilitate interactions, develop and loan kits, distribute books, and incorporate parent tips in newsletters. Exhibits based on well-known children’s books such as Arthur, Curious George, En Mi Familia, Where The Wild Things Are, and The Magic School Bus have been in children’s museums and traveling cross country for 2 decades. Early language development was at the heart of Children’s Museum of Manhattan’s 2004 infant-toddler exhibit Wordplay. Libraries were incorporated into children’s museums beginning in 2000 when The Children's Museum (Indianapolis) created Infozone. Other museum libraries, like the Parent Resource Library at the Children’s Museum of Houston serve parents and other key adults in children’s lives. In the Houston museum, literacy efforts are supported by 2,000 FLIP kits in 35 libraries across Houston.

These and other literacy efforts have had support from the 1995 Museums and Library Services Act that merged museums and libraries at the federal level. A further boost to museums involvement with literacy-based experiences came from the 1995 Library of Congress Center for the Book conference in St. Paul (MN) where existing museum-library partnerships were shared and new possibilities for working together to bring story and literacy-based experiences to children and families were explored.

Here’s the Question

The increase in parent involvement nationally is encouraging and clearly part of an overall mix of partnerships and programs. While difficult to directly link broad increases in parents reading more to their children to specific interventions, I have been noodling about a question. To what extent can children’s museums associate their efforts to the broad increases highlighted in the Census Bureau data?

I am not able to answer to this question. There’s not enough information and I don’t want to invent data. But it's too good an opportunity to let get away. Children’s museums’ early literacy opportunities have been broad and far-reaching; they have been delivered through varied formats to toddlers, preschoolers, and kindergarteners and their parents at museums and in early childhood programs in towns and cities across the country. These efforts are part of a larger trend that could inform education researchers and policy makers. They have implications for children’s museums as recognized and valued assets in their communities as well. Here are 3 suggestions for how children’s museums could leverage the significant early literacy work they have already done.

•                  Build on the literacy work done over the last 2 decades, intentionally, explicitly, and with greater rigor. Carry on with early literacy as a priority or thoughtfully integrated into new initiatives, exhibits, programs, and partnerships. Allocate resources: time, expertise, and funds. Deepen familiarity with relevant studies like Hart & Risley’s; study effective interventions. Assess and improve existing strategies–programs, exhibits, kits, messages–using evidence-based practices. Develop a logic model; monitor indicators; track and share results.

•                  Use existing literacy work to build a better case to show museum supporters how they matter in a recognized area of need. A stronger case starts with looking closely at the data children's museums do have about the programs they have offered; drawing on ACM’s survey; and referencing the trends reported in the Census data. At a minimum, museums can say to their stakeholders–board, staff, volunteers, partners, funders, and policy makers, “There’s greater promise here. We’re actively engaged in a high priority area where evidence is mounting about positive change. We’re encouraged. Help us with this important work.” 

•                  Conduct a study survey so in 10 years when another Census report comes out, museums won’t be asking themselves whether they contributed to the change in parents reading more to their children or to more children reading at grade level. Thinking ahead is critical to showing impact. This would involve an extensive coordinated effort among many museums with a representative sample of families in communities served by children's museums across the country, looking at museum program participation, and exploring parent involvement in reading to their children and in their child’s education. 

I want to read this study.