Skip to main content

Research Repository

Advanced Search

Cooking the books: what counts as literacy for young children in a public library?

Smith, Helen Victoria

Authors



Abstract

At a time when government funding cuts mean that public libraries face an uncertain future and need to make sure they stay relevant to young users and their families, this paper explores what counts as literacy for young children in a public library in a town in the East Midlands, UK. It is based on a study which adopted an ethnographic approach, drawing on Lefebvre's spatial theory to understand how a library space presents literacy to young children and their carers, and how this then shapes the literacy practices and events that happen in this space. The study shows that dominant discourses are bound up in what the library staff understand to be their role in promoting and supporting young children's literacy, and that, often, they organise the space and literacy events in ways that reflect these discourses. However this paper argues that it is not only the library staff that create space in the library, as carers and their children are sometimes seen to create alternative spaces which challenge and subvert the way the librarians would like the space to be used and understood.

Citation

Smith, H. V. (2018). Cooking the books: what counts as literacy for young children in a public library?. Literacy, 52(1), 31-38. https://doi.org/10.1111/lit.12121

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Feb 10, 2017
Online Publication Date Jul 14, 2017
Publication Date 2018-01
Deposit Date Jun 25, 2019
Journal Literacy
Print ISSN 1741-4350
Electronic ISSN 1741-4369
Publisher Wiley
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 52
Issue 1
Pages 31-38
DOI https://doi.org/10.1111/lit.12121
Public URL https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1867463
Publisher URL https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/lit.12121