The theory of Radical Change, which is based on the digital age principles of interactivity, connectivity, and access, is suggested as a lens to reexamine existing research on youth information-seeking behavior in the digital environment. After a brief review of research meta-analyses, which often point to deficits in youth information-seeking behavior, questions that emerge from this research are suggested. Meta-analyses of gender and information behavior studies find that some recent research disputes former conclusions. Radical Change is applied to an examination of specific facets of contemporary research in order to demonstrate how new perspectives can be gained. This analysis addresses commonalities between information-seeking behavior related to the handheld book with hypertextual qualities and digital materials, the social nature of information seeking, and emerging issues of access. It is noted that the public library as a setting for research has rarely been used, even though its less structured nature might provide insights that do not surface in schools. A look at directions for youth information-seeking behavior research in the future proposes how brain research might shed further light on behavioral observations. Conclusions note existing research and summarize some new points of view and areas for investigation.
A B S T R A C TAcross the nation, librarians work with caregivers and children to encourage engagement in their early literacy programs. However, these early literacy programs that libraries provide have been left mostly undocumented by research, especially through quantitative methods. Valuable Initiatives in Early Learning that Work Successfully (VIEWS2) was designed to test new ways to measure the effectiveness of these early literacy programs for young children (birth to kindergarten), leveraging a mixed methods, quasi-experimental design. Using two innovative tools, researchers collected data at 120 public library storytimes in the first year of research, observing approximately 1,440 children ranging from birth to 60 months of age. Analysis of year-one data showed a correlation between the early literacy content of the storytime program and children's outcomes in terms of early literacy behaviors. These findings demonstrate that young children who attend public library storytimes are responding to the early literacy content in the storytime programs. S torytimes have long been an iconic part of children's services at the public library. The historical version of storytime, story hours, was created in the 1940s to expose children to books and to support a love of reading in young children. In the mid-1950s, librarians began to place an active emphasis on using storytimes to support literacy in young children (Albright, Delecki, and Hinkle 2009). More than 60 years later, storytimes continue to focus on supporting children's early literacy skills and serve as the pillar for a large array of learningfocused library programming designed to reach children from the ages of birth to kindergarten.In fact, 61.5 % of 3.57 million programs provided by public libraries were designed for children
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