How preschool children think about libraries: Evidence from six children’s libraries in China

Abstract

Listening to young children’s voices is crucial to improving children’s library services. The first step is unveiling how young children think about the library. Thus, researchers recruited the Mosaic approach including photography, interview, and drawing to explore the features of children’s libraries in children’s perspectives in six libraries in China. The results indicate that first, the children’s library is a “primary third place”. Second, the children’s library is an overlapping of home and society. Third, children can read books in the children’s library, but not just read. Fourth, the children’s library improves children’s awareness as patrons. It is suggested that young patrons already form initial understandings of the library, begin to complain about any problems, and put forward requirements for the library. Additionally, their interpersonal needs should be paid attention to. Therefore, librarians and researchers should respect the rights of children and listen to their voice when designing and providing library services associated with children.

Young children’s information-seeking practices in center-based childcare

“…This applies to scholarly research that involves children as research participants, as well as elicitations of children’s perspectives by information or childcare professionals as part of their professional practice. Examples of the latter include children’s direct participation in collection development (Plemmons, 2017) and planning and implementing events and programming (Wilson, 2018), while potential examples of the former could include modifying libraries’ policies and physical layouts based on findings that highlight the importance of social interactions for children’s information-seeking (Taylor et al, 2019) and library-use activities (Xu et al, 2020).…”

“…Accordingly, multiple methods of participatory qualitative data collection were used, including participant observation, interviews, child-led tours, and child-generated photography. Child-led tours and child-generated photography are types of task-centered activities that have been successfully used in previous research with young children (see, for example, Einarsdottir, 2005; Green, 2012; Merewether, 2015; Robson and Mastrangelo, 2017; Templeton, 2020; Waller, 2014; Xu et al, 2020). Child-led tours are a type of “mobile interview” in which a child or a group of children lead the researcher through a physical space in response to some type of prompt by the researcher (Johnson et al, 2014b: 42).…”

“…As Julien et al (2011) note, questionnaires and interviews are the most commonly used methods in information-behavior research. Young children’s emerging verbal (McKechnie, 2000; Xu et al, 2020) and literacy skills (Cooper, 2002), as well as their developing cognitive abilities (Xu et al, 2020), have been noted as potential barriers to their participation in such research.…”

“Books, physical spaces, rules, people”: A holistic analysis of young Chinese children’s perceptions of public libraries

“…This study is an integration of a published study and a not fully published study of young children's perspectives of public libraries in China ("perspective study" for short) and preschool children's preferences in libraries in China ("preference study" for short). The perspective study thoroughly described the image of a children's library as perceived by young children (Xu et al, 2020). The preference study revealed young children's favored library activities (Wang et al, 2019) and library services (unpublished).…”

El Enfoque Mosaico, derecho a la participación y la voz de los niños en investigación educativa

“…En China ha comenzado a estudiarse, junto con los niños, los procesos de educación no formal, como el uso de bibliotecas, el desarrollo cognitivo de habilidades de organización, la identificación de patrones por características comunes y la significación de categorías así como el desarrollo de actitudes hacia la biblioteca y la lectura (Xu, Wang, Sturm & Wu, 2018).…”