INF533 Digital literature from a public library …

By Judy Hannah : posted 26 July 2020

Assessment item 1 – Online blog task

I work in a public library delivering children’s services. During the shut-down of public libraries due to COVID-19, of course we had no-one coming into our libraries. We have now re-opened a few weeks ago, however none of the regular, in-person programs we were running before have started up again, since it would not yet be safe for public health to do so.

So in the absence of now not being able to deliver programs, we’ve had to find alternative ways and offerings to reach our audience.  And our audience is the family unit, not the child alone.  We are therefore really trying to engage with the whole family, and persuade “mums and dads”, and grandparents that reading, singing, talking to and even just playing with the very young is very important and beneficial for their development, including the development of pre-literacy skills.

So in the last few months I’ve become much better acquainted with pre-existing online story resources.  Story box library is a well-known Australian story-reading resource which public libraries can subscribe to and provide access to their library members.  At our library, we began producing a weekly e-newsletter during the shut-down, which we filled with content for our various demographics, from the very young through to seniors.  For preschoolers, we included links to read-aloud stories on Story box.  The picture books chosen on Story box are always Australian and published by  reputable local children’s publishers. The production values are high.  Actors, comedians and sometimes the writers themselves are the readers of the books, and up-close focus on the illustrations in the books is an important feature of the production; sound effects are also often included. Schools can also subscribe to Story box, I believe.

Story box logo

However I wanted to find similar resources from further afield; and find them I did! The excellent Storyline Online, created and funded by the SAG-AFTRA Foundation in the USA, is similar to Storybox, in that well-known actors (and sometimes singers or politicians) read a picture book aloud which is recorded and available on the website.  There is also an app that you can download to your phone. It bills itself as “an award winning children’s literacy program.”  The production values on this one are next level!  While the foundation of every recording is an actual print picture book, they “enhance” the book by adding animation to the illustrations, sound effects and musical accompaniment. Some stories are signed using American sign language. The picture books chosen are very much predominantly American, although I did find an older (1984) Aussie classic picture book on there, Mem Fox’s “Wilfred, Gordon, McDonald Partridge”, so that was a surprise. And for all you teachers out there, many of the scores of recorded stories include teacher or activity guides, and suggested reading age level.  This is a very slick and professional resource, which does not require a login the way Story box does.

Storyline Online’s home web page

Another digital picture book resource I found during this time was Tata’s Storytime from the UK. This is similar to the other two, in that, actors read a picture book aloud with is recorded and made available on the Tata’s Storytime YouTube channel, with focus on the illustrations and some sound effects added. The unique point of this resource is that all the readers (and the writers of the books) are people of colour, of African, Carribbean or African-Amercian heritage.

Tata storytime logo

I can well imagine that these three resources all received a lot of attention around the world when public libraries went into shut-down and families could no longer borrow picture books for their children. I know that I made good use of all of them when looking for content to include in our library e-newsletters, emailed weekly to our library members.

In the public library where I work, we are now also beginning to produce our own recordings of storytimes which will be accessible via the library’s social media.

Story box library. (n.d.)  https://storyboxlibrary.com.au/

Storyline Online. (n.d.) https://www.storylineonline.net/

Tata storytime. (n.d.) https://www.tatastorytime.com/