New Article Published in The Journal of Research on Libraries and Young Adults

I’m excited to announce that my students and I have a new co-authored article, which was published today in the Journal of Research on Libraries and Young Adults. The paper, which is titled “YouthStudio: Designing Public Library YA Spaces with Teens,” provides a critical pedagogical and participatory methodological approach to designing public library young adult (YA) spaces with teens. This work builds on the “Community Informatics Studio” engaged scholarship approach with my colleague Dr. Martin Wolske at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Here is the abstract:

This paper describes how research was used to guide the design, implementation, and evaluation of a public library young adult (YA) space design program with teens and librarians through a community–university partnership. Previous studies have shown why it’s necessary for librarians to allow teens to participate in public library YA space design projects. This paper seeks to fill a gap in the literature by contributing a theoretical and methodological framework to study YA space design projects with teens and librarians using critical pedagogy and ethnographic action research. Community informatics is the theory and practice of using information and communication technology in support of community-defined development goals, which might include digital inclusion, civic engagement, and social justice. The Youth Community Informatics Studio, or YouthStudio, is introduced as a model of engaged scholarship that embraces both critical pedagogy and ethnographic action research to show how researchers can work with teens and librarians to design, implement, and evaluate YA space design projects in public libraries, as sites where teens can engage in social change.

Here is a link to the full article, which is online at JRYLA.