Online exhibitions for the Digital Public Library of America showcase some of DPLA's vast resources and make them more accessible to viewers. DPLA particularly wants to draw more young people to its collections and to be of use to teachers and students. In our exhibition, we chose a topic of interest to everyone: childhood. Our exhibition comprises 40 images, metadata, and text about children's home lives, school, playtime, and work. We focus on the transformation of childhood in America from the 1880s to the 1940s resulting from the migration from country to cities, the rise of the middle class, and the enforced assimilation of multiple cultures into one national identity — the production of "good citizens." Our digital exhibition shows how class, race, gender, and national origin shaped the invention of childhood, and that in the early 20th century, there was no single American childhood, but many childhoods encompassing myriad experiences.

Kōjām is a Marshallese word for a door, doorway, or gate. This project, developed in partnership with the U.S. Embassy Majuro, has resulted in a new virtual portal – a single, straightforward website that directs students and educators in the Republic of the Marshall Islands to thousands of eBooks currently available for free from a variety of online sources. It gathers links to these sources together and describes them in one convenient place. In the future, if additional funding is secured, this portal is poised to link to even more titles available via an OverDrive subscription. The Marshall Islands are extremely geographically isolated, but their relationship to the U.S. remains close and unique. Enhancing educational opportunities available to Marshallese students is a priority for the United States. The U.S. Embassy Majuro seeks to increase student access to eBooks and to encourage digital reading. Kōjām is an important part of this effort.

Communication is an essential tool to express our needs. Unfortunately, not everyone has the skills or foundations necessary to communicate. Children who fit this description require additional support to build their verbal skills and may need training to interpret what others are trying to say. Point is a free tablet application aimed at giving children who have yet to build the foundations of communication an alternative voice. It does this by providing prepackaged line drawn icons that cover words commonly used among young communicators, but also gives you the ability to create your own words. Point focuses on the first words of communication rather than complex sentences like other applications do. Whether your child is at school, the park, or at the dinner table, Point provides your child with a large vocabulary in a quick and easy to access format.

Many children use technology regularly but are unfamiliar with underlying concepts of computer programming. ScratchJr is an introductory programming language aimed at users ages 5 and up. Similar to the Scratch programming language developed at MIT, ScratchJr works like a jigsaw puzzle, directing users to snap together pieces of code to create strings of commands. Through a series of four after-school workshops, we utilized ScratchJr on iPads to introduce coding and programming basics to twelve 2nd and 3rd grade students at Northgate Elementary School. Under our direction, students learned to create video game narratives in which they controlled their characters' movements, appearances, and speech with the coding commands available on the application. In our final lesson, we introduced students to the original Scratch and collaboratively created a game. We hope that our computer science-based program has given students increased confidence with technology, and has fostered an interest in STEM fields.

Do you ever feel like you'd be lost without your phone, or find it hard to put it down? Are you curious to know what it’s like to be a little less dependent on your phone and a little more in charge of how and when you use it? Transcend provides a fun, simple way to help college students take control of their technology use and explore new life experiences. You earn and achieve badges while recording focused time engaged in a range of self-selected activities, challenges, and reflections. Experience a sense of accomplishment by charting your activities and cultivating time management skills. Gain control of your technology use by monitoring your usage hours everyday. Gain personal insight by reflecting on your technology habits. Transcend provides a self-directed method for helping you to shift the balance in your life from app-dependence to app-enablement.

Multnomah County Library’s (MCL) Día de los Niños y Día de los Libros is a multicultural celebration of childhood, literacy, and community connections. In partnership with MCL’s We Speak Your Language Department and 11 library branches, our team streamlined the promotion, planning, and organization of three Día programs. Previously, Día was designed and implemented by individual library branches, but was then centralized to maximize staff time. We coordinated all aspects of the program and prepared supplies in advance. According to patron, volunteer, and staff evaluations, we improved the planning process and delivered an outstanding library program. This year, over 3,600 patrons of diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds came to the library for three Saturday celebrations in April. Families participated in literacy activities and learned about free library resources.  After attending Día, many families indicated they were more likely to read to their children and return to the library.

Teen pregnancy rates vary widely throughout North Carolina, corresponding with access to effective sex ed training, and spiking in rural southeastern counties. Reaching teens in their mode of information behavior and with content that they can relate to and trust presents a barrier to providing effective sex ed. We did extensive research and made recommendations for MyHealthEd, an organization adapting an existing curriculum to create a comprehensive online sex ed program for North Carolina teenagers, and rural high school populations in general. The adaptations will bridge the gap in content, language, and mode of access. The suggestions for content (gamification, interactive peer-peer scenarios, digital storytelling) offer the potential to transform sex education nation- and worldwide, as well as online learning overall.

With the influx of children entering elementary school born after 2007 (notably, the year of the first iPhone), it is increasingly important for school libraries to consider the role of electronic materials in the library. Studies have shown that elementary schools across the nation are less likely to provide eBooks to their students. Here in the West, fewer schools offer eBooks than any other region in the United States. We have created a plan for the implementation of an eCollection at Fernwood Elementary School in the Northshore School District (NSD). Together, we will meet the information needs of Fernwood’s students and help this school district move into the digital age—making NSD a model for future schools in the Pacific Northwest. Our students are digital natives. It is time for libraries and schools to address their specific needs and bridge the remaining gap between technology and education. 

OpenDoors is a readers’ advisory program aimed at middle- and high-school-aged readers. Our goal was to adapt librarian Nancy Pearl’s concept of the “four doorways” of adult readers’ advisory (plot, setting, character, and language) for use with YA works. Working with St. Thomas School, our team created an informational poster, bookmarks, and a Tumblr blog. Students are provided with a number of titles as a starting point and encouraged to explore further and to share their own discoveries via Tumblr. For some readers, these materials may get them thinking about why they enjoy the books they do and encourage them to seek out more diverse reading materials; others may use the categories simply as a field of suggested titles to draw from. In either case, they will be making new finds and actively considering what they liked about the books and why.

As in many libraries across the nation, the Iowa City Public Library (a single-site system) in Iowa City, Iowa, has witnessed a decline in circulation of young adult materials and participation in teen programming. In order to assess young adult (here defined as those from ages 12-18) interests and possible barriers to library access and use, I have observed teen center traffic and program participation, collected focus group responses, and conducted a survey of 200+ local members of the target demographic. I will present the Iowa City Public Library with an executive summary of this data, highlight the teen services’ successes, and offer a multi-pronged approach to both better meet the needs of their existing young adult patrons and attract new ones by a.) reconsidering the structure of programming, b.) incentivizing in-house and off-site library participation, and c.) fostering stronger connections to the teen populace at large via social media.