Concentric Learning Communities:Educating Rural Library Staff in Principles of Collaborative Family Learning
The Raise Up Radio Libraries research project applies sociocultural learning theories in the public library environment. In conjunction with university-based investigators, rural-serving library staff engage community families in a program to codesign a STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) podcast series that will be broadcast over local radio. The first two libraries to participate represent two distinct models of service for rural communities in the United States. In Texas, the pilot library is an independent organization, operated by a part-time director and dependent on volunteers. In Alabama, the pilot library is part of a three-branch system, which includes service to a large city as well as a rural area. Staff at both libraries actively engage with community members and develop services and programs that meet local needs. Yet the ways in which staff achieve these outcomes vary greatly and often reflect the previous experiences and education of its staff members. The various stakeholders allowed for different learning communities to organically form. This paper explores the impact of the learning community formed by researchers and library staff (Learning Community 1) on the learning community made up of library staff and families (Learning Community 2), a crucial element of the library program project.
public libraries, informal STEM learning, rural communities, library staff training
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Introduction
The capacities for innovation provided by video-conferencing tools built into phones and computers, paired with the advancement of broadband and cellular data networks, leads many American citizens to a risky assumption—that students will quickly move online to learn when civic buildings are forced to close by a pandemic, severe weather, or other emergencies. However, rural-serving educators and librarians are keenly aware of the instability, low-quality, and expensive nature of internet access for their populations (National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (U.S.). Division of Viral Diseases 2021; Lee 2020). In contrast, radio technology is a long-standing connective tool in rural areas, and it is used around the world to engage people in education (Chávez and Soep 2005; Soep and Chávez 2010; Kretz 2017; Richardson et al. 2019). Underscoring the importance of radio, automobile companies like Ford and BMW are grappling with pushback from their constituents and the Federal Communications Commission in the United States on the automakers' plan to remove access to AM radio from their vehicles (Krisher and Grantham-Philips 2023).
Funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the Raise Up Radio Libraries (RURL) project combines radio and podcasting, family engagement, and community building both locally and within librarianship (Evans and Simpson 2021). Researchers use design-based research (DRB) methods (Barab and Squire 2004; Sandoval and Bell 2004), partnering with libraries to create a program based on principles in the connected learning (CL) framework (Ito et al. 2013). In the program, families and public library staff collaborate to create a series of podcasts on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) topics of local concern using best practices for equitable engagement in learning (Bang and Vossoughi 2016; Bell et al. 2012; Caspe and Lopez 2018; Coppens et al. 2014; Hoffman et al. 2016; Ishimaru et al. 2016; Ito et al. 2013; Roque and Stamatis 2019). Local radio stations broadcast these programs while the libraries provide activities to engage the broader community. This results in learning opportunities designed to meet the unique learning needs of each local community.
In this paper, we explore the impact of the resultant learning community formed by researchers and library staff (Learning Community 1) on the learning community of library staff and local families (Learning Community 2). Using data from the project's first year, we answer the following research question: How do learning moments in Learning Community 1 create learning moments within Learning Community 2? Exploring the relationships of these two learning communities and their direct effects in shaping each other provides insight for library and information sciences (LIS) educators and trainers seeking to strengthen the quality of learning opportunities fostered by rural public libraries. [End Page 626]
Literature Review
While there is a vast literature about continued learning and professional development for educators in formal settings, there needs to be more research focused on the continued learning and professional development of leaders working in informal learning environments. LIS literature highlights the importance and value of informal learning environments, such as public libraries, as pivotal locations to support young learners' goals and interests (Yang et al. 2021). Library staff are on the front line with youth implementing projects and programs that are a learning-by-doing approach (Braun and Visser 2017). The literature demonstrates that to adequately prepare library staff to embark on these types of projects and programming, library staff members primarily rely on their learning communities. They seek ongoing, local opportunities for professional development in pedagogies focused on tailored, in-the-moment designs for learning and development (Larson et al. 2015).
Establishing a community of practice is critical for the professional learner (Wenger 1996). Communities of practice help library staff overcome isolation barriers and connect learners by building social learning experiences through professional development opportunities (Moen, Mandel, and Karno 2020). Moen, Mandel, and Karno (2020) explain how students enrolled in LIS courses benefit from the structure and nature of the courses, which organically creates a community. These benefits often continue after graduation. However, it is essential to note that not all library staff, especially those serving rural communities, have obtained formal LIS education. Like the course example, communities of practice also entail library staff who engage with other library staff members. This means that the foundation of communities of practice is a social process. In addition, communities of practice serve to further understanding and knowledge and support learning. Library staff can seek professional development opportunities, often with limited funding, through these communities of practice.
LIS literature recognizes the considerable body of learning-focused studies embedded in professional lives and learning in the workplace for information professionals, but there is limited empirical evidence. In one such empirical study, researchers Namaganda and Walter (2020), surveying library staff from Uganda, found that there was a lack of clarity for what continued professional development is, and instead, participants described continued professional development as an activity, training after initial education, or refresher course. Moreover, the study showed that continued professional development has different connotations for people in specific contexts. This points to the need to study the clarity of education and continued professional development of library staff members in different settings and with different education levels (Namaganda and Walter 2020). [End Page 627]
Phillips and Killian Lund (2021) introduce a model of professional development for youth-serving educators called the mirrored practice of leveling up. The model is grounded in CL and the connected mentor framework. The duo found the professional development process to be a mirrored practice—because it reflected what the mentors were doing in their work and how they taught the youth who came to the program. In other words, they learned by applying the same methodologies, principles, and tools they had facilitated for their students' learning. Calling this process leveling up, these mentors taught each other in the same ways they taught their students, creating a responsive cycle of continuous growth and development for both mentors and students. Mentors learn from their processes with their students and from watching and collaborating, demonstrating the influence of individuals working within the same program and how this similarly influences others who are also involved in the program (Phillips and Killian Lund 2021). Through this lens, professional development and mentoring become iterative, reflective, and collaborative processes, creating two concentric sets of learners and benefiting the intended end-learner (i.e., from the library staff to the participants).
Conceptual Framework
The RURL project concepts are grounded in a sociocultural view of learning. The sociocultural theory is credited to the work of a Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky. The theory emphasizes three fundamental principles. First, development is rooted in cultural interactions and plays a critical role in higher-order thinking skills (Polly et al. 2018). Second, language is viewed as a critical tool in development allowing communication and requiring higher mental processing (Polly et al. 2018). Third, learning should focus on the developmental process rather than products (Polly et al. 2018). The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) was a significant concept in Vygotsky's work. ZPD is defined as "the distance between what one can achieve alone and what one can achieve with help" (Peer and McClendon 2002, S136). This concept "emphasizes that humans develop higher cognitive levels when the gaps in their thinking and problem-solving are supported by adults, peers, or more capable others" (Peer and McClendon 2002, S136).
In concert with these concepts, the RURL project was designed utilizing the CL framework. Dr. Mizuko Ito and her colleagues created the framework "as a participatory approach to youth learning through digital media and technology" (Barrett and Ranallo 2018, 15). Ito and her colleagues' research was initially funded by grants from the MacArthur Foundation, emphasizing learning more about how youth learn outside the classroom with the freedom to explore their personal interests (Barrett and Ranallo 2018). According to the Connected Learning Alliance, the framework comprises three elements: learning, relationships, and opportunities [End Page 628] (Connected Learning Alliance, n.d.). First, learning is a motivation when it is connected to a personal interest. Second, learners need support from peers and mentors to overcome challenges. Third, learners need opportunities to make real-world connections. With these elements in mind, researchers attend closely to learning moments in participant interactions, the relationships that participants rely on and develop through their interactions, and the knowledge participants bring to share within their learning communities.
RURL follows a similar trajectory in considering the application of CL in public libraries as the work of Subramaniam et al. (2021) in their use of design-based implementation research (DBIR) to develop a functional toolkit for CL practitioners. Our approach for this project has focused more on an iterative practice that uses elements of DBIR alongside the CL framework for libraries to establish signature approaches to working with their communities, specifically here, with working with rural communities.
Methods
This project implements a research-practice partnership and uses DBR methods to study the impact of project activities (Barab and Squire 2004; Sandoval and Bell 2004). DBR connects previously developed theories to real-world practices through an iterative design process with four specific guidances: (1) learning theories should inform the research design; (2) the research should address a specific problem with measurable outcomes; (3) the outcomes should structure future design principles; (4) the research design should utilize a variety of measures over an extended period (Scott, Wenderoth, and Doherty 2020).
According to Anderson and Shattuck (2012, 16) "a real educational context provides a sense of validity to the research and ensures that the results can be effectively used to assess, inform, and improve practice." To provide this context, the research design is created through a collaborative process involving researchers and practitioners. The process "begins with an accurate assessment of the local context; is informed by relevant literature, theory, and practice from other contexts; and is designed specifically to overcome some problem or create an improvement in local practice" (Anderson and Shattuck 2012, 17). DBR is an iterative process; therefore, it is understood that there are always areas for future development.
Research Sites
The RURL pilot project started in high-need communities in rural Texas and rural Alabama. These areas were targeted as Texas and Alabama consistently rank below the national average on both vital economic indicators and access to technologies necessary for teaching and learning (Census Bureau, n.d.-a; n.d.-b). In Year One, researchers at the University of [End Page 629] North Texas and the University of Alabama formed a learning community with library staff from a rural-serving library in each state, referred to here as Texas Library (TX-Lib) and Alabama Library (AL-Lib).
Rural-serving Texas library
TX-Lib is a physically small, independent library with a mostly volunteer staff that is rich with resources thanks to the previous library director's pursuit of grants. The staff member working on the project is relatively new to library services and programs.
Rural-serving Alabama library
AL-Lib is a system of three branch libraries and a bookmobile service, with two branches located in a city and the other branch and bookmobile service focused on the county's extensive rural areas. The project was launched in the rural-serving branch and led by a staff team with significant library programming experience.
Project Stages
Establishing the research-practice partnership
An initial task conducted with the participating library staff was to discuss, identify, pinpoint, and write out the guiding principles for the Raise Up Radio program. The guiding principles serve as the conceptual framework of this project. This was done jointly with library staff to ensure that university-based project investigators and library staff members agreed. Additionally, this allowed the researchers and library staff to be leveled, helping to alleviate the power dynamic that can easily be apparent when university-based project investigators engage with community members (Girdharry 2021).
Library staff onboarding
Through regular online group meetings and visits to each location, the group explored the CL framework as the model for considering the learning needs of the families in their communities. They also examined the structure of the Family Creative Learning (FCL) project (Roque and Leggett 2017) as a potential example of applied action on which to build. The CL framework for learning is built on the premise that meaningful learning takes place at the intersection of interests, relationships, and opportunities (Dyson and Larson 2019), but also that learning takes place within the shared purpose and practices of a group or community (Widman et al. 2020). Similarly, FCL underscores establishing and strengthening community through connection and co-learning, focusing on intergenerational learning around technology (Roque and Leggett 2017).
There were several different stakeholders involved in this project. These stakeholders are categorized by their role in the project as well as their level of involvement. The first three groups of stakeholders include individuals who were involved throughout the entire duration of the program: the research team (composed of university-based researchers, authors of this paper), the Texas team (the participating library staff members at the Texas location), and the Alabama Team (participating library staff members at the Alabama location). Additionally, the Pilot Cohort is defined as [End Page 630] the participating program patrons at both the Texas and Alabama locations as well as the Texas team (library staff) and Alabama staff (library staff). The last set of stakeholders is the advisory board—composed of five nationally recognized family learning scholars to guide the research team, and Texas and Alabama teams in program design.
These sessions, as outlined in table 1, allowed these scholars and practitioners to share their expertise while also providing space for library staff members to share their own experiences of work in the field to facilitate broader conversations about what it means to cocreate. These sessions were intended not only to provide additional training and knowledge for participants but also to serve, in many cases, as models for how library staff might consider interacting with their families. Table 1 provides an overview of the sessions offered with some description of how they fit into the intentions of the project.
Working with families
Following this exploration of best practices, each library recruited local families to codesign a series of podcasts that could be broadcast on local radio. Together, families and staff decided on topics and contacted local experts to interview. The interviews were conducted, recorded, and spliced into episodes to be broadcast on local radio and made available via the library and project websites. The families also created simple science experiment kits related to their topic. These kits typically contained materials costing up to fifteen dollars and included activity items for each episode of the podcast program. These were distributed throughout the local community to "listen and learn" along with the broadcast. Each pilot library approached the goal of codesigning a series of radio broadcasts in ways consistent with their structure, community interests, and local assets.
Data Collection
Consistent with DBR principles, various data was collected at different time points throughout the project. Through a digital notebook, research team members shared their reflections after observing project events or interacting with participants throughout the year. Additionally, research team members discussed findings in weekly meetings via Zoom, an internet-based meeting software. Team member observations and library staff feedback were used in designing cohort training meetings. Furthermore, research team members conducted semi-structured interviews with library staff from each location. The semi-structured interviews informed results specifically from the library staff members' experiences with the project.
Data Analysis
Data collection and analysis happen throughout the project, with the research team using a constant comparison perspective to find patterns [End Page 631]
Overview of sessions, 2021–22.
[End Page 632] of co-occurrence (Heath and Street 2008) emerging from the data set. Grounded in sociocultural theory and guided by the CL framework, the research team attended to participant interactions with evidence of these concepts (Merriam and Tisdell 2015). Specifically, we focused on moments that demonstrated changes in learning motivations, relationships between staff, participants, and community members, and opportunities for real-world connections.
Results
Learning Community 1—Researchers and Library Staff
In the first year of the project, the investigators did not provide direct instruction in program planning, with the goal that each library's program would evolve locally to be relevant to community needs. Instead, as described above, the investigators tried to guide their thinking about learning in community through informal learning resources and readings, guest speakers, and discussions, which all focused on community engagement. As participating library staff transitioned from discussing these overarching concepts to meeting with families, the differences in staff knowledge and skills impacted the program's progress.
Rural-serving Texas library
At the Texas location (TX-Lib), our two participating library staff members had different years of experience and familiarity with programming. Frequently, rural libraries employ library staff who may not possess formal specialized training and learning. This was the case with the staff member assigned to work on the project, who had recently finished her undergraduate degree in a non-library science field. Also, like many rural library staff, she had lived in the community for many years, where she still resides. Therefore, she has established social ties in the community but is new to developing a community of practice. After the program at her library finished, this staff member spoke to a research member about how much she had learned by participating in the project. Specifically, she spoke about collaborating with the Alabama library's staff and leading the group of participating patrons. In an interview with a researcher, the Texas library staff member inserted, "Collaboration is best" when scheduling time to collaborate with the Alabama location program library staff member. She stated, "Because the families here have expressed interest in raising chickens … I reached out to the Grayson County Education Extension Office [to ask for live] chicks." The Texas library staff member further discussed her involvement in the project with local families, explaining how she organizes the meetings, sets an agenda for each meeting, and handles other logistics. Ultimately, the Texas library staff member said her role has "been interesting to kind of navigate." Feedback from the Texas library staff participant suggested that learning moments from researcher to library staff member occurred [End Page 633] organically in Community 1, influencing the library staff member's direct involvement and leadership in Community 2.
Nevertheless, the Texas staff member's most evident collaborative learning moments occurred primarily with research team members, Community 1, even after starting to work with families. Observing the program sessions, researchers realized that the library staff member was not connecting what she learned in project onboarding to the real-life opportunity of working with local families. To address this disconnect, two research team members took turns meeting individually and regularly with the staff member. Such direct intervention was outside the original plan because the researchers wanted to observe how each library staff member implemented the learning concepts in their unique situation. However, to ensure a positive experience for participating families of Community 2, the research team offered personalized coaching for the library staff member. They asked reflection questions, provided graphic organizers, and helped the library staff member plan meeting agendas for the participants. When a researcher mentioned Google Slides as a tool, the staff member became excited because she had created many slides for college activities. This enlightenment shows an additional learning moment in Community 1. Soon, the library staff member integrated this tool and other concrete resources into program meetings, resulting in higher participant engagement.
In reflecting on the project as a whole, the Texas library staff member mentioned several practices she had yet to consider in administering library programs before the RURL project. These practices demonstrated a specific consideration of applying participatory design research principles to library work. She discussed shifting from thinking about this project and future projects as needing to be instructor-led to being group-led. About this, the staff member said, "So ultimately, my goal moving forward is to make sure that the people who are involved in a project set everything they can, like the topic and the times that we move forward with different stages, and that sort of thing." In so many words, the staff member described concepts of implementing a learning process that is codesigned, cobuilt, and that was driven by the learners rather than the instructor (Bang and Vossoughi 2016).
Rural-serving Alabama library
At the Alabama location, our three participating library staff had years of experience creating and delivering library programming, from story times to larger family-focused events. Interestingly, this did not lend more confidence to this team's approach but instead had them concerned that they would not live up to the expectations of the project. This area of concern was an unforeseen learning moment for Community 1. The researcher working with the Alabama team had previously worked with the team as a colleague. He acted as the research team facilitator for this group, highlighting known past successes [End Page 634] and comparing what could be done with this project. The Alabama team requested weekly meetings with the researcher to review plans and talk out ideas and concerns. The broadest concerns for this group were the amount of control over the process and the lack of specific requirements for implementation—a feature of the program designed by researchers to give more flexibility and adaptability for the program to be used across multiple communities—meaning that more of the decisions for creation and defining success lay with them.
The concerns were present in team meetings up until the first meeting with the sole participating family. The group had designed an experience for the family to interact with library staff and contribute their own ideas for how the program should move forward, and the family quickly engaged. In meetings following this first session with the family, the team began to show more confidence in the process and their ability to engage in this type of work. Later, when asked about one thing she would change about the program, the librarian's first response was, "I think maybe more specific guidelines?" However, after a moment's reflection, she acknowledged the value of the process, stating, "I think we definitely have the hang of it now. But I think it took a little bit for us to really pick up on what exactly we were doing." The "learning by doing" principle is apparent in this study as library staff members' confidence strengthened as they implemented the project and defined success on their terms. This Community 1 learning outcome highlighted the distance between project conceptualization and project implementation and, eventually, dissemination. This showed the research team that Learning Community 2 does not need to be influenced by the entirety of the project.
Learning Community 2—Library Staff and Families
Rural-serving Texas library
To gather program participants, the TX-Lib staff used the relationship element of the CL framework and personal interests to motivate learning. They talked with local families as they visited the library to solicit ideas and decided on a single topic of interest—raising chickens at home. Staff then advertised the program for both its content ("Want to join our chicken crew?") as well as the format ("Are you interested in podcasting and radio programming?"). This brought in children, teens, and parents with a range of skills and interests. The participants' funds of knowledge, knowledge learned from cultural practices and based on everyday experiences, included raising poultry at home, journalism, and audio editing. The core of this staff-families learning community was the information each person shared and their extended learning networks, which were used to bring in any needed expertise not currently held within the group.
Like the staff member's experiences in Learning Community 1 with researchers and, later, peer library staff, Learning Community 2 experienced [End Page 635] moments of skill-building in relationships with each other and the wider community. Building on library staff social ties, a local teacher who annually raises chicks in her kindergarten classroom served as the first guest speaker to orient families to the topic. A family experienced in raising poultry suggested partnering with the local agricultural extension office to buy eggs and borrow an incubator so library patrons could observe the process of growth and hatching. While this conflicts with the library staff member's memory that she initiated the connection, it also shows the shared knowledge in Community 2.
Through other contacts, staff were connected to an expert in podcast creation who could guide the families on the technical side of creating an episode. This sparked the personal interests of two teen "digital navigators," funded to work in the library by another grant, who then focused on writing episode scripts and editing audio content. This allowed the families to focus on identifying and interviewing experts, recording additional content, and creating related resources. Originally designed as a weekly event, the group decided to take longer breaks between sessions to accomplish project goals, then come together and share progress. The four podcast episodes were curated to be delivered to a radio station on a set date. Library staff contacted the Texas Farm Bureau for guidance on securing a local radio station for broadcasting.
Rural-serving Alabama library
The library staff decided to take the STEM concept and make each of their four episodes focus on a letter of the acronym. Staff created a menu of topics, and participants decided on what STEM phenomena interested them most—the science of audio, the technology of animation, the engineering of robotics/programming, and the math of animation and design. Guided by this, they contacted local citizens with experience in the subjects, including local nonprofit educators, college professors, university students, and entrepreneurs with connections to the library. For example, one episode focuses on the science of sound and features an interview with a local guitar player who manages an open mic night. For technical expertise, AL-Lib relied on an established partnership with a local radio station, first securing time slots for the broadcasts. Podcast episodes were curated one at a time by a library staff member and delivered to the radio station each week.
At the AL-Lib, the staff were eager to build out project plans as soon as possible. The lack of specific direction provided by the research team created concern amongst the library staff that they would do something "wrong." When a researcher encouraged staff to be creative with the resources given, staff explained that they did not want to be the cause of problems with the funding organization. This shows a reservation in Learning Community 1. To alleviate this reservation, the research team informed library staff of their role within the project—which did not include [End Page 636] pleasing the funding organization. Additionally, the research team encouraged library staff to apply their established program skills. Still, the library staff drafted plans and regularly shared them with research staff to confirm continued progress in the "right" direction. As a result, the research team intervened and stopped this negative reservation from entering Learning Community 2. While the complete discretion of creating the program caused some initial concerns, the team developed schedules and tools that will be adapted and used in the resulting toolkit for this project.
One frustration for the AL-Lib staff was the difficulty recruiting participants, which was complicated by COVID-19 outbreaks. As a result, the pilot cohort library staff decided to go deeper with their sole participant family. This family participated in every part of the program, including content selection and planning, interview development, recording, and audio editing. The lone teenager of the program drove the decisions for the subject of each episode, as well as the questions he would ask as the interviewer with the community experts. The AL-Lib team encouraged the participant to follow his own curiosity about the subjects and the questions. From the librarian's perspective, this was the most valuable part of the project; stating, "I think it was great getting to reach a part of an age group we don't normally reach because it's really hard to get teens to come to the library. It was really getting to not only rebuild a relationship with a kid who had gone to the library when he was younger, but to reintroduce him to what the library can offer as an older child." Her post-program plans are to branch into more audiovisual production programs with teens, because she observed that "being able to really get like a hands-on experience with stuff like that will give them like the tools to succeed in education in their life, but also just maybe learn something new and fun."
The project benefited from established community connections with the AL-Lib for expert interview guests and solidifying a broadcast slot on local radio. These community connections played a significant role in recruiting subject experts to participate in interviews. Library staff and one of the researchers for the project, who lives in this community, leveraged their own relationships with friends, fellow nonprofit colleagues, and faculty and staff members from the local university.
In product, the result was a set of four podcasts that included framing from AL-Lib staff, interviews and conversations between the participating teen and subject experts, and a guided set of instructions for completing the associated activity. The instructions usually included the participating teen and a member of the AL-Lib staff. In process, the result was connections both new and strengthened between library staff and community members and connecting an interested teen with enthusiastic, supportive experts. [End Page 637]
Discussion
Applied research projects like Raise Up Radio Libraries demonstrate that sociocultural approaches to learning provide community benefit. This project situated learning within the real-life "laboratory" of a public library. Instead of learning skills in the abstract, participants are given the concrete objective of creating four broadcast episodes on a topic of local interest. Library staff could have individually read about community engagement and family learning on their own. Instead, the researcher-library staff community of practice (Community 1) offered them the opportunity to discuss these ideas with specific applications in mind. This approach of professional education for library staff, which is highly interactive, serves the needs of library professionals well (Moen, Mandel, and Karno 2020; Hamid and Soroya 2015). Moen, Mandel, and Karno (2020) explain that this model allows the librarians to have hands-on learning and questions answered by experts, in this case, the research team and the advisory board. It also gave them the space to apply their own knowledge about community engagement. The family participants, too, were able to bring forth their various knowledge sets and learning networks in the podcasting project. They learned from each other and had the freedom to try new things. Having a community of practice (Community 2) made the learning situation empowering. Wenger (1996) suggests that peer interaction within communities of practice plays a crucial role in fostering collaborative learning, which frequently leads to the cultivation of critical thinking, introspection, and the ability to generate creative ideas within the domain of the community. In Learning Community 2, the community of practice allowed the participants to develop skills by using social ties to invite a guest speaker and recruiting more teen participants to focus on writing scripts and editing recordings. It was not the responsibility of the library staff member alone or a single community member to make things happen. Learners could step forward and step back as they needed and still be a valid part of the project.
Implications
The researchers observed connections between LIS education and community participation throughout the project. The library staff who participated in the program's first cohort had different levels of formal training and experience. The project highlighted these differences and other challenges of library staff members in small and/or rural locations. While staff in both locations engaged well with their communities, their ability to successfully codesign programming correlated to previous LIS education or other applicable experience. From this pilot, we can infer a few points applicable to training library staff in small and/or rural locations in preparation for codesigning learning opportunities in their communities.
First, trainers should consider library staff members' strengths and [End Page 638] needs in projects related to goals and assets within the libraries, families, and communities. Before staff begin work, they need tools to assess their current skills related to codesigning, CL, and community partnerships. Using the results of this assessment, trainers, and staff can locate the resources and activities to build up skills needed for the project. The asset-based approach adheres to CL and constructivist principles grounded in sociocultural theory with a broader assumption that communities, including library staff and their patrons, bring a wealth of knowledge to any new learning context. All parties involved can contribute, and the more everyone is involved in creating the learning environment, the more everyone (including library staff) learns, grows, and creates potential for future connections and programs.
Second, trainers, especially those with grant funding, must emphasize development through the project process and deemphasize performance goals. A significant focus for the project has been to create innovative yet sustainable means for libraries to engage with their communities using community-specific channels. As noted in a recurring theme in work with the AL-Lib, the focus of work on this project, from the library point of view, should be on capacity building for the library itself, with consideration for how these types of codesign programs may be iterated upon over time.
Third, the best resources trainers can provide to library staff will offer scaffolding for their professional development while leaving plenty of space for local creativity. Developing and implementing community programs that utilize both the codesign aspect as well as technologies and workflows (e.g., media production and publication) can be overwhelming, even for more experienced library staff.
Conclusion
In professional and academic circles, we use the blanket term "rural" to designate a wide range of communities. Programs designed to address rural areas must recognize and plan for the fact that not every rural community is alike in their resources, challenges, and needs. The research team assumed that participating library staff possessed a certain set of skills related to library programming. In the future, it is important to identify (1) the skills needed to implement a program, (2) the existent strengths as well as gaps in a staff member's skill set, and (3) the resources to train the library staff and prepare them for success. Each participating library has different assets that are unique to their community. While creating and implementing a program like the RURL project requires a significant lift, the project yielded results that showed that guidance and collaborative community support were the keys to success. Recognizing these needed structures, the research team and the pilot library staff from Texas and Alabama will work collaboratively to create a flexible toolkit with a paced outline and suggested benchmarks. The design and delivery of the toolkit [End Page 639] will maintain a balance between structure and openness, with content that will focus on applying CL concepts to programs, specifically in libraries in rural areas. Currently, most resources concerning the CL framework reference larger library systems in urban areas. The toolkit will provide a resource with content targeted specifically to the needs and challenges of rural libraries, including processes for identifying resources within the community, program planning with limited staff, and aligning the program to the libraries' strategic goals. Through the researcher-practitioner learning community, the whole team can support each other in identifying and building upon these assets.
Sarah A. Evans (corresponding author), MLIS, PhD, is the Presidential Early Career Professor in the College of Information at the University of North Texas. She serves as the director for the Children's and Young Adult Librarianship program and as codirector of the Multiple Literacies Lab. Her research examines the literacies and identities taken up in self-directed, voluntary learning experiences. She holds a bachelor's degree in drama, a master of library and information science, and a doctorate of philosophy in learning sciences from the University of Washington, as well as an elementary education certificate from Western Washington University.
Lance Michael Simpson is the assessment librarian with University Libraries at The University of Alabama. His research is focused on informal learning environments in public and academic libraries, and broader learning ecosystems at institutions, and in communities.
Lacy Noel Molina is a PhD student in the Department of Information Science at the University of North Texas. Her research examines ethical and legal implications of oral history and archiving. She received her BA in political science and MA in history from the University of Texas-Permian Basin. Lacy is also a Texas certified 7–12 grade English language arts teacher and school librarian.
Christy Stanley is pursuing a PhD in instructional leadership with a concentration in instructional technology at The University of Alabama. She received an MEd in instructional design and technology from George Mason University, an executive MBA from Troy University, and BS in business administration from Auburn University.
Acknowledgments
This research study is conducted by the University of North Texas and The University of Alabama. It was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services through IMLS Grant Number RE-250133-OLS-21. We gratefully acknowledge the library staff and families that partner with us in this project.
