Under Our Own Umbrella: Mobilizing Research Evidence for Early Literacy Programs in Public Libraries

A critical perspective on evidence is taken as axiomatic in the practice of librarianship. MLIS students are schooled in techniques for evaluating information sources; policymakers, program developers, practitioners, and LIS educators are encouraged to base decisions on a solid foundation of research evidence; practitioners are urged to provide library users with a range of sources from which to choose. Rarely, however, are critical questions asked about the nature of research evidence, the purposes for which research evidence is mobilized and the political, economic, social, and material consequences that may attend privileging one form of evidence over another. The article seeks to raise such questions. First we discuss how research and evidence have been mobilized in professional literature for children’s services librarians working in public libraries and in children’s services librarians’ actual activities and talk about their support of children’s early literacy. We then consider the forms of evidence being used by children’s services librarians and ask what interests are served by the use or nonuse of particular forms of evidence. Finally we identify implications of our findings. We argue, as does John Budd (2006), that more is at stake than which methods or studies are most effective. We argue too that consequences attend the selection of research evidence, and that the choice of research evidence has implications – often unexpected and sometimes negative -- for public libraries and for their users and staff. Indeed, we seek to demonstrate that the privileging of one form of evidence over others does not further the public library’s democratic mission and may well undermine children’s services librarians’ efforts to advocate for library services