Centering Community, Building Equity: A Social Justice Approach to Outreach with Families and Children in Underserved Communities

Host

Kathleen Campana, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at Kent State University’s School of Information. Her research focuses on understanding the learning that occurs for children and families in informal and digital learning environments and how those environments support and impact the learning process. She is the Principal Investigator for Project VOICE (funded by IMLS), Read Baby Read (funded by the William Penn Foundation), and Project SHIELD (funded by IMLS). Her work has been published in Library Quarterly, Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, Information and Learning Sciences, and Journal of Education for Library and Information Science, among others. She has presented at numerous academic and practitioner conferences and has taught online MLIS courses for several years.

J. Elizabeth Mills, PhD, is a research consultant. Her research explores the nature and role of reflection in the ways public librarians plan, deliver, and assess storytimes for young children. With Dr. Katie Campana, Elizabeth has conducted several research studies, including librarians’ use of new media with young children and the role of social justice, value-centric outcomes in public libraries’ outreach efforts with families and young children. She has extensive experience presenting at both academic and professional conferences and workshops, as well as offering research-based training to practitioners. Additionally, she has taught and developed materials for synchronous and asynchronous online courses for masters of library and information science students. Elizabeth is co-author and co-editor of Supercharged Storytimes: An Early Literacy Planning and Assessment Guide and Create, Innovate, and Serve: A Radical Approach to Children's and Youth Programming.

Jacqueline “Jacquie” Kociubuk, MLIS/MEd, is currently a PhD student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Information. Her research is centered around children's informal learning environments, playful learning, public library outreach, and social justice. Jacquie earned her MLIS/MEd from Kent State University and has worked throughout Ohio as a Youth Services Librarian and PreK-12 Educator. In addition to her previous work as an educator in the public service field, she has presented at a variety of practitioner focused conferences both in-person and virtually.

Michelle H. Martin, PhD, is the Beverly Cleary Endowed Professor in Children and Youth Services in the Information School at the University of Washington, a position she has held since September 2016. From 2011 - June 2016 she was the inaugural Augusta Baker Endowed Chair in Childhood Literacy at the University of South Carolina, where she taught MLIS and Education students. Prior to this position at USC, she taught for 12 years in the English Department at Clemson University, where she taught English and Education students. She has been teaching online since 2012 and currently half of her teaching for UW is online.

Additionally, members of the Library Service to Underserved Children and Their Caregivers Committee, will present on current ALSC toolkits available as resources.