Initial findings from a three-year international case study exploring children's responses to literature in a digital library.

ABSTRACT

This article examines children's responses to self-selected books in a digital library and begins to identify patterns in those responses. As part of a larger longitudinal study, the study presented here is an analysis of 241 book response forms submitted by 12 children from 4 countries: Germany, Honduras, New Zealand, and the United States. The children described most of the books they read as being funny or happy and generally rated them with four or five stars (out of five stars). The most commonly identified types of responses were those expressing like or dislike, summarizing the text, or explaining how the book made the child feel. Two factors were identified that influenced response patterns from the study sites: the data collection instrument and adult mediation. This research has implications for library program development related to recreational reading and for changes in the procedures for data collection in this area of research.

INTRODUCTION

It is important that school and public librarians understand how children respond to the literature they read not only for school but recreationally so that they can effectively develop collections and programs that address and respond to children's interests. Library professionals serving children all over the world share this responsibility, which is amplified by the need to provide effective services to increasingly diverse user communities from Emporia, Kansas, to Wellington, New Zealand. While many studies have looked at cross-national assessments of students' school achievement in various subject areas (Forshay & Husen, 1962; Heyneman, 2004; International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement [IEA], n.d.; National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], n.d.; Purves, 1973), few studies in the library and information studies literature have investigated the responses that children have to books read aesthetically, or recreationally. Virtually no international comparative studies have been done to explore children's responses to books read "for fun" across countries or cultures because until recently it has not been possible to provide identical collections of materials simultaneously in multiple locations.

Today, however, Internet technology makes it possible for users all over the world to access the same collection of materials on demand through digital libraries. With the development of digital collections, such as the International Children's Digital Library (ICDL), created in 2002, it is now possible to explore patterns in readers' responses to self-selected items in multiple international settings. By exploring patterns in readers' responses in different nations and over time, this research may begin to provide a greater understanding of children's interactions with books selected for recreational reading. This knowledge can then be applied to the tailoring of collections and services that better meet children's dynamic information needs. The work presented here offers a unique glimpse at international patterns in reader response and begins to address the paucity of reader-response literature in the library and information studies field. This article presents the preliminary findings from year one of a three-year longitudinal study designed to investigate that relationship. This research is guided by the following questions: What patterns exist in children's responses to literature? Do variations exist by country? If so, what factors influence those variations?

PREVIOUS RESEARCH: READER RESPONSE THEORY

Reader response theory posits that every reader constructs meaning from an interaction with a literary work. This constructed meaning is greatly influenced by factors such as feelings, beliefs, the structure and elements of the text, and the reader's context at the time of the interaction (Probst, 2003; Rosenblatt, 1978). Reader response theorists also hold that the reader's response may change frequently and dramatically during an interaction with a text (Newton, Stegmeier, & Padak, 1999; Rosenblatt, 1991). This one-to-one interaction between the reader and the text is known as a "literary transaction" (Hepler & Hickman, 1982; Rosenblatt, 1978).

Martinez and Roser (2003) report that, although adults and children process meaning in literature differently, young children are capable of making interpretations, thematic statements, and connections to their lives from what they read. Probst (2003) focuses on children's responses to literature, adding that, as individuals, children bring different experiences, histories, beliefs, contexts, and purposes to the act of reading, and, therefore, their responses and interpretations of what they read will differ. Meaning, he adds, is created from the interaction between the reader and the text.

Since the late 1920s, reader-response researchers in education have attempted to understand the transaction that takes place when children read a literary work (Probst, 2003). Although reader-response research has considered the context, or settings, in which reader response takes place--including the home, classroom, and society--little research has examined international settings since Purves's (1973) nine country study. In his research Purves examined the relationship between culture and reading comprehension and found that the environment (home and school) had a stronger effect on comprehension than did the school curriculum.

Library and information science (LIS) researchers also have begun to look at children's reading responses (Steinfirst, 1986; Vandergrift, 1987). Steinfirst (1986) examined the usefulness of reader-response criticism as a method for understanding children's engagement with literature. In an empirical study, Vandergrift (1987) analyzed students' responses to fantasy and discussed the implications those responses could have for collection development and program planning for children. In later research Vandergrift (1990) tested a model of children's meaning-making processes with ninth and tenth graders from three urban high schools in the United States. The model depicted readers moving from very personal, or "felt," responses, to more public, or "social," responses. Upon analysis of students' written and oral responses to "My Friend Bobby," a science fiction short story from The Counterfeit Man (Nourse, 1967), she found that the model was not disproved and that the students grew to appreciate their personal responses and to understand the social construction of meaning.

There is a need to continue Vandergrift's research by further investigating how reader-response findings can be used to improve library services to children. While educators have explored students' responses to literature in the classroom, LIS research may add to this body of work by exploring the responses that children have to books that are read for pleasure. With a better understanding of how children respond to literature, in both digital and physical formats, library and information science professionals can more effectively develop policies, collections, and programs that complement the needs and interests of their local youth populations.

THE RESEARCH STUDY, PARTICIPANTS, AND LOCATIONS

The ICDL is a research project that focuses on creating a digitized collection of international children's books available on the Web. A major function of the research is to develop a greater understanding of the relationship between children's access to a digital collection of multicultural materials and their attitudes toward books, libraries, reading, technology, and other countries and cultures (University of Maryland, 2002a).

As part of the ongoing research, the research team is examining the longitudinal effects of the digital library on young users. The research findings reported here represent a smaller piece of a more extensive ICDL development and implementation project. The full study, including the aspects of the research being reported in this article, is being implemented in four locations: Wellington, New Zealand; La Ceiba, Honduras; Munich, Germany; and Chicago, Illinois. Site selection was based on the ability to identify children from diverse ethnic and economic backgrounds, as well as the opportunity to take advantage of existing relationships with schools and libraries around the world. The twelve children in the study were eight years old and in the third grade when the study began. Research team members asked a librarian or classroom teacher in each of the four sites to work with school administrators and other educators to identify the child participants. The site representatives were asked to identify children who were eight years old; who were able to speak and understand English to enable communication with the research team; who were likely to continue at the school for the three years of the study; and whose parents were likely to support the research. In addition, the researchers asked that the child participants be of both genders in each setting. The children were not meant to be representative of the entire population of the country nor the demographics of the school. Using the above criteria, the school staff selected the children for the study. Table 1 presents additional site information.

THE DIGITAL LIBRARY MATERIALS

The ICDL is unique as a digital library for children in that it is a collection of fully digitized children's books from countries around the world. Readers have access to more than just pointers or bibliographic records leading to where…