Middle Country Library Foundation, Incorporated (Middle Country Public Library)

Family Place Libraries will partner with the Smithsonian Office of Educational Technology (OET), the Goodling Institute for Research in Family Literacy at The Pennsylvania State University, and the Public Library Association to adapt, evaluate, and disseminate the Smithsonian OET’s free, online Talk with Me Toolkits (TMTs) for use in libraries’ family literacy and engagement efforts. Project activities will include adapting six TMTs to complement children’s books in public libraries and for use in family programming; testing the TMTs in four geographically diverse libraries with 80 underserved families; evaluating the project; and training librarians across the United States to use TMTs and develop digital collections. The project will ensure libraries are successfully using the TMTs to help diverse families access and use digital resources and help librarians learn how to build their own TMT collections for use in family programming. As a subrecipient, the Goodling Institute will lead the evaluation, develop the data collection instruments, analyze the data, participate in advisory committee meetings, and help carry out project dissemination activities.