The Availability and Accessibility of Award-Winning Multicultural Children's and Young Adult Literature in Public Libraries in Northeast Ohio
Institution: | Kent State University |
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Department: | College and Graduate School of Education, Health and Human Services / School of Teaching, Learning and Curriculum Studies |
Degree: | PhD |
Year: | 2015 |
Keywords: | Multicultural Education; Teacher Education; Library Science; Literature; multicultural literature; childrens literature; multicultural childrens literature; multicultural youth literature; public libraries; library access; literary awards; childrens literature awards |
Record ID: | 2059672 |
Full text PDF: | http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1418075719 |
The purpose of this study was to investigate the availability and accessibility of multicultural children’s and young adult literature as represented by winners of ethnic-specific youth literature awards in selected public libraries in Northeast Ohio. The researcher searched Online Public Access Catalogs for winners and honor books of the American Indian Youth Literature Award, Americas Award, Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, Carter G. Woodson Book Award, Coretta Scott King Book Awards, Pura Belpre Award, and Tomas Rivera Mexican American Children’s Book Award. The data were analyzed for the frequency of occurrence of each title in the holdings of 36 library systems and 172 central libraries, branches, and mobile units within those systems. The results show that only six of the 172 library outlets in the study had more than 50% of the 449 books in the study, while 148 outlets had fewer than 30% of the titles. The average number of books held by library outlets was 85.4 titles, or 19% of the books in the study. This information should be of interest to teachers, librarians, teacher and librarian educators and their students, and others who are interested in multicultural youth literature, as it calls attention to the current availability and accessibility of multicultural youth literature in public libraries, and advocates for all children in this increasingly diverse country to have access to books that reflect their own culture and ethnicity, and other cultures and ethnicities, as well.