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Introduction
Libraries have been well established as institutions that support learning for their communities (O’Beirne, 2010). While they are recognized as supporting learning for all ages (Campana, 2021; Lenstra et al., 2020; Hoffman et al., 2016), their programs and services for children and families are often particularly robust with offerings that promote literacy (Campana et al., 2016); science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) learning (Shtivelband et al., 2019); creativity (Nicholson, 2019); physical activity (Lenstra, 2017) and more. In addition, the library field has also placed an emphasis on the whole family as an important part of their children’s programs, education and resources. This practice of focusing on and supporting children’s broader families is known as family engagement and has been widely documented in the education field as an important aspect of promoting children’s learning (Weiss et al., 2006) that can lead to better school readiness and achievement outcomes (Henderson and Mapp, 2002). Because school achievement gaps often occur along socio-economic and racial lines (Hanushek et al., 2019), family engagement is particularly important for underserved communities and holds the potential to help decrease these gaps.
Research on family engagement in the library field has revealed that “libraries need to be actively and intentionally reaching out to disadvantaged families, empowering them to lead their children to successful educational pathways” (Lopez et al., 2016, p. 10). This focus on families from underserved groups in particular may be because schools often struggle to reach families from underserved communities with their family engagement efforts due to a variety of barriers (Halgunseth et al., 2009), even though those families could benefit from insight and guidance on supporting their children’s learning (Neuman and Celano, 2012).
In the past, libraries have also struggled with how to best reach and serve underserved groups as many underserved groups do not come into the library due to a variety of barriers (Campana et al., 2022) [1]. Libraries have the ability to make a powerful impact with underserved groups and increase equitable access within their broader community because of their free programs and services, particularly those that focus on learning or that fill other gaps in access for underserved groups. The library field has recognized this and embraced...