We Can Facilitate Learning Everywhere
Dowdy’s 2022 article, What the Nordics Can Teach Us About Having Fun, really stood out to me in the Infinite Learning/Learning Everywhere module. Dowdy notes that Scandinavian countries often have infrastructure built for exploratory learning everywhere, with children as a focus, but also with areas for those of all ages to meet and keep that childlike wonder alive. In those spaces, people can learn new things from those around them through casual conversation, and children can freely develop their imaginations and motor skills. I will admit that the article sort of made me resent the way that many parts of life in the United States are not built around caring for people, making their lives easier, or helping them feel more fulfilled. Outside of larger cities, there are not always a lot of spaces with infrastructure that supports walking, biking, or learning through play and exploration. In terms of helping people learn at home, it seems like we are heading down a somewhat grim path as well. That might sound like a bit of a dramatic outlook, but even just the other day, hearing about the Corporation for Public Broadcasting beginning to shut down after being denied government-funded grant money was pretty disheartening (Popli, 2025).
While funding is being slashed for accessible, engaging, and educational at-home media programs that support learning, play, and compassion for all, it’s sometimes hard to remember that this challenging time will not last forever. Change will come around, and there are changemakers working in libraries right now to facilitate learning in all spaces. Dowdy (2022) shines a light on what we can strive for both inside and outside of libraries to let communities know that learning is still valued, and that there are people working to help fill in the gaps.
In a brief Ted Talk (2024), Baltimore librarian Araba Maze told a story about how she was reading to children in her family outside on their front stoop, and then kids from around the block joined in to listen too. She recognized that not all children have access to books for numerous reasons that could include transportation issues, book prices, library open hours that don’t align with a household’s available time to visit, inaccessible late fees, lack of documentation required to apply for library cards, and so on. In response, Araba took to the streets, working with community organizations to hold pop-up book fairs to deliver books to kids for free. She started looking for places with a lot of foot traffic and got out into the community to help put books into the hands of kids who might not have previously had access to them at home on a regular basis. Araba’s work is the definition of meeting people where they are. For those looking to do something similar, she suggested storytime at a local laundromat, advocating for book vending machines, bookmobiles, and more. She recounted tales of pack-horse librarians delivering books over rugged terrain in the 1930s and early 1940s, and discusses how librarianship has evolved today to continuously bring library materials to people, albeit by different modes of delivery. This reminded me of a few things Dr. Stephens (2025) mentioned in the lecture for the Learning Everywhere module…while libraries do provide traditional, formal means of learning, they also provide opportunities for learning in unexpected ways and places, and help to foster the curiosity of the community. Maybe that means holding a storytime or program at a public park, installing a Little Free Library somewhere in the community, or remodeling an old trolley like Araba is working on fixing up right now (check out the awesome short video below to see the before, and plan for the trolley’s future). While infrastructure in the U.S. may not be quite at the level of Scandinavian countries, librarians are still hard at work imagining and developing new spaces to come together, and thinking of innovative ways to inspire creative thought and encourage learning in any place, at any time.
References
Dowdy, C. (2022, February 7). What the Nordics can teach us about having fun. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20220207-what-the-nordics-can-teach-us-about-having-fun
Popli, N. (2025, August 1). What the Corporation for Public Broadcasting shutting down means for PBS and NPR. TIME. https://time.com/7307069/corporation-for-public-broadcasting-pbs-npr/
Stephens, M. (2025). Hyperlinked library learning everywhere [Video]. Panopto. https://sjsu-ischool.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=012f4ddc-7161-407c-b277-af34011b768c
StoryBookMaze. (2025, April 5). Street Librarian transforms abandoned trolley into bookmobile [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/-hGkmKL63_s
TED. (2024, June 28). A street librarian’s quest to bring books to everyone | Storybook Maze | TED [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xfJy96HJqo