Design Thinking With Dads

Engagement | Raise Up | Nashville Public Library

Bringing Books to Life (BBTL) is an outreach initiative of Nashville Public Library (NPL), sponsored by Nashville Public Library Foundation, that emphasizes the importance of developing critical early literacy skills by educating teachers, young children, and parents through joyful story times, family literacy workshops, and teacher professional development.

A father embeds within his book a note to his son (Left). Studio NPL Mentor and one father mix music and words to bring books to life for the father’s children (Right). Photo Credit: Klem-Marí Cajigas

Nashville Public Library’s (NPL) Teen Services and Studio NPL maker space have collaborated with Woodland Hills, a Nashville juvenile detention facility, since 2015 to provide access to books, along with interactive, media-based workshops. After learning that around 20–25 percent of the inmates were fathers, it became clear that there were additional ways the library could support Woodland Hills. NPL staff approached our department, Bringing Books to Life!, to see if we could present our family literacy workshops in the facility. We responded with a resounding “Yes!” We then used Design Thinking to create a program just for these young fathers. Because incarcerated teenage fathers were a new audience for us, the Design Thinking process would allow us to get to know them and prototype a program that builds on their interests and experiences.

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