Storytelling and libraries are inextricably tied together in the minds of Americans, so much so that when you say you’re a storyteller the overwhelming response is, “Oh, you read (tell) stories to young kids in the library?” It seems to be more a statement than question because, regardless of the answer, they know­“stories” equals “little kids” plus “libraries”­and are not open to other perspectives. With rare exceptions, such as in Miami Dade County, storytelling in Florida’s public libraries is centered on the pre-school story time or story hour. Some libraries include storytelling in summer reading programs, but this is largely focused on entertainment and does not constitute library storytelling as we are defining it here.

Its own art form
A modest review of the literature on the history of storytelling in libraries makes it clear that storytelling in libraries is an applied form of the art and is used almost exclusively in what is now called youth services. This did not occur to me until I began researching the topic. In retrospect it fits with my lifelong observations. Without exception, those who write about storytelling in libraries underscore its purpose to promote literacy and encourage reading. As Janet Del Negro of the Center for Children’s Books puts it, “Storytelling is the bridge between the listener and literature.” In the simplest of terms, library storytelling consists of pointing to the book and telling the story. I found several threads outlining the elements of a good library story hour.

Focus on the child
Storytelling consists of three interactive elements: listener, story and teller. Library storytelling clearly identifies the most important of those elements as the child­the listener­and only after that the story. Janice Harrington, a Youth Services Librarian and outstanding storyteller in Champaign, Illinois, says in her Ten Commandments of Story Programming, “Thou shalt not forget that, after the child, the story is the most important element.” The storyteller is noticeably absent from the list of important things. This observation appears consistent with the literature, in which many references are made to a strong style of telling that focuses on the listener and the story, concluding that if the storyteller knows the story, the words and means to tell it effectively will come. In this sense the genre departs from performance storytelling. For many years, children’s or youth services librarians received training in storytelling both at in-house library training programs common in larger city libraries and at the university level. That is less likely to be true today, as training in Library Science has shifted its focus to the technology in information storage and retrieval. Del Negro writes, in “The State of Storytelling”: “Most librarian storytellers today learn storytelling, by necessity, on the job.”

The story is next
The focus on storytelling as a method of promoting reading means that the use of props or costumes should never hide the story. Harrington mandates that props “should never be old and ugly.” Library storytelling points to the literature­the book is always referred to and usually held up. Telling a literary story as a means of introducing it to the reader is legitimate and considered fair use under copyright protocol. In this regard the storyteller has greater latitude in using literary stories when telling in the library than in other settings.

Opportunities to participate
In common with similar approaches to telling stories to younger children, library storytelling frequently involves active participation of the audience­children and parents or teachers. Library storytellers often tell in school settings as part of outreach programs. Several of my youth service librarian friends up north always scheduled these outreach sessions in the spring to encourage participation in the library’s summer reading program. Teachers and school administrators supported this as a means to maintain and advance reading skills.