From a Children’s Storytime to Library Awareness Campaign, RWU Students Work with EveryLibrary to Stage a Local Public Relations Campaign

Providence, RI – As part of an experiential public relations campaign, Public Relations students from Roger Williams University partnered with EveryLibrary on Saturday, March 1, to host a multilingual story time at the Rochambeau Library in Providence. The event gave students real-world experience in their field as they brought public awareness and media attention to the importance of accessible libraries across Rhode Island by showcasing readings in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and American Sign Language (ASL).

At the children’s story-time, Providence Mayor Brett Smiley read the childhood classic, The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. Smiley praised the Public Relations students for their hard work on the event and using their skills to shine a spotlight on libraries as a vital resource and an inclusive space in the community. “One of the things that's special about today is showing that reading can be accessible in any language,” Smiley said.

One of the multilingual story-time selections featured a reading in Spanish of Do You Know a Melipona Bee, a children’s book written and published in Spanish and Mayan, in addition to English, by Denielle Emans, RWU Assistant Professor of Graphic Design Communication. Emans was honored at the event and offered book-signings to the families.

The children’s reading time was part of a comprehensive public relations campaign that is being developed by RWU Public Relations students for the Bateman Competition through the Public Relations Society of America. The student team is localizing a Rhode Island-based “Libraries are the living rooms of communities” campaign, which highlights the need for libraries to reflect the diverse communities they serve.

“This academic competition is all about applying the practices we learned in our classes,” said Claire Kelley, a junior Public Relations major from Lebanon, Conn. “It’s all about how to apply the knowledge that we’ve learned in more than a theoretical way, but in an everyday way that we can build our careers with.”

Throughout the semester, these RWU students are creating community “living room” sets across Rhode Island to support the organization’s message. For the multilingual story-time at Rochambeau Library, they earned coverage from local television affiliate NBC 10 WJAR, and their efforts were also highlighted in a Johnston Sunrise article, “Libraries are more than just books.”

While attending the library story-time, Carina Pinto de Chacon, Chief of Family and Community Engagement at Providence Public Schools, celebrated the RWU students’ campaign and said she hopes this event will help foster “a strong collaboration between communities, schools, and libraries,” and continue to allow “public libraries to be spaces of enrichment and access for families and students.”