In the past, we talked about how public libraries are an important part of the early childhood education and care ecosystem. Here is a real life example of that. At The Watertown Public Library, Children’s Room Librarians have long done story times for young children. This is a great way to expose children and their families to a variety of quality children’s literature. However, when the pandemic hit, doing that live in person was no longer a safe option. The Librarians have stepped up to the challenge big time since the Spring when the pandemic first started by doing story times on Facebook Live on average of 3 times a week. The fact that these story times are done by familiar faces that children who patronize the library have connections with, make them more special than a child just watching a random youtube video of the story. In addition, once the pandemic is brought under more control, children will be able to flock to the library and see the librarians in real life continuing that connection. Research shows, that having positive connections with adults in their community is beneficial to young children’s development. Both the in person story times from The Watertown Librarians and these Facebook live story times are a way to build those types of connections. Kudos to The Watertown Free Public Library librarians and librarians across the country/world providing similar services. You can watch some of the story times embedded below.