Reading communities in the School Library: the role of web 2.0 and social media

Abstract

Literature for children and young people is taking advantage of the dynamics offered by digital world. Web tools and social media are now powerful resources to promote reading and children's literature among the new generations. These tools, due to its interactivity, open the door to new readers that find a new appeal when interacting with literature through these tools. Taking into account this context, school libraries cannot stay apart from the possibilities that these resources can offer for reading promotion. So, in Portuguese school libraries several projects are being developed, based on the dynamics that web 2.0 tools offer. In this paper we present some results of a project developed under a master's degree in School Libraries, at the Portuguese Open University. The results of these studies show a diversity of strategies that are followed by school libraries, trying to involve various actors (teachers, students, parents), thus contributing to the development of reading skills, with positive effects on motivation, reading and writing interests and competences.