The 2012 YALSA/VOYA Frances Henne Research Grant Committee congratulates this year’s grant recipient, Sylvia Vardell.’ Her research proposal is entitled, Poetry Books and Apps: Complement or Competition?’ Dr. Vardell’s research seeks to investigate student attitudes toward poetry apps and the impact of use of apps on poetry book reading and circulation.
In the research proposal, Dr. Vardell poses these questions and ideas:
“Where do we begin in selecting poetry that children will like? No one has yet considered the impact of the new format of the poetry application or ‘app.’ It seems logical to hypothesize that access to this new innovation might have a positive impact on young people’s attitudes toward the poetry content, but it has not been investigated. In addition, this raises the question about whether poetry in print format will suffer as a result. Does new technology trump old books? The proposed project will attempt to address these questions.â€
Dr. Vardell notes that although this small study focuses exclusively on poetry, this look at the impact of apps on student attitudes and the relationship to book reading offers wider applications that interest professionals and researchers in libraries and literacy.
Sylvia Vardell is Professor in the School of Library and Information Studies at Texas Woman’s University, where she teaches graduate courses in children’s and young adult literature.
The YALSA/VOYA Frances Henne Research Grant offers seed money to research that supports the YALSA Research Agenda.’ Applications for the 2013 grant are due on December 1, 2012.’ For more information, please see http://www.ala.org/yalsa/awardsandgrants/franceshenne .
