The Role of Puppet Games in Attracting Children to the Rural Public Libraries:A Case Study of the "Dana Doll" Project

The purpose of this study is to determine the effect of dolls and puppet games on attracting 3- to 12-year-old children to the rural public library. This article also presents a research report on the design of the Dana doll project in the Vali-e Asr library of the Mubarakabad village of Qom province, which was conducted in order to generate the enthusiasm for reading in children in this library. Dana Doll serves as an audience for storytelling and puppet shows in the library, and by creating an intimate atmosphere provides a context for the growth of the child's imagination and his eagerness and motivation to study. Dana doll is a puppet whom the child loves and who tells stories for the child and plays more active part in the library programs. This study is a kind of action research (including planning, action, observation, and reflection) seeks to address the fundamental problem of continuous attraction of the children to the the Vali-e Asr library in Mobarak Abad village. By studying previous research on reading motives, bibliotherapy, reading promotion activities and so on, a project called Dana Doll has been developed. During the action phase of this project, some dolls were placed in the library, or children were asked to come to the library with their dolls, and by reading stories make him a learned and wise doll. In order to report the results of the project, the relevant statistics were extracted from the "Saman" software belonging to the Iran Public libraries Foundation, and then the feedbacks on the project were mentioned. Regarding the observation phase, the results of the chi-square test showed that by planning and implementing the Dana's puppet show for children, the rates of children's membership and borrowing were increased, but this increase did not occur for the adult members.  Implementation of the "Dana Doll"project has led to the attraction of children to the library and an increase in their borrowing from it. This research presents a report on the implementation of an action research plan by the librarians for children in a rural public library environment.