Starting from ‘scratch’: Building young people’s digital skills through a coding club collaboration with rural public libraries

While digital infrastructure is clearly a critical factor in addressing the digital divide for rural society, it is only one component in realising the benefits of information and communication technology (ICT). It is increasingly acknowledged that citizens, governments, and businesses need to develop skills and motivations to use technologies. It is also recognised that young people and their rural communities are among those who gain the least from opportunities to engage in and benefit from an ever-evolving digital society. As with other areas of rural development, local community institutions and actors assume their own leadership in developing initiatives to overcome challenges and advance digital literacy and in this regard, public libraries have led and continue to hold considerable potential to champion this area. This article reports on the experiences of a 14-month community-based collaborative research project with public libraries engaged in a process of developing coding clubs for children and youth in rural Manitoba, Canada. Our research sets out to answer the questions: first, whether it is viable for public libraries to cultivate advanced digital skills among rural youth and contribute to bridging the rural-urban digital divide by running coding clubs following the CoderDojo model? And second, what are the critical conditions to ensure the success of public library coding clubs? In examining some of the experiences encountered in adopting the coding club as a model of digital literacy building, we discuss wider themes for rural public libraries interested in advancing digital literacy building within their communities.