Workshop 

In Our Own Words

This interactive workshop shares how Alameda County Library’s Family Spaces Refresh Project engaged diverse community voices to inform family spaces redesign in eight libraries. To address internal blind spots and reach families often excluded from traditional feedback—due to language barriers, inaccessible spaces, or mistrust of institutions—we partnered with Group 4 Architecture to co-develop plain-language, multilingual engagement tools usable both online and offline. With limited staff capacity and focus group fatigue, we created a high-touch, image-based interactive poster that invited meaningful input from frequent users and non-users alike.

Participants will work hands-on with this tool and examine how inclusive engagement can uncover “invisible exclusions” in library environments—from types of play to cultural cues. Attendees will leave with a replicable, low-barrier engagement model and practical strategies for reaching underrepresented communities. 

Host 

Andrea Davis is the Family Services Coordinator at Alameda County Library, where she supports equity-focused, developmentally informed, and community-shaped services, including the Family Spaces Refresh Project. Her library work since 2006 spans special, academic, and public libraries and is enriched by international work experience in Central America, Asia, and Europe—including living and teaching English in South Korea in 2004. She bridges libraries with cross-sector creative spaces such as SXSW Interactive, immersive art communities, and the NEXT Library Festival, where she created the Reflection Parlor (2023) and the Out to Sea noticing field trip (2025). Curiosity, cultural humility, and joy guide her practice.