Library district offers children’s story phone line

Now youngsters in and around Yuma can press numbers on a phone to hear a children’s story.

Federal funding has allowed the Yuma County Library District to start up a phone line for kids anywhere in the county to call to listen to pre-recorded stories in either English or Spanish.

The number for the Dial-a-Story line is 928-597-3131. Targeted at kids 5 and under, the line went into operation March 29, and a new story will be featured each week.

“The service is free,” said Sarah Wisdom, the district’s community relations manager, adding that children can dial the number as many times as they want to hear a story in the week it is presented.

The district is offering the phone line, in part, as a substitute for the pre-pandemic Story Time, a program in which library staff members previously read stories to children gathered at the library branches. The district suspended the in-person stories as part of social distancing measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

While the district has posted children’s story videos on its website and Facebook page, the Dial-a-Story line can serve children in households lacking internet access, she added.

Funding for the phone line comes from the federal Institute of Museum Library Services to the Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Archives. The Yuma County Library District was one of 18 recipients picked by the state library to receive a share to pay for connecting to LibraryCall, a nationwide phone service that provide pre-recorded stories in multiple languages to libraries.

The district is receiving pre-recorded stories in English and in the area’s other frequently spoken language, Spanish, for its phone line.

For the week of March 29, for example, children who dialed the number and punched 1 could hear “Little Red Riding Hood,” or select 2 and hear its translation, “Caperucita Roja.”

Administrators of the LibraryCall service could not be reached immediately for comment.

Funding through the state will pay for the phone line through Sept. 30, but Wisdom said the district plans to continue offering it afterwards.

The district also plans to resume the in-person Story Time sessions at its branches once the pandemic is over, she added. The purpose of Story Time “is to promote and encourage early literacy by exposing children to language, vocabulary and the written word,” she said.

Wisdom said the Yuma library previously provided a story phone line to patrons for about three decades beginning in 1975. Unlike with the new line, the stories were recorded by library staff.