But let’s assume we have won that battle. What will future libraries for future child readers look like? These libraries will be informed by the latest research on emergent literacy, which tells us that reading children begin their exposure to language and literature as infants. They will contain separate, well-defined spaces that invite infants and toddlers and their caregivers to spend time with books. Little kids will find carpeted floors and safe, toddler- sized furniture. Parents and caregivers will find rocking chairs or comfortable sofas that are just right for intergenerational book sharing. I envision story time space right there with the books and other age-appropriate realia and separate rooms where the librarians will hold classes in children’s literature, book-sharing techniques, and methods for encouraging emergent literacy for parents, child care providers, and other interested adults.
This library for the child reader of the future will have versatile shelving that will allow librarians to merchandise books as bookstores do, calling attention to multiple copies of inviting titles. There will also be traditional child-sized linear shelves for the basic collection that will make it easy for older children to negotiate their way through the library conventions of alphabetization and the Dewey decimal system. Child-friendly signs will give children visual and print pointers to different parts of the collection.
Future child readers will find spaces where they can curl up and be alone with a good book and spaces where they can talk about books with friends and library staff. They will find spaces for enjoying puppet shows, plays, and story- telling. They will find quiet, calm corners and noisy, stimulating areas. They might find a display of books about plants and gardening next to a window- ledge garden, an abacus placed next to books on math, and a table set up with a microscope, magnifying glass, periscope, and books about optics or science experiments. Everything in the library will communicate the impor- tance, the relevance, and the excitement of reading.
Obviously, the book collection will be the cornerstone of this vision of the future library. The carefully chosen book collection will be the base that sup- ports all other services. Children’s librarians will have to hone their skills in book evaluation, collection development, and readers’ advisory services to a razor’s edge. Working from a deep understanding of their community, these librarians will seek out books that will enrich the lives of their young readers.
They will work with editors, authors, and illustrators to encourage the devel- opment of new voices and new visions. They will see themselves as partners with publishing houses in marketing the best books for children. They will resolve the “quality versus demand” dilemma in ways that are consistent
with the particular mission of their libraries, the needs of the children they serve, and the values of the communities in which they are located.
The reading-oriented library of the future will probably make judicious use of digital technologies. Certainly children need to be able to read in order to use the digital media available today, although voice recognition systems may be standard features on computers of the future. Even a library that emphasizes books and reading will need to concern itself with other forms of literacy in a world that increasingly values moving images as well as digital and visual media. As age-appropriate content develops for electronic books, children’s librarians will surely want to make these available for their patrons.
Planners of the reading-oriented children’s library will try to avoid the uneasy coexistence of print and digital resources that prevails in many libraries today. Children’s librarians will carefully consider each technological innovation in light of their mission to encourage and enhance children’s read- ing. Digital technology will not compete with books. Children will read the computer screen as well as the printed page and will learn when one format might be preferable to the other.
The librarians for young readers of the future will be passionate advo- cates for children’s right to read, and their advocacy will take many forms.
They will participate in traditional activities in defense of children’s intellec- tual freedom. They will champion broad-ranging collection development poli- cies based on sound book evaluation principles. They will also work to elim- inate social, economic, and physical barriers to children’s access to books and reading such as transportation difficulties or service hours that discriminate against working families. They will find ways to bring the resources of the library to children whose circumstances prevent them from coming to the library.
All of the services of this future library for reading kids will emphasize books and literacy. Readers’ advisory and reference services will perhaps be the most important of public services. With their thorough knowledge of the collection, children’s librarians will be recognized as skilled professionals who are best able to advise a child needing a good book for a school report, a par- ent seeking guidance about appropriate reading for a two-year-old, or a pedi- atrician looking for children’s books on HIV/AIDS to share with a patient.
They will extend their expertise through well-crafted book lists, bibliogra- phies, and book talks.
Family literacy programs will fit well in the future library for the reading child. A library that places reading as its highest priority for children will
cooperate with other like-minded community organizations and agencies, including schools. The library of the future could reasonably serve as the lead agency for any community-based literacy effort.
Programming at the reading-oriented library of the future will be consis- tent with its overall mission. Storytelling events, summer reading programs, and visits from authors or illustrators are obvious possibilities. Other pro- grams might target smaller groups of children—book discussion groups, young writers’ groups, poetry and science fiction clubs. Anything that pro- motes children’s books and reading will be considered.
To implement this vision, we need to be as passionate and convincing as Anne Carroll Moore, Frances Clarke, and other library pioneers were. Libraries that clearly define their mission around the promotion of books and reading will find that this is a small but vital market niche they can occupy effectively.
There are possible pitfalls to a scenario that focuses on books and read- ing for children. Unless we are careful about how we craft the rhetoric of this vision, we could be marginalized or accused of nostalgia. We might appear stodgy and out of date to proponents of newer media, and to the children themselves. Certainly, an exclusive focus on reading leaves out whole areas of their lives that children care about very much.