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 We might appear stodgy and out of date to proponents of newer media, and to the children themselves.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.
While they seem to prefer to explore the recreational functions of digital technology, these children of the Information Age also use computers for information when they must, usually for homework. We see children (and parents) in the library every day asking the librarian to “look it up in the com- puter, please.” Most of our public libraries are now able to provide digital information resources for children. It might be a token computer in the chil- dren’s room or a special facility with many Internet-capable computers in a new or renovated library. These machines often sit uneasily next to the book- shelves, though. Often, a volunteer or a young computer aide guides the chil- dren through the intricacies of computer access, while the children’s librarian tends to their book-related needs.
What would it be like if we put digital technology first when we designed libraries for children of the Information Age?
Computers will take pride of place in the library for children of the Information Age. I can’t say how many a particular library might need, but there will be enough so that waiting time will be minimal and libraries will not have to ration computer time as stringently as they do now. There might be one or two specially equipped computers that children can sign up to use, but the ordinary machines will be available on demand. The library will make a commitment to upgrade its computers as needed so they have the memory, operating systems, connectivity, and software to handle high-end computing tasks.
The computers in this library of the future will be placed in a variety of configurations throughout the children’s room so they can be used by groups and individuals. Some machines will allow children to preserve their privacy while they access information. Some computers will feature a keyboard and mouse designed for very young children and will provide age-appropriate interfaces to software intended just for them. The computer desks, tables, car- rels, and chairs will be ergonomically correct for children’s use.
The library for children of the Information Age will include a well- equipped classroom where children, families, and concerned adults can learn the basics of information literacy. Librarians might conduct informal pro- grams here to offer tips for Web searching and to share new Internet re- sources for kids.
Every computer in this future library will give children the option of using the regular catalog or one that is designed especially for kids. In either case, the catalog will point them to resources in all formats, including Web sites.
When a child looks up “dinasor,” for example, the catalog will correct the
spelling and present a list of books, CD-ROMs, DVDs, magazine articles, and Web sites on the subject. A click on a book title might indicate the book’s grade level and availability and then offer an animated map of the library that pinpoints that book’s location on the shelf. A click on a magazine article might bring up the full text along with a word processing program that allows the child to take notes. A click on a CD-ROM will access the software; a click on a DVD, the movie; and a click on a Web site will bring it instantly to the child’s screen. Impossibly futuristic? No, all of these features are possible now if we are willing to pay for them.
The current controversy about children’s access to the Internet will be resolved by the time this future library is designed. Either government regu- lators will have brought the purveyors of hate and pornography under con- trol or technologically superior filters will have truly eliminated what is ille- gal. Or perhaps children, parents, and elected officials will become so well educated in the skills of information literacy that nobody will worry about the possibility of a child stumbling onto an inappropriate Internet site.
We might have to enact policies that forbid adults who are unaccompa- nied by children from using the computers in the children’s room. We wouldn’t want grown-ups hogging machines that are intended for children or leaving their materials on the screen for children to find. Presumably there will be enough computers to satisfy adult needs in other sections of the library under this scenario.
Will there be books in the library for the child of the Information Age?
Indeed, yes, as long as publishers continue to publish children’s books that inform, entertain, and enlighten. There will certainly be electronic books for children, and the library will supply both the content and the readers for these. But there will also be a need for traditional printed books for years to come. As these future children become information literate, they will learn when it is best to use a digital resource and when a book is the best source for their information needs. Children’s books will continue to be prized for their artistry, their ease of use, their tactile pleasures, and for the content that authors and illustrators created especially for that format. It is hard to imagine computers taking the place of a baby’s first book or a child’s bedtime reading.
Children’s librarians in this scenario will be skilled Internet navigators, able to guide children and parents through the intricacies of Internet search- ing, safety, and etiquette. They will evaluate CD-ROMs and Web sites as knowledgeably as they evaluate picture books and novels. (Many children’s librarians are already doing so. Just look at the 700+ Great Sites maintained
by the Association for Library Service to Children and the American Library Association.) Above all, they will communicate to children the excitement and usefulness not only of books and reading, but also of digital media and information literacy.
The library for the child of the Information Age will undoubtedly employ other professionals in addition to children’s librarians. These might include technicians who keep the equipment running, homework helpers who pro- vide tutoring, and trained peer tutors who guide other children through cyber- space.
Without articulating this vision, many libraries are already leaning toward library service for children of the Information Age. It is a vision that plays well politically in many locations. Parents want their children to have the computer skills they need to succeed at school and in the workplace, and by and large they support the efforts of schools and libraries to provide com- puter resources. Although many adults worry about the well-publicized sex- ual predators and objectionable content that their children may encounter on the Internet, most still want their children to be computer literate.
Public libraries could occupy a unique social niche as a bridge over the digital divide. If we deployed sufficient resources into libraries in low-income communities, we could begin to close the gap between computer haves and have-nots. And if they take their mandate seriously—providing enough com- puters, relevant software, training, and convenient operating hours—public libraries could be the one place in the community where people of all ages can get meaningful access to the resources of cyberspace.
Although this vision of the public library is seductive, there are draw- backs to consider. Just as the previous scenario, the library for the child as reader, privileged books over digital resources, so this vision privileges digital media over print. And in the near future, when computers become as ubiqui- tous in the American home as televisions, the library’s role in promoting equal access to digital resources will evaporate.
The public library could continue to play a role as technology leader, keeping one step ahead of the average home in its equipment and digital resources. This would be a very expensive proposition, of course, and there is little evidence that people would be willing to use their tax dollars for this purpose.
The library could maintain its function as a training center where people of all ages come to learn how to use the latest information technology. Expert librarians could give training classes for parents, provide tutorials for kids on
using the Internet for various purposes, and advise day care providers on dig- ital resources. To do this effectively, they themselves will need continual edu- cation and retraining.
A final deficit of the Information Age model for a children’s library is that it offers little to the babies and toddlers who are such enthusiastic participants in traditional book and story-oriented events. These tiny patrons seem to benefit more from our story times and board books than from our computers.
Some early childhood specialists admit that computers play a limited role in a well-rounded preschool program for children who are at least three years of age, but none is willing to claim that they have any benefits for babies and toddlers. The visionary pied piper of children’s computing, Seymour Papert, cautions against using computers as “baby stimulators” or “baby-sitters,” or using them to force learning at an artificially early age. He speculates that an infant’s computer might take a very different form from the machines that currently sit on our desks. It might look like the stuffed objects that babies play with now. He writes, “The baby will use it by hitting it, touching it, gur- gling or yelling at it, watching what it does and hearing the sounds it makes”
(1996, 98). Now that I think about it, that’s what my toddler grandchild does with her Teletubbie toy that has a microcomputer chip inside. It is primitive, but it is a computer, and she interacts with it just as Papert predicted.