The fourth was respect for the professional status of children's librarianship, which Moore herself worked tirelessly to promote (1999, 27). She wrote reviews of children's books for the respected literary magazine, The Bookman, from 1918 to 1926.
Expansion and Outreach
These programs are all administered by a new agency, the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). The Library Services and Technology Act removes federal responsibility for public library services from the US.
The Era of Accountability
Circulation of children's materials per child measures the use of library materials for children borrowed for use outside the library, relative to the number of persons 14 and under in the service area. The child fill rate is the percentage of successful searches for library materials by users age 14 and older and by adults acting on behalf of children.
The Legacy
Then she issued several challenges to children's librarians that could be repeated more than twenty years later. She urged the profession to clarify the role of children's librarians and their relationship to children's literature.
What We Do Best
This profound belief in the power of children's literature explains why children's librarians still place so much emphasis on book selection. Barbara Genco (1991) includes these products of children's popular culture in the collections she develops.
Looking Ahead
A constant thread on electronic discussion lists for children's librarians is the request for new ideas for preschool storytimes—bat finger games, Hawaiian crafts, Halloween flannel stories—and new ways to manage the conflict between demand (more programs, larger audiences) and good practice (more selective programs, smaller audiences). An emerging trend, which I will discuss later, is the segmentation of preschool storytime into special programs for toddlers and babies.
Budgetary Shortfalls
Ameritech has sponsored materials and programs in public libraries to introduce parents to Internet resources for their children. There are signs of health and vitality in public libraries around the United States.
Shortage of Children’s Librarians
At the 1999 ALA Annual Conference in New Orleans, the Employment Center advertised 120 vacancies in youth services. Only ninety-four (7.6 percent) of these 375 new public library workers listed a position in youth services.
Professional Role Strain and Ambiguity
Then the volunteers were deployed to the children's areas during the busy after-school hours. It is often difficult to reconcile this close value with the popularity of the public access computers in the children's room.
Lack of Tangible Outcomes
For children's librarians, an analysis of children's services in St. The study found that while the overall return on investment, as noted above, is four to one, users of children's services receive $7 in benefits for every $1 spent by the library.
Public Attacks on Libraries’ Technology Policies
As long as public libraries are subject to market forces, documenting quantitative results and outcomes will be important. At least one corporate sponsor, Toys "R" Us, withdrew its ALA bid to fund children's reading rooms in public libraries because of the negative publicity generated by Schlessinger's radio campaign (Dr. Laura's crusade.
Changing Lives of Children
I recently spoke at length with a man, a grandfather, who was looking for someone to talk to his service club about public libraries and Internet access. Through Filtering Facts, a nonprofit organization that promotes the use of filtering software to protect children from pornography, he has waged a tenacious campaign against ALA's opposing position on filtering and against specific public libraries that resist his efforts to introduce software filters. have.
Thinking about Change
They are more concerned with satisfying a child's craving for the latest craze than with the quality of the child's interaction with the toy. Indeed, the parent's gift to the child increasingly became not future learning or reason or even sharing.
The Impact of Digital Technology
It is this mixed potential of the Internet that makes it such an explosive political problem. It seems clear that in this era of technological development, boys and girls use computers differently.
The Battle over Schooling
Overall, the number of limited English-speaking children is 5 percent of the school-going population. Most of the children in the United States who speak a language other than English at home are Spanish.
Living in a Multicultural, Multiracial Society
The growing diversity of children who are actual and potential users of public libraries raises many questions about the collections we develop and the services we offer. Chu found that 96 percent of the seventy-seven immigrant children she studied did not use the library as a source of information.
Living in a Dangerous Society
Twenty-five percent of all violent crimes against youth occur in the home; 23 percent at school (Sanders and Mattson. On the other hand, more than 43 percent of all public schools reported no crime at all.
Changing Families
Three out of five preschool children – more than 13 million children – are in some form of childcare. Quality childcare for preschoolers offers many of the benefits of good early childhood education programs.
The Tension over Children’s Rights
Some public libraries are so burdened with latchkey children that they have introduced "unsupervised children" policies. Whether they are parents or not, children's librarians stand up for the best interests of all children.
Internet Access and Training
In 1999, the Santa Monica Public Library created a position for a Children's Digital Resources Librarian, who guides the library's policies and practices for children in the digital arena. The main library has a computer training room where the children's librarian's digital resources offer internet education for children and parents.
Homework Assistance
Robert Reagan (1997) reports that the Los Angeles Public Library's homework centers are a response to a wide range of challenges the library has faced. The schools and public libraries make an effort to plan collaborative activities that help children connect what they learn at school to the public library and vice versa.
Service to Homeschoolers
Common to all these homework help programs is the willingness of the public libraries to take on a broader educational role and relax the boundaries between the mission of the public library and the school library. She finds that more parents teach their children at home because of dissatisfaction with primary school or a desire for family closeness rather than for religious reasons.
Service to Infants and Toddlers
Feinberg, Kuchner and Feldman summarize the elements of good practice in early childhood services. It will be interesting to see if libraries begin to recognize the specialization of early childhood services by hiring librarians to work specifically with this age group.
Service to Families/Parent Education
Many of the public library's services have evolved to cater to the middle class, educated people who are the institution's primary users. Another parent education program that started with external funding is Read to Me L.A., a project of the Los Angeles Public Library.
The Child as Reader
Obviously, the book collection will be the cornerstone of this vision of the future library. The young readers librarians of the future will be passionate advocates for children's right to read, and their advocacy will take many forms.
The Child of the Information Age
Computers will take pride of place in the children's library of the Information Age. The library for the child of the information age will undoubtedly employ other professionals in addition to children's librarians.
The Child in the Community
The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh's children's department also worked directly with boy gangs. They will create cooperative relationships that can develop into partnerships for the benefit of children.
The Public Library as a Mediating Institution
In his introduction to a book on the importance of neighborhood organizations for young people, John W. Libraries can help create these urban sanctuaries for young people, within their walls and elsewhere in the community.
The Child in the Virtual Community
It also describes situations in which online communication has reduced the social isolation of deaf children and those who are considered different in the local community. Librarians can take advantage of building a virtual community for children by guiding them to good experiences online.
Getting There
Reflecting
The innovation of young children's story times is a good example of reflective children's librarians in action. As more mothers went to work in the 1980s, preschool audiences shrank in many communities.
Developing Leaders
We need to identify mavens with particular information specialties who can keep us abreast of critical issues. Then we must try these roles and encourage our colleagues to do the same.
Winning Allies
Spreading the Word
If we are effective in spreading the good news about what we do for children in libraries and if we are persuasive about our plans for the future, we will find that step 5 – changing policies that affect library service for children – is much more easy to accomplish.
Changing Policy
There are moments when all the conditions are right for change; we must recognize those situations and be ready to act. When the news reports about children's failure to read, we must be ready with library programs that support early childhood literacy.
Changing Organizations
Some communities may decide to separate their children's library services from mainstream public library services to focus on children's needs. Some of us may have moved from leadership roles in the children's library community to more general leadership positions such as library directors, deans, and ALA presidents.
Changing Library Education
Not every library school in the country even has a tenured professor who focuses on children's library services. The consequence is that far too many library schools rely on temporary adjunct faculty to teach the courses devoted to children's librarianship.
Doing Research
So you would expect that at least the handful of us who specialize in children's library services would publish research that our colleagues in public libraries would find useful. Some children's librarians contract with experts to conduct research-based evaluations of grant-funded projects; more of those studies should be published and made available to others.
Evaluating Our Work
This kind of research is expensive, but if done right, it will arm children's librarians across the country with evidence that serving children matters and delivers results. Output Measures for Public Library Service to Children (Walter 1992) provides children's librarians with a number of easy-to-use tools for defining and measuring the outputs – the tangible results – of their work, along with tips for interpreting and communicating the results.
Keeping the Focus
In School Library Journal’s best: A reader for children, young adults, and school librarians, edited by Lillian N. The children’s machine: Rethinking school in the age of the computer. New York: Basic Books.
