Children's librarian

“ But why does the instruction of school children in the use of books and libraries concern the public library?
Because if children learn to use ordinary books intelligently it means a saving of the librarian's time by her not having to find the precise page of every reference for a child. It means a diminished amount of handling of books. It means less disturbance from children who do not know how to find what they want. Other results will doubtless suggest themselves.
It is not proposed to train the student to be a perfectly independent investigator. ”

“ Love for children should be the first requisite, and the librarian who puts a person in charge of that work against her will, will hurt the department in a way that will be surely felt sooner or later. While love for children, sympathy with, and understanding of them are all of the first importance in the composition of a children's librarian, some experience in handling them in large numbers (as in public school teaching, mission schools, boys' clubs, etc.) is extremely desirable. ”

“ A child whose exclusive diet is fairy-tales is evidently over-cultivating the imagination; a girl who has outgrown children's books and dipped into the premature love-stories that are written for her class needs our most careful guidance; a boy whose whole thought is of adventure, or who cannot read anything but jokes, is also in a critical condition.
In short, the judicious regulation of the children's reading should be made practicable for the librarian, if the children's library is to be the important agency in education which it may be made. ”

“ Mr L. Stanley Jast has gone so far as to affirm that the children should not be more than can easily be “contacted by the librarian,” on the ground that more efficient work can thus be done. It is a matter upon which a decision can only be made from a knowledge of the conditions and the character of the child population. Clearly, however, a qualification in a successful children’s librarian is the power to keep order, to prevent practical joking, loud conversation and laughter in the reading room. ”

“ In the last two or three years the children's librarian has herself gone after each book long overdue, and with each visit she has seized the opportunity not only to recover the book, but to become acquainted with the mother and to gain her often reluctant confidence. ”

“ Without identifying itself with any of the movements such as the kindergarten, child-study, and social settlement, without losing control of itself and resigning itself to any outside guidance, the children's library should still absorb what is to its purpose in the work of all these agencies. "This one thing I do," the librarian may have to keep reminding herself, to keep from being drawn off into other issues, but by standing a little apart she may see what is to her advantage without being sucked in by the draft as some enthusiastic movement sweeps by. Must she have no enthusiasm? ”

“ It is only recently that these principles have begun to shape themselves with any definiteness; the children's department, as a fully equipped miniature library, and the children's librarian, as a specialist bringing natural fitness and special preparation to her work, are essentially the product of today; but they have come to stay, and they open to the child-lover, and the educator who works better outside than inside of the schoolroom limits, a field enticing indeed, and promising rich results. ”

“ To deal with a mob of very mixed youngsters is a different matter from telling stories to a few well-brought up little ones in your own comfortable nurseries. The best qualification for the work of children's librarian is successful experience as a teacher, in these happy days when it is coming to be the rule that law and liberty may walk side by side in the school-room, and where firmness on the teacher's part in no wise interferes with friendliness on the child's. ”

“ Another of the blessings for which the town librarian may be thankful is that her rules need not be cast iron, but may be made elastic to fit certain cases. Because the place is so small that she can get to know pretty well the character of its inhabitants, she need not be obliged to face the crestfallen countenance of a sorely disappointed little girl who, on applying for a library card, is told that she must bring her father or mother to sign an application, and who knows that that will be a task impossible of performance. ”

“ The librarian sees this indifference and its fruit and realizes that it adds another responsibility to her already long list, and another opportunity to serve. She may doubt whether her province is to educate the taste of the public at large, but there can be no question that in the case of the children the choice is not left for her to make; the only reason for the child's reading at all is that he may grow mentally and spiritually. There is no way to protect the child against worthless books except by giving him a decided taste for what is good. ”

“ There are compensations for those in charge of small libraries, where a trained children’s librarian cannot be afforded, in opportunities for a greater share in the joy of working with the receptive thought of the child, while the work with parents and teachers as well gives deeper insight into the sympathy for the needs of the children. ”

“ A librarian or a settlement worker who sees only children from non-English speaking homes is in danger of forgetting that there are others who can use books in unsimplified form.
This is the only club connected with the library which had a formal organization, but in giving a talk one day several years ago to the upper grades of a school, I asked how many boys and girls were going to stay in town through the summer, and invited all who were to come to the library one afternoon a week for a book-talk. ”

“ The librarian can do a little towards leading young book-borrowers towards the selection of proper books, but it does not amount to much unless his efforts are seconded by parents and teachers. It is of little use, I fear, to appeal to parents to look after their children's reading. It is possible that they do not know that, in not a few cases, boys and girls from eight to sixteen years of age, even while attending school, draw from three to six volumes a week to read, and often come for two volumes a day. ”

“ Direct personal intercourse of librarians and assistants with children is the surest way of gaining influence over them. Miss Stevens, of Toledo, has put the secret of the whole matter, so far as we are concerned, into four words: "Librarians should like children." It may be added that a librarian or assistant in charge of circulation should never be too busy to talk with children and find out what they need. Bibliography and learning of all kinds have their places in a library ”

“ It will not be long after the opening of the children's library before an insight will be gained into domestic interiors and private lives that will make the librarian wish she could follow many a child to his home, in order to secure for him and his something better than the few hours' respite from practical life which they may get from the reading of books. ”

“ We must infer that all books upon the juvenile shelves are placed there because they are thought suitable for children. The librarian may reserve that prerogative of concealing a book and regarding it out, should a demand for it come from one who should not, for any apparent reason, have it. But the jurisdiction of the librarian over the child-taste, just as the jurisdiction of the teacher over the child-mind, ends where the home is expected to proclaim its effectiveness and its right. ”

“ With the increase of facilities, with the specialised consideration paid to children’s reading by librarian and by teacher, there arises the factor of the parent in connection with the two. What part, in the general plan, does the home occupy? It furnishes the scholar; it furnishes the reader. In private instruction, it may dictate what shall be taught to the boy or girl; in public instruction, the individual becomes part of the system. The home may purchase books for the particular taste of this child or of that, but the public library must attend to all demands. ”

“ That it is possible to make and to keep them so is not a theory but a demonstrable fact. Three years ago a branch library was opened in one of the poor districts of a large city. The usual problems in the discipline of individuals and of gangs were present. Many of the new books were soiled, others were mutilated and several were missing at inventory taking. The librarian believed the moral lesson conveyed to children by training them to take care of library books to be one of the first requirements of good citizenship. ”

“ Most public libraries can furnish such lists based upon their experience with children. In fact no modern public library can carry on its work successfully without an especially prepared librarian in charge of the books for children. ”

“ They offer a strong point of contact between the children and the librarian, and if too strongly labelled with "school work," do we not rob the child of the one place where he could have the indescribable charm of learning what his natural tastes prompt him to acquire? It is easy enough in our libraries to teach without calling it teaching. Again, a bulletin to "advertise our books," especially new ones, seems misdirected energy, as the new books are always eagerly sought and there is often need of checking in some way the desire for the new just because it is new. ”

“ If his family or teachers do not watch his reading, it becomes a serious thing for the librarian who chooses and buys his books for him. Perhaps the library is not large enough to have a children's department or to send books into the schools, or to do any specialized children's work, but it can make judicious selection of books, and being small can know individual cases among the children. It is not so hard to find out the children one by one who need some care and interest, to learn their names and to find out something about their families. ”

“ To be capable of guiding the reading of children it is necessary for one, first, to have appreciation and discernment in adult literature, second, to gain the child’s point of view. The various printed book lists are helpful, but the librarian should depend upon her own judgment as final critic in the selection of books for her children’s collection. She must realize the qualities essential to particular classes of books, such as history, and biography, science, travel, fiction, and the qualities which make them suitable for children. ”

“ It has been premised that children from six to fourteen years of age will frequent the department, and there is a vast range of ability and taste in children in the various years between these ages. Little children require simple large-print books with plenty of illustrations, and may be drawn to them if story-telling forms part of the librarian’s activities. Story hours, indeed, are most attractive to children of all ages. ”

“ They have no time to look after outside matters.
Visits to teachers in their schoolrooms by librarian or assistant will often be found helpful. Lists of books adapted to schoolroom use, both for the teacher and for pupils, are good, but are very little used when offered, unless followed up by personal work. Brief statements of what the library can do and would like to do in the way of helping on the educational work of the community will be read by the occasional teacher. Teachers can sometimes be interested in a library through the interest in it of the children themselves. ”

“ All these matters lead up to the ultimate object of the librarian, which is to establish a natural pathway from the schools to the public library. Vouchers of admission should be placed at the disposal of the schools, and the recommendation of the head teacher may procure readers’ tickets for all children leaving school. Fortunately most teachers see the importance of the matter, and a properly systematized connexion is therefore made for the child between the school library and the much larger and more permanently useful stores of the municipal library. ”

“ That the creation in the child of intellectual interests, which is furthered by a love of books, is an urgent national need; [16] that while it is the business of the school to foster the desire to know, it is the business of the library to give adequate opportunity for the satisfaction of this desire; that library work with children ought to be the basis of all other library work; that reading-rooms should be provided in all public libraries, where children may read books in attractive surroundings, under the sympathetic and tactful guidance of trained children’s librarians ”

“ Children in 46 libraries reporting hold altogether 413,000 library cards. There are 42 supervisors of children's work, with numerous clerical assistants and staffs of 473 persons, of whom at least 177 are qualified children's librarians, 108 are graduates of library schools, and 54 have had partial courses. ”

“ Since 1893 children's rooms and children's departments have sprung up like mushrooms, all over the country, and first in Pittsburg, then in Brooklyn, Cleveland, Philadelphia, New York City and Queens Borough, children's rooms in branch libraries have been organized into departments from which a third, at least, of the entire circulation of the libraries is carried on by assistants, either trained or in training to become children's librarians. ”