A public library can make no better investment than in printing a classified list for children, with short notes on stories illustrating history or life in different countries, and references to interesting books written for older readers. Such a list should be sold for 5 cents, much less than cost.
4. The money spent in paying for the paper and time used in covering books is just as well employed in binding, and the attractive covers are pleasant to look at.
5. The books can be kept reasonably clean if children are made to understand that they must not be taken away, returned, or if possible, read with unwashed hands. City children soon begin to understand this if they are spoken to pleasantly and sent away without a book till they come back in a fit state to handle it.
6. As soon as a child can read and write he should be allowed to use books. A proper guarantee from parent or teacher should, of course, be required.
7. A child in school cannot read more than one story book a week without neglecting his work. If he needs another book in connection with his studies he should take it on a school teacher's, or nonfiction card.
8. It is best, if a child has only one book a week, for his card to be of a different color from others, that it may be more easily distinguished at the charging desk.
9. It has been proved by actual experiment that children will read books which are good in a literary sense if they are interesting. New libraries have the advantage over old ones, that they are not obliged to struggle against a demand for the boys' series that were supplied in large quantities fifteen or twenty years ago.
10. As soon as children learn that in a library there are books and people to help them on any subject, from the care of a sick rabbit to a costume for the Landing of the Pilgrims, they begin to ask advice about their reading. It is a good thing if some of the library assistants are elder sisters in large families who have tumbled about among books, and if some of the questions asked of applicants for library positions relate to what they would give boys or girls to read. If an assistant in a large library shows a special fitness for work with children, it is best to give it into her charge. If all the assistants like it, let them have their share of it.
11. The question of a children's reading room depends on the size of the room for older readers, and how much it is used by them in the afternoons. Conditions vary so much in libraries that it is impossible for one to make a rule for another in this case.