The Cleveland Public Library uses for a mailing list for publications pertaining to children's work a card directory of social workers. This directory gives the name, address and connection of each individual and includes board members of set- tlement houses, associated charities, visiting nurses' associations, pastors and their assistants, of churches conducting club work, and others similarly engaged. In some cities this same information may be gathered from the published directory of philanthropic agencies and their reports. Lists such as those published by the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, "Stories to tell to children," "Books for reading circles," "Games," or lists made especially in connection with the activities of a settlement, playground, etc., mailed to its club workers attract them to the library.
Rainy days when the hours drag and the children cannot be out of doors are good times to visit summer camps and vacation homes. There may be an opportunity to tell stories or for a talk to the children which, when their vacation is over, they are glad to remember.
There are two special collections which it is well for the children's department to have—one for the children and one for grown people.
It should follow Newark's notable example in putting into form, adapted for children's use, all the information regarding the city, its institutions, historic spots, etc. The collection of such material informs the assistants, attracts the cooperation of those from whom the information is sought and by acquainting the child with the manifold features of the life of the city, helps to prepare him for intelligent citizenship.
It should collect, also, all material relative to the children of the city. It should have reports of settlements, institutions, summer camps and homes, day nurseries, work with foreigners, mounted maps of the location of schools and playgrounds, copies of the child labor law, compulsory education act, in fact, any information obtainable about the conditions of the child life of the city. Such material will draw interested people to the library and thus open up opportunities for further cooperation.
Such are a few of the many ways in which the children's room may be tied to other organizations working for children. Under the varied conditions of different cities they develop indefinitely. Only a few could be mentioned here. Even the work with schools and playgrounds, the importance of which is generally established, has not been included. As these relations grow closer and closer the library's work broadens and deepens and the realization that all are workers in a common cause brings encouragement and inspiration for the daily task.
VALUES IN LIBRARY WORK WITH CHILDREN
The "possibility and duty," on the part of the children's library, of being a moral force in the community, was discussed by Clara W. Hunt in a paper presented at the Narragansett Pier Conference of the A. L. A. in 1906. Seven years later, at the Kaaterskill Conference in 1913, Miss Hunt again considered the influence of children's libraries as a civic force. This later paper, representing more fully her point of view, and embodying her later experience, is here reprinted.
Clara Whitehill Hunt was born in Utica, N. Y., in 1871. She was graduated from the Utica Free Academy in 1889, and from the New York State Library School in 1898. From 1893 to 1896 she was a public school principal in Utica. She organized work with children in the Apprentices' Library, Philadelphia, in 1898, and had charge of it in the Newark, N. J., Free Public Library from 1898 to 1902. Since 1903 she has been Superintendent of the Children's Department of the Brooklyn Public Library. Miss Hunt has been a lecturer and contributor to magazines on children's literature, library work with children and related topics, and has published a book on "What shall we read to the children?"
You are probably familiar with the story of the man who, being asked by his host which part of the chicken he liked best replied that "he'd never had a chance to find out; that when he was a boy it was the fashion to give the grown people first choice, and by the time he'd grown up the children had the pick, so he'd never tasted anything but the drumstick."