Library Work with Children

by Alice Isabel Hazeltine

2. Lessening the number of titles of miscellaneous collections of folk-lore in which there are objectionable individual tales, for instance, buying only the Blue, Green and Yellow fairy books.

3. The elimination, or use in small numbers, of a type of history and biography which is not scholarly, or even serious in treatment, such as the Pratt histories.

4. The elimination of such periodical literature for young children, as the Children's Magazine and Little Folks, since their reading can be varied more wholesomely without it.

Reports of reading sequences from each children's room have furnished the basis for further study of children's reading. These are discussed and compared by the workers, a working outline of reading sequences made and reported back to each room, to be used, amplified and reported on again.

While those books which are no longer used may have been at one time necessary to hold a child from reading something poorer, we did not lose children through raising the standard, and the duplication of doubtful books in the children's room is less heavy now than it was a few years ago. This is shown by the fact that there are more than twice as many children who are reading, and almost three times as many books being read as there were nine years ago, while the number of children of the city has increased but 72 per cent. Furthermore, the proportion of children of environmental limitations has by no means diminished, and the foreign population is much the same—more than 74 per cent.

Of course, the elimination of some books was accomplished because there were better books on the subject, but the general result was largely brought about because in the establishment of these higher standards we did not exceed the ideals and standards of those who were working with the children. The standards which they brought to the work, and which they deduced themselves from their experience, were crystalized through Round Table discussion, where each worker measured her results by those of the others and thereby recognized the need of constant, but careful experimentation.

Experience has proved that a children's department can not reach standards of reading which in the judgment of librarians working with the children are beyond the possibility of attainment, for with them rests entirely the delicate task of the adjustment of the book to the child. A staff of children's librarians of good academic education, the best library training, a true vision of the social principles; a broad knowledge of children's literature is the greatest asset for any library doing children's work.

But it is true, inversely, that in raising the standards of the children the standards of the workers were raised. By this I mean that with definite methods of book presentation in use, the worker saw farther into the mental and material life of the child and understood his social instincts better. This has been evidenced in the larger duplication of the better books. Among the methods are those which recognize group interest and group association as a social need of childhood. Through unifying and intensifying the thoughts and sympathies of the children by giving them great and universal thought in the story hour, the mediocre is often bridged and both the child and the worker reaches a higher plane of experience. Also by giving children a group interest, not only children recognize that books may be cornerstones for social intercourse and that there is connection between social conduct as expressed in books and their own social obligations, but what is also important, the worker learns that when children are at the age of group activity and expression they can often be more permanently influenced as a group than as individuals. This prompted the organization of clubs for older children.

Through the recognition of the principle that there are methods of book appeal for use with individual children and other methods for groups of children, it was shown that the organization of the work as a whole must be such that the chief methods of presentation of literature could be fully developed. It was seen that, far less with a group of children than with the individual child, could we afford to give a false experience or an unfruitful interest, and that material for group presentation, methods of group presentation and the social elements which are evinced in groups of children should receive an amount of attention and study which would lead to the surest and soundest results. This could be fully accomplished only by recognizing such methods as distinct functions of the department. In other words, that there should not only be divisions of work with children according to problems of book distribution, such as by schools and home libraries, but there must be of necessity, divisions by problems of reading. Whereas, in a smaller department all divisions would center in the head, the volume of work in a large library renders necessary the appointment of an instructor in story-telling and a supervisor of reading clubs, which results in a higher specialization and a greater impetus for these phases of work than one person can accomplish. Here we have a concrete instance of the benefit that a large volume of work may confer upon the individual child.

With the attainment of better reading results and higher standards for the workers, it is obvious that the reading experiences of the children and the standards of the workers must be conserved, and that the organization should protect the children, as far as possible, from the disadvantage of change of workers. Considerable study has been given to this, and yearly written reports on the reading of children in each children's room are made, in which variations from accepted standards of the children's reading in that library, with individual instances, are usually discussed. However, the children's librarian is entirely free to report the subject from whatever angle it has impressed her most. Also a written report is made of the story hour, the program, general and special results, and intensity of group interest in certain types of stories. This report is supplementary to a weekly report in prescribed form, of the stories told, sources used and results. All programs used with clubs are reported and semi-annual report made of the club work as a whole. By discussion and reports back to individual centers, these become bases for a wider vision of work and a wiser direction of energy with less experimentation.