Library Work with Children

by Alice Isabel Hazeltine

Miss Clara F. Baldwin, Minnesota.

Of course we all know that almost everything depends on the personality of the librarian, and it has been my observation that the librarians of strong, winning personality, who make friends with the children and young people from the start, have little trouble with discipline. Your question relating to the co-operation with the teachers seems to me very pertinent. In some cases where discipline in the schools is not properly maintained, there has been corresponding difficulty in the library. Does it not all come back to personality, tact, and strength of character, just as every problem of success or failure does?

My theory is that order must be maintained even if the police have to be called in, but do not drive the offenders away from the library if you can possibly help it. They are probably just the ones who need it most. Sometimes it may mean personal visits to the parents, but I wouldn't lose a boy or girl if I could possibly hang on to them.

Mr. George F. Bowerman, Washington, D. C.

We have your circular letter inquiring about the discipline in our library as related to school children. In general I would say that we have very little trouble in this direction. Most of the trouble we have comes from the colored element which forms about one-third of the population.

We are striving to get Congress, from which all our appropriations come, to give us a regular police officer. I am a great believer in the moral influence of brass buttons. At the present time, our engineer and fireman are both sworn as special police officers. They both have police badges, which they can display on occasions. I would, however, like to have a regular officer in uniform.

Miss Isabel Ely Lord, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn.

The difficulties of discipline in this library arise almost entirely from the nature of the building, as the chief disturbance with us is the noise of laughing and talking in the halls. This is done quite innocently because people do not realize that the big hall, with its beautiful stairway is really a part of the building and that noise made there echoes through into the various departments. The children have to cross a wide stretch of intarsia floor, and any natural, normal child is seized with a desire to run. For this reason we have the janitor stationed in the lower hall from twelve to one and three to six each day. When he is there, there is very little difficulty.

In the library rooms we do not have the trouble that occurs in a community where the constituents of the Library know each other well. In a big, shifting population like ours, people meet usually strangers and there is no temptation to disturbing conversation or to flirtation

In the children's room, as indeed in the adult department, the matter is almost entirely controlled by personal knowledge of people who offend. A child is spoken to by name and is made to realize that it is a distinct individual matter if he or she has offended. There have been occasions in the children's room when a crowd of the older boys has come in, with evident intention of making a little disturbance. Miss Moore established the custom, in such cases, of asking each of these boys to sign his name and address to a slip—or a separate sheet of paper— and this had usually a sufficiently quieting effect to obviate the need of anything further. Occasionally the children's librarian has gone to visit a child's parents, and so has the librarian. We also have asked some times fathers and mothers to come to the library to "hold court," but this has been in cases of theft and suspected theft, and I suppose you do not include that in your questions of discipline.