482. General Considerations.—The declaration of the Library Association that library work with children is the foundation of all other library work represents, so far as Great Britain is concerned, an ideal rather than an accomplished fact. The will to make provision for the child has not been lacking, but the means at the disposal of library committees have hitherto been insufficient for other activities, and the child has necessarily been dealt with in a parsimonious manner. Undoubtedly, in circumstances hitherto prevailing, the axiom that to pursue work for children at the expense of the efficiency of the library as a whole is to defeat its very purpose, is true. But from comparatively early times the book needs of the children have been recognized. So long ago as 1882 Nottingham possessed a reading room for children, and, with intervals, such departments have been multiplied, and there is now hardly a town of any size which does not make some provision for young readers. The object of the children’s department is to provide the intellectual workshop for the use of the child. He is taught to use intellectual tools in the school, but the library provides him with the material upon which they may be exercised. Usually the department serves children from the age of six to the age of fourteen. In a completely organized department there are library, reading department, and study corners; and such activities as story hours, lectures, reading circles, and the keeping of festivals are maintained.
483. What has been Done.—Separate, distinctive children’s departments are a quite modern institution. Hitherto, in the majority of libraries, an alcove, or a number of shelves, have been set aside for children’s books in the adult lending department, and no provision has definitely, been made for newspapers, magazines and other reading material for the young. Many difficulties have arisen from this arrangement. The age of admission to libraries is usually fourteen, and children under this age, except in special circumstances, have been limited to books in the shelves allocated to children. But children of eleven or twelve frequently require books which cannot by any ordinary reasoning be regarded as juvenile works; and on every such occasion special concessions have been made, the requiring and the granting of which are irritating both to the child and the librarian, however liberal-minded the latter may be, and therefore subversive of the best results. More recently the age of fourteen has been regarded as too high, and in some towns twelve, or even ten, years has been regarded as a suitable age at which children may be given the freedom of the whole lending department. This seems better, and where such low age limits have been set the results have been good. It is obvious, however, that the limited provision we have described in this section is not calculated to prove the “foundation of all library work.”
484. Children’s Libraries.—From these considerations has developed the modern children’s department as an entirely separate part of the library, equivalent in rank and importance to the adult lending or reference departments. In England the most elaborate system of such libraries is that at Cardiff, but many other towns, including Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Islington, Chelsea, Hampstead, Coventry, St Helens, and Nottingham, have such separate departments, and every modern librarian in planning a library system provides for them. The limits of this Manual do not permit of an exhaustive study of the many varieties of children’s libraries and their manifold activities, but an outline of the methods most commonly in vogue here and in America (where the work is far more highly developed than here) are an integral part of our work.
The children’s department, then, should be an apartment as effective in architectural character as any other department: well-lighted, spacious, lofty, and decorated tastefully. These factors are overlooked at times, sometimes, unfortunately, of necessity; but we insist upon them, because the atmosphere induced by a handsome and suitable library is necessary if we are, first, to avoid ruffling the sensitiveness of children who are as jealous of their rights in the public libraries as are adults; and, second, to create that feeling of reverence and respect for books which is a factor in obtaining discipline in the apartment. An ill-lighted, crudely-decorated basement is sometimes devoted to the purpose, and this may have its uses, but it is certain to fall short lamentably of the full possibilities of a children’s library. The apartment being provided, several problems have to be settled. The systems in existence differ in different places. In some towns the children’s department is a reading room and reference library merely, and books are not lent for home reading. It is thought, in such cases, that the children can best be provided with books for home reading through a system of school libraries, such as we describe in the next chapter. This, however, seems to ignore the fact that such school libraries are usually restricted to public and council schools, that there are other kinds of schools in every town, and large numbers of children, therefore, who have not access to school libraries; and their claims to library facilities are as strong as those of public and council school children. Such is the system in vogue, we believe, at Cardiff. In other towns the department embraces lending library, reading room, and reference library, and good examples of these are to be seen at Islington. Here the room is divided into two parts, the smaller part being an open access lending library, and the greater part a reading room, with special tables set apart for quiet study, and containing a carefully-chosen collection of reference books. These methods have both great advantages, and are worthy of rather more detailed consideration.
Fig. 175.—Children’s Hall, Cathays Branch Library, Cardiff (Section 485).
485. The Reference-Reading Method.—We have used this name for want of a better to indicate the system which limits the use of the contents of the room to the room itself—-a system, we may add, which has been approved by the Conference of Librarians held at Manchester in 1918, as the better of the two described. The library is usually a large room with wall-cases for books upon two or three sides of the room, but with one wall left blank and whitened for use as a lantern screen, and intervals of the walls covered with baize screens upon which pictures, bulletins, lists, etc., can be displayed. Part of the room is reserved for children who desire to do home lessons, or make special study, or who wish (as is more frequently the case than is generally supposed) to become authors. For these, small desks, separate if possible, are provided, and the use of ink is permitted. Another set of tables is allocated to such newspapers and periodicals as are suitable for children. The selection of the latter is a matter requiring special care. Good daily newspapers may be provided—The Daily Graphic, for instance, is interesting to most children—but there is a real need for a definitely children’s newspaper, one that presents in a manner attractive to the child mind a selection of the matter occurring in the ordinary newspaper; the recognized children’s periodicals in English and French, and in other languages where circumstances warrant it; such “instructive” periodicals as those teaching shorthand, languages, how to make things, and simple “trade” periodicals; as well as a selection of such weekly journals as The Illustrated London News and The Graphic. Children are more virile mentally than is sometimes supposed, and many ostensibly adult periodicals are quite suitable for them. The remainder of the room may be devoted to tables or desks for the reading of the books from the cases.
486. Lending Library.—All the features enumerated in the foregoing section should be found in the department which has also a lending library, except that the number of books to be provided for reading in the room will probably be smaller, and fewer book-cases will in that case be necessary. The lending section will be conducted on principles similar to those governing the adult lending library, with such adaptations as experience suggests to be desirable. Simplicity is the keynote of the work, and the regulations governing the issue of readers’ tickets and the lending of books should be made as easy and unambiguous as possible. A few of these may be mentioned:
1. Children should be permitted to borrow books upon the recommendation of the head teacher of the school they attend. In some libraries a more definite guarantee is required to prevent possible loss and to recover the cost of loss or damages, as it is obvious that the teacher cannot be expected to accept financial responsibility in this connexion and would undoubtedly refuse to do so; and these require the children to be guaranteed by burgesses in the same manner as adult readers. It will be found, however, that children have frequently some difficulty in finding a guarantor; even parents at times refuse to bind themselves in this way; and, with careful supervision, the teacher’s recommendation will be found to be effective. A good form of application is as follows:
..............................................................No. ...............
NEWTOWN PUBLIC LIBRARIES.
To be signed by the Applicant.
I, the undersigned, being a scholar, under twelve years of age, at ..................................................................................................... School, apply for a Ticket enabling me to borrow books from a Lending Library, in accordance with the Rules, which I promise to obey.
Name in full...........................................................................................................
Address..................................................................................................................
Age................................................ Date................................................................
To be signed by the Head Teacher of the School the Applicant attends.1
I, the undersigned, am of opinion that the above Applicant may be trusted to use the Libraries carefully, and to his/her advantage.
Signed....................................................................................................................
Head Teacher of..................................................................................... School.
Date...........................
1The signing of this Voucher
does not involve the Head Teacher
in any financial responsibility.
Fig. 176.—Voucher for Children (Section 486).
The back is the ordinary
guarantee, as Fig. 135.
2. Children should be permitted to borrow books on the application of the head of their household. In this case the householder may be expected to assume the responsibilities of any ordinary guarantor.
3. In ordinary circumstances a child should be permitted to borrow one book only at a time, and should not be permitted to change it for another more frequently than once a week.
We desire to avoid controversial matter in this Manual, and this provision, we expect, is open to criticism; indeed, when it was suggested elsewhere an American librarian remarked that it “seemed unnecessary.” British librarians, however, have actually been requested by teachers to make these restrictions on the arguments that few children do any comparative reading, and that still fewer can read more than one book in a week and at the same time do their home lessons and spend as much time in outdoor recreation as is needful for their health. Another less satisfactory reason is that some librarians have found the child population, when not so restricted, crowding the lending library to such an extent that their staffs have been unable to maintain the discipline without which effective work is impossible, or to meet the demands of the children. Such librarians have divided their register of children alphabetically, and children whose names begin with certain letters are admitted to the lending library only on certain days.
4. The rules should embody simple provisions governing the duration of loan (usually fourteen days are allowed, but circumstances may warrant an extension of this time), cleanliness, care of books, and the disposal of books in cases where the child or any member of the household is in contact with infection.
A difficult matter is what, if any, penalties should be inflicted upon children in the case of undue detention of books or for other offences. Fines are sometimes imposed, as in the adult library, but often they cannot be recovered without great trouble, and they should usually be remitted when any reasonable excuse can be offered. Many children cannot obtain the necessary pence, except from their parents, and to press for fines frequently means that the child will be forbidden the use of the library by the parents. In this matter the librarian should have the fullest discretion. Persistent offenders are effectively dealt with by the suspending of their tickets for a time; but we do not wish to insist upon this method, as the librarian naturally desires to have books used rather than to prevent their use. Lost books must be replaced by parents as a matter of course whenever it is possible to get at them; and the teacher will often lend his powerful assistance in securing the return or replacing of missing volumes, and, indeed, in seeing that the library rules generally are observed by his pupils. Co-operation and sympathy between librarian and teacher are first essentials of successful work.
487. Furniture and Fittings.—The furnishing of the children’s room is governed by the considerations explained in Division V., but again with adaptations dictated by the fact that the furniture is for children and not for adults. Desks, tables, chairs, reading slopes, etc., should be of such heights that they can be used with comfort. In regard to tables and chairs, 251⁄4 inches is a suitable height for the former and 141⁄4 inches for the latter. Book-cases should be approximately 61⁄2 feet in height as against 7 feet for adults. Such rigid furnishing as that which provides long narrow desks resembling school forms for the children, so arranged that the children all face one way, is to be deprecated. Tables which provide the maximum of space, comfort and seclusion are as desirable for this room as for any other. Each periodical and reader requires three feet of lateral space, and there should be three feet between each table, or four where the space is a gangway. Screens of some soft wood, covered with baize, should be placed on the walls, at intervals; and a blackboard and an optical lantern are valuable parts of the equipment. Any space that may remain on the walls may be devoted to pictures, which need not be many, but should be large, deal with definite subjects, and be good of their kind. These are the more obvious differences between the children’s and the adult departments, except that in some libraries lavatory accommodation is provided in order that children may wash their hands before entering the library proper. Such accommodation has distinct advantages, as many children come into the department straight from playing in the street, and it is rather hard to refuse them admission because their hands are not in a suitable state for the using of books. On the other hand, strict supervision of such accommodation is necessary, and this is difficult to provide on account of the increased cost involved.
488. Book Selection.—A few principles governing the selection of books for children may be given here, drawn from an immense mass of written material upon the subject. In a general way it may be asserted that the child is the best judge of its own literature, and the classics for children survive as such simply because they receive the continued suffrages of children. Excellent bibliographies and lists exist, especially American ones, and many libraries have issued catalogues of their children’s libraries. A comparison of these is a necessary preliminary to stocking the department. Catholicity and a not too rigid insistence upon high literary merit are proper attitudes, because there is no exact definition of a children’s book, and any book likely to be used by children should be regarded as suitable; and the variations in taste and capability of children are so great that if there is too pronounced insistence upon high literary quality many children will neglect the books provided. It is better to commence with a lower average of merit and attract children, and then, by placing better books in their way, to improve their tastes without too much obtruding of the fact upon them. By this it is not meant that worthless books are to be included, but there are undoubtedly books having no claim to high rank which are wholesome and harmless. A preponderating part of the lending stock will be of fiction—perhaps twenty per cent. of it—and here the librarian has the accumulated experience of other librarians to assist his selection, and, with regard to contemporary writings, they are not so numerous that the characteristics of any given author cannot easily be tested. Books of classic rank should be available in such numbers that there are always enough copies to meet the current demand and at the same time to leave a copy on the shelves. A librarian should never be compelled to reply to a child that Ivanhoe, The Last of the Mohicans, Alice in Wonderland, Robinson Crusoe, or The Jungle Book, for example, is “out.” It is questionable whether abridged or adapted versions or extracts from classics should be stocked; they often give children an entirely false impression of the work they represent, and as a general rule works that may be “extracted” for children should be provided in their original form. A “Bowdlerized” Shakespeare is an objectionable work; the more virile or doubtful parts of the complete plays rarely touch children or are understood by them. In other classes of literature great discretion must be exercised. A balanced selection covering the whole field of knowledge should be the aim, and although there are still many blank spaces in this field, there are fortunately thousands of works on the arts, sciences, history, biography, and, indeed, upon most subjects, eminently adapted to children. Mere simplicity is not the first essential of such books. Children of quite tender years can make use of many books which are not intended primarily for them, and these may frequently be admitted with great advantage. The intrinsic side of selection may be summarized briefly: Admit all books which appeal to children so long as they are in good English, have no immoral tendency, do not bring the sanctities of life into ridicule, are accurate, and have a worthy quality of humour. This last condition is important. The average child has not a very refined sense of humour, he prefers it of a concrete quality, without irony or sarcasm, and too often founded upon human depravity, deformity and misfortune; this taste must be counteracted.
489. The physical side of books is only less important than the literary, a fact frequently overlooked. Good, legible, well-inked type, good paper, well-drawn, coloured and accurately-registered illustrations should always be sought. There is an æsthetic value in books which should not be neglected, and this is absent from ill-produced works; and the eyesight of children should be guarded from small or illegible print. Bindings should be strong and durable, an almost impossible condition at the present day when cheap machine-made cases are the rule. The life of the book of to-day in continual use is at best only a few months. Before the European War publishers were gradually introducing reinforced and other strong bindings for children’s books, and it is to be hoped that this desirable practice will in due course be resumed.
490. Recent events have so affected the book-market that any rigid estimate of the average cost of books would be futile, as being subject to probable immense fluctuations. Five years ago 3s. 6d. was a fair average price for a lending library book for young readers; at the time of writing 5s. would be nearer the sum that would have to be paid. It can only be assumed that a considerable time will elapse before books will return to their original prices. Any other assumption would be unwise.
491. Administration.—Primary factors in successful work are freedom of access, the maintenance of proper but not oppressive discipline, and the administration of the department by a specially trained and qualified staff. Ruskin’s theory that a child should be let loose in a good library to choose or reject as he wills has proved to be satisfactory in practice, and to promote that sense of personal proprietorship in the library which it is desirable that he should possess. Other reasons for the open access system are the opportunities it gives for close contact between the child and the librarian, of the opportunities it gives the child of learning what treasures are at his disposal, in addition to every other advantage which may be said to accrue to the system when used for adult readers. The hours of opening should be governed by the school hours; that is to say, it is hardly ever necessary to open during school hours; and the library should close at a reasonable hour in order that children may not be induced to remain there at times when they ought to be in their homes. These hours differ in different localities. At holiday times, however, the library should be accessible during the greater part of the daytime.
492. Discipline, it has been well remarked, is the problem of the children’s department. While the dragooning methods of the parish beadle would be deplorably out of place, it is impossible to agree with the American librarian who declares that “children usually do not mind noise and crowding,” because, even if in theory they do not, it is impossible to carry on effective work in conditions of congestion and noise. Too precise a method would defeat its object, but it would seem wise to limit the admissions at any time to such numbers as may be controlled easily by the librarian. 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. Firmness displayed with kindness, but with decision, and the excluding of unrepentant offenders have been found to be effective.
493. The training of the children’s librarian is special and necessary. In England it has not been developed in any degree commensurate with the need, and our ideals in this matter must be drawn from our American cousins. They require a sound preliminary education in the candidate, a knowledge of the broader lines of general library administration, and, added to these, a study of the child mind, practical social service work, the study of the bibliography of juvenile literature, and practice—usually gained by actual work in children’s rooms—in story-telling, subject-hunting, bulletin-making, and similar matters. Cataloguing, classification, the preparing of attractive lists, etc., for children are all somewhat modified from the forms in use in the grown people’s departments, and all are treated specially. All these studies premise that the librarian has the requisite “personality,” and this is a matter of natural inheritance rather than of training. In Europe this special training can only be gained in the children’s room, and, as a matter of fact, is not always gained. Too often librarians have perforce been obliged to hand the conduct of the department to any member of the staff who might be available at the time. This state of affairs must receive attention if the children’s department is to accomplish its purpose. Probably the ordinary training of the Froebel system superadded to general library training is the best preparation that can be given to the British children’s librarian at present.
494. Activities of the Department.—To bring the child into contact with the proper book is the aim of the department. Free choice amongst books will suffice in a number of instances; but such passive methods will not always secure good results. The assistant in charge must win the confidence of the children and guide them in the most unobtrusive manner possible to the books likely to be of interest and use. Various active methods are in use to gain this end. The most popular of these is the Story Hour.
495. 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 are given informally, the children usually being grouped round the librarian in a half-circle while she tells them a fairy story, or stories drawn from the greater writers, from history, poetry, or what not. The connexion between the story hour and the after reading of the books which contain the stories is clear. Such story-telling requires special and intelligent study, good elocution, fluency and the sense of the dramatic. The objection frequently offered to the work is that it is harmful to children for them to hear a story by a great writer delivered in inferior language and brokenly by an indifferent librarian. This, however, is purely a matter of experience and training, and there are admirable manuals of story-telling method by Miss Marie Shedlock, Miss L. M. Olcott, and others which may help in this matter. Otherwise the value of the work is undoubted. The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh sets the standard which has general approval. There it is found that groups of thirty children are convenient in size, although it is often necessary to have larger groups. “To the younger children miscellaneous stories are told, selected chiefly from the folk-tales of various countries, legends, myths, fables, modern realistic stories and Bible stories. Two stories are usually told to each group, and whenever possible variety is given by the selection of stories of different types. Poems and nursery rhymes are occasionally included in these programmes. Special days are celebrated if stories can be found which express the spirit of the holiday and are sufficiently dramatic in form. The same stories are sometimes repeated during the year because of the deeper impression made through repetition, and the value to children of an intimate acquaintance with a few of the best things in literature appropriate for them. If something new is given each time, the impressions are confused and dissipated, and material which is either beyond a child’s appreciation or unsuitable for story-telling must finally be used. When an additional story is told, and the children are allowed a choice, the story requested is almost without exception a very old and well-known one. To the older children some of the great cycle stories are presented by telling one story each week. High adventure and romance, as depicted in these hero tales, have a special appeal to the boy and girl from ten to fifteen, and at this age interest is easily sustained.”[17]
496. More formal lectures prove entirely successful with children, the difficulty as a rule being to find accommodation for the numbers who desire to attend them. They differ from lectures given to adults principally in the fact that they are simpler, but not always even in this particular. Lecturing to children demands a freedom of manner and from mannerisms, decision and fluency; and it will be found that the audience is one of the most critical a lecturer can encounter. All the conditions of definite, clear and accurate subject-matter, refined humour, etc., which are required in books are also required in the lecture. Such subjects as the history of inventions and historical episodes appeal strongly to boys, but perhaps not so greatly to girls, who find nature, literary and similar lectures more to their taste—although dogmatic statement on this point is entirely unwise. The judicious use of lantern slides, pictures and exhibits enhances these lectures, but many subjects are better treated without them. Pictures of characters in works of imagination, for example, often destroy the child’s own, and therefore more valuable, conception of the characters. Good discipline is essential to successful lectures, and this depends upon the lecturer; uneasiness in the audience usually means that it is bored, and the lecturer is wise to consider it thus.
497. Reading clubs and circles often form part of the activities of the department. In these the members, who are admitted to them formally, undertake to read through some special book under the guidance of a leader who, of course, may be a member of the library staff, although an older child may be induced to become leader. Usually the children read the prescribed portion of the book privately, and at the circle they go over it, talk about it, ask questions, and look at pictures, maps and other books that may throw more light on their reading or increase its interest.
498. A valuable auxiliary of story hours, lectures and reading circles is a collection of illustrations. Such collections are becoming a feature of some British, and have long been used in American, libraries. The collection is made up of illustrations abstracted from all suitable sources, worn-out books, periodicals, catalogues, advertisements, etc., in addition to pictures separately published. Each picture is mounted individually upon a mount of standard size—121⁄2 inches by 101⁄2 inches for the greater number, and 17 inches by 131⁄2 inches for larger pictures have been proved to be quite suitable—of manila, art paper, or some similar stiff material; and the pictures are minutely classified, and may be filed in closed pamphlet boxes, or, better, vertically in a filing cabinet. Systematic abstracting of such illustrations for the available sources of an ordinary library will soon produce a large collection. The rule to be observed is that the pictures must illustrate some fact, scene or object. Pictures from the average modern novel, views of scenes which may be found in any country, “pretty” pictures, etc., have practically no value. An exception may be made in favour of illustrations of classic works by distinguished artists, but for the reasons advanced against lantern slides in illustrating such works even this is doubtful. The collection should be available not only in the department, they should also be lent to teachers for use in class work in school and to reading circles and other people who may desire to use them. Such pictures may form the basis of what is called bulletin work. On suitable occasions, holidays, birthdays of great men, anniversaries of all kinds, and as illustrating current events, pictures should be displayed on screens in the room in conjunction with brief lists of illustrative books. Sometimes bulletins are specially made for such occasions if an assistant with the necessary artistic ability is available; attractive borders, small appropriate sketches and similar embellishments are added to the pictures and lists. It is possible, however, that the bulletin may exercise too great a fascination over its maker and too much time be spent upon it; but within limits the bulletin is an excellent device for drawing the attention of children.
499. At all seasonable times additional activities recommend themselves, but extravagance should be avoided. Exhibits of many kinds, wild flowers in their seasons, and the common objects and fauna of the district, are frequently displayed with satisfactory results; and, indeed, on every opportunity the librarian should make the room of current living interest to the children.
500. In almost all these activities voluntary help from interested people may be had and should be welcomed. Large picture collections have in some places been provided almost entirely by this means, and every town has people in it who would help as lecturers, leaders of circles, collectors and arrangers of exhibits. The wider the lay interest taken in the department, provided it is directed judiciously, the greater its success is likely to be.
501. Library Lessons.—Library lessons may form a useful part of the activities of the department. Teachers may bring their classes to the libraries in school hours and give lessons on subjects in connexion with the ordinary school lessons. Such lessons are frequently given in the Cardiff children’s rooms, and in giving them the teachers use the books, illustrations, maps and other material in the rooms, and are able to reinforce these with books or materials from the adult departments. There is a novelty in lessons given in such conditions which removes them in the child’s mind from ordinary lessons and gives them emphasis. A pleasure is added to them if the children are allowed a space at their conclusion in which they may indulge in individual reading according to their own choice from the shelves.
502. The library is perhaps more directly concerned with lessons in which the library itself is the subject taught, and these lessons fall to the staff. A preliminary lesson may consist of a simple demonstration of the purpose and means of access to the library—its divisions, cataloguing and classification, and an exercise in finding books; and this may be followed by other lessons on the making, use and care of books; and other lessons may follow on reference work, subject-hunting, the use of periodical indexes, bibliographical aids, dictionaries, maps, etc. They must be purely objective to succeed, and everything described should be placed before the children. These lessons are also given as a rule in school hours, and inspectors have shown themselves willing to regard them as part of the school curriculum. Their value both to the children and to the libraries is very great.
503. Classification and Cataloguing.—The classification and catalogue methods of the department should be preliminary to those of the adult departments; but they may be simpler with advantage. Young children would probably find the decimal classification in its orthodox form too intricate. At the same time the system that they use should be in its essentials the main classification of the library. The following simplified form of the decimal system may be suggestive; it is not meant to be more than that:
| 0 | General Works |
| 01 | Bibliographies. Aids to Reading, Catalogues, etc. |
| 03 | Encyclopædias |
| 05 | Children’s magazines |
| 07 | Newspapers |
| 1 | Philosophy |
| 10 | General |
| 17 | Temperance |
| 19 | Conduct |
| 2 | Religion |
| 20 | General |
| 22 | The Bible and Bible Stories |
| 29 | Mythology. Stories involving the Gods |
| 3 | Sociology |
| 30 | General |
| 32 | Government |
| 35 | Army |
| 36 | Navy |
| 37 | Schools and Colleges |
| 39 | Etiquette, Customs |
| 395 | Legends, Folk-lore |
| Fairy Tales go in 833 | |
| 4 | Language |
| 40 | General |
| 42 | Grammars and Readers |
| 45 | Composition, Essay-writing, Précis-writing |
| 5 | Science (Mathematical and Natural) |
| 50 | General |
| 51 | Mathematics, Arithmetic, Geometry |
| 52 | Astronomy |
| 53 | Physics, Electricity |
| 54 | Chemistry |
| 55 | Earth, Sea, Air (Geology, Oceanography, and Meteorology) |
| 56 | Fossils |
| 57 | General natural history; Outdoor books |
| 58 | Trees; Flowers |
| 59 | Man; Races; Origin and Development |
| 6 | Useful Arts |
| 60 | General |
| 61 | Ambulance |
| 615 | Gymnastics |
| 62 | Engineering (Steam, Gas, Electrical) |
| 629 | Aerial Engineering |
| 63 | Farming |
| 64 | Domestic Economy, Cooking |
| 65 | Railways, Shipping |
| 66 | Fishing and Fisheries |
| Angling is 79 | |
| 67 | Trades and Industries, alphabetically |
| 69 | Building |
| 7 | Fine Arts |
| 70 | General |
| 71 | Gardens |
| 72 | Buildings (Architecture) |
| 73 | Sculpture |
| 74 | Drawing |
| 75 | Painting |
| 77 | Photography |
| 78 | Music |
| 79 | Games |
| 8 | Literature |
| 80 | General |
| 81 | Poetry |
| 82 | Drama |
| 83 | Stories and Tales |
| 833 | Fairy Tales |
| 835 | Animal and Other Natural History Fables |
| 84 | Essays |
| 9 | Travel |
| (Including Geography and Descriptions of Countries) | |
| 90 | General |
| 91 | Atlases and Geographies |
| 912 | Travels in Great Britain |
| 914 | Travels in Europe[456] |
| 915 | Travels in Asia |
| 916 | Travels in Africa |
| 917 | Travels in N. America |
| 918 | Travels in Central and South America |
| 919 | Travels in Australasia; The Polar Regions; Isolated Islands |
| 92 | Lives of Famous People: Collective |
| 921 | Lives: Individual |
| Alphabetically by persons written about | |
| 93 | History |
| 930 | Ancient History |
| 940 | History (Modern) of Europe |
| 942 | History of Great Britain and Ireland |
| 95 | History of Asia |
| 96 | History of Africa |
| 97 | History of N. America |
| 98 | History of Central and S. America |
| 99 | History of Australasia and Isolated Islands |
This outline can be expanded as desired without difficulty or dislocation.
504. Similar principles may well govern the cataloguing of the children’s library. It is well that youngsters should become familiar with the arrangement and use of sheaf and card as well as of printed catalogues. Moreover, the Anglo-American code is here the best basis upon which to do the cataloguing. It should be remembered that the children use the catalogue, or ought to use it, and not adults. All recondite bibliographical terms, and abbreviations except the simplest, should be avoided; and explanatory notes should be written in language such as the children may be expected to understand. Indeed, a rule that all cataloguing should be expressed in such language—we mean all that is added to the title—would be a safe one to follow. Some extended rules, with examples, which may prove helpful in this matter are given in Berwick Sayers’s The Children’s Library, chapter iii. It will be seen that no particular form of catalogue is recommended; librarians differ widely upon this question. Perhaps the best printed catalogue is that issued for schools by the Pittsburgh Library: a catalogue in divisions corresponding to the grades in the schools, in which each division contains books which are thought to make appeal to the children in the grade it represents.
505. Reading lists follow the same rules. These, to make any useful appeal, should be presented simply, attractively, and be rigidly selective. A few titles, well presented, are likely to have more effect than lists so long that they frighten the child.
506. If libraries are an integral part of the educational system, it is clear that their relations with schools and with the teachers must be close. This is perhaps more cordially recognized in America than here, but there are few librarians who do not endeavour to establish a connexion between their libraries and the official teaching system of their towns. In the simplest instance special privileges are offered to teachers enabling them to borrow from five to twelve or more books at a time for class work. In some towns meetings of teachers and library staffs are held in order that mutual work may be discussed and arranged. In a few places there are special libraries for teachers; and in some American libraries not only are there these special libraries, but the teachers are provided with keys which give them access when other parts of the libraries are closed. One of the privileges of the public library is to encourage teachers to make the fullest use of books.
507. It is gradually becoming recognized that a school without a library lacks an important part of its equipment. In colleges and high schools this has been recognized practically for some years past, but in few but the largest schools have separate rooms been assigned for library purposes, in the care of an assistant trained in the work. A teacher whose principal business is teaching has usually been thought to be a person sufficiently qualified for the work, with the result that rarely have the libraries been exploited to anything like the full measure of their possibilities. They are places where books are read or from which books are lent, not places where readers are created, information disseminated, or the practical use of books taught. In fact, one of the absurd gaps in our higher school curriculum is the want of teaching in the book, in the elements of bibliography; and until this is filled our school system must be pronounced to be incomplete. American methods deserve study, with a view to their adaptability to British conditions; and such works as Gilbert O. Ward’s The High School Library, in the A. L. A. Manual of Library Economy (as showing the field and its possibilities), and Florence M. Hopkins’s Reference Guides that Should be Known, and How to Use Them (as showing a practical method in one part of library teaching), will repay such study.
508. In council and similar elementary schools the municipal library has one of its best fields of work. Under the present restricted financial conditions of libraries, however, it is necessary to say that the provision of reading matter in the schools should be a charge against educational funds and not against those of the library, which are already altogether insufficient for ordinary work. It is at the same time probable that this work, in so far as book-selection and purchase, cataloguing and classification, binding, and other details of organization and administration are concerned, can be done better and more economically by the librarian than by the teacher, and should accordingly be directed by the library committee. The theory of the work is that while the librarian is the best person to organize the school library, the teacher is the best person to bring books and children together. Some education authorities make special grants for this work, varying from a few to several hundreds of pounds yearly; but before we describe the methods most generally approved, we may make mention of the various unaided efforts that librarians have made to meet the needs of schools. One is to invite the teacher to obtain, upon his own signature, a ticket for every child whom he considers to be of reading age; to permit him to borrow the number of books represented by such tickets; and to retain them so long as he thinks necessary for their due circulation. Three months is an average loan period. A second is to waive the ticket-taking preliminary and to lend the teacher a number of books for a few weeks or months for lending as he thinks good amongst the scholars. There have been many variations of these two methods, but they are obviously one in principle; and, useful as they no doubt are, they are also obviously limited, as few British libraries have a large enough stock of books of the right kind to lend in this way to all the schools in the town which might require the privilege. School libraries to be lastingly effective require a separate stock with many duplicates, and these no ordinary public library can, in present circumstances, provide.
509. Co-operation between library and education committees seems to be the best method of achieving satisfactory school libraries. By this method the education committee provides the funds, the libraries the administration, and the teachers the actual service amongst the children. Wherever there is a children’s department at the public library it ought to be the centre from which all the libraries in the town should be organized, supplied and co-ordinated. Again, to secure any success, the closest co-operation is necessary between teachers and librarians. This is generally forthcoming, but frequently is not, for reasons made clear to the editor of this Manual by a prominent teacher, who writes: “I do not like the circulating of libraries from school to school—it is most unsatisfactory. I know the need of the children in my school more exactly than anyone else, and I do not want books dumped on me that my children will not read.” Moreover, it was affirmed that the books chosen by librarians were unsuitable as being “too adult.” It is clear, however, that the only real difficulty raised here is that to the exchange of the collections between the schools. All the other difficulties can be, and are, overcome by the co-operation which is postulated for the work.
510. The control of such school libraries takes several forms. In the simplest the education authority grants a certain sum yearly to the library committee for children’s work, making only the condition that library service on their behalf shall be efficient. In other cases the education authority desires to take a more definite part in the work, and it has been found that a sub-committee, consisting of members of the library and education committees and of representatives of the head teachers, with the librarian as executive officer, will work satisfactorily. Such a sub-committee should be free from the limitations imposed upon subordinate bodies, and although it should report its activities, it should not be expected to submit them to the respective committees. Friction is soon generated if the sub-committee’s book-selection, or indeed any other feature of its work, is liable to amendment by another body, and we have known really good library schemes to come to grief through such interference.
511. A grant for school libraries should consist of an initial capital sum for equipment and stock, and an annual sum for additions and maintenance. Grants vary from about £500 to £25 per annum, and the amounts, of course, are conditioned by the size of the town and the number of schools to be served, as also by the current cost of furniture, books and service, all of which are at present in a state of great fluctuation. A good arrangement is that in operation at Cardiff, where the Education Committee grants £2, 10s. yearly for every hundred children permanently on the school registers. The work of preparing, cataloguing and classifying the books is carried out by the library staff as a whole in small libraries, or by the children’s library staff where one exists, or by a special school libraries assistant. In providing the commencing stock, a few decisions must be made upon which the future usefulness of the libraries will largely depend: (1) the period for which books are to remain at each school; (2) the desirability of an unchanging deposit collection at each school; (3) the method of charging at the schools; (4) the methods of recording the whereabouts of each book. And there are other matters.
512. The period of loan to each school varies from three to twelve months, and the smaller the available stocks of books, the more frequent should be the changing of them. Frequent changes, however, involve much labour, and it is well that the collections should be as large as possible at the outset in order that they may serve efficiently for longer periods than three months. They should not remain longer than a year, as by that time the interest of the collection will be much reduced and the books themselves will probably be in need of overhauling. It is a good thing to have a basic, unchanging collection at each school, consisting of the books which by common consent are children’s classics. These will naturally be duplicated in most of the schools, as the list of such books is by no means a long one. Their existence gives assurance that every child has access to the best of children’s books during his school career. The ultimate aim should be to increase the school collections so that periodical interchange between the schools becomes unnecessary, except in so far as additions of new books are concerned.
513. Cataloguing.—The accession and cataloguing methods may resemble those described for Rural Libraries (Sections 546-47). One suggestions-slip may serve for any number of copies, the accession numbers being added to the card; this forms an inventory of the stock. For each copy another catalogue card, in very brief form, should be written, which may be placed behind a guide card bearing the name of the school at which the copy is located. A printed catalogue of the whole of the school library system is a very useful thing, but is difficult to maintain. In any case a list of the books sent to the school should accompany each dispatch.
514. Charging.—The head teacher usually appoints a school librarian, who may be a teacher, but is more often a senior scholar, and to the school librarian is entrusted the issuing of books and the keeping of the necessary records. The charging system will be some simplified form of that in use at the public library. A card-charging system has been found to be satisfactory. Trays, pockets, and properly-written book-cards are provided by the library staff, and a supply of readers’ tickets which are made out by the school librarian as required. Another method is that described in Section 547, which can be adapted readily to school libraries. Scholars are usually allowed to change books once a week, during a special “library hour,” which is recognized officially as part of school time; but this is a matter of local arrangement.
515. Usually the work of book-selection is performed by the School Libraries Committee. It has a drawback in the fact that teachers do not always receive the exact books that they wish to have for their schools, and a better method, at least in theory, is for the librarian to submit a list of the books available for purchase to the teachers, and to invite them to requisition those which they think suitable. This would forestall a very frequent criticism made by teachers; nor would the librarian experience any great difficulty in meeting the demands so made.
516. The period for which a collection should remain at a school is conveniently governed by the school holidays. The summer vacation presents the best opportunity for overhauling the whole system, and where there is accommodation at the central library, and other circumstances permit, it is well to have all the collections returned there, where they may be weeded of defective and dirty books, repairs may be executed, binding arranged for, stock may be taken, and the new location of the collections determined, so that every school may recommence with a new library. But in the intervals between holidays periodical visits to the schools should be made by the schools librarian to see that the books are in order, to advise where necessary, and in other ways to maintain relations between the school and the public library. Sometimes the librarian addresses the children in the schools, upon reading or other library subjects. This visiting work should be done with tact and unobtrusively. Frequently teachers prefer to be allowed to work without the intervention of the librarian, and such preferences must be respected. The business of the librarian is to supply books, and not necessarily to exploit them—so far, at least, as schools are concerned.
| Supplies Wanted:— | PENNY STAMP |
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| Book Pockets....................... Borrowers’ Tickets.............. Tags................ Voucher Cards..................... |
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| CHIEF LIBRARIAN, Central Public Library, NEWTON. |
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| Repairs dealt with.............vols. Repairs put aside..............vols. |
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| Signed, | |||
| ............................................. | |||
| School Librarian. | |||
Fig. 177a.—School Libraries Return—front (Section 517).
| .................................................SCHOOL LIBRARY. | ||||||||||||
| Issues for the month of............................................................19..................... | ||||||||||||
| 00 | 10 | 20 | 30 | 40 | 50 | 60 | 70 | 80 | 90 | Fiction. | Totals. | |
| 1st week. | ||||||||||||
| 2nd week. | ||||||||||||
| 3rd week. | ||||||||||||
| 4th week. | ||||||||||||
| 5th week. | ||||||||||||
| Number of Borrowers............................................................... | ||||||||||||
Fig. 177b.—School Libraries Return—back (Section 517).
517. Returns of the circulation are regarded as necessary by most librarians, and have a variety of uses, as every librarian recognizes. These are usually made monthly to the librarian. The card shown has proved satisfactory in practice.
Teachers, it must be added, do not always see the values of these returns, and may consider them an irritating and unnecessary superfluity. If they could be made in the form of an estimate once a year the purpose might be served.
518. The head teacher should not be held responsible in a financial sense for lost books, nor should he be expected or permitted to replace them. He would, however, be expected to take reasonable steps to recover them, and in case of loss, a penalty of some kind, however small, is generally inflicted upon the loser. Books which have been in contact with infectious disease are sent from the home to the Public Health Department, where they are disinfected, or, in some places, destroyed, at the discretion of the Medical Officer of Health. Some sanitary authorities themselves replace the books which are destroyed.
519. At what time in the history of school libraries the collections should cease to circulate between the schools and become permanent libraries in individual schools is a matter upon which opinion differs. At Cardiff this stage was reached when there were 600 volumes in the large school, and no school with less than 200. Allowing the average time in which a child will use the library, to be four years, the lesser of these figures provides that each child may read at least one volume a week throughout that time; but it is impossible to allow the child a choice of books in these circumstances, and this is a very grave defect. It can only be affirmed that there should be at least one book for every child of reading age, and that this minimum should be increased as rapidly as possible.
520. Other fields for the public library presented by the schools may be indicated briefly. They may be used as deposit stations for adult readers in anticipation of the establishment of permanent branch libraries; and this method has met with success. The head teacher, too, should be allowed the right of requisitioning temporarily any books in the public lending libraries which may be desirable for the use of the scholars in connexion with their class studies; and a generous policy in lending works from the reference library for use in the school building is a natural corollary of this.
521. Sunday School Libraries have not received much attention from British public librarians. They present a useful field of work, in which the municipal library may suggest books and methods and offer simple training in library practice to the teachers. As is the case with all other teachers, the stores of the public library should be made available for their use in the widest sense.
522. Finally, the teachers themselves are entitled to the most careful attention. At training schools there should be special libraries of pedagogy; and at the public library an effort should be made to place a catholic and fully representative collection of works on all branches of teaching, theory and practice at the disposal of teachers.
523. 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.
524. The Children’s Department, and School Libraries:
Ballinger, John. Children and Public Libraries. In British Library Year Book, 1900-01.
—— Work with Children. In Library Association. Public Libraries: Their Development and Future Organization, 1917, p. 15.
Bostwick, A. E. (Ed.). The Relationship between the Library and the Public Schools, 1914.
Cleveland Public Library. Work with Children and the Means used to Reach Them, 1912.
Dana, J. C. (Ed.). Modern American Library Economy, 1912-. Pt. 5: (1) School Department Room, (2) Course of Study for Normal School Pupils, (3) Picture Collection (revised); Pt. 7: (2) High School Branch; Pt. 19, Pictures and Objects.
Emery, J. W. The Library, the School, and the Child, 1917.
Fay, L. E., and Eaton, A. T. Instruction in the Use of Books and Libraries: for Normal Schools and Colleges, 1915.
Field, Mrs E. M. The Child and His Book, 1895.
Field, W. T. Fingerposts to Children’s Reading, 1911.
Jast, L. S. The Relation of Libraries to Education. In Library Association. Public Libraries, etc., 1917, p. 15.
Miller, E. M. Libraries and Education, 1912.
Olcott, F. J. Library Work with Children. In A.L.A. Man. of Lib. Econ., Preprint of chapter xxix., 1914.
—— Children’s Reading, 1912.
Sayers, W. C. Berwick. The Children’s Library, 1911.
Stevenson, Lilian. A Child’s Bookshelf, 1918.
Ward, G. O. The High School Library. In A.L.A. Man. of Lib. Econ., Preprint of chapter vii., 1915.
—— Practical Use of Books and Libraries (with Teaching Outline, in separate vol.), 2 vols., 1911.
For articles see Cannons.
525. The Story Hour:
Bryant, S. C. How to Tell Stories to Children, 1911.
—— Stories to Tell to Children, 1911.
Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. Stories to Tell to Children; by Edna Whiteman, 1918.
Shedlock, M. L. Art of Story-Telling, 1915.
Partridge, E. N., and G. E. Story-Telling in School and Home, 1913.
For articles see Cannons, under headings Child and Children, in the Index (many references).
Note.—Work with children has been more written, and, probably, overwritten, than any library subject. The Library Journal and Public Libraries issue special Children’s Library numbers at intervals, and hardly a month passes without an article appearing upon some phase of the subject. Students new to the subject should be made aware that much of the writing upon it is too sentimental, and too concerned with bypaths, to be of great value; but this criticism does not apply to any of the works in the list given above.