The importance of reference work with children is indicated in
the next article by the fact that "the subjects on which children
seek information are as varied as those brought by older people,
and the material is equally elusive." Miss Abby L. Sargent
contributed this article to the Library Journal for April, 1895.
Abby Ladd Sargent received her training under her sister, Miss
Mary E. Sargent. She reorganized the Wilmington Library
Association Library in 1890-1891. From 1891 to 1895 she was
librarian of the Middlesex Mechanics Association. In 1895 she
became reference librarian and classifier of the Medford Public
Library, where her sister was librarian. In 1910, after her
sister's death, she became librarian of the Medford Public
Library. In 1900 she organized and purchased books for the
Owatonna, Minnesota, Public Library. She has been instructor in
the Expansive Classification in Simmons College Library School
since its opening. Miss Sargent was joint editor and compiler of
Sargent's "Reading for the young," and its supplement.
Let us suppose that the momentous problem is solved of persuading
children to use the library for more serious purpose than to find
a book "as good as 'Mark the match boy,' " and that we are trying
to convince children that the library is infallible, and can
furnish information on whatever they wish to know about--whether
it is some boy who comes on the busiest morning of the week, to
find out how to make a puppet show in time to give an afternoon
exhibition, or some high-school girl who rushes over in the 20
minutes' recess to write an exhaustive treatise on women's
colleges.
It is unnecessary to say that the fewer books the library can
supply the more must those few be forced to yield. A large
library, with unlimited volumes, meets few of the difficulties
which beset smaller and poorer institutions.
If the librarian can name at once "a poem about Henry of
Navarre," or tell who wrote "by the rude bridge that arched the
flood," and on what monument it is engraved, can furnish material
for debate on "the Chinese question," "which city should have the
new normal school," "who was Mother Goose," or on any possible or
impossible subject, she gains at once the confidence of the
severest of critics, and is sure of their future patronage.
The subjects on which children seek information are as varied as
those brought by older people and the material is equally
elusive. Perhaps the hardest questions to answer are about the
allusions which are found in literature studies, and which
frequently the teacher who has given the question cannot answer.
I find it helpful whenever I come across material of this nature
to make a reference to it in the catalog, and, in fact, to
analyze carefully all juvenile books, not fiction, whose titles
give no hint of the contents. A great many books otherwise
valueless become thus most useful, especially if one is pressed
for time.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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