The organized story hour, developed as a direct method of guiding
the reading of children, originated with this library and has
been carried on in connection with home library groups as well
as in the branch libraries, the public schools, the playgrounds,
and the social settlements of Pittsburgh, for a period of eleven
years.
The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh issues printed lists of the
stories used and a pamphlet entitled "Storytelling--a Public
Library Method" by Miss Frances Jenkins Olcott, Chief of the
Children's Department and Director of the Training School for
Children's Librarians.
ST. LOUIS
In the playgrounds one regularly employed storyteller, who also
assists in directing the games, tells stories throughout the
season. Storytelling is also carried on by playground assistants
and by volunteer storytellers. The interest shown by parents who
frequently join the story hour groups in the parks, is considered
a significant gain in sustaining neighborhood interest in the
playground.
In one settlement house, the head worker meets the storytellers
at the beginning of the season and plans and directs the work for
the entire year.
Storytelling in the St. Louis Public Library has been carried on
for several years by children's librarians of branch libraries
who have visited playgrounds, settlements, and public schools, as
visiting storytellers, and have told stories at mothers' clubs
and teachers' meetings. Since February, 1910, it has been under
the direction of the supervisor of work with children, who was
formerly one of the visiting storytellers and assistants to the
supervisor of work with children in the New York Public Library.
Storytelling is regarded by her as a valuable aid in the
unification of the work with children in a system of libraries.
STORYTELLING IN OTHER COMMUNITIES
The reports received represent only a small part of the
storytelling that is being done in different parts of the
country.
In New Jersey, the organizer of the State Library Commission has
found her ability to tell stories and to choose books containing
a direct appeal to the people who are to read them, or to listen
to the reading of them, an open sesame in the pine woods
districts, the farming communities, and the fishing villages,
where grown people listen as eagerly as children. In a paper
entitled, "The Place, the Man, and the Book," Miss Sarah B. Askew
gives a vivid picture of the establishment of a library in a
fishing village. (Proceedings of the American Library
Association. 1908.)[4]
[4] Reprinted as a pamphlet by The H. W. Wilson Company.
Recognizing a similar need for the interpretation of books to the
communities where libraries had already been established, the
Iowa Library Commission appointed in 1909 an advisory children's
librarian, who is also a professional storyteller and lecturer
upon children's literature.
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