On the first page a picture of the children's room with this
inscription underneath:
Boys and Girls come here to read and to study their lessons for
school. Picture Books for little children.
On the second page a picture of the adult department, showing its
use and giving the information all foreigners seem desirous to
have:
Men and Women come here to read and to study.
Books on the Laws and Customs of America.
Books, Papers and Magazines in Italian and other foreign
languages.
Books from which to learn to read English.
On the back of the cover these simple directions:
HOW TO JOIN THE LIBRARY
The use of the Library is Free to anyone who comes to Read or to
Study in its rooms.
If you wish to take Books home you must sign an application blank
and give the name and address of some one who knows you.
The information on the folder should be given in the language or
languages of the neighborhood in which the library is situated.
This folder was designed for a branch library in an Italian
neighborhood but a similar folder might be utilized in any
community provided the information is given in simple, direct
form and the pictures show the Library with people using it.
4. Joining the library is not all. However carefully and
impressively the connection is made we are all conscious of those
files of cards "left by borrower," which indicate that a
connection must be sustained if library membership is to prove
its claim as a civic force. There are those who regard a
restriction of circulation to one or two story books a week as a
desirable means to this end, believing that interest in reading
is heightened by such limitation. That many boys and girls read
too much we all know, but I am inclined to think that whatever
restriction is made should be made for the individual rather than
laid down as a library rule. Other libraries advocate a remission
of fines, at the same time imposing a deprivation in time of such
length that it would seem to defeat the chief end of the
children's room which is to encourage the reading habit. Children
who leave their cards for six months at a time are not likely to
be very actively interested in their library. There seem to be
three viewpoints regarding fines for children.
1. Children should be required to pay their fines as a lesson in
civic righteousness. Persons holding this view would allow the
working out of fines under some circumstances but regard the fine
as a debt.
2. Any system of fines is a wrong one, therefore all fines should
be remitted and some other punishment for negligence substituted.
Persons holding this view would deprive children of the use of
the library for a stated period.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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