The civic service thus democratically to be rendered by library
work with children is indispensably valuable. It may be made more
and more invaluable to any community by intelligent insight into
the needs of the people, and by the practical and prompt
application of library resources which are limited only by our
capacity, enterprise and energy to develop and apply them.
ESTABLISHING RELATIONS BETWEEN THE CHILDREN'S LIBRARY AND OTHER
CIVIC AGENCIES
A broader idea of library work with children necessitates greater
knowledge of other agencies which work with them and a spirit of
willing cooperation on the part of the children's librarian. From
her experience in the city of Washington Miss Herbert contributed
the following article of The Library Journal. Clara Wells Herbert
was born in Stockbridge, Mass.; was a student in Vassar from 1894
to 1896; received a special certificate from the Training School
for Children's Librarians in 1904; was children's librarian in
the Brooklyn Public Library from 1904 to 1907, and since that
time has been the head of the Children's department in the Public
Library of the District of Columbia.
The children's departments of many city libraries are carrying on
a fine aggressive work and through branch children's rooms, close
work with schools, including deposits of books in classrooms,
deposits of books and story-telling in playgrounds, home
libraries and home visiting, are coming close to the children and
putting good books within their reach. Such work rests upon a
large staff and a generous appropriation. On the other hand, the
small town library has the advantage of informal relations with
its people and is a part of the various activities of the town.
Between these two types of libraries is a third. It is located in
a city too large for the helpful informal relations of the town
library. It cannot, on the other hand, carry on its own
aggressive work, for it is hampered by the smallness of its staff
and the meagerness of its appropriation.
To libraries of this sort the effecting of cordial relations with
other civic institutions is of the utmost importance. Upon it
depends largely the outside work of the library and a specialized
knowledge of conditions very essential for intelligent work.
Nor is the library the only one to profit by cooperation.
"I never thought of asking for help there," said a probation
officer recently when talking of her difficulties in keeping a
record of the use of the withdrawn books given to the court by
the library. Not more than we need the benefit of the intimate
personal knowledge of conditions of such workers, do they often
need the help the library stands ready and eager to give but
which they do not think to ask.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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