Papers and Proceedings of the Twenty-Third General Meeting of the American Library Association: Held at Waukesha, Wisconsin, July 4-10, 1901
Science
Papers and Proceedings of the Twenty-Third General Meeting of the American Library Association: Held at Waukesha, Wisconsin, July 4-10, 1901
American Library Association; Library science -- Congresses
The library is a storehouse of great thought, an unfailing source of
healthful recreation, but also the library is the mine in which the
practical man and woman, the lawyer, the machinist, the scientist, the
teacher, must dig deep for information, if he is to keep near the head
in his own line of work.
So far, as I have said before, nearly all organized effort to teach the
teachers along these lines has come from the library. Certain normal
school and college librarians have done much, but to a large extent the
work has been on sufferance. Odds and ends of the students' time and
attention have been given to it.
The desirable thing is that the study of juvenile literature and the use
of the library shall take equal rank with other studies in the
preparation of prospective teachers; that the normal school, the
pedagogical department of the college and university, the teachers'
summer-school and institute, shall recognize this subject in their
curricula.
The practical side of library use--its use for information--is easily
seen by the public, and schools for teachers can quite readily be
induced to make room for the course of study suggested.
In the Cleveland City Normal Training School an attempt to carry out
such a course of study has been made. A term's work is given in juvenile
literature and the use of the library. Moreover, this subject is placed
upon an equality with the philosophy of teaching, history of education
and psychology.
As yet the work is not thoroughly organized. We feel, however, that some
things of value have been already accomplished.
In a twelve-weeks' term a class of 116 prospective teachers (the junior
class of the school) have taken notes on a series of talks on reference
books. They have learned something of the comparative value of various
standard encyclopædias, gazetteers, dictionaries and indexes, and they
have been sent to the public library a half-day at a time to do work
which required the use of these.
For instance, a study of the life of Robert Louis Stevenson was made for
the purpose of giving a talk on the subject to fifth-grade pupils. The
students were required to look up all the available material in the
library, looking not only in the printed and card catalogs for
individual and collective biography, but in the various
indexes--Poole's, the Annual, the Cumulative--for magazine articles.
They were required to select the four or five articles found most
valuable and to estimate their comparative value for the purpose in
hand, making definite statements of the points of value. They were
required to make careful and well-worded notes from the best material
available, either books or periodicals, always giving the source, and to
read these notes in class subject to the criticism of their instructor
and school mates. And, lastly, they were required to write the story of
Stevenson's life as they would tell it to the children.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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