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
No sooner had this been done than librarians and teachers both saw that
they had made but a beginning, and the next steps, and, indeed, the
present needs, are to bring about a more intelligent use of both books
and libraries and to place larger and better arranged collections within
easy access of the pupils. Rarely do the teachers find the libraries
adequate to the reference work or the collateral reading they wish the
pupils to do. The funds are seldom sufficient to keep the libraries up
to date. There is no one person in the school who knows how to organize
and administer the library, and therefore whatever work the teachers do
in this line is at a greater expense of both time, energy and material
than it would be were it done by one having had a library training. The
school buildings are frequently closed to the students shortly after the
school session, usually by five o'clock, and always on holidays and
during vacations. Most of the pupils' reading and research must
therefore be done in the one or two books which he carries home with
him. The Buffalo Public Library made another step in organization when
it offered to take the collections of books from any of the public
schools in the city and in return mend, rebind, catalog, classify them,
furnish such schools as agreed to this arrangement with the books they
needed, either from their own collections or from that of the public
library, and appoint two attendants to look after the school work.
The public school began with the one central school in the community,
but it soon found that it must establish branches if it reached all of
the children of the city. To-day there is no town of any considerable
size but has its central school with a high school usually, and its
branches on the north, east, south and west sides. The public library,
following the public schools, has found that it cannot reach the people
of the community unless it delivers books to the various parts of the
town, and moreover establishes branch reading rooms where at least
reference books may be consulted and magazines read.
As in the history of the schools, so in the history of the libraries,
provision was first made for the mature student. Educators have been
slow to see that they should begin with the child before he has
established habits of thought and action. Not until the public library
is considered a vital factor in the educational scheme of a city can it
hope to secure its best results, nor is this possible when the central
library and its few branches are removed, as at present, from the public
schools. The libraries and the schools should be housed in close
proximity to do the most effective work.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account