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Page 59
Even in the very small library a corner for young people will usually
be found an attractive and useful feature. It draws the young folks
away from the main collection, where their presence sometimes proves
an annoyance. It does not at all prevent the use, by the younger
readers, of the books of the elders if they wish to use them, and it
makes much easier some slight supervision, at least, of the former's
reading.
CHAPTER LI
Schoolroom libraries
"Schoolroom library" is the term commonly applied to a small
collection, usually about 50v., of books placed on an open shelf in
a schoolroom. In a good many communities these libraries have
been purchased and owned by the board of education, or the school
authorities, whoever they may be. If they are the property of the
school board they commonly remain in the schoolroom in which they are
placed. As the children in that room are changed each year, and as the
collections selected for the different grades are usually different,
the child as he passes through the rooms comes into close contact with
a new collection each year. There are some advantages in having the
ownership and control of these libraries remain entirely in the hands
of the school board and the superintendent. The library, however,
is generally the place in the community in which is to be found the
greatest amount of information about books in general, the purchasing
of them, the proper handling of them in fitting them for the shelves,
cataloging, binding, etc., and the selection of those best adapted to
young people. It is quite appropriate therefore, that, as is in many
cities the case, the public library should supply the schools with
these schoolroom libraries from its own shelves, buying therefor
special books and often many copies of the same book.
If schoolroom libraries do come from the public library, they can
with very little difficulty be changed several times during the school
year. With a little care on the part of the librarian and teachers,
the collection of any given room can be by experience and observation
better and better adapted to the children in that room as time goes
on.
There are many ways of using the schoolroom library. The books forming
it should stand on open shelves accessible to the pupils whenever the
teacher gives permission. They may be lent to the children to take
home. Thus used they often lead both children and parents to read more
and better books than before, and to use the larger collections of
the public library. They may be used for collateral reading in the
schoolroom itself. Some of them may be read aloud by the teacher. They
may serve as a reference library in connection with topics in history,
geography, science, and other subjects.
Wherever introduced these libraries have been very successful.
CHAPTER LII
Children's home libraries
In a few cities the following plan for increasing the amount of good
reading among the children of the poorer and less educated has been
tried with great success. It is especially adapted to communities
which are quite distant from the public library or any of its
branches. It is, as will be seen, work which is in the spirit of the
college settlement plan. The "home libraries," if they do no more,
serve as a bond of common interest between the children and their
parents, and the persons who wish to add to their lives something of
interest and good cheer. As a matter of fact they do more than this.
They lead not a few to use the library proper, and they give to at
least a few boys and girls an opportunity for self-education such as
no other institution yet devised can offer.
A home library is a small collection of books, usually only 15 or 20,
with one or two young folks' periodicals, put up in a box with locked
cover. The box is so made that it will serve as a bookcase and can be
hung on a wall or stood on the floor or a table. In the neighborhood
in which it is to be placed a group of four or five children is
found--or perhaps a father or a mother--who will agree to look after
the books. To one of these, called the librarian, is given the key of
the box, and the box itself is placed in the spot selected; perhaps
a hallway or a living room. Under a few very simple regulations the
librarian lends the books in the home library to the young people of
the neighborhood. If the experiment is successful the first set of
books is changed for another, and the work continues. Or perhaps
the library is enlarged; and perhaps even grows into a permanent
institution.
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