Published: July 30, 2008 01:55 am            

Children play vital role in libraries

Library on the Move column

PALESTINE — It’s funny. Many people hold the opinion that libraries are for children. Of course, we know that modern libraries are for everyone. We have materials and programming for people of every age and every interest.

Children weren’t always welcomed in libraries. Actually, children have only been allowed in libraries for about a hundred years. That seems like a long time, but considering that the library at Alexandria, Egypt, considered the greatest library ever, burned in 300 BC, one hundred years is not very long.

So, what brought about this change?

In 1895 when 24-year-old Anne Carroll Moore moved from Maine to New York to work in a library, you had to be at least fourteen and male to get into New York’s Astor Library. You had to be sixteen to enter the Boston Public Library, the country’s first publicly funded library.

Philanthropist Samuel Tilden, who was planning to leave $2.4 million to establish a free public library in New York, almost withdrew his offer when he learned the “shocking” fact that ninety percent of the books checked out of the Boston Public Library were — fiction!

About this time, in Johnny-Appleseed-fashion, Andrew Carnegie was funding the construction of 1600 public libraries across the country. Children were routinely turned away from those libraries in an effort to save them from morally corrupting books, like — novels!

At the 1894 meeting of the American Library Association, Lutie Stearns of the Milwaukee Public Library read a “Report on the Reading of the Young.” What if libraries were to set aside special books for children, shelved in separate rooms for children, staffed by librarians who actually liked children, she wondered?

At the Children’s Library of Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, Anne Carroll Moore surveyed children to see what they wanted. This was done at a time when the Brooklyn schools had a policy that “children below the third grade do not read well enough to profit from the use of library books,” A few short years later, she was hired as superintendent of a Department of Work with Children where she established a pint-sized paradise with child-sized furniture, plants, prints of the works of children’s-book illustrators, and a collection of standard titles in children’s literature.

She brought in storytellers and organized story hours. And for the next fifty years, she wielded more power than anyone in children’s literature. She believed that “the education of children begins at open book shelves.”

Palestine Public Library, always on the leading edge, established storytime in 1915 when board member, Miss Pauline Hunter, suggested having Story Hour. Miss Drusilla Matthews kindly offered to take charge of “Story Hour.”And it has continued since that time.

Why do we put so much emphasis on Summer Reading Club and other youth reading events? Why is children’s programming important to you? It’s trite, but oh so true: children are our future. We need these future leaders to be educated and that begins with the love of reading. Statistics show that a child needs to be reading on level when entering fourth grade to be successful in school and by extension — to be successful in life.

Some may wonder why we have such activities as computer gaming at the library. What does that have to do with reading and education? The answer is simple. If young people view the library as fun and “cool,” and they feel welcome and comfortable being here, they may be more inclined to pick up a book, view an exhibit, and actually become interested in reading and learning.

The Library’s mission is to provide access to ideas, information, experiences, and materials for lifelong learning and cultural enrichment; and to create an environment for all to learn, to explore, to enjoy, to create, to connect, and to be inspired.

I love the following little poem by an unknown author that seems to summarize what we are trying to accomplish.

The more you read, the more you know
The more you know, the smarter you grow
The smarter you grow, the louder your voice
When speaking your mind, or making your choice

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Carol A. Herrington is the director of the Palestine Public Library. Contact the library at 903-729-4121, and visit online at www.palestine.lib.tx.us, or cherrington@palestine.lib.tx.us

        

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