From: Cathy Sullivan <cathys>
Date: Wed, 30 Apr 1997 15:05:27 +0500 (GMT+0500)

Hi, I'd like to make a few comments on radical change, too. Not so much in terms of books, though, but of libraries and services in general. I've been a children's librarian for just four years now, coming from a cataloging background. I became a summertime stepmom last year. So, my experience of being with and serving children is relatively new.

When I started in this field, I could choose a wide variety of picture books to read to the 2 and 3 year olds during story time. They sat still and listened. Now, however, we have to gear our story times toward entertainment rather than concentrating on the literature itself. We incorporate fingerplays, songs, movement exercises, etc., into the story time. We do, in addition to listening and reading. As I help teachers and education students find materials for their classes, I hear them ask for more and more projects, experiments, etc., to hold the students' interest. When I work on collection development, I have to think more and more in terms of cardboard and markers and electricity and dance and cooking and play rather than story or text on a page.

In so many ways this seems good to me. We realize there are many styles of learning. We need to reach each child where he or she is and in ways that really touch each child. I grew up and spent my early adulthood reading. It wasn't until the past several years that I started doing. So much more of life has opened up to me. I am aware of so much more in the world. I think doing invites parents into a more participatory play with their young children and enables kids to be more involved with the world, skills they need to develop in order to cope with the pace of life and future relationships and work. Many newer books reflect the switch from reading text to doing. There are so many more color pictures, break-out balloons (or whatever they're called), suggested activities, accompanying cassettes, and attachments such as stickers, cards, magnets, etc.

I hope that by making story time fun, the children will want to come to the library. And by making the library fun, the children will want to read. We have toys, puppets and a small puppet stage, puzzles, a CD-ROM, paperdolls, and a Geo-Safari game in the children's room. We had guinea pigs (who died). All this does bring kids into the library and makes them want to stay.

But, I worry. Do we develop listening skills when we play rather than read aloud for story times? Are we inviting children to develop patience? Are they learning to sit and be comfortable with silence for a minute? (We're even speeding up reading by taking out the commas.) Are we enabling them to fall in love with words? With the written language? I was weeding some older books on the universe a while ago. Some were obviously out of date and ripe for withdrawal but some had so much more text than the newer, more beautiful books that I couldn't withdraw them. (Some even had star charts that the newer ones lacked.) The older books had more facts and depth than some of the newer ones. Are we giving kids the opportunity to develop their imaginations? If kids aren't given the chance to imagine will their brains develop fully? Do kids have the opportunity to learn to reflect, to draw connections? You have to know what you know in order to really know. Knowledge is a process not a number of small bytes and snippets of facts.

Books reflect our culture, but I hope they continue to lead and guide us, too. It's good that some books "do" but we still need some books that just "are."

          Cathy Sullivan Seblonka Youth Services Coordinator Peter White Public Library 217 N. Front St. Marquette, MI 49855
(906) 228?10 fax 906"8s15 e-mail: cathys at lib.up.net
Received on Wed 30 Apr 1997 05:05:27 AM CDT