One Children's Librarian: A Philosophy of Library Service to Children

Abstract

"You must love working with kids!" is the standard response I get from people when I tell them I am a children's librarian, right after the "Oh," and the nodding, smiling, quizzical look that says, "Is she an intellectual or a nerd?" If I did not think I would be ostracized for taboo honesty, I would always tell them, "No, I do not love working with kids, I love my job." My job just happens to involve working with kids sometimes, but that is not what I do all the time. In fact, I only work with kids the percentage of hours that I work the reference desk and during programming time. The remainder of the time is spent in hours on other tasks and responsibilities such as program planning, department or library planning, publicity, collection development (which includes more long hours over selection aids and weeding), networking, evaluation, scheduling, outreach, etc. Children's librarianship revolves around kids: their parents, their caregivers, their social workers, and their teachers. All the materials we buy, all the programs we execute, and all the planning we do is a means to an end, and that end is to serve this specific "brand" of library user. Serving this brand of user can be extremely difficult, because it engages, as demonstrated, a variety of people that have extremely different needs and desires.