Children's Services in the American Public Library

This selected bibliography is a compilation of the professional literature of children's services librarianship from 1876 to 1976. It explores the evolution of children's work and of the major developments, trends, innovations, and practices that evolved or emerged in children's services. For anyone doing in-depth research on the history of children's work in the American public library, this extensive bibliography is indispensable. It includes both monographs and journal articles and is organized around 10 subject areas, ranging from Historical Focus to Multi-Media. . . . [T]here is an undeniable wealth of material here. Booklist



Children's services has been acclaimed as one of the great contributions of the American public library movement, yet in the early days of American public libraries, children were not even considered to be a part of the library's clientele. However, beginning as early as 1876, library professionals began to speak out in favor of children's library usage and rights, a subject that eventually became the focus of a whole corps of library professionals. Through an analysis of the professional literature of librarianship starting in 1876 and continuing for a hundred-year period to 1976, Fannette H. Thomas has compiled this selected bibliography that explores the evolution of children's work and the major developments, trends, innovations, and practices that evolved or emerged in children's services. The development of the children's service is traced from the days when one shelf of materials for children were culled from the adult collections to the appearance of special children's rooms, reference services, and readers' guidance, and from the pioneers in children's librarianship to today's story hours and multimedia use.



This bibliographic exploration of children's services in the American public library encompasses ten chapters including: those devoted to historical focus, professional staff, organizational scheme, philosophical perspective, client group, collection development, readers' services, story hour, interagency cooperation, and multimedia. The volume's entries reflect the plethora of information found in the professional literature about every facet of children's services. Author and subject indexes complete the work. This is a useful resource for college and university libraries where courses in the History of Librarianship, Studies in Public Librarianship, or Children's Services in the Public Library are taught. A unique reference guide, it will simplify the task for researchers, students, and practitioners.