Services of Large Public Libraries

Abstract

This paper is intended to trace the influences that affect children's services and to indicate what is and might be included in services to children in large metropolitan libraries. Children are defined here not as a separate species, a breed apart, but as young human beings with whom adults share their lives and whose prime differences from adults are their age, size and political inactivity. In spite of concern about the status of children in today's society the battered child, the unwanted child, the exceptional child, the institutionalized child, and so on there is no "child power." The very best that can be said for children's librarians is that their actions are motivated primarily by their genuine liking for children and their dedication to sharing the child's sense of wonder at discovering the world through ideas recorded and expressed in various media. Through service to children librarians are afforded the chance to reach the child as an individual developing his or her own potential.