ILS 521
Children's Services in the Public Library
COURSE DESCRIPTION
Planning, implementation and evaluation of public library services for infants through age 12 with emphasis on program planning.
COURSE OBJECTIVES:
Students will:
1. Recognize the effects of societal developments on the needs of children.
2. Assess the community to identify community needs, tastes, and resources.
3. Identify the needs of parents, care givers, and other adults who use the resources of the children's department.
4. Identify other agencies, institutions, and organizations serving children in the community.
5. Analyze the costs of library services to children in order to develop, justify, administer/manage, and evaluate a budget.
6. Define the needs of children so that administrators, other library staff, and members of the larger community understand the basis for children's services.
7. Design and evaluate programs for children of all ages, based on their developmental needs and interests and the goals of the library.
8. Present a variety of program.
9. Identify skilled personnel that can present a variety of programs.
10. Design outreach programs commensurate with community needs and library goals and objectives.
11. Interact with other agencies in the community serving children, including other libraries and library systems.
12. Develop cooperative programs between the public library, schools, and other community agencies.
13. Design a plan to extend library services to children and groups of children presently unserved.
14. Identify current trends and emerging technologies, issues, and research in librarianship, child development, education, and allied fields.
15. Identify professional organizations to strengthen skills, interact with fellow professionals, and contribute to the profession
COURSE OUTLINE
A. The Community Assessment
- Community demographics
- Library
- Other agencies related to children in the community
B. Managing children's services
- Mission statement
- Policies (Internet, Meeting Room, Unattended children, Other)
- Staffing
- Identifying common problems
- Intellectual freedom and censorship
C. Program planning
- Identifying specific age needs
- Budgeting
- Publicity
- Accommodating special needs children
- Family literacy programs
- Outreach programs
- Cooperative programs
D. Professional growth
- Local, regional, and national professional organizations
- Professional literature and online resources
- Professional conferences
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
Assignments
Assignment One: A Community Analysis. You need to know the make-up of your community, focusing on children from birth through age 12. Note: If you live in a metropolitan area, focus on your community, not the entire city. In this paper, you need to find out the following:
· Community information:
- Population the town serves - with a breakdown by age and ethnicity. A couple of websites that will assist you are Community Information by Zip Code and Podunk - believe it or not, I found most helpful.
- Housing - types, median price of house sales
- Governmental structure
- School structure
- Town budget
- Tax base - revenue
- Community agencies that service children: churches, day care centers, Head Start programs, etc.
· In addition to knowing the community, you need to know about the present state of the library and its services
· Library analysis:
- Personnel and structure
- Hours (summer, winter)
- Policies
- Budget
- Income: from community as well as grants and any other sources
- Expenditures
- Users
- Percentage of population : active users, and registered users
- Children, young adults, adults, seniors
- School/public cooperation
- Collection analysis : break it down by age and format
- Programs: community outreach, family literacy, cooperatives
- Technology
- Resource sharing
Assignment Two: A program for children that you have not done before. It may be to a new age group such as infant or toddlers, or it may be a new topic of interest, perhaps you have always wanted to try a community garden. Decide on a topic that you wish to present to children in the library. Include the following:
- 1 - 2 paragraphs describing the program.
- Bibliography of materials being used (may be print and non-print) - must have a minimum of 5.
- A list of materials needed if there is a project included. For example, seeds, markers, mulch, etc.
- A time frame: will it be for 1/2 hour per week for 4 weeks, or 1 hour twice a week for two weeks - whatever you decide.
- Target audience
- Objectives
- Means of evaluation. Working with children, this may be a very informal process such as listening to verbal feedback and eavesdropping on comments. You may ask them what they liked best or what didn't they like and make notes accordingly.
- Publicity: include the names of all local newspapers, free and subscription based. Contact them and find out what their guidelines are for posting information (include that in the paper that is handed in); also find out what they will do for follow-up - will they send a photographer to the library or should you have photos taken and sent to them with a story. Radio announcements - find out what local radio stations are in your community and what do they provide for community announcements, don't forget your non-English speaking stations. Television stations? Do they have any means of communicating community events? How? Posters for local businesses - hand in a model of what you would post in the stores, doctor's offices, or any other place that would attract parents of children that you are targeting. Don't forget to post information on your webpage.
- Budget: hand in an itemized account of what this program will cost. Include materials for the program itself, materials to produce publicity, and any other items that you can think of. Some budgeting systems even have the cost of the librarian's time listed, that is not necessary for this paper.
Assignment Three: Outreach.
There are three parts to this paper, all involving reaching outside the library and finding resources that you can use or finding other agencies that can benefit from the library. Before starting on any part, you should talk with your director before starting this project so there are no surprises. Time and budget constraints may be an obstacle, in which case, you may contact each of the following on the basis that these programs may be hypothetical, or a "wish list" of activities.
Part one: In the community analysis paper, you identified agencies that work with children. Select one that the library currently does not work with and make contact with them. Find out what you can do with them and put a program in place that is workable. The paper will be a summary of the results of this project: who the group is, what plans you have arrived at and how it will be implemented.
Part Two: Contact your local school and set up a program with them. Some libraries have excellent relations with their school and others have little or no contact. Either situation, it is not complete, there is always more that can be done. Again, this paper will be a summary of the results of this contact.
Part Three: Exploring resources that will provide the library with more materials and services to provide assistance for the disabled. Handicap access is one part of the services that a library provides: ramps, elevators, wide aisles for wheelchair access, tables with wheelchair access, but there are resources outside the library that can be borrowed or used and you're going to find out what they are. Some things to look into: large print books; audio books; equipment for utilizing audio books; signers for story hours; adaptive technology for the physically disabled. You want to provide for as many people as possible, so look at what is available to you.
Approved by the ILS Department Curriculum Committee and Faculty, Spring 2009.
