LIBRARY WORK WITH CHILDREN

HISTORY AND GENERAL DISCUSSION


The history of library work with children is yet to be written.
From the bequest made to West Cambridge by Dr. Ebenezer Learned,
of money to purchase "such books as will best promote useful
knowledge and the Christian virtues" to the present day of
organized work with children --of the training of children's
librarians, of cooperative evaluated lists of books, of methods
of extension-- the development has been gradual, yet with a
constantly broadening point of view.

A number of libraries have claimed the honor of being the first
to establish children's work--a fact which in itself seems to
show that the movement was general rather than sporadic. The
library periodicals contain many interesting accounts of these
beginnings, a number of which have been mentioned in the articles
included in this volume.

Certain personalities stand out very clearly in the history of
the early days, and many of the same ones are still closely
associated with children's work in its later developments. The
Library Journal says editorially in 1914: "Probably the credit of
the initiative work for children within a public library should
remain with Mrs. Sanders of the Pawtucket Library, who made the
small folk welcome a generation ago, when, in most public
libraries, they were barred out by the rules and regulations and