![[Library]](Birdseye2.gif)
Collection Development
Budget Proposals
Mission Statement
Play Areas
Part of the main room divided, by use, into an area for younger children that includes the picture book and easy reader shelves, lower tables and chairs, and two play areas: one inside and one out. The play areas are indicative of the library's goal to be a social setting as well as a place of learning, and are designed as services to parents with younger children.
That is, the indoor play area in particular is intended to be a help when older child patrons want to come to the library and the parent brings younger siblings: the older child can browse, and the younger can play. Parents are encouraged, especially if the outdoor play area is being used, not to leave children unattended. The library is not responsible for children left unattended.
The outdoor play equipment, like the Cheshire-Cat-tree climber, is modeled on stories, and the door between the indoor and outdoor play areas does double duty as the Emergency Exit door.
Back to the top.
Displays
And Library Decor
The large area at the very front of the Children's Section is designed for display cases, posters, and other informational and decorative accentuations of library materials and events. In addition, each librarian station has a display case as its front.
As for the Children's decor, it is designed to be as far from the grey carpeting and dusky blue panels of the corporate office as it is possible to be. Brightly colored carpets, posters and pictures, pillars, and cushions are the idea instead, enhanced by the green of plant life. Potted plants, or even small indoor trees, bring a tangible life to any setting.
Back to the top.
Reading Room
The Reading Room is one of two rooms walled with plexiglass, for the combined goal of comparative quiet and privacy, and safety, for the readers. Spaces that are too closed off are open to misuse.
The Reading Room is furnished with comfortable chairs and cushions for reading, and the low shelves under the windows are juvenile fiction shelves.
Back to the top.
Young Adult Workroom
The other glassed-in room is the Young Adult Workroom. Our Young Adult patrons have expressed what they like best in a library as a place to work on homework, with helpful materials nearby: that is what the Workroom is designed to be.
There are OPACs in the Workroom for searching the catalog, long tables and chairs, comfortable chairs for reading, and, on the low bookshelves along the walls, Young Adult non-fiction. On two of the tables are Internet stations for research, and the shelves just outside the room contain more non-fiction, reference, and textbooks bought in collaboration with the local schools.
Back to the top.
Program Room
The third room, the Program Room, with its benches and stage, is not entirely closed to the main book room but is separated by slightly overlapping walls and a curtain. In this way, patrons can move in and out with some freedom and without disturbing the presentations. The restroom is located conveniently near, for young patrons who might need it. The Program Room is also the only room that is lighted entirely artificially, with fluorescent lights, so that the overhead projector and screen can be used easily.
Back to the top.
Librarians' Workroom
The final room in the Children's Division is the Librarian's Workroom, where the behind the scenes book work, such as cataloging, takes place.
Back to the top.
Bookshelves
The bookshelf "rosettes" that make up a good deal of the shelf design in the Children's Section are part of an overall concept to make the library attractive and spacious in appearance, and to avoid the regimental straight lines that seem to take over in most libraries.
Children's playgrounds are rarely, if ever, organized in straight lines: if a library is to be a place of enjoyment, even excitement, for the younger patron, the furniture can be arranged on the same principle. The long corridor leading into the room is offset by the 3-4 foot and 5 foot shelves (juvenile and Young Adult) in their swirling pattern that lead ever deeper into their centers, hinting at visual imagination and mystery: a sort of labyrinth or honeycomb of books.
Care has been taken, with physically challenged/handicapped patrons in mind, to make plenty of open spaces between the shelves making up the rosettes. Even the bookshelves that are in straight lines are set caddy corner to one another, making it possible to set chairs and Online Public Access Catalogs (OPACs) in the spaces between them.
Back to the top.
Filtered Internet Stations
The younger patrons have an area of Internet Stations and computers for CD ROMS all their own that are filtered, on request from parents, with a site-based filtering system intended at its best to filter out harmful sites. This system is successful as opposed to a keyword-based system that often filters not only the sites we wish to avoid, but also harmless sites that might be helpful to the patrons.
Back to the top.
Unfiltered Internet Stations
The Internet Stations in the Young Adult Workroom are not the only stations in the Children's Division but they are the only unfiltered ones. Not completely unsupervised, our Young Adult patrons are encouraged to use their stations for the research they need (as opposed to email or games.) Librarians watch only to ensure that younger patrons are not exposed to sites they or their parents would not wish: in all other respects, the value of free and available electronic information is here given its place.
Back to the top.
Tables
Tables and chairs in the Children's Division are supplied in two sizes: Young Adult size, found in their Workroom, and lower ones by the picture and easy reading books for younger patrons. They are wooden and sturdy, meant to last and to provide ample space for patrons reading or studying.
Back to the top.
Online Public Access Catalogs
The Online Public Access Catalogs, or OPACS, are the compact computers many libraries now use as substitutes for the much larger card catalog cabinets. The OPACS in this library design are scattered throughout so that there are enough to accommodate large numbers of patrons and are available most places a patron would be. Each book rosette has an OPAC at its center, for ease in searching among the books, and each other distinct session, with the exception of the Program Room, has its own OPACs. Like the bookshelves, the OPAC stands or pillars are of varying heights: in the juvenile section, they are approximately three feet tall, and taller in the Young Adult Workroom.
Back to the top.
Librarian Stations
The other places OPACs are found in the Children's Division are on the five Librarian Stations scattered throughout the main book room. Experience has shown that patrons, adult and child, are much more likely to ask a question of a librarian working in the stacks than one sitting remotely behind a desk. Likewise, sitting for hours behind a desk to be "available" is a hardship on librarians when often the shelves need straightening.
The Children's Division answers both problems with its Librarian Stations: about four feet high, these arched small tables have OPACs for searching and answering reference questions on the tops of them so that librarians can answer patron queries quickly and efficiently, and no part of the library is very far away from them. If, for one reason or another, a librarian needs a station at which to sit and work, these Librarian Stations are equipped with stool-like chairs and, when not being used by librarians, the stations do double-duty as additional Patron OPAC stations.
Back to the top.
Cushions
And Library Seating
The cushions in the Reading Room offer comfortable and relaxing seating in the place where reading just for fun and relaxation is intended to occur. Other chairs and stools around the children's room are equally utilitarian: stools in front of OPACS (unseen in the image) and by the low table. In the Young Adult section, comfortable chairs alternate with desks and chairs for study, and there are also soft chairs near the indoor play area.
Back to the top.
Windows
And Library Lighting
Something that must be of paramount importance but not often thought of in designing a library: light. In order to avoid the glare of the emergency room in the library, I chose to use natural light, and its appearance, as much as possible. Large open windows and skylights seem to me, with brief research, the best means to produce natural light. Rainy days and nights might be a problem except for the installation, first, of solar power cells that hoard sunlight for those times when it is limited, and, second, of judiciously placed artificial lights that can be turned on when even the solar cells fail, and which switch themselves off when the sunlight becomes sufficient again. In this way, the children's rooms are as open to the sunlight as much as possible without much direct sun on the books, which could fade them.
Back to the top.
Children's Division Doors
The Children's Division rooms do not have many doors--five, in fact--but those five are important. Because the main children's room can be noisy, with its younger patrons and the play areas, the areas of the section designated to be quiet have doors. These are the Reading Room and Young Adult Workroom: the Reading Room has a plexiglass door, like its walls, and the Workroom two sliding doors that can be pulled across its large entrances. Only one of these entrances is shown in the illustration: the other is between the Workroom and the Adult portion of the library.
The Librarians' Workroom also has a door, that is kept locked for the convenience of those working inside, and the door to the outside play area is also, as previously mentioned, the Emergency Exit.
Back to the top.
The Tech Center
The Tech Center is the area of the library where our CD ROMS and Audio Books for children are shelved, and the Librarian Station nearby is usually occupied in case children or other patrons need supervision or assistance. The Children's Division does not carry video tapes or movies, but Audio Books and other cassette materials are a priority. Educational CD ROMS are also an essential part of the collection: though we have some electronic games, we do not collect them scrupulously as we do our educational materials. For more information, see the Collection Development section in the handbook or its counterpart on the web site (Collection Development Page.)
Back to the top.
Juvenile Non-fiction
The Juvenile Non-fiction collection includes emphases on folklore and mythology, a well as mathematics and science works. We make an effort to provide these books which will not only stimulate interest and imagination in our patrons but also will help with school-work. In selection of those titles, we often collaborate with school teachers and librarians. For more information, the Collection Development Policy and Budgeting Proposals are also available.
Back to the top.
Juvenile Reference
These book and periodical (journal or magazine) sources include encyclopedias, dictionaries, thesauri, and other materials designed to aid in research and educational projects. For more information, the Collection Development Policy and Budgeting Proposals are also available.
Back to the top.
Juvenile Fiction
These books, counter to the trend of the majority of our collection, are a high priority. More clearly, our goal is not only to aid in education, but also to be a place where relaxation, imagination, and social activities can thrive. This essential part of our collection is designed to encourage those precise habits and activities. We collect, as best we can, not only the classic fiction for this age but also the most popular series fiction, and often carry multiple copies of those high-demand books. For more information, the Collection Development Policy and Budgeting Proposals are also available.
Back to the top.
Young Adult Fiction
As opposed to the Young Adult Non-fiction and Reference collections, Young Adult Fiction receives a low priority, based on our experiences and surveyed responses from our Young Adult patrons. Firstly, often the stories written for this age group are lurid and titillating, but of little quality, and secondly, often it is not the Young Adults but the younger patrons who read them. This defeats the books' purpose as a genre. For more information, the Collection Development Policy and Budgeting Proposals are also available.
Back to the top.
Young Adult Reference
Again, this area, side by side with Young Adult Non-fiction, is a high priority. As much as our Young Adults renounced the fiction written for their age group, even more did they ask for materials that would help with homework and study. We provide, therefore, a wide variety of encyclopedias, dictionaries, non-fiction periodicals and books, as well as a carefully-selected range of textbooks. For this last category, we worked with middle- and high-school, even college, teachers and librarians. For more information, the Collection Development Policy and Budgeting Proposals are also available.
Back to the top.
Picture Books and Easy Readers
For our pre-readers and beginning readers, we have a large selection of carefully chosen picture and easy reading books. For the latter category, as in some of the non-fiction collection, we strive to provide books in all the primary languages represented in our community. Our picture books are chosen, as no other kind of book can be, based in great part on the success of the illustrations as well as story. For more information, the Collection Development Policy and Budgeting Proposals are also available.
Back to the top.
Back to Writing Page