Re: TARGET: Librarian Restrictions?

[Ken Umbach <kumbach@UNLIMITED.NET>]

How sad, to limit the kids that way.  There is no substitute for serendipity
in the library (or bookstore, for that matter) -- finding something
wonderful that you had no idea about.  I get launched off onto whole new
areas of interest through such lucky accidents (including receiving book
club selections by mistake because I failed to return the card rejecting
them!).  I went off onto years of reading in science and mathematics because
I received the wonderful book titled "Voyage to the Great Attractor"
unexpectedly.  One good book leads to another, and to another ... that one
led to reading in cosmology, quantum physics, and more.  In my wanderings in
the A.K. Smiley Public Library nearly 40 years ago I came across the
wonderful "Conan the Barbarian" books by Robert E. Howard -- magnificent,
imaginative pulp literature that no librarian would have steered me toward.
They helped to furnish my mind with images that still contrast creatively
with my day-in, day-out world.  Even a chance meeting with an author signing
books in front of a local bookstore (the wonderful Terris McMahan Grimes)
started my wife and me onto endless pathways of mysteries by African
American writers, the opportunity to attend the marvelous Chester Himes
Black Mystery Writers Conference in Oakland, CA, this year, and as a result
of that, growing acquaintance (in person, even!) with a whole group of
writers like Robert Greer, Judith Smith-Levin, Gar Anthony Haywood, and more.

But I digress ... (traffic on the list has slowed for the summer, so maybe
folks will indulge the meanderings ...)

Ken

At 05:31 PM 7/8/98 -0700, you wrote:
>>...I absolutely HATED IT that we could only select from a
>>certain section.   That long ago experience has really influenced me to
>>never restrict what a student can check out.
>
>Mary Alice's experience reminded me of when a number of years ago my
>family moved to another state.  I volunteered to help in my children's
>elementary school library.  What I found shocked me.  Not only did the
>librarian not ever read to or teach the students, but each class was
>reminded that they could only look at and check out the books from a few
>shelves.  One set of shelves for first grade, another for second grade,
--
Kenneth W. Umbach, Ph.D., Policy Analyst, California Research Bureau,
California State Library, 900 N Street, Suite 300, Sacramento, CA 95814
E-mail: kumbach@unlimited.net (or kumbach@library.ca.gov)
Phone: (voice) 916-653-6002 (fax) 916-654-5829
Personal Web page and selected papers: http://members.unlimited.net/~kumbach
This message reflects my opinion, not that of my employer or anyone else.

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