Reference service to children

[Helen Spoon <spoon@IONET.NET>]

Posted for comment:

  Does reference service to children differ in principle
       and methodology from reference service to adults? Has
       anyone noticed that the professional literature tends
       to treat the work that children's librarians perform as
       remedial? Is it an oxymoron to say "reference service
       to children"?


Reference service to children is a reality, and the challenge is the same
as that with adults--get them to define the question.  Often they come with
the idea of getting information about Colorado or finding facts about
endangered animals, and it takes several minutes to discover that they need
a list of tourist attractions in the state or a picture of the California
Condor.

Children come to the library to find out such things as the address to the
fan club for a professional wrestler, the name of a certain big purple
flower with large leaves, or the definition of a spelling word given in a
spelling bee in one of the Little House on the Prairie books which is not
in the dictionary. (It turned up in an Internet search in an essay which
said it is a made-up word.)  Some days I wonder what happened to the three
R's, but I'm always glad to see curiosity satisfied.


Helen Spoon, Librarian
Oak Park Elementary School
Bartlesville, OK
spoon@ionet.net

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