Re: Reference Service to Children

["J. Kimball" <jkim@BORG.COM>]

Veronica Stevenson wrote May 19:
>A couple of months ago I posted a request for information for resources
>regarding reference service to children--For those who responded, I truly
>appreciated the leads.  Now, I have a few questions that I would like to
>offer up for a lively discourse:
>
>       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"?
>
>
>I would appreciate any comments one has on all or any part of the above.
>
>
>Sincerely,
>Veronica L. C. Stevenson-Moudamane
>Mount Vernon Public Library
>Mount Vernon, New York  10550
>vstevens@wlsmail.wls.lib.ny.us


From the point of view of the school library, reference service to children
is only "remedial" if you are re-teaching a child several times how to look
something up. I would not consider it remedial if I were coaching the child
to do it himself.

We in the school spend time teaching children how to use reference books
and reference media both in class-size groups and one on one.  We also
model the work to them  if the child hasn't the skills, or do the work for
them if the child hasn't the time to "dig" for the information.  Reference
service to children is, however, just as serious, important and demanding
as it is to adults.  We take children's questions with the same seriousness
as we would adult questions.  I have even taught a child how to use the
telephone to answer a reference question that wasn't in library sources,
but often it's the moment when the telephone is needed that I take over and
do it myself.

Using articles on CD-ROM, and sometimes the Internet, as well as all kinds
of print sources, more children are learning good reference techniques and
succeeding in answering their questions with our coaching. It's still our
function to help them figure out where to look and what to do with the
information when they find it.

When they ask for certain kinds of information, I have acted as a censor.
For example, I did not supply a 10 year-old last year who requested
articles on bomb-making.

Joan Kimball


Joan Kimball   Librarian, Writer, Storyteller.
Clinton NY.     jkim@borg.com

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