CHILDREN'S AND YOUNG ADULT SERVICE: LIKE A BOX OF CHOCOLATES.

In the competition for time, space and dollars in public libraries, the children's and young adult service often does not get its appropriate share. In most communities the 0-18 years age group is 25% - 35% of the constituent community yet the expenditure often does not reflect this. Decision makers must identify the place that the 0-18 year olds occupy in the scheme of things. Hard thinking about the kinds of collections and services which will be offered to this age group is needed. The library environment which undervalues this need will itself become undervalued 

Life is like a box of chocolates. So said Forrest Gump in the very successful movie of a couple of years ago. It was one of those productions where most people forget the story but a quirky little phrase passes through to become a part of verbal folklore. It expresses the serendipitous aspect of life where the very surprises, changes and variety that confront us, are to be invited as welcome guests and to be accepted as part of the wonder of life. Like centred chocolates, some are good. Others we prefer not to choose again but because the externals may all look similar, we do not know the final outcome until we have experienced the inside flavours.

This analogy is very apt when reading and thinking is directed towards the provision of a relevant future library service for children and teenagers through the public library system. It is very important for decision makers to apply thought now as to the kind of service provision which should be offered to productively serve the youth of today in the world of tomorrow. This paper suggests that the `box of chocolates' approach is an appropriate one.

Current reality vs future probability

It will not be good enough to merely be offering more of today's collections and services in the future. It certainly will no longer be enough to be 'keeper of the books'. Children and teenagers will not respond to duplicates of the chocolates they have seen for years. At the other end of the extreme, conversely it will not be good enough to assume that the world of tomorrow will be technocentric and that simply moving into technology will be the solution. All the same flavours in the box will be inadequate, boring and irrelevant in a very short time. Not only do consumers (including children and teenagers) need new products (different kinds of chocolates in the box) to fit new situations but the intellectual, social, emotional, educational and recreational needs of growing youth demand variety in the products marketed.

There needs to be a constant reevaluation of not only the changing nature of the child/teenager and their world but also cognizance of the changing world at large in terms of literacy in all its forms, educational philosophies, the volume of information, the methods of information retrieval and society's expectation of the library service as a whole. Thus there is a microview and a macroview covering a time span from now into the future. Overlaying this field of the child/teenager and their world, is the technological world which increasingly plays a part in almost every aspect of life. This trend will continue exponentially, but not exclusively.

The world of youth will comprise a much larger range of experiences than has been the case. Not only will the child expect a relevant kind of library experience in its information seeking and recreational reading behaviour but the community at large will carry these expectations. It could also be the case that there will be an ever widening gap between the information rich and the information poor which will add another dimension to the outreach efforts of public libraries.

A reality check shows that local government decision makers, public library managers and staff in general are not analysing or preparing for this future. Budgets are not expanding, professional training is reduced, economic rationalism prevails even though it has almost gone from management styles overseas. Staff reduction is seen as the way to reduce costs, simply maintaining technology in an operative state is a major occupation and growth of technology provision in some areas, especially in the country, is a struggle. Even a cursory survey reveals that the Australian public library service, on the whole, is not ready for the great leap forward.

Information literacy 

Yet the market, especially the market of children, is on the threshold of major changes in the way resources are accessed. Children of the future will expect and need all the flavours in the box of chocolates to function in the environment in which they find themselves. There is little doubt that children and teenagers will quickly develop the skills for accessing all the products. 'Information literacy' is a broad term which is freely used in educationally based literature and educational practice, focusing on a wide range of student understandings and skills to access all the sources of reliable information. Of course, one very important source of information is electronic. All the skills of recognising the need, defining the task, searching, synthesising, analysing, summarising, evaluating apply to electronic information, just as they should to any kind of serious enquiry.

A new vision

However, public libraries can find themselves in one of two camps. Neither of these is very desirable and a new vision of what the community needs them to be is necessary.

One camp will be maintaining the status quo. Some libraries are fighting a losing battle for adequate funding and appropriate staffing and will be falling further and further behind in the library stakes with decisions based on book collections and practices of operation and outreach which have little to do with appropriate library provision for the 21st century. As well, some public library players may not have a big enough vision, or may not be aware of the implications of the knowledge economy. In the worst scenario, the public library system will be seen as an anachronism by the younger part of the population and a facility merely for the older generation. Information provision may assume a secondary role which then further aggravates the problem of community perception preventing the public library assuming its important place in the educational and cultural health of the community.

In the other camp are libraries which aspire to the technocentric world where library provision is seen as a matter of self check units, banks of pcs with infinite capabilities, computerised catalogues with such finely tuned referencing that expert personnel will be redundant. There is a minimalist view of hard copy collections.

   There is no reason to improve the public library, start a health clinic or
   open a community college. Just bring in the internet.[1]

This has been called a 'technolust dream'.[2] One of the greatest frauds which has developed into belief is that if enough dollars are thrown at a technical solution the outcomes necessarily justify the cost. Educationally this is very far from proven, as Jamie McKenzie[3], among others, asserts. He lists large classes, poor teacher support, lack of resources, full curricula and lack of motivation as factors which affect classroom realities. These persist to mitigate against optimal outcomes, no matter how much technology is introduced. It is suspected that the same applies in the community. The cost of technology is a bottomless pit and it may as well be recognised--hardware is obsolete before the ink on the contract is dry. The technology revolution is a very expensive revolution. Once on that path, the fiscal commitment is huge, and it is unlikely that staff cuts or other savings will ever result in an equilibrium. Of course no library decision makers can afford to be Luddites but they need to cast a realistic eye towards the needs of the communities they serve and tailor decision making accordingly. As one commentator has stated

   The problem is that those who in the community recognise the need to
   improve access to information and the capacity to use it effectively are
   being sold a furphy by technohucksters, politicians and misguided
   educrats.[4]

To that list we could also add the commercial world and the advertising media who engineer markets to create demand. Most libraries fall somewhere in between but tend to lean in one or other direction.

Economic and educational reality: the information gap

In planning for the intellectual/ social/educational/cultural needs of future 0-18 year olds it is likely that strategic decisions will be leaning heavily towards increasing technology provision, especially electronic sources. This should include subscriptions to electronic journals, monographs and other writing as well as links and gateways, indexes and catalogues. The outcomes from this will be many and varied and some of the ramifications may include reductions of staff and reduction in the provision of hard copy resources, an increase in the number of loaned electronic resources available as cdroms, dvds, ebooks or other formats, a minimalist attitude to reference resources (encyclopedic works, journals, newspapers) with the reasoning that this information can now be found elsewhere. To some people this is a view of utopia and the world is progressing as it should. Yet there are two major inequities in all of this.

It can be argued that the high number of computers per capita in Australia reflects an electronic lifestyle which validates the above decision making. However this is simplistic in the extreme and suffers from the same disability from which all averages suffer--they do not show the reality. ABS Social Trends (1999 no 4102.0) reveals that the number of households with home computers but without access to the internet in November 1998 was 3,240,000,,(47.4% of the total population) while the number, of households with computers with internet access was 1,272,000 (only 18.6% of population) The reality is that there will still be many households in the future which do not have a computer, do not have web access and so will be denied access to a great number of the public library's resources.

Secondly, even if every household were to have computers there will remain a significant portion of the population which will not have the skills to adequately access many of the resources that may only be available in that form from the library. In this category we can include a sizable chunk of the 0-18 age group and another sizable chunk of the mature part of the population. The children from early primary grades onwards will rapidly be developing computer familiarity as a natural part of their education and, optimistically, the skills that go with that in terms of selection, evaluation, reflection, synthesising and presenting. But this takes time and maturity and to only present information and other resources electronically, again will exclude too many. If we agree that information is not the same thing, as knowledge and that real knowledge is what education and society's progress is all about, then merely wiring all households, schools, universities and libraries will not ensure an educated society.

Two major aspects of the variety which will need to be part of the child's public library experience in the future are collections and services.

Collections

When the question is asked of even the progressive public libraries, about the nature of their collections (with particular application to children and teenagers) invariably their focus is on print. There is a peculiar dichotomy where the book is still seen as the foundation of collections, as it should be. Yet in further discussions all of the progressives talk as if the only resources in the library of the future will be electronic.

When decision makers are planning strategically it is unlikely that they will embrace the notion of large collections of cds, cdroms, dvds etc for the children's lending collection even though there is a huge range of suitable material available right now. This is despite the fact that for most public libraries, the constituent breakdown shows 25%-33% to be 0-18 year olds.

In terms of media material, one complaint about many of the cdroms and videos prepared for the children's market is the dumbing down of the content. They are engaging and entertaining with 'bells and whistles' but they often forgo depth and analysis of the subject in favour of sensational presentation. The terms `infotainment' and 'faction' have been coined to describe this genre. Children of today and tomorrow have to learn to absorb and process information in a variety of formats which offer real information. While it can include fun, it also has to include material of serious study. The process of gaining information from cdroms, dvds and videos is a very relevant for children since many of them already watch a great deal of television and so they are familiar with the physical and cognitive skills involved in the viewing process. To many children, the viewing process is more familiar than the reading process. However, the range of interesting, well produced, innovative, imaginative and detailed informational videos/cdroms for children is very meagre. Many are excellent for entertainment but inadequate for children's research needs.

Literacy

This leads to the role of the library collection in the literacy development of children and teenagers. While the library does not normally teach children to read, it usually has, as one of its core functions, the support of developmental literacy competency. The definition of literacy today already encompasses reading, writing, listening, speaking and viewing and yet most libraries have huge gaps in their collection provision. There is no doubt that the greatest of these is reading, on which most of the other competencies depend to some extent.

Increasingly, however, the education syllabuses and lifestyle developments will demand that we meet the nonprint needs to fit this literacy role for the community. This is more complicated than for adults because we cannot assume a set level of literacy as we tend to for adults. Children need appropriately graded material from baby days through to late teenage years. In collection development, today and tomorrow, in all formats, there must be cognizance of developmental needs, changing educational trends and expectations and informational and recreational needs. Without such perception, there is not really a strategic plan for the children's collection and it is reactive rather than proactive.

In the literature on the formats of the future, electronic books with interactive narratives have been highlighted. Brian Caswell[5] is particularly excited by the prospect of interactive stories and writes that we ignore this development at our peril. This format is still developing and becoming more compact. It is an area that will rapidly move from the experimental to the accessible. Add this as another flavour in the box of chocolates of the future.

Services

Progressive libraries are proud of their accessible databases, their cdrom collections, their electronic journal subscriptions and reference materials and in some cases their digitised photograph collections for historical material. They also have cds, cdroms and videos for loan and there is a general movement to new web based library software packages allowing remote access. The equity issue has already been referred to. On a strategic level, children's needs are often ignored, with their needs seen as an appendage of adult needs.

In public library computer suites observed overseas, children were only permitted to enter accompanied by an adult who would take responsibility. Yet in those same libraries, there is not usually a children's computer suite where children under 12 years of age could obtain the access that is offered to older clients. It is a social reality that many libraries are full of children and teenagers who are unaccompanied by adults. Presumably, the children have to acquire the skills at home and school (which may or may not be satisfactorily catered for) until they reach the age of 12 years. Yet the development of library and computer competency begins at a much earlier age than this.

Teenagers past the age of 12 fare better. They are old enough to fit the 'adult' category and as long as they did not exhibit unacceptable behaviour they were treated as adults and left free to develop their information/computer skills. There is still the perennial debate about some of the internet material which can be accessed by teenagers.

So what will children and teenagers need in future library services? Books, offered at different levels of reading competency. Because of the sophisticated standard of other competing forms of educational and recreational matter, these books are going to need to continually reinvent themselves to hold the market. Alongside these, though, there will need to be a variety of other formats, not in special collections but alongside the books as the sum total of the knowledge on a subject or the works of an author. There will be cdroms, videos, tapes in packs, dvd presentations, ebooks and other formats not yet devised.

There will be a need for access to outlets in a great assortment of places for connecting laptops and electronic books and whatever other devices will be developed. There will be a need for study areas with a fleet of attached pcs for word processing/internet/ video/cd use with headphone facilities. Possibly there will be compact computers in the style of the new Wap facility (wireless application protocol) and the library will be offering hand held cordless units with screens for internet or other access. There will have to be provision for unaccompanied children so that they get their fair share of computer experience and access to the collection. This becomes a policy issue alongside the strategic planning of collections and services.

The human element

There is one last element of service, however. The human element of the service to children and teenagers in public libraries remains a crucial one. The first literary experiences of children may well be the contact with the children's librarian at storytime. The only stories and simple nonfiction the preschooler may hear and see may come from the programs at the library. The child in the first stages of education will look to the staff for help in finding project needs. The book week promotions which involve staff whipping up enthusiasm and hype for children's literature may be a unique experience for young clients. The good literature based things which are part of the children's service provision in the school holidays may be an experience of familiarity with the library for some. The homework help that a librarian gives to a struggling teenager faced with an impossible assignment may be a seminal turning point in a library relationship. And these things are just the ordinary face to face things that happen in the children's library all the time.

No bank of computers is going to talk a student through the requirements of the assignment. No web based interface will serve the information needs of the developing eight year old researcher. No screen or set of headphones will replace the quality presentation of a preschool storytime. Library services for children and teenagers will, of course, take on the provision of technology in diverse forms. But for much of the role of the library to be performed, the human element that comes as a package of helpfulness and a confident friendly smile, will be an essential provision. Yet for some reason this is largely ignored in literature about the future directions of the library service. In fact children are rarely mentioned in general articles about libraries for the needs of communities of the 21st century.

In this technological age, there are two elements which do not receive much attention in public library literature. The human element and the importance of the imaginative world of fictional literature. A library environment which undervalues these elements will itself become undervalued. The information age is with us but it is not an exclusive age. It has to live alongside many other areas of need and this is especially so in the children's part of the world.

Conclusion

When viewed by posterity, the so called information age may be just another era in the long development of the human world. Its electronic progression may well be another wonder of the world. However, that progression will not be a univeral panacea. It will not even satisfy all the questions even the most ardent supporters will expect of it.

What the technological developments will do is simply make more data and information available more quickly for those who want that. It will not necessarily make for more knowledge. As all of the literature on knowledge economies and knowledge management point out, there is a huge difference between information and knowledge. Information does not soak through the membranes by osmosis simply because it can be retrieved on a screen. It has to be analysed, applied to particular situations, synthesised with other information, evaluated and presented in an acceptable form to be any use at all. This is knowledge management at a personal level.

To intelligently plan for youth in the public library of the future, there has to be an awareness of the range of formats available and an indepth perception of the developmental levels of maturity and understanding of children and teenagers. There has to be knowledge of what is relevant to the social/cultural/educational and informational needs of youth to avoid manouvering the library into an anachronistic corner in strategic planning. It may require the library to reinvent itself to remain attuned and relevant to the community's needs.

When we offer the box of chocolates to children and teenagers will there be all kinds of flavours available to them? Will they think it is a treat to be offered them? Will it offer pleasure and satisfaction? Will they come back for more? Those are the questions to which responses are required.

References:

[1] Stoll, C High tech heretic NY, Doubleday 1999 p252

[2] Bundy, A Regional Australians: forever information poor? Paper presented at the 4th national regional Australia conference Whyalla April 2000 available at <www.library.unisa.edu.au/papers/ regional.htm>

[3] McKenzie, J Beyond technology: questioning, research and the information literate school Bellingham US, FNO Press 2000

[4] Bundy op cit p1

[5] Caswell, B Writing on the information superhighway--the impact of the net on children's literature: a point of view, in A meeting of the minds: ITEC virtual conference '96 proceedings ed by Lyn Hay and James Henri, Asla ACT 1997

Other sources

Eisenberg, M The internet challenge: using technology in context to meet educational goals, in A meeting of the minds: ITEC virtual conference '96 proceedings ed by Lyn Hay and James Henri, Asia ACT 1997

Kirkland, J and Gorman M Human response to library technology Library trends 47(4) 1999 p605-611

Kuhlthau, C Seeking meaning: a process approach to library and information sevices New Jersey, Ablex Pub 1994

McKenzie, J When the book ? When the net? in A meeting of the minds: ITEC virtual conference '96 proceedings ed by Lyn Hay and James Henri, Asla ACT 1997

Todd, R Towards a community of learning No 4 in a series on knowledge management Scan 18(4) 1999

Heather Fisher is the Children's and Young Adult Librarian at Gosford City Library. In 1996 she was awarded the Alia Marjorie Cotton Award for Children's Librarianship and in 1997 undertook a data gathering tour of 32 public libraries in the US and Canada using an Alia travel grant. Partly as a result of this and drawing on many years of experience, Heather produced a manual of ideas for children's librarians focusing on programming within the public library domain. This was titled I can do that! Programs for children, teenagers and their families in libraries. She is very actively involved in a wide range of public library outreach initiatives involving schools, community groups, family literacy programs, Children's Book Council, a toy library and many speaking engagements to other professional bodies. Address: Gosford City Library PO Box 21 Gosford NSW 2250 [e-mail]

Heather Fisher Children's and Young Adult Librarian Gosford City Library NSW Received May 2000