Children's and youth library

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A children's and youth library is a library that is specially geared towards the needs of children and young people . It is often part of a public library , but it can also be housed in its own building.

Children's library

A children's library in the sense of the Libraries '93 structure paper is one of the libraries of function levels 1 and 2 and has the task of providing children and young people up to the age of 13 with access to age-appropriate media of all kinds. It thus serves to promote readers and reading . It is also intended to provide assistance with school and extracurricular learning as well as entertainment and freedom for one's own activities (games, romping). In addition to kindergarten, school, freelance youth work and parental home, the children's library should also help in imparting media and information skills. To do this, it must not only address the children themselves, but also adult intermediaries such as parents, teachers and educators. Most of the so-called “children's and youth libraries” in Germany are in practice purely children's libraries.

Youth library

It forms an independent transition area between the children's and adult libraries and is primarily intended to offer media for the special needs of young people. In addition to information about school and training, she must also take into account the leisure interests of young people if she wants to win or keep them as customers. (80 percent of children up to the age of 13 are regular library users, after which the frequency of use drops sharply). The offer of such a library is therefore very dependent on its location. It must also take into account the various stages of development and behavioral norms of young people so that they feel that they are being taken seriously. Overall, the library has to adapt to its young customers as much as possible - not the other way around. In addition, it should work with other facilities used by young people - schools, leisure centers, sports clubs, etc.

Historical development

Historically, the idea of ​​setting up a separate department for children and young people in the library came from the Anglo-American region. The first Juvenile Library was founded by John Newbery in London around 1750, which was more of a children's bookstore than a children's library .

The first real children's and youth libraries were built in the USA at the beginning of the 19th century - in 1803 in Salisbury ( Connecticut ), in 1822 in Dublin ( New Hampshire ) and Richmond , Virginia .

Children and Youth Library Leers'schen orphanage in Bayreuth , early 19th century, inventory today in the University Library Bayreuth located

In Germany, on the other hand, the work of the public libraries was primarily focused on adult education. As recently as 1920, the establishment of youth departments there was by no means a matter of course and primarily related to adolescents aged 16 or 17 years. Although the first children's reading halls existed in Germany as early as the beginning of the 20th century ( Mannheim and numerous other cities in 1907 , in Berlin in 1913 by J. Mühlenfeld), overall progress in libraries for children and young people was slow. It then experienced a particularly deep turning point when all of cultural life was brought into line during the Nazi era .

It was only after the end of the Second World War in 1945 and above all the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949/50 that children's and young people's libraries in the West were expanded. In the 1960s, the children's and youth areas were strictly separated from the adult library and declared safe rooms for the children and teenagers. After the '68 revolution , the so-called “no-silence” libraries were created, which, however, presented the employees with serious discipline problems and were quickly discontinued as a result. After this experience, the libraries initially limited themselves to increased offers for children, which - in connection with the advent of new media (such as Internet PCs, game software, CD-ROM) - led to a rapid decline in the number of young people using it in the 1980s . Although the libraries then increasingly included these media in their offerings, the focus initially remained on the print media. It was not until the 1990s that the new media were equated with traditional books and magazines.

In the GDR , the development of children's libraries began after the war with the adoption of an ordinance by the Ministry of Education from 1950, which stipulated that all public libraries with full-time management had to set up children's and youth book departments. By 1954, 140 new children's libraries had been created. In contrast to the situation in Germany, the offers for young people were integrated into the holdings of the adult library. Library-related work also took place together with the school and the legally prescribed youth clubs of the FDJ and was accordingly oriented towards state policy. At the end of the 1980s and well into the post- reunification period, the GDR's youth libraries therefore lost more and more users and, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, also lost their legal basis and special state subsidies (desolate financial situation of the public coffers).

Task of the children's and youth library

Where children's reading halls were built in Germany before the First World War , they initially served to protect children from so-called “ trash and dirty literature ” and to educate them about “good books”. This attitude only changed with the rapid upswing of the youth library system from 1945 - now the joy of reading for children moved into the focus of the argument, and with it the attitude towards the library, the youth book, also changed . In the beginning, the book for young people was mainly a means of education, but from the beginning of the 20th century it also increasingly became an independent form of literature. In addition to this moral upbringing, which nowadays takes a back seat, the children's and youth library is also intended to support its users in developing their own personality and to introduce children and young people to new media. Promoting reading and imparting media and information skills are important tasks today.

Organizational forms

A fundamental distinction is made between the independent and the dependent children's and youth library. The latter can in turn be housed in its own building or just represent a department of the public library. There are also media libraries that offer literature as well as a wide range of audiovisual and digital media (such as CDs, video and audio cassettes, DVDs and CD-ROMs). As school media libraries , they are primarily a combination of public and school libraries , but for some years there have also been independent media libraries . Likewise, in the latest conceptions, a strict separation of the children's library from the youth library is required, which should serve to be able to respond even better to the respective needs of children and young people. When deciding on one or the other form of organization, however, the resulting costs must always be taken into account: A complete decoupling of the three library areas children's, youth and adult libraries would lead to immense increases in costs and the duplication of many titles.

Examples

Children's and youth library "Hallescher Komet" of the Central and State Library Berlin (ZLB)

  • The “Hallescher Komet” children's and youth library is a specialist department of the Berlin Central and State Library and with around 130,000 media (around 40,000 of which are non-book media) (as of 12/2010) the largest children's and youth library in Germany.
  • It is the only children's and youth library in Berlin with deposit copy status , and collects all children's and youth media from and about Berlin.
  • It encompasses three areas: children's leisure area from 0-12 years, youth leisure area from 12-21 years and the “Berlin Learning Center”.
  • In 1957 the children's library was opened in a separate extension of the America Memorial Library founded in 1954.
  • In 1996 the department of the children's library was expanded to include a youth library in cooperation with the Association for the Promotion of Youth and Social Work. Until 2005 the youth library was operated in cooperation with the youth information center (JIZ) and its main focus was on socially committed library work. This approach was unique in Germany when it was founded. As the first youth library in Berlin, it made Internet access, networked game PCs and a wide range of PC and console games available to young people free of charge. Approx. 55% of the media holdings in the youth library are now non-book media.
  • The Berlin Learning Center has been under construction since 2008, in which school-related and advanced media are presented to schoolchildren of all grades. In this area, the presentation of the media is based on factual contexts, age plays a subordinate role. The inventory also includes non-fiction and school books in other languages ​​as well as non-fiction and educational films.
  • Media inventory: The focus is on the leisure sector and a. PC and console games, comics and picture books as well as foreign-language media (in over 20 languages, including 7 languages ​​with extended collections), media related to Berlin and in the “Berlin Learning Center” material media for all ages and school types.
  • Services: Library introductions, daily help with homework for children and young people, monthly legal advice for young people, career orientation days for young people in cooperation with Berlin schools
  • Event work: readings by authors, theater, media educational workshops, special series of events are “Vocabulary - Storytelling in the Yurt” and “Bookmarks: Listening to children's literature with your eyes” (in cooperation with the Deaf Association of Berlin)
  • Offers for parents and educators: secondary literature that can be borrowed in combination with children's and youth media, newsletters, blog, media recommendations, reading workshops, regional contact for reading sponsors of the Reading Foundation
  • All offers and services are free for children and young people

Media floor Dresden

Computer pool in the youth library "medien @ age" of the
Dresden City Libraries on Prager Strasse
  • In 1979 the youth library of the Dresden City Libraries in Inner Neustadt was one of the first to offer non-book media; Radio programs could be received via headphones.
  • For its 20th anniversary in 1999, the youth library moved to the inner old town under the name "medien @ age" and expanded its target group to include young people up to 25 years of age.
  • In 2005, “medien @ age” had around 15,000 non-book media in its inventory in addition to the classic print media, including 5,400 CDs. There was also a wide range of literature on PC and Internet topics.
  • Together with the twelve employees of the JugendInfoServices from the youth welfare office, who also look after the library's Internet PCs, Internet training courses for young people, application training and days for career information were also offered. In addition, there were activities such as the open house, author readings and game evenings.
  • If you have a user ID, you can also register for the library's newsletter and receive notifications of orders and return reminders via SMS on your mobile phone.
  • In a virtual wish book on the library's homepage, the young people can make suggestions as to which media should be purchased.
  • Every month in “medien @ age” there was a specific topic, for which own media collections were put together. In 2005 it was B. Materials on the Einstein or Schiller year in April and May or board games in June.
  • In 2017 it was merged with the main library at the new Kulturpalast location .

Youth library "Exit" Hamburg-Mümmelmannsberg

  • It was created in 1993 as part of a DBI project in the Mümmelmannsberg library (combined school and district library, structurally attached to the Mümmelmannsberg comprehensive school, but own building).
  • It was laid out together with the young people as a room screened off on three sides, but still open to the rest of the book hall with its own entrance, which was pepped up with graffiti by some young people.
  • Instead of a large music CD collection, a - ultimately cheaper - television set was purchased on which VIVA or MTV are permanently set.
  • Since 1997, the use of the library has cost 10 DM (5 euros) per year for young people between the ages of 14 and 18; it is free for young people.
  • The media offer of the youth library is supplemented by regular computer workshops, which are held by an expert mediated by the youth welfare office, and occasional discos.
  • But the young people themselves are also getting active: they have obtained two free internet-enabled Apple PCs from the Hamburg Technical Art School and developed a concept for offering and using an internet connection, another boy offers his own snack service with cola and sweets in the library. In addition, they are included both in the selection and in the indexing of newly acquired media (especially for music CDs).

Rostock-Dierkow youth library

  • After the development of the new Dierkow area, the existing district library, which until then had only been reserved for adults, began to be open to children and young people in 1989.
  • After the sudden increase in the number of registrations and loans, the library moved to one of the newly built shopping centers in 1993.
  • The youth library was allocated 60 m² on the first floor of the shopping center (the entire library extends over the ground floor and the first floor) and in 1994 was screened off from the rest of the library by a partition.
  • The young people are advised about the acquisition of additional media (“wish lists” on partition walls), and the subsequent purchase is also made together.
  • In addition to the inventory, the youth library also has a stereo system and a television with video recorder so that CDs, music and video cassettes can also be used directly on site.
  • There is also a wide range of events with “classic” library events such as book presentations or author readings, but also with barbecues, disco evenings, film weeks and computer workshops.

International youth library

  • the world's largest library for international children's and youth literature;
  • Founded in 1948, it collects books for children and young people in over 100 languages, plus the relevant secondary literature;
  • large loan stock for children in order to gain information about their reading behavior, also a lot of program work such as language, painting and handicraft courses;
  • Every year twelve foreign scientists and students come to the library for a three-month study visit; these stays are financed through grants;
  • The most important events are exhibitions on current productions on the national and international children's book market, but also international comparative exhibitions on certain topics and the like. Ä .;
  • financed since 1996 by the International Youth Library Foundation, the funds are raised by the federal government, the state of Bavaria and the city of Munich;
  • Cooperation with the Historical Children's Book Society (HKG) founded in 1967

literature

  • Libraries '93 : Structures - Tasks - Positions. German Library Institute, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-87068-445-3 .
  • Kerstin Keller-Loibl: Handbook children and youth library work. Bock & Herchen, Bad Honnef 2009, ISBN 978-3-88347-268-3 .
  • Kerstin Keller-Loibl: Children's and Youth Libraries in Germany: Current Status and Future Perspectives. In: U. Hohoff and C. Schmiedeknecht (eds.): A new look at libraries. Georg Olms Verlag, Hildesheim u. a. 2010, ISBN 978-3-487-14334-7 .
  • Ilona Glashoff, Rita Schmitt: Library work for young people: Development and testing of new concepts. Vol. 2: Results of the accompanying scientific research: Evaluation. German Library Institute, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-87068-959-5 . (dbi materials, 159)
  • Ilona Glashoff, Rita Schmitt: Library work for young people: Development and testing of new concepts. Vol. 3: Concepts, experiences and side effects of a project. German Library Institute, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-87068-962-5 . (dbi materials, 162)
  • Hans Engl: The children's reading hall: an educational problem. Reinhardt, Munich 1932.
  • Engelbert Plassmann: The library system of the Federal Republic of Germany: A manual. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1999, ISBN 3-447-03706-7 .
  • Helmut Göhler (ed.): Everyday life in public libraries in the GDR: memories and analyzes. Bock & Herchen, Bad Honnef 1998, ISBN 3-88347-195-X . (Library and society)
  • Erwin Miedtke: "Learn to read / learn to live" - ​​in digital culture as a special task of public libraries for children and young people. In: bit-online / issue 3/2009 / S. 318

Individual evidence

  1. http://www.bit-online.de/heft/2009-03/nach9.htm