International Companion Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature

which operate in Britain. Although initially a contentious issue for many librarians, the
financial cuts in public service have made sponsorship a matter of expediency.

Information technology

Writing in 1984, the Canadian academic Adele Fasick drew attention to the need for
children’s librarians to respond to the age of new technologies (Fasick 1984).
Collections, she argued, should contain the media-inspired literature such as film and
television tie-ins, choose-your-own story books, novelisations and multi-media packages.
These are now commonplace in the majority of collections. However, it is with respect to
the availability of audiovisual, computer and multi-media software that British
children’s libraries are deficient in contrast with their counterparts in North America
(Bergiarusso 1990). A major study undertaken in the early 1990s revealed a worrying
picture (Lonsdale and Wheatley 1990, 1991). The provision of even established
audiovisual formats such as videos and audiocassettes is piecemeal, with nearly a third
of children’s library authorities making no provision at all. However, the availability of
computer materials is significantly worse, with fewer than one third of authorities
offering largely outmoded hardware and software (Lonsdale and Wheatley 1992).
Services are correspondingly sparse, and tensions were detected about whether the
public library should provide computer material, despite an unprecedented growth in
the publishing of software for young people and the availability of hardware in the home
(Clyde 1993). While there is a general recognition of the need to develop skills to exploit
the new technologies, there is little evidence that libraries are supporting this through
their promotional and information skills programmes. The appearance of new interactive
CD-ROM multi-media and the development of Internet during the past five years has
largely gone unheeded in children’s libraries (although not in school libraries), and
unlike the United States and many other countries, there is a danger that the current
revolution in information technology could pass British children’s libraries by.

Staffing of children’s libraries

Since the 1880s the importance of having a specially qualified and trained staff for
library work with children has been recognised, but only within the past thirty years has
there been a significant demand for staff with specialist training and expertise, and it
was not until the late 1970s that minimum levels for professional and non-professional
staff were recognised. Today, the need for specialists who possess expertise and
knowledge beyond library skills per se and children’s literature, has been re-affirmed. To
meet the challenges of collection and service development in the twenty-first century,
the children’s librarian should ideally possess a knowledge of child development,
educational trends, a familiarity with contemporary child culture, promotional and
teaching skills, and personal qualities including empathy with children and confidence
in relating with and to them.
It is ironic that at the moment when there is a national consensus about the importance
of specialist training, specialist posts are in decline. Some senior librarians with a remit
for children’s work have had to accept responsibility for a wider range of services and to

620 APPLICATIONS OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE