Master of Library ScienceRead these three articles and write and answer to the question. Beside reading three articles to answer these questions read the ALA websiteAmerican Library Association. (2008, January 22).Code of Ethics of the American Library Association. Advocacy.http://www.ala.org/advocacy/sites/ala.org.advocacy/files/content/proethics/codeofethics/Code%20of%20Ethics%20of%20the%20American%20Library%20Association.pdf

Module 6 Discussion Question

44 unread replies.1414 replies.Should libraries/information organizations attempt to provide high-level services to all potential users? Is this possible? If they should not, which users should not receive the services? What are the consequences of attempting or not attempting to provide services?Students must provide their answers (minimum of 300 words). The discussion posts must be thoughtful, reflective, and supported by assigned readings.




rovide high-level services to all potential users? Is this possible? If they should not, which users should not receive the services? What are the consequences of attempting or not attempting to provide services?







32 Winter 2009 • Children and Libraries It was one of those dark, rainy spring mornings, and I had the house to myself. I switched on the news to keep me company as I emptied out the dishwasher. Catching the tail-end of a national story about drop-out rates among Hispanics, I turned up the volume as the story focused on a particular youth who had been flunking out of high school. As a means of intervention, he had been placed temporarily in a school that offered a dual-language program. The youth’s scores rose dramatically. When the school felt he was sufficiently out of danger of failing, he was placed back in his former school. Shortly afterwards, his scores began to plummet again. He eventually gave up and dropped out. There followed a series of “experts” arguing the pros and cons of dual-language immer- sion programs for English- and Spanish-speaking students. On the one hand, the dual-language program is a valid effort to address the needs of an increasingly at-risk student popula- tion. On the other hand, this is America. We speak English here. Immigrants need to learn our language if they want to take full advantage of the privileges that our country has to offer. Can we really justify the practice of teaching Hispanic students in their native language just so they can graduate? And if we can, shouldn’t that same service be offered to other immigrant populations? The debate was a familiar one to me, albeit in a different setting, and I knew there were no easy answers to the questions being raised. The issues presented in this news story are complex and part of a growing dilemma affecting all government agen- cies, including public libraries. With the nationwide increase in immigrant populations, as well as the growing disparity between rich and poor, public libraries are finding themselves in the same boat as the rest of the education community. How do you provide everyone in a diverse service area the same level of access to information and education? As our demographics rapidly change, the American Library Association’s guidelines for providing equal access seem increas- ingly utopian; yet, as managers of children’s services, we should be on the front lines of the war being waged over how to provide it. Our primary responsibility is to ensure that today’s youth become tomorrow’s patrons, but it is the youth who are most likely to be denied access by our outdated library policies. Cary Meltzer Frostick served as the Children’s Room Director of the Utica (N.Y.) Public Library from April 2000 to January 2009. She is now Youth Services Supervisor at the Mary Riley Styles Public Library in Falls Church, Va. She is a member of ALSC’s Managing Children’s Services Committee. The Myth of equal Access Bridging the Gap with Diverse Patrons CARY MeLTzeR FROSTICK Photos by Carl Antonucci Winter 2009 • Children and Libraries 33 The Myth of equal Access For the past nine years, I’ve dealt with this dilemma on a daily basis, and while I’ve learned the hard way that there are no easy answers, I’ve discovered that there are steps we can take to bring the myth of equal access closer to reality. * * * In April 2000, I left the cozy small town library where I was the children’s librarian to head up the youth services department of a much larger urban library in central New York. I knew very little about the library or the city in which I would be working. The director had hired me for my experience doing collaborative program- ming and outreach. I arrived for my first day of work on the first day of spring break. Shortly after my arrival, the first of what would be many daycare groups arrived to use the computers. I had expected that there would be many African-American children, but as more and more children arrived (there would be more than three hundred children using the library that day), the three rooms that made up the department were soon awash in a veritable rainbow of skin tones. I heard as many as four different languages being spoken at any given time. How could this library be located just twenty-five miles from the all-white, mostly middle class library that I had just left? Talk about culture shock! I soon learned that the library was just two doors down from a refugee center. Regularly, groups of new arrivals were given tours of the library by refugee center staff. The tour guide would point out what a wonderful place the library was for their children, and the parents interpreted that as the library being a good place to leave their children while they attended their English language and orientation classes at the center. The children received instruction in English through the English as a Second Language (ESL) program offered by the public schools. Children arriving with their families in the spring would have to wait until the following school year to receive instruction. Many children have learned their first words of English from the library staff. The neighborhoods surrounding the library housed some of the poorest people in the city, including many of the immigrants. African-Americans occupied most of the housing within walk- ing distance of the library. There was also a growing Hispanic population. A sizable Bosnian population that had immigrated to the city during the conflict between Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia lived nearby, as did a number of Korean, Vietnamese, and Chinese families. During my employ there, I would see Afghani, Iraqi, and Iranian families increase in number just before 9/11; Sudanese and Somali families arrive in greater numbers as conflicts escalated in Africa; and a rapidly growing Burmese population. The virtual melting pot that the neighborhoods were turning into was evidenced by the growing number of mixed-race chil- dren who showed up in the children’s department of the library. Dark-skinned, almond-eyed children spoke fluent Vietnamese, as well as English, and were ostracized by their Caucasian, African American, and Asian schoolmates alike. Policies and Procedures that Fail The difficulty of providing equal access and equality of ser- vice to such a diverse patronage can seem particularly insur- mountable when you work in youth services, but it can seem impossible when you serve children living in poverty. During my first years at the library, many of the children who fre- quented the department did not even have library cards, and for good reason. Children’s library card applications had to be signed by a parent or legal guardian. The adult would have to assume responsibility for any late fees and the cost of any lost or damaged items and provide the necessary proof of address. Furthermore, children were required to be able to write their name before they could obtain their own library card. This is fairly standard for libraries across the country, but here are the stumbling blocks: n Most of the parents of our regular patrons never came into the library. n Many children were not always in the care of a parent or legal guardian. We would often encounter children who were in transit from one living situation to another, or in foster care, and their temporary guardians did not want to assume financial responsibility for them. n Many of the parents did not speak English well and couldn’t Aye Maung is proud to receive his library card. 34 Winter 2009 • Children and Libraries The Myth of equal Access read the language at all. They refused to sign their name to something that they could not read and didn’t deem a library card important enough to trouble their interpreter with. n A surprising number of parents who understood why they had to sign the application form refused to do so. They did not want the responsibility of keep- ing track of the materials that their child checked out from the library. n If a child’s parent was found to be delin- quent because of fines associated with late fees or lost items, the child was denied a card until the parent cleared fines on his or her own card. n Many low-income parents whose cards were delinquent (often because of fines assessed on unreturned materials from when they were teens) were unable to pay their fines and therefore unable to check out materials for their preschoolers. Another example of a fairly standard library policy that can deny access is charging borrower fees for DVDs and videos. In addition to the fees, late return of these items can result in exor- bitant daily fines. My library charged a $5 yearly membership fee for our “video club.” Daily late fees were $2. Only adults ages eighteen and older could purchase the video membership, so only adults could check out the DVDs and videos. The problems inherent in this type of arrangement are obvious: n The most popular DVDs and videos cost less to purchase than the library-bound picture books that carried a daily fine of ten cents for late return. n We never saw the parents of most of our regular young patrons. Their parents did not have library cards or ever even enter the building. Our entire DVD and video collection was off limits to these children even if they had a library card of their own. n The DVDs could have been a wonderful incentive to encour- age children to convince their parents to sign a library card application form for them. Once they learned that they couldn’t check out the movies on their own card, many chil- dren lost interest in getting a card altogether. n Our best ESL materials for children were in the form of DVDs and videos. Computer and Internet use policies for public libraries often include limits on time, number of people allowed at a com- puter, and number of pages printed, and they restrict people from accessing inappropriate material. Library cards are often required for computer use, and there is generally a nominal fee per page for printing. Monitoring children’s Internet use is generally stated to be the responsibility of the parent. My library was no exception, but these