Week 3 Issue and Trend Interview: Interview with a local librarian

After the success of my first blog, I decided to try for another round and see how this one goes. For this post I decided to interview a local librarian (referred to as AS from here on out) from the Grand Forks Public Library. He is the head librarian in the children's department. I sat down with AS and discussed some of the current issues and trends that are taking place in children's literature and well as what it is like to run the children's department in a library.

I started off by asking AS about his job and what is the most enjoyable part of it. He said that he loves books and enjoys working with people, especially kids. And he likes the fact that every day is different, especially true with working in the children's department. We also discussed the issues that arise when dealing with children in the library. AS said that his main concern is maintaining a safe and friendly environment for children and their families. He has set up certain policies to make sure that this happens. A few examples that he gave me were: all children under the age of 8 must be accompanied by an adult while in the library and the staff makes it a point to greet every person or family when they walk into the Children's Department. This is a way for the staff to know which child belongs to which parent.

Next we talked about what kinds of books are popular and how he keeps up with the popular trends. He stated that dinosaurs, fairies, and animals are the most in demand for preschool age children. As the get older and enter grade school, the look more for LEGO, Minecraft, drawing, sharks, humor, natural disasters, mysteries, and sports. As they move into their preteen and teen years, they look for graphic and dystopian novels. I asked Aaron what exactly is a dystopian novel and he explained it to me as an imaginary place where people lead lives in fear and ore often dehumanized. Example of these types of books would be The Hunger Games, The Divergent Series, or The Twilight Series. 

Along these same lines, I questioned about how parent can keep their children actively reading and if the library has any summer programs that help out in the specific area. AS commented that to help keep kids interested in reading, all it takes is one simple step. Just read to them every day. If the parents read to their kids, the kids will naturally develop into readers. He recommends sticking to their age range and making sure to change the book pace and topic as they grow older. He said that is favorite authors, for younger reader, are Mo Williams and Dr. Seuss.

As far as the summer reading programs go, there are a quite a few of them put into place,  The main ones are Story time and the summer reading program. Three days a week, the library holds story time for babies, preschool, and toddlers. These run for 20-30 minutes apiece and include a story, music, puppets, and finger plays. The summer reading program (they also have a winter reading program as well) is put into place to encourage children 12 and under to continue reading during the summer. There are awards and activities to keep it fun and exciting. There are other programs that they library puts on as well; S.T.E.M, Robotics Club, Children's Gardening club, R.E.A.D Dogs program, LEGO Club, and Chess club.

The next topic that we touched base on is how computers and the Internet has impacted children's book choices. AS said that he has noticed the number of non-fiction books that get checked out has declined. He figures this id due to the fact that people have quick and easy access to this kind of information online. Besides that, children and their parent and family members have better access to book reviews and reading lists. This makes the decision making process about what to buy or check out more informed. I asked him if he has noticed that there is more demand for e-books recently. He said that this is a demand that has gone up every year, but recently he has noticed that more and more grade school kids have been asking for the library's e-book collections.

We briefly touched based on Common Core. I asked AS if he predicts a change for the need of informational books and nonfiction books in the future with the change over to Common Core State Standards. He thinks that this will not greatly affect the public library. He remarked how he can see it affecting school libraries and what kinds of books they order. He also stated that the Internet has changed the need the need for informational and non-fiction books more than anything else has. The library purchases books according to what is the best reviewed.




The last topic that we talked about current trends and issues in children's literature. When I asked him about this, he said that he believes that the major point on this topic is that their needs to be more diversity in children's books. The American Library Association put out a call for this and it was reflected in the major award winning books this year. I asked him if he think that this will affect the library and the books that are kept on hand. He answered by saying that he is more aware of the issue when making purchasing decisions., Lastly, we discussed what are the best resources to keep you with this trend. AS claims that the American Library Association, the Public Library Association, the Association for Library Services to Children, state and national library conferences, periodicals such as School Library Journal are the best resources to stay on top if the most current trends.

After doing some research on the topic, I agree with AS that this is an issue that needs to be addressed. In 1986, Walter Dean Myers, a former National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, wrote to the NY Times and asked how come there were never any other ethnicity's in children's literature. Almost 30 years later, this is a topic that is still brought up. Even though this has gotten much better, it is still not at an acceptable level.