To make up for my own dissaointment over missing ALA (the American Library Associations monster yearly conference) this year, I am going to post my favorite quote from ALA's past.
In 1937, Frances Clarke Sayers gave an impassioned address entitled The Nightingale, which focused on how children's librarians needed to combat the tendency to give children books that were dumbed down, that focused on the mundane and easy to understand. Every day I struggle against this same issue. Collection development (which books to buy), reference interviews (which books to recommend), reader's advisory, etc, they all lead me back to this one issue. So I try to keep this quote in mind throughout my day.
She said:
“Of what are we afraid? Of words, of emotion, of experience? We are very tender, it seems to me, of the young,
and tenderness is no preparation for a world half mad and savage. "
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment