This is a product of a Working Group of the Youth Libraries Committee of the Library Committee. Catherine Blanchard, who chaired the Working Group, is Assistant Head of Libraries, Communication and Young People’s Services, Hertfordshire County Council. The present work is a revision of guidelines previously issued in 1991 and reflects a response to both the Library and Information Services Council’s report, Investing in Children, and the very rapid changes in the information resource since the first edition.
In effect this work is the Library Association’s policy statement on the nature and quality of library provision in children’s libraries in the UK. It reflects an attitude attuned to providing for lifelong learning and to that opening of access to the world of knowledge and cultural diversity that the public library so eminently represents. However, these libraries are faced with enormous pressures of change and an era of diminishing budgets. The Guidelines attempt to identify issues with respect to change and apply a client‐centred approach; in this instance the clients are children and young people(0‐16 years).
The Guidelines are just that ‐ not standards or performance measures; they highlight issues that apply regardless of the nature of the library service or type of community served. The issues are: the child and the library, service entitlements, standards and targets, relationships between service providers (public libraries, school libraries, school library services), library design and layout, staffing and training, collection development, promotion of services. Particularly good coverage is given to special services. The guidelines are clearly, if tersely, laid out, and they attempt to provide assistance with respect to present practice and a none‐too‐certain future.
The audience is public library managers and children’s library professionals. Obviously aimed at UK librarians, the Guidelines will need to be consulted alongside a number of other sources when used outside the UK. In this regard the bibliography is disappointingly short. This document is already ripe for revision, especially in its almost complete lack of guidance in the area of information‐handling skills. Those considering their own service guidelines will need to do considerable additional reading. However, as with all guidelines, these are well worth adding to a management collection or a specialist one in the field. The public library is a great invention ‐ but it needs all the assistance it can get from works such as this one.
