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KATE McDOWELL : projects |
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.. Evolution for Children, 1882-1914In the late nineteenth century, when Charles Darwin's ideas of evolution were receiving extensive treatment in the popular press, some authors of books for children began to incorporate evolutionary concepts into their nonfiction works. At this time, there was consensus among professional librarians that children should be guided to read "true" books, and that the best topic of nonfiction for children was science. These adults recommended that children read science books in part because of Victorian beliefs that nature reflected God's order, and so nature study brought children closer to the divine order of the universe. Some interpretations of evolutionary concepts constituted a threat to that divine order, and this tension is reflected in the books that were written for and recommended to children. Some authors included an introductory explanation of the theory of evolution in their books on animals and nature; other authors described the wonders of nature without including the theory of evolution. This paper examines the science books recommended for children in nationally distributed lists created by librarians Caroline M. Hewins, John F. Sargent, and other librarians from 1882 to 1897, lists that were highly influential in determining public libraries' holdings for children, to see how children's print culture reflected scientific and popular conceptions of evolution. Although this paper examines those texts created in the last decades of the nineteenth century, the question of how children should or should not be presented with the theory of evolution in their education remains a hotly contested issue. Examining whether and how the idea of evolution was presented to children when it was a newly popular concept may shed new light on the continuation of these debates today. .. Toward a History of Children as Readers, 1890-1930Librarians, teachers, and journalists documented children's reading choices in surveys published from 1881 to 1926, a period that coincided with the rise of children's publishing in the United States. This paper will examine surveys of child readers published in Library Journal, Public Libraries, and popular periodicals including The Boston Herald and Harper's Weekly. The questions posed by the adults who created these surveys reveal attitudes about changing social norms of what constituted appropriate reading in childhood. The answers that children gave demonstrate both their compliance with and resistance to these reading norms. Questionnaires ranged in purpose from a straightforward ascertainment of the children's favorite titles to attempts to influence children's reading tastes away from "harmful" dime novels. Some of the surveys were primarily tools for marketing publications to children, as evidenced by several of the surveys that appeared in newspapers and offered prizes to children who submitted complete answers. Others appear to have been used by professional librarians for developing and marketing library services to children. The voices of children reflected in these surveys must be read as responses to adult authority. Some children's words were reprinted verbatim, and yet what they said was shaped by the questions that were posed to them; most children's responses seem to fit what the adults hoped to hear. This paper raises questions about the history of reading in childhood and what it is possible to know about this history when even ostensibly "primary" sources were mediated through adults. These surveys provide the basis for a limited history of children's responses to books, reading, and libraries. This paper marks the beginning of a larger project to document the history of children's reading experiences, focusing on the agency of child readers. This project is funded by the Research Board of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the proposal was awarded the Arnold O. Beckman Research Award. .. Read it AgainIf you're looking for the best books for reading aloud to preschool groups, this list of titles organized by theme and by author will help you get started. These are among the best of the previous decade, but include a few older classics as well. This list was developed as the handout for a talk given in Danville, IL as part of a grant offering continuing education for preschool teachers in low-income areas. .. Dissertation: The Cultural Origins of Youth Services Librarianship, 1876-1900Dissertation Abstract: Public library youth services developed during the period from 1876 to 1900, in the context of late 19th century beliefs about the importance of childhood and the power of reading. This dissertation analyzes the cultural forces that influenced the negotiation and growth of the development of public library services to children. A number of preceding but more transient forms of library services in such institutions as Sunday Schools and young men's associations informed librarians' discussions in 1876, when they first began addressing the needs of children in professional writings. Early models of youth services emphasized the authority of teachers, limiting children's borrowing to those materials that augmented school lessons. By the late 1880s, librarians began providing direct, personal service to children, formalizing their own expertise and authority by making lists of approved books for young readers. Librarians were influenced by Progressive Era movements including the kindergarten, settlement house, child study, and home libraries movements to further expand their offerings for children by exploring new ways of attracting and capturing children's interest. Public library youth services began in the 1890s to include games, picture collections, story hours, and reading clubs. By 1900, these developments were formalized in training programs for children's librarians and the formation of a national organization of professional childrens' librarians within the American Library Association. These findings about cultural origins of youth services librarianship shed new light on how this specialty developed, and they offer a vantage point from which to reassess contemporary youth services in public libraries as a product of late 19th century debates about the importance of reading as an influence on children's characters. .. Performing Girlhood, Performing Self: The Alice Books by Phyllis Reynolds NaylorThis poster was presented at the Children's Literature Association Annual Conference in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada on June 10, 2005.
Special thanks to the UIUC Graduate School of Library and Information Science, and the UIUC Graduate College, both of which provided travel assistance for my presentation at the conference. .. Dissertation Proposal: The Reading of the Young Reports and the Professionalization of Library Services to Youth in the United States from 1876-1900
..Guiding Children's Reading: Surveys of Youth Services Methods and Emerging Professional Specialization Before 1900 (currently under revision)..Using Student Stories in Theoretical Frameworks: A Pedagogical Strategy for Distance Education..Girls in Britches: Gender and Cross-Dressing in Bloody Jack and the True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle (abstract only, paper in review with Children's Literature Association Quarterly)..Change and Continuity in Professional Community: The PUBYAC Listserv and Historical Context in Youth Services Librarianship (abstract only, paper in review with Children's Literature Association Quarterly).. Before There Were Children's Librarians: Surveys of Youth Services Methods and Emerging Professional Specialization Before 1900This poster was presented at the 2005 ALISE Conference in Boston, MA on January 12, 2005.
.. Project AthenaThis fellowship, funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, focuses on recruiting and educating the doctoral students who will make up the next generation of Library and Information Studies Faculty. My role as a Project Athena Fellow is to network with faculty, students and alumni at a sponsor school (the University of South Florida), giving presentations about LIS doctoral studies and promoting Ph.D. programs. .. Online Bulletin of the Center for Children's BooksI was project manager for creating the first online version of the Bulletin; I directed the consulting company, On the Job Consulting, and assisted with designs for both database and interface. I also coordinated client needs with consultant resources, negotiating both aesthetic and navigational considerations for the publication in light of the consultant company’s software, programming, and design capabilities. .. Teens ReadThe goal of this project, funded by the Illinois State Library, was to connect teens with books, and included both in-person and online components. My primary role in the project was to design and implement the online components of the project, including building the project website and directing programmers from Prairienet in the creation of interactive review boards, where teens could post their own book reviews. I also gave booktalk presentations to middle school classes, promoting reading generally and the Teens Read program specifically. .. Babies Laptime Resource PagesIn the course of my programming practicum at The Urbana Free Library, I realized that there were no web resources for librarians who wanted to begin offering programming for babies and parents. To address this need, I created a website with original resources and bibliographies for babies' lap time programming in public libraries. It has since been linked to by many libraries, including Los Angeles Public Library, and is still mentioned regularly as the top resource on the topic in practitioner discussions on the PUBYAC listserv. .. Urbana Middle School Library WebsiteI designed and built the first website for the Urbana Middle School Library in 1996, when many school libraries did not yet have a web presence. Although periodic updates have been made, elements of my original design and content are still in use as of January 2005. .. Libraries for Incarcerated YouthLibrarians interested in starting or improving a juvenile corrections library will find, as we did, that good sources are essentially absent from the literature. This page serves as a starting point for bringing or improving library services for incarcerated youth. This project was built in collaboration with Lee McLain.
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