Where are the children in children’s collections? An exploration of ethical principles and practical concerns surrounding children’s participation in collection development.

Aggleton, J. (2018). Where are the children in children’s collections? An exploration of ethical principles and practical concerns surrounding children’s participation in collection development. New Review of Children’s Literature and Librarianship, 24(1), 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1080/13614541.2018.1429122

Hi Everyone, 

This article was incredibly thought provoking as it discusses the idea of involving children in the development of children collections within school, public, academic libraries and archives. The author goes on to state that they are not looking to give complete authority to children on what to select, but instead would like for them to be more involved in the selection process. The example given is how a library in Cambridgeshire buys a small amount of children’s books that kids read and provide a review for. Based on this review, they choose whether to add the book to the collection or discard it. The reason why the author believes that it is important for children to have a say in these collections is because these books impact children's culture and their growth. It is believed that if only adults select books, some of the decisions in the selection process can derive from biases or trying to push their own beliefs onto kids. Therefore, if adults and children work together in the selection process, the librarian can add books that children will enjoy and will also positively impact them. 

One thing that I found very interesting was that the author encourages the idea of children and librarians working in unison within school, public libraries, and archives. The only place where they don’t fully encourage this is within academic libraries, the argument being that, within these spaces, children’s literature is mostly targeted to the students and adults within the institution and not directly impacting kids. Instead, it is mostly being utilized for assignments and analysis. Overall, an engaging read that discusses the freedom for kids to choose what they want to read within libraries.

-Scarlet Prieto-Hernandez