[Publib] Re: Choosing a specialty: Children's vs. YA

[Jesse Ephraim]

I cover both the children's and YA departments in our library.

One way to look at the problem of choosing YA vs. children's
librarianship is to look at the average daily duties of each role.
These vary a bit from library to library, of course.  In my experience,
the major differences between the two roles are:

1) YA librarians work with an age group that is not known for its
reading habits.  It can also be more difficult to get them to attend
functions than it is to get children to do so.  Some folks view this as
a frustrating problem, while others see it as a fun challenge.

2) Children's librarians usually need to be able to do storytimes and
crafts and work with schools.  There are a lot of introverted librarians
out there, so working with crowds can be difficult for some.

If I were choosing between the two roles, I would pick children's
librarian, since I really love doing the storytimes and performances.
You can't really go wrong with either approach, though, and there is
significant overlap between the two roles.

Jesse Ephraim

Youth Services Librarian
Southlake Public Library
1400 Main Street, Suite 130
Southlake, TX  76092
(817) 748-8248
jephraim at ci.southlake.tx.us