[Publib] adults in the children's area

[Theyer, Hillary]

We also have a similar policy, but one thing not mentioned in the pro and con posts so far is the layout of your children's areas.  We are lucky in that our children's area in our main library is one half of the top floor, meaning the other half is the adult area.  We have several lounge chairs within easy sight and reach of both, near the children's service desk, that are also a highly desirable place to sit.

Adults who need children's materials can browse as much as they need, but then need to take the materials to an "adult" area unless they are physically with a child.  This means walking about five feet.  It enables us to keep a better eye on the children's area, know which child is with which adult, etc.  We don't have any such rules in our branches, as they are too small and don't really have separate defined "children's" areas as such.

Reasons - not only physical predators (and yes, the rule has allowed us to gently ask some adults what we can help them with in the children's area), but also adults taking up the smaller furniture that the younger children need because they aren't comfortable at the larger furniture, taking up space in the picture book area preventing parents with young children from being able to browse the collection they need, taking up space in the homework center preventing kids from using it, etc.  I explain that these are specialty areas designed specifically for children, while the majority of the library is available to them, and ask people what library service they feel they are being denied and how I can remedy that.  We have actually had a parent say thank you a couple of times.

I would suspect that this would present more problems in children's areas that were physically removed from other places, but I've worked in those and they all had the same rule in large, urban libraries where the children's area was a physically separate space.  In fact, every large main library I've ever worked in, come to think of it.  One problem I do recall was adults taking children's materials to the adult side, then the pages accidentally reshelving them on the adult side.  I also worked in one main library near our Library School (my alma, UCLA, Go Bruins) and the children's librarians studying literature would gather whole stacks of books and take them to the adult side, and also run off with our reference resources such as A to Zoo and Best Books for Children, but we knew they would treat them well, being future children's librarians.

The group seems to be to be another issue, and we have that one as well.  We simply address that with behavior policy, and ask the group leader/caregiver to help us.  This works to greater or lesser success, usually depending on the caregiver.  In one library where we had that rule and a mentally challenged man who was reading books like Beverly Cleary and Laura Ingalls Wilder we held his books for him at the children's desk, he would pick them up, then take them elsewhere in the library to read them.  You could do the same with the group maybe, ask what items you can pull for them and have ready for their visit, then the caregiver picks them up and finds a place for adults to sit.  Then you are providing and added value service - pulling the books ahead of time - instead of denying them access to the collection.  We have a group like that that sits in the lounge chairs near children's so the caregiver can go get more books from the kids side without leaving their sightline, but the chairs and the space is designed for adults.

I think that policy is actually pretty common, at least it is in my experience, but I could be wrong.  I also think it is very interesting that we hear of policies in other libraries that make us think "I can't believe that they do that!" but then others chime in and we discover we only think we know the one best way to do anything.  Public Libraries are just so different all around the country.  Hence, the value of PubLib!

Hillary