Children's Libraries Section

Abstract

television corporations, national and international institutes concerned with children's books, schools of librarianship, and publishing companies.Each of these organizations is concerned not only with its own service to children and its policy for its own future development, but also with its place on the national scene and with the implications for national and international standards, cooperation and mutual exchange of ideas and information. There are disparities between library services within a given country and even wider differences between countries, and though individual national characteristics, politics and geography make international uniformity difficult, indeed undesirable, nevertheless within the Section there is progress towards recognition of common principles, pooling of information on commonly workable practices and increasing development of cooperative action in the children's book world. These are the strong features of the Section's functions and activities, and were evident in the lively meetings in Brussels. A list of its officers is provided on p. 259. Another meeting of the Section, open to all, produced an interest and enthusiasm generated partly through a masterly summary of the papers on the theme of library service to minority groups of children, prepared by Walter Scherf, which supplemented the eight papers prepared and available in translation at the meeting, and partly through the ample time given to contributions by many of the participants who added greatly to the information. The written papers were as follows: