Open wide the doors: The children’s room as place in public libraries, 1876–1925

McDowell, Kate

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/89729 Copy

Description

Title

Open wide the doors: The children’s room as place in public libraries, 1876–1925

Author(s)

McDowell, Kate

Issue Date

2014

Keyword(s)

• Children's rooms in libraries
• 1876-1925

Abstract

The word “place” can mean both the physical brick-and-mortar and the concept of “appropriate space,” defined functionally. This article examines the language of children’s place in public libraries from 1876 to 1925 in order to understand debates around the establishment of children’s rooms. Debates over the proper place for children encompassed the establishment of practices allowing children to enter the doors of the building as well as the creation of physical “children’s rooms,” although these rooms were policed in ways that restricted and defined their use. Examining the rhetoric of place and physicality illuminates some of the emerging cultural ideas about libraries as children’s places, their purposes, and their limitations.

Publisher

Johns Hopkins University Press and the Graduate School of Library and Information Science. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

ISSN

1559-0682

Type of Resource

text

Language

en

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/89729

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1353/lib.2014.0008

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2014 Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

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