What do public libraries need from managers and missionaries for children's services?

As a former children's services librarian and a library administrator in several public libraries, I've spoken on this topic numerous times over the last twelve years. In general, the audience expects to hear words of wisdom about how children's librarians need to know the literature in the field and the wide range of needs of their varied audiences, how to budget, how to select materials and do programming, and how to get the administrator's attention. Certainly an M.L.S., a little experience in the field, and some continuing education will provide an awareness of these needs. Therefore, it is obvious that libraries and children's services librarians can address needs other than those that are specific to children's librarianship. Over the years many librarians have realized that those in children's services need to know more than just the literature of the field. For instance, only after I ceased being a children's librarian did I have a conversation with a friend who explained the development of motor skills in young children. With chagrin, I realized that almost all the finger plays selected for use in programming had been inappropriate and probably very frustrating. Children's services librarians need to know about child development (both mental and physical) as well as how children learn to read. Although not all practitioners agree with the methods used in schools, we need to know the current methods being used in our schools and, more importantly, we need to be aware of curriculum changes. Just as we need to know about child development, we need to know how children build vocabulary skills, word recognition, sentence patterns, and comprehension.Institute sponsored by University of Illinois, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, cosponsored by the Youth Divisions of the American Library Association: American Association of School Librarians (AASL), Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), Young Adult Services Division (YASD)published or submitted for publicatio