According to 2000 U.S. Census data, as reported in “American FactFinder Profile,” 58 percent of the children under the age of six have either both or their only parent in the workforce in Idaho. Many of these children are in some type of child care environment. This is a demographic that libraries cannot fail to notice, and must not fail to serve.
Becoming familiar with, keeping contact information on, and making contact with all day care locations in your community, both large institutional and small in-home, is just the first step in working effectively with day cares. Making a real, personal connection with providers by introducing materials and offering various library services is very important.
Service offers could include, but are not limited to:
Arrange for day care group to visit the library on a monthly basis, or as possible. Present a storytime and encourage individual book browsing.
Schedule and present a full storytime on site
Use milk crates or special bins to drop a set number of checked-out books or other materials to area day cares. Rotate monthly or bi-monthly.
Put together packs of developmental information and booklists and make them available to day cares or ask day cares to distribute to individual families.
Promote phone or e-mail materials requests. Providers who call a few days ahead with a list of needed items (limit as necessary) can then run in and pick up pre-selected materials. You may even create special cards for day care providers or preschool teachers that allow for no overdue fines or extended check-out periods on books to encourage use of library materials with young children in their care.
All of the above services should be made available and promoted to both small and large day care, preschool or Head Start organizations.
While the small, in-home day cares are most likely in the most need of library materials, resources, referrals, ideas and support due to limited resources and reduced exposure to activities and opportunities, large institutional preschools with greater numbers of children must not be overlooked. Many of the institutional preschools have very structured programs that may or may not include the kind of introduction to and interaction with language, literature, rhyme and music that a library program provides.
All can benefit equally from library services and programming.
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