Part B

Human resources – competencies and knowledge

Children’s librarians require a range of skills and qualities, including interpersonal skills, social awareness, teamwork and leadership and competence in the practices and procedures of the organisation they work for. It is important to have staff with expertise in children’s services including professional knowledge and enhanced awareness of theories of child development and psychology. Effective and professionally run children’s libraries require trained and committed children’s librarians who will design, plan, organise, implement, manage and evaluate services and programmes to meet the needs of children and their families in the community they serve. In addition, they will support children by removing barriers presented by socioeconomic circumstances, culture, privilege, language, gender identity, sexual orientation, ability, and other diversities.

According to the IFLA Children and Young Adults Section, the effective and competent children’s librarian:  

  • Understands theories of child development and psychology, including communication, language and literacy, and their implications for library services
  • Uses established techniques to identify the needs of all children and their families in the local community
  • Designs, effectively delivers, and evaluates a variety of fun and engaging programmes and activities to meet the needs of all children in the local community  
  • Demonstrates knowledge and management of current children’s culture: literature, games, music and films, children’s use of digital content and media, and other materials that contribute to a diverse, all-inclusive, and relevant children’s collection
  • Stays informed of trends in emerging technologies, the digital world and social media and their implications for children’s library services
  • Cultivates a welcoming and supportive environment for children and their families to enable easy access to participation in library resources, programmes and activities 
  • Facilitates community engagement and partnership building 
  • Communicates and collaborates in partnership with other organisations serving children and their families in the community, to achieve common goals
  • Communicates effectively with children and their families.
  • Sets goals, develops plans and priorities for the children’s library service 
  • Works creatively, and effectively with colleagues to deliver the goals and priorities of the children’s library
  • Plans, manages, controls and evaluates the budgetary resources available to the children’s library to help meet service objectives
  • Practices self-evaluation, is adaptable and undertakes continuing professional development opportunities on an ongoing basis   

Further examples of competencies are provided by The Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association (ALA) who recommend Competencies for Librarians Serving Children in Public Libraries for children ages 0 to 14. The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) has published Teen Services Competencies for Library Staff.

Education, development and training of children’s librarians  

The quality and effectiveness of library services for children depends on the expertise of the staff who should develop their knowledge and update skills on an ongoing basis. As stated originally in the UNESCO/IFLA Public Library Manifesto 1994: ‘The librarian is an active intermediary between users and resources. Professional and continuing education of the librarian is indispensable to ensure adequate services.’ 

The IFLA Guidelines for Continuing Professional Development: Principles and Best Practices state that the individual library and information professional is primarily responsible for pursuing ongoing learning that constantly improves knowledge and skills. However, the employers are responsible for providing staff development programmes and support for continuing education. This requires organisational commitment and effective personnel policies and procedures to be in place and the allocation of adequate budget and time for staff learning. In order to have committed, trained professional children’s librarians, there must be education and training in all areas of the service. This includes staff training to provide culturally sensitive, equitable service to all groups. Children’s librarianship should be part of the curriculum of any public library education programme.

Ethical standards and values

Children’s librarians have a responsibility to maintain high ethical standards in their work with children, their families, other members of staff and partner organisations in the community. All children and young adults in the community should be dealt with on an equal basis regardless of their abilities and background. Children’s librarians are committed to equal and free access to information, knowledge and services. This is exemplified in the IFLA Global Vision Report Summary. They should demonstrate cultural competence and not allow personal attitudes and opinions to determine which children in the local community are served, which programmes are offered or how materials are selected, displayed and made available for use. 

The IFLA Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct , endorsed by the IFLA Governing Board in 2012, is offered as a series of ethical propositions for the guidance of individual librarians and other information workers. It applies of course to children’s librarians and covers these areas:

  • Access to information
  • Responsibilities towards individuals and society
  • Privacy, secrecy and transparency
  • Open access and intellectual property
  • Neutrality, personal integrity and professional skills
  • Colleague and employer/employee relationship
  • For examples and more information please view the document

The IFLA Freedom of Access to Information and Freedom of Expression (FAIFE) Advisory Committee has collected more than 60 professional codes of ethics for librarians from around the world. These guidelines customarily are adopted by national library or librarian associations or in some cases implemented by government agencies. The core values of equity of access to recorded knowledge and information and intellectual freedom are embodied in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the core values of IFLA. 

Funding and managing budgets and financial resources

Funding is one of the biggest challenges for libraries as indicated by the IFLA Global Vision, and children’s libraries need to ensure decision makers understand value and impact. The children’s library needs an appropriate budget allocation in order to provide services and programmes to meet community needs. This will take into account local circumstances and there is a need for children’s librarians to be able to develop a funding proposal to their management authority and to external agencies. Adequate funding is crucial to the success of the children’s library and is required not only when a library is established but should be sustained on an ongoing and regular basis. Without suitable levels of funding over the long-term it is impossible to develop policies for service provision and make the most effective use of available resources. The implementation of any programme or project can be boiled down to ‘this is a great idea but how are we going to pay for it?’ Ideally the children’s library staff should work with senior management to develop the budget and explore responsible options for the delivery of quality resources and services to children in the local community. 

Children’s librarians should know how to identify needs of the children’s library and develop a budget plan. To do so they should:  

  • Understand the budgeting process of the parent organisation
  • Know the timetable for the budget cycle, including operating or revenue budgets which are generally drawn up on an annual basis to fund current operations
  • Be aware of the budget accountability processes
  • Know key staff involved in budgeting  

The components of the budget plan for the children’s library include (but are not limited to):

  • New resources (for example books, periodicals, toys and play equipment, multimedia, and digital materials, equipment for Makerspace activities)  
  • New devices (tablets, consoles)
  • Costs associated with using ICT equipment, software and licensing costs, if these are not included in a general ICT budget for the parent public library
  • Supplies and administrative materials 
  • Promotional events and materials
  • Funding for programmes and activities
  • Funding for publicity and marketing
  • Staff training and development
  • Staff salaries
  • Overhead costs such as rent, cleaning, heating and lighting
  • Library management system costs

Staff costs for salaries and staff training may be included in the children’s library budget, or it may be more appropriate to have them included in the public library general staff budget. The children’s librarian should be involved in estimating these costs as the amount of money available for staffing is closely related to how many hours the children’s library can be open and what quality and range of services can be offered. 

There is a need to monitor, evaluate, review and report on programmes, services and initiatives. This information may be included in an Annual Report which will show how the budget has been used. This will indicate whether the amount of money spent on the children’s library programme and its resources has been enough to cover its tasks and attain the policy targets. Annual Reports should include evidence of the quality of library services and programmes and their impact on the user community (see Part G Evaluation and impact). 

Sources of funding

A number of sources of funding are used to finance public libraries but the proportions of funding from each source will vary depending on local factors in each country. The primary sources are taxation and block grants at local, regional or central level. Libraries should seek additional sources of income for project funding which may include donations from funding bodies or private individuals, revenue from commercial activities or user fees and sponsorship from partner organisations. Community libraries that are not financially supported by city, regional or state funding must ensure funding annually from other sources.

Partnerships and collaboration   

Public libraries are a crucial partner in the local community because of their widespread and welcoming, accessible infrastructure. Building effective and sustainable partnerships can help to ensure the best facilities, services, and opportunities for children of all abilities in the community.

Children’s librarians should work collaboratively and develop strong partnerships with other community agencies and stakeholders in lifelong learning and education to achieve the best possible participation and engagement of the communities. Partnerships may be in place at a strategic level, where organisations or agencies have a policy directive to collaborate in order to achieve shared agendas. Librarians have a tradition of collaborating amongst each other and with other practitioners and developing communities of practice.  

Children’s librarians should have a good knowledge of their client groups and work to support the needs of their diverse communities. They are recognized for being good at engaging with ‘hard-to-reach’ groups, and successfully building partnerships, based on reading and family learning, as well as the expressed needs of the community. Local community characteristics may change over time, but the need for building partnerships and sustaining networks remains a constant. Adopting a community-led approach can help to change the way librarians engage so that planning and decision making is collaborative and participatory.

Library staff should have the ability to create partnerships among other groups in the community that address needs of children. Research evidence shows that library service naturally connects to the work of institutions in a community, such as schools, youth work, hospitals (doctors and paediatricians) and other health care centres, social services, local business, cultural and arts groups, the voluntary sector and other non-profit organisations. Collaborating with each of these sectors adds much value, especially when involved in reading promotion activities for children and their families or when addressing barriers to access in the community.

Outreach to community partners will expand the reach of the library to connect with new audiences and more potential users. This can lead to the development and provision of new and improved services to help meet the needs of children and families in the community. Involving local community organisations offers the opportunity for children’s librarians to: 

  • Accurately define the profile of children being served 
  • Identify at the local level the needs and priorities of the linguistically, economically and culturally diverse community members
  • Provide promotional opportunities for new and existing programmes, both at the library and the partner organizations
  • Be in partnerships that serve all partners well

Pre-Schools, Kindergartens, and other educational institutions are also important partners for the children’s librarian. The children’s librarian should provide a variety of special programmes for the benefit of schools such as: 

  • Library visits 
  • Library orientation programmes 
  • Information literacy classes
  • Reading promotion 
  • Lending services 
  • Cultural programmes 
  • Homework clubs and homework support 
  • Author/storyteller visits 
  • Space for practitioners to meet