Page 154 - Journal of Library Science in China 2020 Vol.46

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Extended English abstracts of articles published in the Chinese edition of Journal of Library Science in China, Vol.46, 2020 153

powerful whole of the isolated university library. Alliance members working under the same
management system platform carry out collection development and in-depth cooperation at the
same system level, which promotes collection development focus to shift from the micro level to
the macro level, making resource allocation more reasonable, and the scope of cooperation more
comprehensive and deeper, so as to achieve management sharing, service sharing, experience
sharing, and further promote the continuous innovation and development of library sharing
concepts.

Youth-oriented library courses in American higher education

〇a*
LI Furong〇 & GAO Mengyu
The history of education for library service to youth (ELSY) in America dates back to the late 19th
century when Pratt Institute first offered a course on children’s librarianship in 1899. In the past
one hundred years, many youth-oriented courses have been built. The paper focuses on the content
of youth-oriented library curriculum. Firstly, 53 ALA-accredited master’s programs in library and
information studies and 34 AASL-CAEP school librarianship education programs are analyzed to
show the general picture of ELSY in American higher education. Secondly, 603 youth-oriented
courses from fifty-three ALA-accredited master’s programs and thirty-one AASL-CAEP accredited
school library programs are selected and classified.
A content analysis of those courses reveals that youth-oriented library curriculum covers six
main categories: materials, services, management, librarianship, research and field experience.
Courses on literatures and materials dominate ELSY curriculum, and 39% of those courses focus
on the teaching of children’s and young adults’ literatures, covering topics such as selection,
cataloging, evaluation, utilization, etc. 26% of the courses deal with youth services. Courses on
field experience are offered in all universities. Courses on management and librarianship have
not received much attention, with a ratio of 8% and 6% respectively. Only 5% of the courses are
related to research, which is the least-emphasized topic in ELSY.
Courses on materials have a long history in ELSY, which can be further divided into several
categories according to age of readers, usually including children’s literature and adolescent
literature. Some courses pay a great deal of attention to materials for special groups such as ethnic
minorities, aborigines and special families. New forms of materials such as comics, digital media,
are also the content of some youth materials courses.
Courses on services are gaining increasingly attention in ELSY. Storytelling is the most
important topic taught in youth services curriculum. Services for special groups and technology’s
impacts on youth services are also included in ELSY curriculum.

* Correspondence should be addressed to LI Furong, Email: ziyanliao@126.com, ORCID: 0000-0002-6768-9223.