3307 Not everything grows old gracefully

When leaving the public library this morning, I walked by the reference/ reserve section for . . . well, children I suppose. But very old children. When I was the librarian in the Veterinary Medicine Library at The Ohio State University, I was horrified by the science fair projects that brought school children to my library. Because school children can't get there on their own, they were usually with their parents and if I was on duty I could warn the parent that the project was not appropriate (if it involved the health and well-being of an animal). At that time, I looked at what was available in the public library so I could make referrals to better sources, but discovered many hadn't caught up with the times in terms of animal welfare.

So I stopped and looked again today. Here's the copyright dates I noticed--1950 [outdated even when I was in school], 1962, 1970, 1974, 1980, 1982, 1984. There were many from the early 1990s. But I was really stunned to see "Science projects with computers," with a 1985 copyright date. These books belong in a history of science teaching collection.

Although the general concepts and plans can remain the same in the revised editions, the bibliographies and web content information needs to be updated--many of these books pre-dated the web--and also this visually sensitive generation needs illustrations that don't look like mom and dad or grandpa when they were kids. I use a very well-heeled public library--it can afford to print color bulletin board displays that reproduce book cover images on deep hue backgrounds that must require gallons of ink. Surely it can spring to update the science fair collection and withdraw or send to storage the out of date materials.
Borrowed from a Manitoba science fair


science fairs
public libraries
children's books