Babies and libraries: serving the youngest patrons of a community

Studies of infants and young children show that literacy and learning begin at very early stages of development, but public libraries tend to ignore this age group. This article examines the cognitive development and socialization processes encouraged by early childhood literacy programs, then explores programming efforts in this area at libraries around the United States. The author describes her own experience at two branch libraries in Dallas, Texas, as a case study of weekly infant/toddler programs for children and their caregivers. She also explores opportunities for collaboration between public libraries and pediatric clinics in the Born to Read program, which provides children with bilingual learning materials at very young ages.