Reading and the Training School Library

O T H E PROBLEMS characteristic of a training school library about which a teachers college librarian might speak, that of reading seems most pertinent and appropriate at this time for two reasons. First, because the state of the world at present and the national defense theme of this conference point to a more active participation by librarians in the study of the influence of reading on public opinion. People in democracies need to read with intelligence and discrimination in order to detect propaganda, to arrive at considered judgments, and to achieve a tolerant equilibrium. Librarians aid in formulating the attitudes and opinions of readers through the selection and distribution of printed materials. Particularly is this true of school and college librarians who guide the reading of the younger generation at the time when many of their ideas and prejudices are being formed. I t is true that librarians try to fit the "right book to the right child" and to provide the college student with suitable printed materials on his immediate problems. But, in selecting and distributing these materials are such factors as the following considered?—the reading ability of the reader; the reading experience or background of the reader which will condition how he interprets the printed material; and the effects on the reader of what he has read.