“You have kids’ books?!” Promoting children’s literature in an academic library

Abstract

The appeal of children’s literature is large, encompassing college students and adults in addition to children, young adults, and literary scholars. The genre’s literary sophistication and cultural significance is becoming more apparent to a wide variety of readers. Children’s literature, however, is still often overlooked and underappreciated in academic libraries. There may be a lack of awareness surrounding the collection’s existence, as well as questions surrounding why and for whom it’s being collected. This paper addresses how academic librarians can better promote children’s literature collections to all library patrons.