Page:The Carnegie institute and library of Pittsburgh (1916).djvu/12

 Here the telephone again proves itself a useful adjunct, for it enables the busy manufacturer to get expert information in five minutes without leaving his desk.

In the southwest wing of the Library Building on the ground floor is the Children's Department. Its seven rooms are large, well lighted, equipped with low tables, chairs, and shelves especially adapted to little visitors. All the details are planned with a regard for hygiene as well as comfort. There is a study-room containing atlases, globes, and hanging maps, where the children of overcrowded homes may come for a quiet hour to prepare their lessons. Recognizing the supreme importance of early beginnings and the necessity for competent work in this direction, Mr. Carnegie has endowed a Training School for Children's Librarians, which is conducted by the Library and has put into the field seventy trained workers since its organization in 1901. As it is the only school of its kind in existence, the students come from Europe as well as from all parts of the United States. These librarians have their own attractive study-room, furnished with books on children's literature, child psychology, and the like.

The Children's Department co-operates with the public schools in an effort to cultivate a taste for good literature in the young. Since all children, native and foreign-born, learn to read in our schools, it would seem only common justice that the want thus created should be freely and advantageously supplied. The Story Hour has been devised as a step to this end. Conducted by the students of the Training School and members of the department's staff, it attracts groups of eager listeners to the Central Library and all the branches. Two Story Hours are held weekly at each place: one for little children, when suitable legends,