Kalamazoo Public Library Children’s Room

Among the First in the Nation

The origins of the Kalamazoo Public Library were humble indeed. In 1860 the local school district inherited 123 volumes from a failed township library. With that tiny collection, a library was opened for a single hour per week, its use limited to students of the school district and their parents. It grew through the Civil War years until it had 2,800 books, and opened to the general public on October 12, 1872.

The library’s early headquarters in cramped rented facilities gave way to a fine new Romanesque structure built on property purchased from local businessman Robert R. Howard and completed in 1893 with a $50,000 gift from Dr. and Mrs. Edwin H. Van Deusen. The new building soon required expanded service. On May 30, 1893, Anna Jeffers, who had joined the library in 1889, was appointed assistant librarian.

Children’s Reading Room

In December 1894, a children’s reading room was opened in the basement of the library. Two hundred books were placed in a case accessible to the children. Books that were read by the children of the day included Sophie May’s “Dotty Dimple” and “Little Prudy” (Prudy Parlin) series, and Martha Finley’s “Elsie Dinsmore” novels. The reading room was much enjoyed by the children, especially on stormy days.

An elderly woman who was a child in those days recalled how Miss Jeffers canvassed the community for a year, talking to the mothers and persuading them to send their children to the Children’s Room. She would take books to the mothers so that they could read them to their children. Many children learned to read as a result of the Children’s Room. Children had to be quiet when in the library and they stopped talking the moment they came in the door.

“Attention, boys and girls. All the juvenile books in the Public library have been placed in the children’s room in the basement. The shelves are open and you can select such books as please you. Come and get a book to read at home. Come and read the books and magazines in the room. Bring your little brothers and sisters to look at the pictures. When the schools are in session the room will be open from 12 to 1 o’clock and from 3:45 to 6 o’clock.”

—Kalamazoo Gazette, January 8, 1897

Children’s Department

The Kalamazoo Public Library was one of the first public libraries in the nation to recognize the need for a children’s department. Kalamazoo followed closely behind other libraries in Massachusetts, Minnesota and Ohio with the opening of a full-fledged Children’s Department on December 30, 1896. Kalamazoo was the second such department to be organized in the state of Michigan, preceded only by Detroit a few months earlier.

“The children’s reading room at the public library was reopened Monday afternoon and is open each afternoon of the school week from 4 o’clock until 6. On Saturday afternoons it will be open from 1 o’clock until 4. Miss Sada Elder is in charge.”

—Kalamazoo Gazette, September 17, 1896

When the Van Deusen library opened in 1893, Miss Sada Elder was placed in charge of the juvenile department, with Carrie Gould as her assistant. When Ms. Elder resigned in 1899 to accept a position in the St. Joseph public schools, Carrie Gould took her place, assisted by Miss Lucy Wheeler, and remained in the position until 1903. Miss Marian Elizabeth Daniells assumed the role for a brief time thereafter.

Ella Salisbury (1904-1910)

After 20 years as a teacher in Galesburg and Kalamazoo schools Miss Ella Salisbury took charge of the children’s department in September 1904, replacing Ms. Daniells as assistant librarian in charge of the juvenile collection. Ms. Salisbury was a strong advocate for the “old stories” like “Hans and Gretchen in the wood, and how they get out of the enchanted ginger bread cottage.” According to Ms. Salisbury, “(the children) are not anxious to learn what Gwendoline has done with her new automobile on her trip to the moon” (Gazette). Alas, change for some was just as difficult then as it is today.

“Miss Sallsbury[sic] is well fitted for the position, as she thoroughly understands child life.

—Kalamazoo Gazette, September 23, 1904

But Ms. Salisbury did receive strong accolades for her work. Dr. Edwin Van Deusen, the library’s benefactor, was a frequent visitor to the children’s room during his later years and he spoke to Ms. Salisbury shortly before his death in 1909. “I hate to leave this room more than any other part of the library,” he told her during his final visit to the library, “but I know, Miss Salisbury, you will take care of the children and will rest happy in the thought” (Gazette). Ella Salsbury served as children’s librarian until 1910 when she was placed in charge of the library’s East Avenue branch.

Fannie Kerr Walton (1910–1915)

By 1910 the library director, Isabella C. Roberts, was unhappy with the lack of progress made in developing the Children’s Room over the years and wanted the children’s work organized in a professional manner. She asked the Training School for Children’s Librarians (later the Carnegie Library School) in Pittsburgh to recommend someone to head the children’s department. The position was mentioned to Fannie Kerr, who was about to graduate. Miss Kerr went to Kalamazoo for an interview with the School Board’s Library Committee and in September 1910, she took up work at the Kalamazoo Public Library.

Fannie Kerr was the first formally trained librarian on the staff of the Kalamazoo Library.

“Miss Kerr came to the city with a mind trained to the discrimination of books for children; the proper book for the child at a certain age is what few people know and the selection of a child’s reading matter is now becoming one of the important points in their education and amusement.”

—Kalamazoo Gazette, September 24, 1910

Upon Miss Kerr’s arrival in Kalamazoo, Miss Zoe Shaw, the supervisor of the grades in the city schools, took her to all the schools to meet the teachers and invite the children to the story hour which was being started. This story hour was held every Saturday in the Museum Room adjoining the Children’s Room in the basement of the library, where upwards of 80 or 90 school-age children would attend.

She also organized reading clubs for boys and girls, which met at night and on Saturday mornings. The one for the girls did not last long, but the one for the boys, which was held once a week in the evening, lasted for several years.

During the week Miss Kerr would read fairy tales and then tell them to herself out loud when she got home from work so that, by Saturday, she was ready to relate them to children: “I didn’t use a book at all,” she once said, “There’s a great difference—all the difference in the world—between reading and telling.”

About twice a year Miss Kerr visited every school room in the school district through the eighth grade, told a story in each room, invited the children to the story hour and gave out library application cards. During this period library work for children was conducted particularly for the children at the East Avenue and Washington schools.

The total circulation for the Children’s Room during its first six months was over 10,000. On Saturday, March 6, 1897, the circulation for that day alone was 230 volumes; the largest circulation for one week was 589.

Assisted by Della Stimpson, Fannie Kerr (later Walton) had charge of the Children’s Department for five years before leaving Kalamazoo in 1915 to attend nursing school in New York City. She returned to Kalamazoo a year later to lead the library’s work with the schools, and then moved on to Buhl, Minnesota, as an assistant librarian. Fannie Kerr Walton eventually returned again to Kalamazoo, where she worked at the Kalamazoo Public Library’s Washington Square Branch from 1947 until 1954.

Dorothy Hulbert (1915-1919)

The position vacated by Fannie Kerr was filled by Miss Dorothy Hulbert from Lockhaven, Pennsylvania, who came to Kalamazoo with no special library training, although she was “familiar with it, having acted as substitute in the eastern library” (Gazette). Ms. Hulbert remained in charge of the Children’s Department throughout the difficult period around the First World War. The library was closed for sixteen days in 1917 due to a fuel shortage and the public schools were closed for a time, as well. In 1918 all schools, churches and “places of public amusement” were closed for several weeks due to the massive flu pandemic.

“The library is the only place open to everyone, young and old, rich and poor, scholar and tired worker from nine in the morning until nine in the evening during the week and on Sundays and holidays from 2:30 to 6 o’clock.”

—Kalamazoo Gazette, March 9, 1919

During the war years very little progress was made, whether in the Children’s Department or in the library as a whole. But when Flora B. Roberts was appointed librarian in 1918, the situation began to improve rapidly. Miss Marion Pierce was appointed chief of the Children’s Department for a brief time in 1919, with Miss Elizabeth Barnard assisting. Miss Sheldon Fletcher guided the department through 1920 and was instrumental in coordinating a summer reading program for students that year.

Mary Hughes (1921–1926)

In January 1921, Mary Hughes arrived in Kalamazoo on the Monday afternoon train from Fort Wayne, Indiana, to assume her new position as children’s librarian at Kalamazoo Public Library.

A 1914 graduate from the Carnegie Librarian Institute in Pittsburgh, Miss Hughes was a strong advocate of reading and storytelling. During her tenure she spoke regularly at community events and church programs about the value of children’s books and reading. Her talks carried titles such as “The Value of the Story,” “How to Tell Stories to Different Ages,” and “Story Telling for Mothers,” a lecture about the effect that stories and rhymes have on children. Her talks during Children’s Book Week later that year included “What Does Your Child Read,” “A Child’s First Books,” “Books for the Fairy Tale Age,” “Books for Older Boys and Girls,” “Books for Information and Reference for the Home,” and “Gift Books for Children.” Ms. Hughes also published her popular list of Christmas gift gook recommendations, which included Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, and more than a dozen others.

In November 1921 Kalamazoo Public Library celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Children’s Room during Children’s Book Week. To help celebrate, the Kalamazoo Business Women’s Club petitioned the board of education to change the name of the Children’s Room at the library to the Van Deusen Room in honor of Dr. Van Deusen, who was deeply interested in the welfare of children. A year later the reorganization of the book collection in that department was completed.

After serving the Children’s Room for five years, Mary Hughes left Kalamazoo in 1926 to become a children’s librarian in Tacoma, Washington.

Louise Singley (1926–1954)

Following Mary Hughes’ departure, Louise Singley became the director of the Children’s Department in February 1926. Ms. Singley received her schooling at Columbia University and the Carnegie Librarian Institute. Before coming to Kalamazoo she spent ten years at the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh and worked as an instructor at the Chicago Public Library.

During her tenure—which she had planned to last only two years—the Children’s Department expanded into every school in the city; summer camps and playgrounds had libraries as well as swings and slides. Twelve hundred youngsters participated in annual Summer Reading Clubs, and hundreds of Kalamazoo mothers took special classes from Ms. Singley in storytelling and book selection for their children.

Singley spent hundreds of evenings on her own time at what was known as the Juvenile Detention Home telling stories and visiting with the youngsters there. She also helped the U.S. Government establish libraries for soldiers and sailors in camps and on ships from 1917 to 1923, and again during the Second World War as a worker with the USO.

Ms. Singley, who became known as “The Story Book Lady,” had an interest in the history of children’s books and was a collector of interesting titles. At the time of her retirement in June 1954, Singley donated a small collection of her personal books to Kalamazoo Public Library. Over the years, other books were purchased through funds raised by Friends of Kalamazoo Public Library or transferred from the circulating collections to add to this Exhibit Collection, which is made up of outstanding illustrated volumes in the field of children’s literature or highlights from outstanding children’s illustrators. In 1995, her two nephews donated the remaining books in Ms. Singley’s estate to Kalamazoo Public Library. Her extensive collection of rare children’s books known as the Singley Collection is on display in the Children’s Room at Central Library.

Alice K. Stevens (1954–1970)

Louise Singley was succeeded by Alice K. Stevens, who was appointed to the position of Children’s Librarian in 1954. Stevens received a degree from the University of Michigan, then, after working in a bookstore for eight years, went to Case Western Reserve University, where she earned a degree in library science in 1938.

Before coming to Kalamazoo to work with children, Ms. Stevens worked as a librarian in Akron, Ohio; Royal Oak, Michigan; Brookline, Massachusetts; and Muncie, Indiana.

“Her interests were children’s books, and she loved people and reading,“ said her friend, Bernice Johnson, at the time of her death in 1996. “She liked travel and talking to people. She loved to tell stories; she was a wonderful storyteller.”

She tried to instill a love of reading in Kalamazoo children. On the occasion of her retirement she wrote, “I tried to bring books and children together as I believed that children’s lives were richer if they developed a love of good books.”

Mary Calletto Rife (1971–2001)

Mary Calletto Rife became the head of the Children’s Department on July 1, 1971. She received her B.F.Ed. degree at the State University College in Geneseo, New York and her MLS at Western Michigan University. Prior to coming to Kalamazoo, Mary worked in Maplewood, New Jersey and Monmouth County Library in Freehold, New Jersey.

After Mary took over what is now known as the Youth Services Department, she expanded services to include storytimes to all age children, including toddlers, and felt that the department was doing much more cooperative work with both different library and other public spirited agencies throughout the library district. The cooperation between the library and the school system was strengthened and there was a strong emphasis on going out in the community and establishing rapport between the library and the people it serves.

Mary served on the Newbery-Caldecott Committee, chaired the Children’s Services Divisions of the Michigan Library Association and the New Jersey Library Association, served on the United States International Children’s Book Board and was on a statewide committee to develop book lists of outstanding biographies for children. She also began the “Hear, See, Tell Club,” which paired visually challenged children with sighted children, who were the guides for outings that included bowling, hockey and storytimes.

Even with the changes in technology that were happening, and which she wholeheartedly supported, Mary said: “I don’t think the computer will ever replace the book. You have to be able to read before you can use the computer. Besides, libraries serve as an example that all children need to be read to! Everybody must read to their kids. It gets the child ready to read and builds a bond between parent and child. Computers may tell a story, but it’s not the same as having a lap to sit on. Children need the close contact. We all do. If a child can’t read they can’t use computers. A librarians’ challenge is to know the right materials for the right child at the right time. There’s a whole batch of kids out there… and we must be a team to help these kids become all they can be.”

Mary Calletto Rife retired in 2001. Each year Kalamazoo Public Library celebrates her legacy with the annual Mary Calletto Rife Youth Literature Seminar, named in her honor.

Susan Warner (2001-2020)

Today, the Youth Services Department at Kalamazoo Public Library supports a robust, well-trained staff who serve babies through teens in beautifully-designed spaces with a wide variety of materials, programs, and community partnerships in all five of our buildings.

Written by Kalamazoo Public Library staff. Compiled with additional updates and corrections in April 2019.