About 20 children and parents gathered yesterday afternoon at the University's Cotsen Children's Library for preschool story-time, a weekly program led by seven Princeton students.
The weekly story-time is one of many library programs made possible by renovations last year, which converted the library's reading room into a whimsical space that includes a giant model fireplace and tree, oversized couches and chairs and rabbitand duckshaped model topiary bushes.
"When we refurbished last year, we wanted to have a better space for groups and large public programs," Bonnie Bernstein, the library's outreach coordinator, said. "Now there's a lot of flexibility; there's a lot of open space."
The library now hosts a wide range of activities, including story hours in several languages, theatrical performances, workshops for teachers and a children's writing circle called the "Cotsen Critix." The library also holds special events such as a "First of Octember" celebration where community children put together boxes, egg cartons and other materials to make a "squizz-a-ma-roo" machine.
The programs are staffed in part by the roughly 30 students who volunteer their time during the year, Bernstein said.
"We want this to be one of the places where people come and relax with their kids," Bernstein said. Because it is located inside Firestone Library, Cotsen also hopes to introduce children to the resources of research libraries. "We're cultivating young users of this collection and others," she said.
The library aims to develop new activities for school-age children, including a collaborative program with the University Art Museum and the Historical Society of Princeton, Bernstein said. The program will give the students an opportunity to read a young girl's 19th-century diary, to look at paintings from the same period and to examine archaeological artifacts.
"A program like that wouldn't have been possible before, because we need the space to bring in a classroom of kids," she said.
Cotsen is also an important scholarly resource, renowned for its collection of international children's books.
"Here we have a research collection and a mandate to have an active outreach program," said Andrea Immel, the library's curator.
The library hosts about 25 researchers per year, who have worked on topics ranging from the marks children historically left in their books to Soviet propoganda in children's literature.
It also holds academic conferences and is currently displaying an exhibit of frightening children's books, including a Hungarian picture book's illustration of dancing skeletons, Japanese ghost stories and Roald Dahl's "The Witches."
"I try to balance the familiar with the less familiar," Immel said, adding that the library tries "to plan exhibits in advance, so student activities can be bounced off of them."
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