Library Services for Senior Citizens
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The characteristics of old age in general are important to the design of library services for senior citizens. Old age has come to be viewed as a phase of life and not simply as a period of deterioration that comes before death.1 Although part of growing old involves compensating for the diminution of faculties, old age is not solely a period of learning to deal with physical and mental decline. Those who "grow old gracefully" not only accept their reduced powers, but continue to pursue a lively interest in personal growth and engage in the active review of their lives. Effective library programs for senior citizens incorporate a constructive, positive attitude toward aging. In the last several decades, and in the face of an ever larger population of older persons, libraries have been learning to provide special services for senior citizens. As time goes on, public libraries have intensified the collection of information about older people and the creation of programs carefully designed to bring library services to older persons. Senior Citizens One reason for the concern about serving older persons is that the American population is growing older. The proportion of Americans over sixty five continues to rise.2 Life expectancy has increased, and many older people are in good health. The presence of a number of theories of the aging process and of the role of the aged in society testifies to a deep concern with the challenge
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eptual underpinnings for the design and development of those programs. In 1975 the Reference and Adult Services Division (RASD) of the ALA released "Guidelines for Library Services to an Aging Population," and in 1976 the Association of Specialized and Cooperative agencies established a section on Library Services to the Impaired Elderly.39 The ALA's new "Guidelines for Library Service to an Aging Population" refashioned the ideas first presented in 1961. Speaking more in terms of the thrust of programs than in terms of specific content or goals, the Guidelines suggested three key areas of library service to the elderly: knowledge and information collection includes the organization of library information resources for use by the elderly and by agencies serving the elderly; knowledge and information dissemination means acting as an information center for the elderly, and for programs that serve the elderly; creative action refers to the initiation of new services that take into account changes in demographics and technology, and it includes the doing of "market research" to determine the appropriateness of proposed program.40 The new guidelines reflected the importance, in the view of both gerontologists and librarians, of th
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Approximate Word count = 9813
Approximate Pages = 39 (250 words per page)
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