MOST CHILDREN S librarians spend more time on the selection of<br >materials than on any other professional activity--and with<br >fewer results to show for it except crowded shelves. We read<br >thousands of media reviews annually; spend countless hours<br >previewing films， filmstrips， slides， recordings; and scan hun-<br >dreds of books. Yet the end result of all this work can rarely be<br >termed "a library collection." What we usually end up with is an<br >unsystematic gathering of materials that we like to think of as a<br >library collection.<br > What is our problem?<br > Very early in our professional training we are taught that it is<br > knowledge of individual titles that will make us good librarians.<br > Many library school courses in children s literature stress the<br > number of books the students must read. Teachers often grade<br > students by the number of books they have read， films they have<br > viewed， or illustrators whose work they can identify.<br > This kind of training lays the groundwork for later profes-<br > sional behavior. At library conferences， after we have exchanged<br > greetings， the chances are the first question we ask another li-<br > brarian is， "Have you read... ?" or "What did you think of... ?"<br > We talk continually about individual titles but very little about<br > building a library collection.<br > One effect of this emphasis on individual titles is that we tend<br > to feel guilty if we have not l~ough~the current year s award-<br > winning children s books， even if we c~not need.another fantasy<br > title or another t:olktale in picture-bo~ k ~ora~x~at.<br ><br >