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Wichita’s Advanced Learning Library Taking New Approach To Children’s Area

Nadya Faulx
/
KMUW
Picture books in the children's pavilion will be organized in "subject neighborhoods."

The children’s area in the new Advanced Learning Library in Wichita will feature a new approach to book displays.

The children’s pavilion on the first floor will have "subject neighborhoods," where picture books are organized by topic instead of by author and title.

"I'm really excited about this possibility," says Cynthia Berner, director of the Wichita Public Libraries. "We've talked about this for quite a while."

Berner says, for example, the collections will have a general theme like animals, and the books will be separated into categories such as pets, farm animals or zoo animals.

"While it helps children find things that are of interest to them, it is also actually helping them to learn and to develop some logic and reasoning skills as they understand those classification distinctions," Berner says.

The children’s area will also feature spaces customized for different age ranges and a quiet room for children with sensory sensitivity.

The Advanced Learning Library opens Saturday morning.

Follow Deborah Shaar on Twitter @deborahshaar. To contact KMUW News or to send in a news tip, reach us at news@kmuw.org.

Deborah joined the news team at KMUW in September 2014 as a news reporter. She spent more than a dozen years working in news at both public and commercial radio and television stations in Ohio, West Virginia and Detroit, Michigan. Before relocating to Wichita in 2013, Deborah taught news and broadcasting classes at Tarrant County College in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas area.