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St. Cloud State University
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Former prof donates books
By Geoff Higgins
Published:
Thursday, November 7, 2002
Media Credit: Danielle Tallman
Joan Blaska was honored at the James W. Miller Learning Resource Center on Wednesday. Blaska donated her collection of nearly 300 children’s books, all containing characters with disabilities, to the LRS.
The amazing knowledge that the James W. Miller Center has provided for people of all ages in its short existence has just been improved because of a former professor’s generous donation of approximately 300 books.
The new collection of books has been added to the Juvenile Collection of literature at the Miller Center which is for the enjoyment of young readers.
The Juvenile Collection’s addition was donated by Joan Blaska. Blaska retired from SCSU’s Department of Child and Family Studies in 2001, after 17 years of teaching students how to work with children.
Blaska’s collection is a unique genre that is not often found in libraries; it’s a collection of stories about characters that have disabilities ranging from handicaps to chronic illnesses.
The books are all picture books written for children in preschool through third grade.
“I have the largest collection of this genre of books, certainly in Minnesota,” Blaska said.
Blaska started collecting the books about 10 years ago, when she was on a one-year sabbatical from her teaching duties at SCSU. She said that it was easy to find a lot of children’s books that dealt with multicultural characters, but it was not so easy to find books that were focused on characters who had disabilities. She continues to collect the books to this day.
Blaska’s goal for her collection is to educate children about people with disabilities and chronic illnesses at an early age. Blaska believes that educating children can help make them more sensitive towards others throughout their lives. Blaska’s wish is for all children to get a chance to view and read books similar to the books that she has donated.
“These books are not just for children with a disability,” Blaska said. “These books are for all young children so they can gain knowledge and sensitivity towards people with disabilities and illnesses.”
She figured that her collection would be better off on library shelves where people could access the books and read them. According to Blaska, the College of Education has some courses that will be able to use the books that she has donated.
She also said she believes that many other programs and fields of study could use the children’s books. Blaska’s main hope is that the books don’t collect layers of dust.
“My goal is that the books be used with children and not be sitting on a shelf somewhere,” Blaska said.
The collection of books has been named “The Joan K. Blaska Collection of Children’s Literature” and is available on the third floor of Miller Center. However, the books are not all displayed together, said Marian Rengel. Rengel is a technical writer for the LRS technical services department.
“The books themselves are incorporated within the entire juvenile collection,” Rengel explained.
The books are filed by classification, but Rengel has arranged for a plaque to be on display in the Juvenile Collection to recognize Blaska’s donation. The collection is considered a “live” collection, which means new books may continue to be added.
Blaska’s collection has been well-received by people that work at the Miller Center because of the variety it brings to the already diverse collection that the library offers.
“The collection has a lot of good titles, a lot that we didn’t have,” said Bonnie Hedin, coordinator of cataloging at the library.
Blaska attended a reception Thursday in the Miller Center to thank her for the donation of her book collection. She is also excited for the release of the second edition of her book, Using Children’s Literature to Learn About Disabilities and Illness, scheduled to come out in 2003.
According to statistics in the library catalog Web site, the LR&TS at SCSU now has a total of 24,117 books on its shelves. These figures include the 300 books that Blaska donated, which are already on shelves and ready for check out.
