Children and Librarians in the Internet: New Challenges and Objectives of Specialists

Abstract

This article summarizes the results of a research project dealt with the problems of interaction between children, teenagers and the Internet, with protection of their rights by librarians. The results of some foreign surveys of these issues are also considered. The article outlines “the problem area” of challenges that the experts working with children now face. A number of legal aspects of a problem are analyzed. On the basis of the Convention of the United Nations there were defined the rights of children nearly related to the theme “children and information”. The main features of the Internet, its resources and danger to the development of the personality are shown in the article.Studying the problems and possibilities of cyberspace for children, teenagers and the analysis of rising generation’s behavior in a cyberspace allow identifying challenges for library experts and the teachers working with children. The surveys of schoolchildren, teachers and librarians, carried out by the researchers of the Russian state children’s library allow finding out various aspects of interaction between rising generation and the Internet to identify actual problems the experts face today. Emphasis is given to a problem of children’s safety in a cyberspace and to the challenges that the librarians face.