Contributed by Gwen Rosen, Family Resource Librarian, Johns Hopkins Children’s Center

Hospitalization can be a very stressful event, both for patients and families.  At Johns Hopkins Children’s Center in Baltimore, Maryland, a Family Resource Library helps patients and families cope, as well as learn more about medical conditions.   

The Children’s section of the Family Resource Library is pivotal in helping children make the transition from home to hospital by providing familiar reading material, as well therapeutic stories on specific issues, in an inviting atmosphere.  The family resource collection offers books and DVDs that relate to parenting concerns, child development, hospitalization, illnesses, grieving, and a wide range of other topics. The librarian is available for detailed research into medical databases.

Located centrally in the hospital, the library also serves as a meeting place. The library hosts weekly story hours for patients and coffee hours for parents. For patients and families alike, the library provides a quiet, restful place to check email and browse the magazine collection. As patients are often not able to leave their rooms, and parents prefer to be as close as possible to their children, the library also provides a book cart service to the floors. Faculty and staff are very helpful in referring patients and families to the library.

Johns Hopkins has housed a library for its pediatric patients and their families for half a century. The hospital has long recognized the service and respite it provides. A trip to the library on Hopkins Children’s third floor offers a break from the bedside and a bit of normalcy in the experience of hospitalization. All of the books can be borrowed and can be returned 24/7 in book drops on each floor of the facility.

The library started out in the early 1960’s when a small book collection was assigned a shelf in a storage closet.  Now, the library looks forward to April 2012 when they will expand into the brand new stand-alone Children’s Center where the library will be very much more spacious.

For more information in the Family Resource Center, please visit:  http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/family-library.aspx