coloring sheets/what is wrong with the world

On one very popular listserv for youth services librarians someone posted asking if other libraries put out crayons and coloring sheets for kids. This is apparently a hot topic. A shocking number of libraries keep boxes of crayons at the reference desk and make kids come up to ask for them. An even shockingly larger number (ie, everyone who has responded to the whole listserv) put out coloring sheets.

This is what we do: put out boxes of crayons, put out paper. Let kids draw whatever the heck they want.

Some of the librarians were going so far as to create their own coloring sheets using clipart, apparently spending large portions of their day printing them out.

Don't get me wrong, I loved coloring sheets when I was a kid and I still think they're fun. But they do not encourage creativity at a time when the ways in which children are allowed to be creative are already so limited.

Plus I just can't get over the fact that these librarians have the time to print out hundreds of coloring sheets or distribute crayons at the reference desk!