Part 6

In fifteen years, the first little chest of books that went upon its travels has multiplied to more than 5,000. Probably a third of a million books are now constantly "on the go" in this fashion. Figures are available for only twenty-two of the states, and according to these the circulation for the states enumerated was 600,443 books last year. It must be remembered that for a few years after the plan was transplanted from New York to other states, private contributions were the only reliance for maintaining the systems of traveling libraries. It is only within the last half dozen years that the demonstration of their usefulness prompted state legislatures to make appropriations for this purpose, to enable state library commissions to extend this great work on a liberal scale. The ease with which the traveling libraries may be adapted to meet various needs may be shown in a rapid summary compiled by Mr. F. A. Hutchins, who has been one of the leading promoters of them in this state.

Some women in New Jersey have used them to lighten the long winter days and evenings of the brave men who belong to the life-saving service, and that state has now taken up the traveling library as a definite part of the work of its state library; other women, in Salt Lake City, send them regularly to remote valleys in Utah; a number of state federations of women's clubs use them to furnish books for study to isolated clubs; Mrs. Eugene B. Heard of Middleton, Ga., is devoting herself to the supervision of an admirable system which reaches a large number of small villages on the Seaboard Air Line in five southern states; an association in Washington, D. C., puts libraries on the canal-boats which ply on the Washington and Potomac Canal in the summer and "tie-up" in small hamlets in the Blue Ridge Mountains in the winter; the colored graduates of Hampton Institute carry libraries to the schools for their own people at the base of the Cumberland Mountains, while to the "mountain whites" libraries are sent by women's clubs in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama. In Idaho, California, Nebraska, Kansas, Illinois, Missouri, Minnesota, and many other states, women's clubs are doing the same work for miners, lumbermen, farmers, and sailors. The people of British Columbia and New Zealand are successfully imitating their American cousins in this work. In Massachusetts, where nearly every community has its public library, the Woman's Educational Association is doing a most helpful work by using traveling libraries to strengthen the weak public libraries in the hill towns.

Of all the states of the Union which reported on traveling libraries last year, Wisconsin stood first with a circulation of 122,093. Wisconsin was the third state to adopt this method for bringing wholesome books to people in the country. This was in 1895. The Free Library Commission has charge of 563 of these little libraries, which are sent to stations scattered all over the state and are exchanged every six months. Each group contains books of history, travel, fiction, biography, useful arts, and miscellaneous literature so proportioned as to meet the needs of the average community as determined by experience. The Wisconsin Commission also sends to communities where there are many persons of foreign birth, the best literature in their own tongues. In some sections of the state, people go ten to twenty miles at regular intervals to secure these books. The Commission also makes up study libraries for the use of clubs engaged in serious study. The topics deal with English literature, art, history, village and town improvement, questions of the day, etc.

II

Fifteen years ago there existed within the fifty-six thousand square miles of Wisconsin a mere handful of starveling public libraries, and only in three or four of the larger cities were these institutions properly housed. Most of them existed from force of habit rather than from action. But one library in the state employed trained service. There were no traveling libraries. The school district libraries had scarcely made a beginning, so that even that source failed to supply wholesome books for the use of the people. Here and there a volunteer fire department gathered a bundle of books, or a literary society would secure a similar collection from the attics of its members. Naturally, such efforts resulted in dismal failures. Ninety per cent of the population was absolutely without public library facilities.

But fifteen years ago, and now! Scattered all over the state, in cities and villages and hamlets, are to be found modern, up-to-date public libraries in charge of alert, trained, interested librarians, eager and active in extending the radius of their influence or helpful in every way to promote the interests of the community and of every individual in it. There are now 152 public libraries in Wisconsin. Sixty-one of them occupy buildings erected especially for them, and 28 others have quarters in city halls or other public buildings. Many of them have a children's department, with trained library workers in charge of the specialized activities there conducted. In the larger buildings, lecture halls are an adjunct, where it is possible to provide university extension and similar lectures, and where women's study clubs, young men's debating societies and similar groups of persons find hospitable meeting places for carrying on their work. Work with schools is carried on to an extent, and to a profitable degree, little imagined as possible in the early days of the library extension movement. Free access to shelves is now permitted in every library of the state except one.

There are now some forty librarians in Wisconsin who come from library training schools, and of the other librarians and assistants employed, approximately 100 have attended the summer school conducted by the Wisconsin Free Library Commission. The growing importance of the relation between library and school is evidenced by the fact that library instruction is now part of the course in every one of the seven normal schools, and a professional school for training librarians, with a staff of picked instructors, is maintained at Madison by the state. The candidates for admission are selected by competitive examination, and with special regard to suitability for the work by reason of temperament, education, address and experience.

III

Naturally, the activity of the public library movement in recent years, with consequent multiplication of institutions, has attracted the attention of thoughtful men and enlisted the cordial aid of public-spirited individuals. Philanthropists have found therein an avenue for their benefactions yielding undoubted results. Many wealthy men, instead of rearing to their own honor shafts of stone or images in bronze, have taken the wiser and happier method of securing an enduring monument in the form of a public library. There are now living a number of wealthy men who have provided in their wills for suitable bequests whereby buildings of this character may be erected in the places which they make their home, and similarly others have provided endowments for their home libraries to come out of their estates. Thus does one good deed suggest another.

IV

The work of the Free Library Commission may be briefly summarized as follows:

_Supervision._ Works for the establishment of public libraries in localities able to support them.

Visits libraries for the purpose of giving advice and instruction.

Collects and publishes statistics of libraries for the guidance and information of trustees.

Prints a bi-monthly bulletin, news notes and suggestions to keep librarians and trustees informed in regard to library progress throughout the state.

Gives advice and assistance in planning library buildings and collects material on this subject for the use of library boards.

_Instruction._ Aids in organizing new libraries.

Assists in reorganizing old libraries according to modern methods which insure the best results and greatest efficiency of the library.

Conducts a school for library training for the purpose of improving the service in small libraries.

Holds institutes for librarians to instruct those who cannot attend summer school.

_Traveling Libraries._ Maintains a system of traveling libraries which furnishes books to rural communities and villages too small to support local libraries, and to larger villages and towns as an inducement to establish free public libraries.

Aids in organization and administration of county traveling library systems.

_Clearing House._ Operates a clearing house for magazines to build up reference collections of bound periodicals in the public libraries of the state.

_Document Department._ Maintains a document department for the use of state officers, members of the legislature and others interested in the growth and development of affairs in the state, and catalogues and exchanges state documents for the benefit of public libraries.

_Book Lists._ Distributes a suggestive list of books for small libraries to insure purchase of the books in the best editions.

Issues frequent buying lists of current books to aid committees in securing the best investment of book funds.

Compiles buying lists on special subjects or for special libraries upon request.

V

It must not be supposed, because the great library growth has been manifested in the last decade, that there were wanting prior to that period interested men and women hopeful and active to give impulse for like conditions. Away back in 1840, when Wisconsin was a frontier territory ambitious to advance to statehood, the council and assembly enacted a law to encourage subscription libraries. A public library supported by taxation was not then dreamed of, for there was then none in the entire United States, nor for ten years thereafter. It is interesting to note that in these territorial days, the little hamlet of log houses known as Madison enjoyed the advantages of a library open to all who cared to use it. It was the private library of the governor, James Duane Doty, which he threw open to the public. Col. Geo. W. Bird, in his account of it, says that it contained about five hundred volumes of a general historical, educational and literary character and a number of the best maps known at that time. It was housed in the governor's private office, which was a small one-story frame building of one room situated among the trees in the little backwoods town. The books were arranged in low shelving around the sides of the room, and the scanty furniture, consisting of a small desk, a deal-board table, three or four chairs, a pine bench, and a register in which to enter the taking and returning of books, completed the equipment.

Over the shelving on the westerly side of the room, was this direction, painted in black on a white field: "Take, Read and Return." There were only two regulations as to the use of the library and they were displayed conspicuously in red ink about the room, and they were as follows:

1. Any white resident between the lakes, the Catfish and the westerly hills, his wife and children, may have the privileges of this library so long as they do not soil or injure the books, and properly return them.

2. Any such resident, his wife or children, may take from the library one book at a time and retain it not to exceed two weeks, and then return it, and on failure to return promptly, he or she shall be considered, and published, as an outcast in the community.

"I do not remember of there ever having been occasion for inflicting this penalty. I do remember my father sending me one day when the time-limit of a book was about to expire, with a note to a family, requiring the return of a book that day, and calling attention pointedly to the above penalty of failure; and I remember how concerned the mother was, and how quickly she got the book and dragging me along after her, speedily returned it to the library, and thus escaped the sentence of outlawry," concludes Col. Bird.

VI

What is known far and wide as the Maxon bookmark originated in Wisconsin, and was the conception of the Rev. Mr. Maxon, then resident in Dunn County. It has been reprinted on little slips in hundreds of forms, has circulated in every state and territory in the country, and doubtless a full million copies of it have been slipped between the leaves of children's books. It may fittingly be reproduced here:

"Once on a time" A Library Book was overheard talking to a little boy who had just borrowed it. The words seemed worth recording and here they are:

"Please don't handle me with dirty hands. I should feel ashamed to be seen when the next little boy borrowed me.

Or leave me out in the rain. Books can catch cold as well as children.

Or make marks on me with your pen or pencil. It would spoil my looks.

Or lean on me with your elbows when you are reading me. It hurts.

Or open me and lay me face down on the table. You would not like to be treated so.

Or put in between my leaves a pencil or anything thicker than a single sheet of thin paper. It would strain my back.

Whenever you are through reading me, if you are afraid of losing your place, don't turn down the corner of one of my leaves, but have a neat little Book Mark to put in where you stopped, and then close me and lay me down on my side so that I can have a good comfortable rest."

ADMINISTRATION OF LIBRARY FUNDS[13]

Just a few words on a matter of business addressed to business men--for that, I conceive, is what mayors and aldermen primarily are, whether engaged in trade or in professions. I am aware that it is more popular to term them politicians in the worst meaning of that abused word, and to ascribe improper motives to their official actions, but personal relations with many of them through a long series of years convinces me that a very large majority of them are men of probity and good intentions, seeking to perform a public duty to the extent of their abilities. They are sure of clamorous condemnation for any errors of commission or omission, and very uncertain of commendation for conscientious attention to official duties. Lest these remarks may be construed as undue flattery prompted by the presence here of so many municipal officers, it may be added that the average alderman is inclined to be at times a bit self-opinionated in his views of public business, or impatient with that phase of it which he does not directly control. At least this is so until his term is nearing its end. Unfortunately, the broader and wider outlook which experience always brings to men usually develops too late, except in cases of re-election, for service during his own period of administration, and cannot be transmitted to his successor. And that is why, rather than because of downright dishonesty, our city public works are frequently defectively constructed, money is needlessly expended for certain purposes, and not expended at all, or insufficiently expended for others, where it would bring best results.

A municipality ought to be a business corporation purely, managed on business principles by its board of trustees (aldermen) and for the benefit of the stockholders (taxpayers and citizens). Like any other business institution, its management should carefully consider its resources and apportion expenditures to secure largest returns on investment. And in the case of a municipality, the returns from investments embrace both the material comforts and necessities of community life which are represented in sanitation, facilities for transportation, for lighting and for adequate water supply, and the intellectual requirements of modern life which find their expression in good public schools and well-administered libraries.

And this brings us to a consideration of the question immediately before us--the administration of public library funds. Some years ago a discussion of this question might have required a preliminary apologetic justification for the existence of such an institution as a public library. The necessity for that sort of thing has happily passed, just as the need for explanation in the reasonable expenditure of public funds for public schools is no longer existent. Nevertheless, the general conception of the possibilities of usefulness in public library work remains imperfectly developed. It will require time and patient effort to secure full recognition of the potent possibilities for the good of all the people that may be realized through the public library adequately maintained and properly administered. And herein lies the crux of the question.

That anecdote which Souther told of himself will bear repetition. Meeting an old woman one stormy day, he resorted to the usual topic of greeting:

"Dreadful weather, isn't it?" he remarked.

This was quite obvious, of course, but the old woman's rejoinder was rather philosophical.

"_Any_ weather is better than none," quoth she.

This philosophic way of viewing a discouraging condition is, I fear, but too true with reference to the average public library. But _any_ library is not necessarily better than none. The average municipality is quite likely to rest satisfied with prevailing conditions. If municipalities were, like other business corporations, subjected to the test of competition, many of them would be in the hands of the sheriff. No business man can survive today who does not utilize modern progressive methods. The successful business man today is he who adopts the principle that no results can be secured without certain outlays. No farmer would conceive it prudent to economize in the planting of his seed. If he did, scanty crops would convince him of the error of his methods. And yet it is this error which many cities and towns commit. They may possess libraries, but they grudgingly allow them revenues just sufficient to keep them from starvation. In Wisconsin we have a goodly percentage of public libraries that are in every way creditable, but it is too true that there are also many which fail to realize their full possibilities.

In order that the maximum dividend on the investment may be realized, it is essential that a library's resources should permit:

1. The employment of competent trained service.

2. The purchase of books and magazines at frequent intervals to keep the library from going to seed.

3. Such regulations that the doors of the institution shall be open at least as often and as long every week as they are allowed to remain closed.

To effect these desiderata, the library boards should be given sufficient funds, with due regard to economy of administration. It is coming to be recognized that a librarian is expected to do more than hand out books over a counter and take them in again--that the up-to-date librarian must study the social, commercial and intellectual interests of the community so as to make the library a vital force by providing the facilities for expansion of these interests. The public schools educate the average person during an average period representing five years of his life; the public library should afford facilities to persons of every age and in every condition of life for continuing one's education indefinitely. The public officer desirous of ascertaining the best methods for paving streets, the housewife in search of receipts for the most wholesome dishes for her table, the mechanic seeking to better his condition by studying the latest improvements in his craft, the foreign-born reader anxious for literature bearing on the duties of citizenship, the young man engaged in serious study of current questions--these and every other man, woman or child in quest of information, should have the facilities offered in the public libraries to secure it fully, not only by personal search along the shelves, but through the ready, helpful and suggestive assistance of a librarian trained to find in a multitude of print the essential facts which are wanted. Individual cases could be cited by the score to demonstrate what a public library can do for the people of its community. One that came to my attention recently may be mentioned. A boy who gave promise of no virtues and many vices engendered by idleness, was the despair of his parents and the annoyance of the neighbors. By chance he wandered into the reference room of the library in his town, carelessly picked up a book dealing with inventions, became interested, came again, asked for and received more books on the same topic and studied them with increasing interest. From that day he became a changed boy. He had found a purpose in life. Today, through his own efforts, he is taking the engineering course in a college, he has secured a patent from the government for a valuable invention, and he gives promise of becoming a leader in his chosen profession. In a certain city of this state which need not be designated by name, there are large manufacturing interests. There is a public library magnificently housed, but until lately without an appropriation for keeping the book purchases up-to-date. Workmen were eager to get books on electricity, on general mechanics and useful arts effecting their daily labor, but there were no funds with which to purchase them; naturally, they soon ceased their visits to the library. When the Free Library Commission called the attention of the heads of these great industrial enterprises to the condition of affairs, they immediately saw the advantage of adequately supporting the library. It did not take them long to figure out that no cheaper method could be devised for improving the product of their establishments and to create an interest among their workmen that would make for greater industry, better workmanship and consequently increased profits. On their part the workmen were quick to see their own advantage in increased wages in proportion to increase in skill and output. As an economic proposition the net result is greater stability in the industrial life of the community--decreased labor troubles and increased confidence between employer and employed. A sociologist who made a systematic study of a group of villages largely populated by workingmen, reported that the one which showed greatest evidence of prosperity, cleanliness and attractiveness of homes generally, was one conspicuous by reason of its well-managed public library.

There is no channel of human usefulness which appeals so forcefully to the modern spirit of philanthropy as the public library. This generosity would, I doubt not, be greatly multiplied were there any assurance that the communities to be benefited would properly maintain the institution given to it. Purely as a matter of business, it pays to support a library decently. But deeper than this lies the motive that should actuate any city or town to erect within its midst an institution that must stand as the exponent of its intellectual and to some extent its social life.

"The problem before us," said Lowell many years ago, "is to make a whole of many discordant parts, our many foreign elements; and I know of no way in which this can better be done than by providing a common system of education, and a common door of access to the best books by which that education may be continued, broadened and made fruitful."

These words are as true today as when they were uttered.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Address delivered on behalf League of Library Commissions, Asheville Conference A. L. A., May 27, 1907.

[2] George Eliot, "Middlemarch."

[3] Read before the New York Library Association at Haines Falls, Sept. 28, 1915.

[4] Painter. History of Education.

[5] One devotes thereto a column and a half of 1736 columns in the volume, and the other devotes 37 columns to the subject of the 1480 columns contained in one of the five volumes of the work.

[6] _Library Journal._

[7] Lowe. Literature for Children.