Part 34
Mr. DEWEY: Has any one else tried the use of a wagon, as described by Miss Stearns--going right to the people and reaching the homes? That means going out into the rural districts and dealing with the farmhouses as individual homes. There must be the right person in the wagon, of course, who can stand and speak for an hour perhaps and leave half a dozen or a dozen books to start the work along.
Miss STEARNS: That is the only way in the world by which you can find what the people like to read--it is only by visiting the people, getting acquainted with them, going right into their homes. The idea of sending a box of books off in a freight car, not knowing anything about the country or the people it is going to! If you want those books to do good work, you must know where they are going.
Mr. DEWEY: That is the way men sell goods. The librarian is just as anxious to place his books to advantage as the merchant is to sell his wares. If he is dealing with the rural community he follows just that method. I am inclined to think that somebody is going to make a great success with those wagons.
Mr. GALBREATH: Where the demand for books is strong, as it is in Ohio, and you have all that you can do to supply that demand, should not that be attended to before you go out in a wagon to enlarge your field?
Mr. DEWEY: Oh, yes; but in Ohio everybody expects to be President sooner or later.
Mr. HUTCHINS: Isn't the point this: Where you only supply a demand you reach the intelligent communities first and the neglected communities are left out; but the libraries should reach the neglected communities. We spend too much money in buying books and not enough in educating the people to use the books. It is the same old story. You spend $10,000 for books and not $200 for administration, and the administration is the important point.
Mr. DEWEY: There is another analogy. We used to have the schools only for the bright boys. It is a modern idea to give education to the dull, the backward, the blind and the deaf, but nowadays they are all being trained. And we keep finding men who are among the strongest citizens of their age, but who, if we get at their early history, we find were once dull, backward boys that somebody hunted up and started along the right lines.
Mr. GALBREATH: What communities, as a rule, are first served in Wisconsin?
Mr. HUTCHINS: The neglected communities. The community in which we are meeting is in the wealthiest part of the state of Wisconsin. We have not got a travelling library near here. We have only 300 of these libraries, and we seek out the neglected communities; not because we do not care to help the people here, but we must take the neglected ones first.
Mr. GALBREATH: This is a practical question. It may be that after a while we will all be seeking the neglected communities. What is the practical method of going out into the state after the neglected communities? How are you going to do it?
Mr. HUTCHINS: That is where you have got to have missionary work, personal contact.
Mr. DEWEY: It is not a question of studying what to do; it is a case of the man behind the idea. If a man starts out who is a born missionary, he will go straight to the communities who need him, while another man will take care of another class. We want to do all the work before us, but if we are so situated that we cannot do both kinds of work in this field, which is the more important to do first, cultivate the good field or the poor field, which if you do not cultivate it will run to weeds and escape us entirely? As Mr. Galbreath asks, if a community is anxious to read, will you supply that, or will you stir somebody up that does not want your supplies? In other words, if there is a field that is rather poor, will you cultivate that at the expense of another field that yields a good crop?
Mr. GALBREATH: It seems to me that a neglected community is one that has no library of any kind of its own; nine-tenths of our travelling libraries go out to communities of that sort.
Mr. HUTCHINS: I would not take that as a definition. In an intelligent community they buy books, they buy magazines, they have intelligent people. A neglected community is one that is not reached by these means, or by any means of civilization.
Mr. GALBREATH: Suppose I go into a community which all the American people are gradually leaving, only foreigners remaining. How can I reach the foreign people that hardly have the English language in their homes, and scarcely in the schools?
Mr. HUTCHINS: Take, for instance, one of those foreign communities. The children go to school; some of them stay in school until they can barely spell out the third reader, and then they go out and become American citizens. Reading is hard work for them. You offer them a chance to read a book, and they do not want it. But in that place we send first with our travelling libraries the _Youth's Companion_ and the little picture papers, to interest them in spelling out little short stories. Try elementary books; simple books of American history and biography; lead them on to better books. But the way is, first of all, to go to them. We have many such communities in the northern part of the state, where the people have come from foreign lands and know nothing about our customs.
Mr. GALBREATH: Another question. I would ask Mr. Hutchins, if a farming community should send to the state commission for a travelling library, and with the request state that they had no library to which they had access, if he would decline to send to them because they were an intelligent community?
Mr. HUTCHINS: No, we send libraries to these communities. We are sending to all classes, but if Miss Stearns, in the northern part of the state, finds a neglected community, and can work with them, and can find some members of the women's clubs to go out and help, we send to them first.
Mr. GALBREATH: I think that perhaps our methods do not vary so much after all. The women's clubs are supplementing our work in that way. In Ohio we have succeeded in interesting a number of the members of the legislature, and frequently they come in and look over our maps illustrating the travelling library work, and say, "There is in our county a community that is very backward. They have no libraries there, and they are not very intelligent. I wish you to write to So-and-so in that community." We do a great deal of work in the line of reaching what Mr. Hutchins calls the neglected communities.
A MEMBER: I would like to ask Mr. Hutchins if he has forgotten that we have something besides the readers in our Wisconsin schools? Under the present school law every district in the state has the beginnings of a library, and adds to that library each year. And we have in each of our school institutes held during the summer a 45-minute period which is spent in training teachers how to get children to read books, how to interest them in the books, and how to show them to get from the book the information it contains. And I would also like to ask if the library placed in the school house is not as accessible to the district as a library that may be placed at some central point? Very often people would have to drive 25 or 30 miles to reach that central point, whereas in the library in the school house the children can take the books to their homes. During the long vacation the library need not be left in the school house, but in some other place.
Mr. HUTCHINS: A library in a school is a school library, no matter where it may be, and the children do not go to the school house after they leave the school.
Mr. DEWEY: The library is an optional affair; the children are compelled to go to school. On the other side, there are a number of advantages in favor of the school building.
Has anybody succeeded in getting from the railroads or express companies special concessions for the transportation of library books?
Mrs. DOCKERY: In Idaho, while the travelling libraries were in the hands of the women's clubs. When they came in the hands of the state, the railroads felt that they should have some compensation, and they gave us half rates. The stage lines give us less than half rates.
E. H. ANDERSON: In Pennsylvania the Adams and the United States Express Companies, which are the two leading companies, have made this concession: We can send out books at full rate going, and half rate returning. These rates apply only on condition that the books returned are paid for at the library, so there is no confusion at any other station.
Mr. MONTGOMERY: How about books that are transferred to another point?
Mr. ANDERSON: We do not transfer them; they must all come back.
G. F. BOWERMAN: The law of Delaware requires that the express companies shall give the franking privilege, both coming and going, to all state documents, and we intend, if possible, to extend that provision to our travelling libraries, now that they are conducted by a state commission.
Mr. HOSTETTER: On the question of express, my experience in Illinois is that the shipping of our books has been unsatisfactory, and I have had some conversation in the matter with the express companies. They seem willing to give us some concessions, and I believe if this meeting would recommend that the American Library Association take up the question of express charges, that we could get for the whole United States a liberal concession for travelling libraries. At least I think we could get as much concession as is given the farmers for returning chicken coops. I think if this is taken up by the Association, as an association, we could get a very liberal reduction.
Mr. BOWERMAN: The Seaboard Air Line runs a free travelling library system, and I presume they send their books over that system free?
Mr. DEWEY: Yes. They also pay expenses, but would they open those privileges to other people?
Mr. BRIGHAM: I want to raise one question. Isn't it a mistake to put the library in the position of a beggar? Is it not better to pay for what we get?
Mr. DEWEY: If we have money enough. We would rather beg than have no bread. We are willing to profit by whatever concession we can get which will enable us to do our work.
No one has spoken of the most important thing of all in this work. We are reaching communities, but there are in all our states great numbers of isolated homes and of farmers. They have more leisure than any other class, especially in the winter, and we have to reach them through the mails. We have a letter from Mr. Lane, of Harvard, upon the movement to secure reduced postal rates for library books, undertaken through the New England Education League by Mr. Scott. This matter is of great importance to us all. [Mr. Lane's letter was read by Mr. Bowerman.]
Mr. MONTGOMERY: In connection with that, has any one here tried to send single books to individuals in any of the communities through the rural delivery system?
Mr. HUTCHINS: We have to a certain extent. We have not sufficient funds to send out enough of the boxes, so we allow a school teacher in the northern part of the state to draw out some book on some subject, and we send these by the rural delivery, or by mail, whichever will reach him most quickly, but of course we have to pay the regular postage.
Mr. HOSTETTER: We have sent out a few books to the country domestic science clubs through the mails, and we have a greater demand for them than we could ever supply. Now I find this experience: the express companies, in the matter of books, would carry a book more cheaply than the United States mail. I am quite confident that the express companies would return the books free, or at a very low rate, if the charges were prepaid. I move that this meeting recommend that the American Library Association take up the question of procuring reduced transportation rates for all free circulating library books.
Mr. DEWEY: If this large meeting is practically agreed on the importance of that, we could send the recommendation into the Council meeting to-night. It seems to me simply inconceivable that we are willing to allow periodicals, bad and indifferent, and the yellow journals, to receive the pound postal rate, while our libraries, suffering from lack of income and working for the public benefit, cannot use the public facilities as cheaply as the people who are using them for public harm instead of public good. I had supposed there would be unanimous approval of an act to register public libraries, owned and maintained for the public benefit, so that they could receive the pound postal rate on books.
Mr. HOSTETTER'S motion was seconded.
Mr. DEWEY: Let us see if there is anything more on this question before the motion is put. There is a bill closely allied to this going into the next Congress. Mr. Hutchins, will you state it briefly?
Mr. HUTCHINS: We have twice tried to secure better transportation in the state of Wisconsin. We have found rural mail carriers who said that they would carry books to the farmers for a travelling library without cost, but the United States law said that we could not do this; that we cannot carry in this way anything under four pounds in weight except it is stamped. Congressman Jenkins, therefore, has drawn a bill which gives libraries authority to send their books free along rural mail routes. At present the farmer must either carry the book himself and return it to the public library, or he must pay postage.
Mr. DEWEY: You say that the carriers cannot take packages under four pounds without stamps?
Mr. HUTCHINS: Yes; the government rules that packages under four pounds are to be sent by mail. Larger packages we could send by the carriers, and we have sometimes thought of sending 15 or 20 books to a neighborhood for distribution. I think that could be done, under the government rule, if the mail carrier was willing to carry them.
Mr. DEWEY: The idea is, that the carrier must not carry anything to compete with the postal service.
Mr. HUTCHINS: Mr. Jenkins, who has drawn this bill for us, has submitted it to all the Senators and Representatives in the United States, and nearly all favor it. Now, I am in favor of Mr. Scott's bill, which gives libraries reduced rates through the whole United States. As things are to-day, if you want to send a travelling library book 100 miles out into the country it costs as much as to send it to San Francisco or New York. If we can get the government to allow transportation by rural free mail delivery it will be an entering wedge for this other bill.
Mr. BOWERMAN: Why cannot the legislation adopting the rural mail delivery also include this matter of the pound rates? Why not have both provisions in one bill? My library is practically free to the whole of Newcastle county, not confined simply to Wilmington, but it is a farming community. We would like to send books to every part of the county, practically to every part of the state. The library is practically free to the state of Delaware, so far as people can come to us, but they cannot come to us; we would like to go to them, but we cannot do it, because of the expense. We could do it if we could afford sufficient postage to send books.
Mr. DEWEY: These are two closely allied questions. Has any one any objection to this Jenkins bill, which, on its face, promises to be so useful to us? I think we can get it, if we work together.
Miss STEARNS: If the government admits library books into this country free of duty, why cannot it allow a man to carry a book free on the rural delivery route if he wants to do it? In our state we have people who cannot afford to pay postage on the books; if the mail-carrier is willing, in the goodness of his heart, to take the book to them, why can't it be done? Why should not a book from a free library be sent free? I do not mean from one state to another, but I mean by rural free delivery.
Mr. BRIGHAM: Would you make it optional with the carrier? Why not make it compulsory? You say, "if he wants" to carry the book. Suppose he does not "want" to carry it?
Miss STEARNS: I would have it so that he can do it for nothing if he wishes, or he can charge a little for express. The rural mail delivery people have to work hard, and they make but little. Now, the United States government has to employ good men to do this work, so it puts in a premium by allowing them to conduct an express business in connection with it. In order, however, that the government may receive its revenue, it does not allow the carriers to carry any packages under four pounds in weight. What we want is to have that embargo removed for free library books, so that they may carry books weighing a pound or a half pound.
Mr. BRIGHAM: The post-office would probably say that this would interfere with the delivery of the regular mail.
Miss STEARNS: If it interferes, then the whole express business interferes. The carriers are doing such a business now for packages about four pounds in weight.
Mr. DEWEY: Then all you need to do is to attach a brick to your book and make it weigh over four pounds. Is there any motion before the meeting?
Mr. BRIGHAM: The motion of the gentleman from Illinois has not been disposed of.
Mr. HOSTETTER: My motion relates to express transportation. Rural delivery is somewhat of an experiment, and it would not reach the case I have in mind. We spend our money for expressage, and we want the express companies to give us a minimum rate.
Mr. DEWEY: I rule there is no motion before us until it is repeated.
Mr. HUSE: I move that we recommend the passage of the Jenkins bill. We ought to pay no attention to all this talk about lines of least resistance. If we have no law, we will find the Post-office Department ready with an objection that will answer any request we may make. If we can get a law authorizing what we want, the Post-office Department will obey it whether we seek the line of least resistance or not.
Mr. DEWEY: Is the motion seconded?
Mr. BRIGHAM: I rise to a point of order. There was a previous motion made and seconded, and I call for the question.
Mr. HOSTETTER: I made a definite motion in regard to the express companies. It was made for the reason that arrangements can probably be effected with the express companies, but we are not likely to get the legislation we want. This motion was this: That this meeting request the Council of this Association to negotiate with the express companies of the United States for reduced rates upon travelling libraries and travelling library books.
The motion was adopted.
Mr. HUSE: I renew my motion that we recommend the passage of the Jenkins bill.
Mr. HUTCHINS: The Jenkins bill provides that wherever there is established a public library from which rural delivery routes radiate, books may be carried upon those routes from the public library to the patrons in the country without cost. They may not, however, be returned free; in returning they must either be returned personally to the library or postage must be paid.
The motion made by Mr. Huse was adopted.
Mr. DEWEY: We come now to the question of pound rates. That has been before Congress for some time, and I think there is hope of its passage; but it needs our support. I am heartily in favor of it. I think it is just, and that a great deal of the criticism it has received is based on misapprehension. Some people look only at the rates that extend throughout the country, and say that the government will be carrying books at a loss, but these books will largely circulate within 100 miles of the library, and you will pay exactly the same rate within that circuit as you would if sending to San Francisco. Does anybody want to move that the Council be asked to support this bill?
It was moved and seconded that the support of the bill be recommended.
Mr. HUSE: It seems to me we are trying to get a good many things. If we get the cheap postal rates, that will include rural delivery, and then the express companies will come down in their rates to compete with the government.
Mr. DEWEY: The rural delivery is limited to a single section, and is analogous to newspaper rates.
Mr. HUSE: But if this pound rate is extended to library books the express companies will come down in their rates, and the rural delivery will be almost free.
Mr. DEWEY: But in any case if we want all these things, it won't do any harm to ask for them.
Mr. EASTMAN: I would like to raise one point, and that is, what would be the effect of the extremely cheap rates of postage upon small libraries or upon libraries which we want to establish? In the remote parts of the state, where the population is small, won't the tendency be to have one great library dominate the whole state? Then when you go to a community to awaken library interest the people will probably say, "We don't care about a library; we can get our books from New York, or Albany, or Cincinnati, or Chicago." Won't this measure tend to hamper the work of establishing libraries in the small places?
Mr. ANDERSON: That is a difficulty easily remedied. I do not think that any library should act as a forwarding agent to a person in any place where another public library is or can be established. Our library takes that position very firmly. We refuse to be a forwarding agent to any person; if a library, however small, asks us to send books, we are glad to do it. I know we have helped small libraries by making people feel that the small library was very important, as it could get concessions that they reasonably could not obtain.
Mr. DEWEY: Mr. Eastman's point, if this were a commercial question, might have something in it, but as long as books are circulated free, we should make the road free to the reader, for a short distance or a long distance.
The motion was adopted.
Mr. DEWEY: We will now take up the topic of county libraries as units in a state library system. Mr. Hodges, of Cincinnati, has something to say on this.
N. D. C. HODGES: By an act passed April 21, 1898, the privileges of the Public Library of Cincinnati were extended to all residents of Hamilton County. While the trustees did not derive any revenue from the taxpayers outside of the city limits until the beginning of 1899, steps were taken at once on the passage of the act to enable all the residents of the county to avail themselves of their new privileges. There has been some discussion in the public press as to whether this library or that might claim priority as a county library. The Public Library of Cincinnati has been loaning its books to all the residents of Hamilton County for more than three years. I believe there is no other library in the state of Ohio which had furnished books throughout a whole county before January of this year. This method of supplying books over a comparatively limited territory has interest when we are discussing the circulation of books over a whole state from the state capital.
For those who cannot, or will not, come to the central library, there have been established throughout the county forty-one delivery stations. Four of these are branch libraries. All these branch libraries had previously been village libraries with very respectable histories; started as subscription institutions they had in years past taken on a public character and were supported partially by taxation. There are several other local libraries in the county which are supported more or less by taxation and which are likely to come under the general management of the trustees of the Public Library of Cincinnati, as otherwise the taxpayers in the regions where they are located will be subject to double taxation for library purposes, and, moreover, there seems to be a consensus of opinion among those who are interested in the branches which have come under the wing of the central institution that they have found the change to their advantage.