Part 36

Another mistake common to those who organize state library associations is to suppose that they are chiefly designed for the benefit of those who organize them. They do not realize that to help younger and less experienced members of the craft is a chief purpose of the association, and that if through it librarians generally are informed and encouraged, the profession itself is thereby improved, and they are themselves advanced in general esteem.

It is, then, an association's business to be active all through the year, to devote itself largely to such work in and between its meetings as will benefit both beginners and past-masters among librarians, and, always, properly to advertise its work. Along this last line let me say an urgent word in favor of good printing. It is difficult to overestimate the value to an institution like a library association of an exhibition of itself, through all its circulars and programs and lists, by means of the best printing that money can buy.

The general state association, being the largest and richest of all associations in a given state, should take upon itself some large definite work of permanent value and as far as possible of general interest; say the compilation of historical material, the making of a useful index, the issuance of popular lists, etc., etc. This work may continue along the same line for several years, ending in the publication of something thoroughly worth while which shall have been the means of arousing interest in the profession itself and of bringing the members of it into touch with one another month by month and year by year.

As to the place of meeting of the state association, I doubt if much benefit accrues, on the whole, from meetings held in remote places for missionary purposes. I say this, of course, on the supposition that the meetings thus held, being at places difficult of access, will not generally draw a large gathering. Better results can generally be reached in these same small communities by sending to them occasionally one or two active representatives of the association to carry on a little propaganda work, speak before a woman's club, before the school teachers, or a local literary society on the local library problems.

About the programs of association meetings, it is difficult to say anything which will have general application. They must, of course, to a considerable extent, fit local conditions. I do not think it advisable to give up much time to local speakers, either for words of greeting or for historical sketches. These latter are generally unspeakably dull. On the other hand, if popular interest in a place is desired a local speaker may be the one best means available for accomplishing your object.

Associations which are attended, as so many are, by librarians of smaller libraries who rarely get abroad and do not often have an opportunity to meet their fellows and to expand in the social atmosphere of the library meeting, should cultivate to the greatest possible extent what one may call the conversational feature. Not only should ample opportunity be given before and after and between the sessions for informal talks, but a portion of the formal gathering itself should be devoted to brief and rapid exchange of ideas. This can be brought about by a little preliminary wire-pulling. Let some one briefly open a topic, and then let questions be offered, some of them by the most diffident of those present who have previously been posted as to what they are to ask and when. Manufacture a little spontaneity by way of an ice-breaker, and it is surprising how freely genuine spontaneity will then flow. It is unquestionably of great value to a librarian who is unselfishly giving her energy to a small library in a remote place, trying to make her books of use, to be able to express herself, no matter how briefly, on some of the matters which touch her work at home.

A state association should draw out the diffident; cheer the discouraged ones; magnify our calling; compel public attention to the value of libraries; be active the whole year through; and always keep a little ahead of the general library progress in the state.

Miss ELLA MCLONEY: It is unquestionably true, as has been stated, that the annual meeting of a state library association is not the whole of the work that must be done through the year. It is possibly only an incident, but the fact is that in the nature of things the work of preparation for this meeting must be carried on during at least half the year. The preparation of the programs requires a great deal of correspondence, and this must extend over a great part of the state and during a great part of the year. Whenever any circulars or announcements are issued, they should be sent to every library in the state; it does not matter whether that library is likely to be represented or not, it should have information as to the work that is being done by the state association.

So far as advertising a library is concerned it seems to me a good deal of a problem. Of course, library people, like other people, need the help of the newspapers, but if you want to get the newspapers interested in libraries it will have to be on the strength of something more than what libraries are going to do. In other words, it will have to be something that the newspapers can take up as news and feel that the public are interested in; they want material that is fresh and newsy, and if you can furnish them with that, then the newspapers will be willing to help.

As to the printing of programs and other material, I am hardly prepared to say that library associations should always have the best and most expensive work. It is a proper thing, theoretically, to appear before the public in the handsomest and most suitable dress possible, but when every 25 cents is of importance and your treasury is practically empty, and there is no one upon whom you can legitimately draw to fill it, I think you must limit your work accordingly.

About definite work to be done, it is true of a library association, as of any other association, that it should do something that will furnish a reason for its existence. In most cases the most definite thing, if you are beginners in association work, will be the task of gaining a foothold; but the time will probably come when it will be necessary to undertake some definite work, that the life of the association may be prolonged and finally assured. The Iowa association, for its first three or four years, was a very frail child, and required most careful nursing; but finally, about the fourth year, it began to seem as if there was very good prospect of its growth and development. Miss Ahern, whom Illinois has claimed for the last five years, and who was at that time interested in the Iowa work, devised the plan of establishing a four years' course of library study, an ambitious undertaking in the condition of affairs in Iowa then. This was printed in a neat folder, which was sent to every library in the state, with a circular telling them what the plan was, and that the library association wished the librarians of the state to enter upon this four years' course of study, and asked all who would pledge themselves to do so to come to the next meeting with their report of the work. I received seven letters in response to all this circular work, and when the time for the annual meeting came there was no one there to report. Librarians were too busy, too far apart, and too poorly paid, to permit the work being carried on systematically. It was dropped at that point; I think it could be done now, and it may be taken up yet. It did furnish a common bond, although the results were not very evident just then.

The next thing, as has been the case with many other associations, was the work of securing the library commission. We pegged away at that for five years before we accomplished anything. Finally the State Federation of Women's Clubs interested itself; we secured the commission, and the work has been going on exceedingly well for the past year. We have made no plan yet for further definite work, but some need will doubtless develop.

In regard to programs, they must, of course, as Mr. Dana said, be adapted to local conditions, and the people who are primarily the workers in the state association, cannot expect personally to get much from the program or from the work of the association. But it is probably true in most cases that these workers have opportunities of visiting other libraries, and have facilities for work that are not open to the librarians in the smaller places. The librarians of the smaller libraries should be given something definite, something technical, something that will be of help to them in the work from a professional point of view.

As to place of meeting, the Iowa meetings were always held in Des Moines, the capital city, until two years ago. Then it was decided to make the library association a movable feast. We met at Cedar Rapids two years ago, last year at Sioux City, where we had a good meeting, although not largely attended. Sioux City is in the extreme western part of the state, and is not easily accessible by railroad, but we drew a little from South Dakota, which was what we had counted on; some Dakota people came and joined the association, and two of those people have attended this A. L. A. conference. We meet next in Burlington, where there are more libraries in the locality, and we expect a larger attendance. I suppose the ideal condition would be to meet in some central place, where there are library facilities, but I believe it is worth while to move the association about; that is one way of advertising it.

Miss OLIVE JONES: I fully believe that the greatest work of the state association it does through the librarians individually. It is of help in the state in bringing out different lines of work, and in keeping the library work before the public; but, after all, do we not gain more from individual effort than from anything else? In educational problems, it is coming to be realized that the work of the individual means more than the work of any body of people, and I am fully convinced, if we can bring librarians to our state associations, and have an association full of enthusiasm and that intangible something which we call library spirit, we will have more done for the state at large than by any devising of general work along large lines. I would make a special plea that in deciding where to meet, you should consider first the librarians, and settle a pleasant place for the members who meet fellow-workers only once a year. There are librarians who have no vacation at all, except when their board kindly allows them to go to the state association meeting; there are librarians who never know personally anything of this larger work done all over the country, and we should not ask such persons to come to a place where they are not going to be comfortable, and which they must spend a good deal of money to reach. We must be sure of having something for the librarians of the smaller libraries; something technical, not too much, but something which the librarian can take away, feeling that it has been worth while to attend. I am not certain that we could have library instruction in Ohio; we tried it and it did not seem to work; but if you can introduce in the program one or two definite, technical papers, it is a good thing. And at the same time give a chance for sociability and some social entertainment.

There is one other point, and that is in regard to the advertising that we can do through individuals--you see my point is individualism. I believe in newspaper advertising, but I think if you can work up a good mailing list through your state, sending all your circulars to individuals, you will do more than by newspaper advertising. And it is a good thing to get one library in each city to keep a list of every one in that city who ought to be specially interested in library work, whether members of the association or not. Then let that librarian send to the secretary of the association a duplicate of that list, so that everything the state association issues goes to each person who should be interested in library work.

W. R. EASTMAN: In New York we are going through a little transition period in state library association work. Formerly our state association held occasional meetings in different places. It held one in midwinter in New York City, with the New York Library Club. Then in the summer or spring we held a meeting in the central part of the state. We tried to make our programs as practical as could be, discussing not only occasional technical points, but elementary points as well. We always had good meetings; we got together a little circle of librarians who were interested, and we thought the state association was worth keeping up, although the state was so large that we reached only one or two centers. About a year ago, under a new administration, Dr. Canfield suggested that the annual meeting should always be held in one place. We consented to try the plan, and decided to make Lake Placid, in the Adirondacks, our meeting place. We met there, and the association, to my surprise and somewhat to my disturbance, first voted always to meet in one place, and then voted always to meet at Lake Placid. We then made a proviso instructing the executive board to district the state into 10 or 12 districts, and lay out a plan by which every one of those districts should have a library conference in the course of the year. Thus, instead of one meeting of the state during a year, we are going to have 12 local conferences. Whether those local conferences will have an organization I do not know; the board has not yet reported its plan. Probably there will be some sort of a skeleton organization--a president and secretary, and perhaps some one in charge of each local conference, and then some member of the association will probably come and attend the conference. Our object is to bring together the librarians and library trustees for 50 miles around; if the teachers are interested, so much the better. So, you see, we have begun to establish a system of local conferences all over the state. It is not extravagant; it is hopeful; I believe there is a great deal in it, especially for the larger states.

Miss STEARNS: I for one would protest against always meeting in one place, unless as Mr. Eastman has described, the meeting is held at a resort. I have known cases where meetings were held at one central, large town, because it was so accessible; and the librarian of a little library, who cannot have open shelves and all facilities, goes to this town and sees its large library, with its red tape, and gets so completely tangled up in the red tape of that institution that she will never be able to disentangle herself. I believe in the migration of meetings.

H. C. WELLMAN: I am in hearty sympathy with what has been said in regard to extending library work through the state. It is especially valuable in the newer states of the Union, but in the older states, in New England, in New York, and elsewhere, I think we must not attend too strictly to the extension of library work, but must rather intensify it. A state library association, as Miss Jones said, can do a great deal for librarians and for the library profession. The Massachusetts Library Club has done something in the way of giving a series of lectures, to run two or three years. The first lecture dealt with paper making, the subject being treated by an expert; then came book illustration, of which most librarians knew absolutely nothing; and then, finally, book binding, for which we had one of the best binders of the state to come down and show us the tricks of the trade. You are all library school graduates out here; but in the effete east nine-tenths of the librarians have not had that technical training. I do not know anything that was of more practical good to our club membership than that lecture on library binding. There is another thing that we ought to do, and that is to give attention to the more scholarly side of librarianship. We are so busy organizing, so busy spreading library ideas, that we are in danger of losing sight of scholarship. That is something the state association can do--in the directions of literature, bibliography, and such subjects. I think that should be emphasized more than has been the case. In the Massachusetts Club we are trying a similar scheme to that of Mr. Eastman; we are going to have one annual meeting, which will take in all the library clubs all over the state. Then, besides that, the state club meets about three times a year in different parts of the state.

In concluding, I want to make sure that this round table is to be continued, and I therefore move that this assembly petition the program committee of next year for another round table meeting on this subject. _Voted._

Miss M. E. AHERN: I want to say a word about this matter of having peripatetic meetings. In the state of Illinois we have all the library law and all the library books in the northern part of the state, and then there is a part of the state down in the south that they call "Egypt." There may be some libraries there, but we have been unable yet to induce them to take their place in the state library association. Two years ago, after having tried for several years to get these libraries to come into the association, we brought the association to them, and held our meeting in East St. Louis, under the most distressing circumstances of weather and other uncomfortable conditions; and not a single librarian from that community attended the meeting. We tried the same plan last year in another place in the state, and I felt when the meeting was over that we had not done much good there. Very few of the local people came to the meeting. Later I heard that we did some good, but I am inclined to think that the personal efforts of the librarians at that place did more than the association did. I am not at all a pessimist, but in Illinois this plan has failed to interest the people of the indifferent districts in the work that the library association was trying to do, and I have been almost convinced that it is the proper thing for an association to get a central point and bring librarians in touch with the vitalizing spirit of a good library conference, rather than to try to take the association to an indifferent community. I want heartily to emphasize the point made by Mr. Dana about local speakers. I have suffered more than once from these local speakers. I have a most distinct recollection of hearing a trustee talk for one hour and a quarter on the beautiful, magnanimous and generous efforts made by himself to run the local library. The point made by Mr. Wellman needs to be taken cautiously. I think there is more danger of emphasizing the scholarly side of librarianship at state meetings than there is of not giving it sufficient attention. The American Library Association, in my opinion, should stand for the higher tenets of the library faith, and the scholarly side should be more emphasized than has been the case heretofore in the meetings of the national association. With all our different organizations, clubs, associations, conferences, round tables, and so on, it seems to me that the American Library Association should take care of the technical side, and the smaller questions, that must, indeed, be settled by local conditions, should be taken up by the state associations. While, of course, we want to have material of a high order presented at the state association, at the same time we must remember that these associations reach those people who cannot be touched in any other way; and if they have come to get light on this new topic of work for children, or if they are on the point of reorganizing their library, or if they are having trouble with their board, they do not take kindly to a dissertation on printing in the 15th century.

One thing has been left out in the various interests which have been brought forward, and that is the part of the trustee in the state association meetings. A librarian may have all possible inclination, and all the enthusiasm that we can give her, but if she does not have the co-operation and the kindly sympathy of her library board, or at least a majority of its members, life is to her a burden. Her condition is worse than when she did not know, and did not know that she did not know. The state associations have not so far been open enough to the trustees. It seems to me that this is a subject well worth taking up, and we should try to do more for the library trustees of the state than we have done heretofore. Necessarily they take rather a material view of the situation, and we should try to lead them away from the dollar-and-cents view of library work. These two things need to be emphasized--keep in mind the small librarian, and educate the trustee. Some one has said that we need a library school for trustees quite as much as we need a library school for librarians, and the more I see of libraries the more I believe that.

Mrs. E. J. DOCKERY spoke on

HOW A LIBRARY COMMISSION WAS SECURED IN IDAHO.

I bring to you an accurate and complete history of the course adopted by the club women of my state in securing library legislation, as I personally participated in the work with other members of the Woman's Columbian Club, the organization that had the direct and immediate charge of the subject.

It is a somewhat embarrassing confession to make that Idaho, with its area of 87,000 square miles and a population of 164,000 souls, and its sobriquet of "The gem of the Mountains," has not a free circulating library. I make this statement, however, to emphasize the virgin field in which we had to labor and the munificence of our legislators when we consider the various tax burdens are so many and the number so few to bear them.

Boisé City, the capital of our state, with a population of 10,000, is the home of the Woman's Columbian Club of 200 members. This club, among its many achievements, established and almost wholly supports a public library of 2750 volumes at Boisé; and its members stand in the vanguard and do yeoman's service as leaders and in the ranks in all causes to advance the moral, intellectual and material good of all the people of the state that has granted women equal suffrage with men.

The club strongly urges the formation of other woman's clubs throughout the state, and encourages at all times the organization and development of free libraries.

The first really effective and aggressive step of the club in this direction, and which led to important results, was the adoption of the free travelling library scheme. Its zealous members, by united action and individual effort, accumulated sufficient funds to put into circulation 15 travelling libraries with a total of 800 volumes, and invited discussion of this work in the public press.

At the 1899 state teachers' meeting representatives of the club, on invitation, espoused the cause of the travelling library and libraries generally. The demand for library cases soon exhausted the Columbian Club's ability to respond, and then an appeal for legislative aid was determined upon, and systematic methods, principally through the press, were pursued to awaken public sentiment favorable to the election of friendly legislators.