vu iON ise cs a A. VISION OF USEFULNESS Hoa “= Four North “Carolina Blibrarians re- turning from the annual meeting of the American Library Association at Swamp- ‘scott, ‘Mass., a seashore resort twelve miles out of Boston’ came back to their “posts 0 on July’ 1 with an enlarged vision of the usefulness of the library as an effective American educational institu- tion. “After having fellowshipped with ‘some 1950 librarians from all parts of ie: country and having visited the li-| ‘braries of! Boston and _ its environs, they were more heartily in accord than ev fer with Thomas Carlyle’s dictum that a “library is the people’s. university. Ih In view of the fact that North Caro- i ‘lina’ s library resources, including pub-| lic, college and university, State and I Supreme Court, and rural school libra- ‘ries, total only approximately 1,125, 000 -yolumes, they were doubly convinced that more such universities should be open to the state and that more North ‘Carolinians should matriculate in them! Every Town Has Library “BETTER LIBRARIES NEEDED _ Pr csreas College for Women and Guil- ford and Rutherford bear the name of | some citizen of the local community or state rather than that of the Laird of Skibo. In this respect the Pages, of Aberdeen, Pack, of Asheville, Duke, of Trinity, and Raney, of Raleigh, have followed the prevailing New England custom and that too to their own honor and the very great good of their home towns and institutions. Large Book Collections A very distinctive feature of the New England library is ‘the size of its | book collection. North Carolina press notices of July 8 and 9 carried the news that the $75,000 Carnegie Library of | Durham had just opened with 8,000 i | books on the shelyes and that. the early | addition of 1,000 new volumes was con-'! templated. Beverly, Massachusetts, | some twenty-odd miles out of Boston, with a population of 22,561—near enough ‘that of Durham.for the sake of com* | parison—has 43,000 volumes in its pub- | lic library and has an income sufficient | ito provide a steady increase of new state hehe will r aol ee tha and pimires are Caer ent ing in cide 3 Carolina» libr | riety is wanti | examples Bich a au tar fe Set RO ee ct Be a) of the University library, | brary, and the North a ‘The News Letter hasn’t all the facts concerning Massachusetts libraries at ‘its finger tips. But it has the one fact ‘which is the boast of every Massachu- ‘setts librarian, namely, that. every .town in Massachusetts save one main-| ‘tains a free public library, and: that one is served by a branch library of a naa city... - Donated by Residents it Pi second fact of which the Massa- -chusetts librarian boasts is that the lo- eal library building is, in the majority of instances, the gift of a citizen, who, ‘true to the New England habit of leav- in ; something to Harvard, or Yale, or sen ies build it”, ihe 'of Essex county court house, with 30,- '008 volumes. Compared with these the publications. Similarly, Salem, Massa- chusetts, witha. population of 42,529, which is about the same as that of Charlotte and less than that of Winston- | Salem, maintains the library ‘of the E Essex Institute, with more than 500,000 volumes; the Salem publiclibrary, with | 70,000 volumes; the Salem Athenaeum, with 20,000 volumes; and the law library | Obvinuely the 48 North | libraries which. accordi report of the North | Carnegie library and the Salem Acad- | emy and College library of Winston- | Salem contain 10,554 and 7,226 volumes respectively and the Carnegie Library \of Charlotte contains 10,396. Statistics for the law libraries for Forsyth and | aes in neither instance would the num- ‘ber run as high as the 30,000 in the Es- sex county court house, which far. and | away exceeds the 6,500 volumes in the i AYE weit | ng Massachusetts library sult that the libraries S ‘corresponding t to Teensboro Hen- library of the Supreme Court of North Carolina. Sila iin x law library of the University of North Carolina and the 22,616 volumes in the abe ‘out t the North nd Central West hold membership in the Special Libraries Association ot America. The first of struction — ‘Company, which recently penditure of a million or more dollars, maintains a highly specialized collec- ‘tion on engineering, construction, con- crete, and industrial management. In- lable, in the light of which the firm is gram of procedure. Similarly, the Roger W. Babson Statistical Organization specializes in financial statistics and | business. The Boston Society of Civil ‘Engineers maintains a collection of 10, yolames and 3;000 pamphlets on municipal, state, and federal engineéer- ing, engineering text books, and en- ineering periodicals, and the Massa- ‘dl usetts Horticultural Society places 2B, 000 volumes on agriculture, horti- Neahenee and landscape gardening at the, disposal of its members. The shoe and electric industries of Lynn, the jewelry manufacturers of Providence, the. cutlery factories of New Britain, | the textile mills of Lowell, all main- tain complete technical libraries; and instead of scrapping them as non-essen- | tials at the beginning of the present period of depression, -have increased the use of them and their group of ex- yerts in finding a lower cost production of their’ wares—a thing which North Carolinians who produce ‘and manufac- ture cotton goods, and woolens, and tobacco, and furniture, ete., must con- sider and employ if they continue to ‘compete successfully with their North- ern competitors. The present anarket is. certainly. not one in which the hit or 5 method can gee be esenlyet ow Er Hs S| sity, h ded in the’ Harry Elkins Widene r Memorial building completed in 191 a literature, lost his life on the fatefu the Boston list, the Aberthaw Con) came into North Carolina and surveyed | a building program involving the ex-|j buildings. finite data on these subjects is avail-| able to give its patrons an exact pro-| Special Libraries .. lattain if the. University is to becon ‘and the State is to be placed in the lis of those ‘commonwealths nance give due rare Paone in the field of English 1 ; Titanic and the building, which contains the -collection assembled by him an now preserved in the, famous Widene room, was erected in his memory by his mother. It also contains the Col, lege library, founded in 1638, of 1,094, - 200 volumes, and its administration is combined with that of eleven siaee ME one special libraries housed in othe The total collection, as ana- lyzed ina recent handbook issued by||t it the University, is as follows: College Library .... Law School. Andover-Harvard Library Museum of Comparative Zool- ogy - Peabody Museum Meal boat Astronomical Ouseteacory | Herbarium... 32. ./. ‘ Arnold Arboretum....- Bussey Institution Medical School Dental School Blue Hill Observatory .....-.- 1,094, 200] | 4 208, 800 175,500 Pe ee suited oi Catena yer sta fe rece Seren ier roe St ee ek ee 165, 800 f 51,9001] | 30,500 40,900) 26, 300) |) Lib 96, 700) || com 2,900) |" 23, 600 134,300 Sic leieth ie le oie lv ol dleve iene eevee ileite Por ee brie testy ver 2,018,100] |) From 40,000 to 60,000 volumes are or- dinarily added to the whole collection by gift and purchase each year. en The University Library Two hundred and twenty-one years, after the founding of the Bray Library at Bath (the first to be founded in the 1 state) and one. hundred and twenty- seven years after the laying of the }|! corner stone of the Old East building eR (the first to be erected on the campus of the University), North Carolina has finally | achieved the distinction of ha ing built up within her borders a librat of 100,000 volumes—the ‘library. of the University, which, on June 15, 192 “ passed this mark and began to climb from 100,000 to 1,000,000 which it must the dominant University of the Sout a_i nee to “the county ‘board | which may receive lands, | aiding, ee books, ete., for the use | of the library, choose the fbearian and assistants, determine the number and location of branch libraries or loan sta- tions throughout the county, or contract ‘with a library already in the county for ‘services to the éntire citizenship. Distinctive Advantages I That a strong centralized library thus provided for affords its patrons distinct- ive advantages is at once apparent. These are: 1. It has financial support sufficient to provide books of a varying character and in sufficient quantity to meet the | requirements of all classes of citizens. 2.. It .can establish a unified system of | service to isolated settlements, schools, | and villages, thereby reaching at regu- lar intervals every section of the county. | A book wagon or automobile can be rut | on aregular fortnightly schedule, and can serve every local station. 8. It can employ an efficient librarian and assistants in sufficient number to) administer the work effectively. _ 4. It lends itself to the uses:of other county organizations, such as the board of health and the board of education. 5. It promotes unity of interest and cooperation in all undertakings having as their object the betterment of the county. State Agencies Eaployed In North Carolina, at present, three of the agencies mentioned above jare generally employed. According to "the latest statistics published by the North Carolina Library Commission (for 1919) and the office of the Superintendent of f « Public Instruction (for 1920), 48 towns ‘operate public libraries, 4,686 schools have collections of from 85 to 125 books, ‘and the North Carolina Library Com- | mission in the biennium 1919-1920, op- jerated 831 traveling libraries in 620 communities in 92 of the 100 North Ca- rolina counties. County Work Begun The county library of a modified type ‘thas also been successfully tested in North Carolina. In. October, 1912, Mecklenburg county, through the coun- | ty board of education, appropriated $300 | annually to the support of the Carnegie library of Charlotte. In return, the use of the library was made available to the teachers ‘of the county, and during ‘th two and | a quarter years of glk ° 1,000 volumes” ‘we circulated in rura sti a ee ay: 1915, the plan was use| the aannert. wae to9: ty commissioners have been He ‘con-- : i ‘tracting parties. In April, 1914, they appropriated $400 and today the appr priation is $1,333.33. East and West i Durham are served, the latter having ay branch library supported in conjunction with the Erwin Mills; and Lowes Grove Union, Mineral Springs cand Patrick — Henry stations have’ received special — having served as librarians. All the county schools have made use of the - city library for reference and debate and essay material and individuals from every section of the county constantly borrow books. Guilford Leads Guilford county followed suit in 1915 with an appropriation of $1,250 later raised to $1,500, the combined appro- priations from city and county being $7,500 at present. For 10 months the county support was discontinued, but: through the personal contributions of Mr. E. P. Whorton, of Greensboro, county service was not allowed to lapse. ‘Today twelve stations carefully located throughout the county distribute books, and teachers, students, .and citizens ‘from all sections draw books from the ~ city library. The total county loans ‘amount to ten or twelve thousand vol- umes annually and the county is unani- mous in its praise of the service, | Small Tax Will Do In these three instances the cost has been only a fraction of one cent on the $100 worth of property, and for a tax of one cent every. county in North Car- olina could maintain, in conjunction with its principal town or county seat, a county-wide library with an: income | from $285 in Clay to $14,722 in Forsyth, whose assessed valuations in 1920 were ‘the lowest and highest respectively in ithe state. People’s universities of this |sort certainly should be established, and ~ See |become’a regular matriculate in them. | The Law in the Case The General Assembly of North Ga-' rolina has enacted the following law ‘relative to county libraries: Section I. That the board of Cres commissioners and the county beard of education of any county in which there is a public city or town library are here- ‘by authorized and empowered in their ‘discretion, to cooperate with the trus- ~ ‘tees of said library in extending the service of such library tothe rural com- munities of the county, and to appro- | priate out of the funds under their — control an amount sufficient to pay, the expense of such library extension m vice. | from and after its ratifieation, Ratified this the 5th day cf March, ; Ye aad ; 2% “4 « A. D, 1917, ai R Wi, every North Carolinian should at once — Section 2. This act shall be in forse, 4 RA et if collections, the teachers at these places