service. Thirty-two of this number, and I think this is particularly significant to note here, had access to library service for the first time through library demonstrations. Also noteworthy is the fact that for the first 5 years of the Louisiana State Library program the Carnegie Corp. provided funds to demonstrate to Louisianians the importance of libraries. The Library Services Act would give other States a similar impetus.

Because of a limited budget, our State library at the present time can establish only two demonstration libraries a year. The funds made available under the Library Services Act would accelerate the whole program of library development and, in Louisiana, would make library service available years sooner to the over half million people now without it.

Under the Louisiana library demonstration plan the State library brings thousands of books into a parish and sets up a parish library system of branch libraries and a bookmobile service so that nobody has to go far for the books he wants and needs. The State library operates the system for a year's trial period. During that time the greater part of the expense is borne by the State with the local parish providing certain overhead expenses. At the end of the demonstration period it becomes the responsibility of the parish to continue the service. If local support is assured the State library leaves the books in the parish on indefinite loan and leaves the bookmobile until such time as the parish can replace it.

The library demonstration plan in Louisiana is exactly what the name implies. The State library works on the theory that the people of the parish are willing to support their library locally after seeing a year's demonstration of efficient library service.

The philosophy behind our Louisiana plan is like that behind the library service bill. In the first place, we believe that a relatively small expenditure of funds will provide to areas without libraries the necessary incentive to acquire them.

Second, we consider it important to have a definite terminal point for State financing. In Louisiana our State grant ceases at the end of the 1-year demonstration. The library services bill stipulates that Federal funds will be available for only a 5-year period.

Third, in the Louisiana plan the local governing body, as I have already mentioned, participates financially from the beginning. Under the proposed Federal legislation the States must contribute from the outset.

We Louisianians like the library service bill for these specific reasons. We believe sincerely that the expanded 5-year program which the Library Services Act will make possible will encourage our State legislature to increase our biennial appropriation. The funds will help us to demonstrate better the extension and strengthening of library service. The 5-year program will do much to raise libraries to their proper rank as adult education agencies and, in the eyes of governing bodies, will make them worthy of more adequate support. We like the flexibility of the bill which will make it possible for each State to vary its plan according to its needs. Some States may have demonstrations of library service such as we have in Louisiana; others may strengthen inadequate libraries by providing increased book stock, additional personnel, or bookmobile service-or all three. Some States may reorganize county libraries into regional services operating more efficiently and more economically.

We are glad, too, that under the act each State library agency will have sole control of the program in its State.

We heartily endorse the provision that no State may reduce its expenditure for public library service and be eligible for Federal allotments.

We believe the formula for the distribution of funds is fair and equitable.

In conclusion, it seems to me that the expenditures which the library services bill calls for would be a good and sound 5-year investment of public funds. The returns-in a better informed citizenry resulting from an accelerated library extension program throughout the country-will more than justify the costs to our Government. Mr. TACKETT. Mr. Howell?

Mr. HOWELL. Do you operate a bookmobile yourself?

Miss FARRELL. Yes, in two parishes in Louisiana, in these demonstration libraries.

Mr. HOWELL. They were ones which had not had it before?
Miss FARRELL. Yes, in both cases.

Mr. HOWELL. You found a really great reception for it, a wide reception?

Miss FARRELL. Yes. I suppose really that phase of our rural library service, that is, the bookmobile service, is the most glamorous and dramatic because it is different. It is amazing how people meet the bookmobile. In an apparently deserted area when the bookmobile blows its horn they all rush out from every direction.

Mr. HOWELL. How do you let people know it is available, just stop around at different places?

Miss FARRELL. No. It is worked out on a very systematic businesslike basis, Mr. Howell. A survey is made of the rural sections and it is determined where the most central location should be for stops. We don't have a house to house service at all. We stop at the rural church, at the rural filling station, the country store, the country school, usually on a biweekly basis. We stop at a certain time, say each Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday.

Mr. HOWELL. You do not stop at individuals' houses even if they ask you?

Miss FARRELL. No, unless other people gather there. We usually require that there be at least 10 families within the region, otherwise it would be too expensive to operate and also too time consuming. Mr. HOWELL. I think that is all, thank you.

Mr. TACKETT. Mr. Greenwood.

Mr. GREENWOOD. I think that is an excellent example of the answer to one of the questions that we are going to be up against: When will this Federal aid terminate? Will it go on continuously and permanently? You have an example there of I year's demonstration, and if that is not taken on by the local people, then it stops.

Miss FARRELL. Yes, it does. We learned from experience, Mr. Greenwood. When we were new at this demonstration plan, we had a regional demonstration in central Louisiana for which special State funds were appropriated. They did not come from our regular biennial appropriation. There was no definite terminal point set. That was away back in 1937. When it became time for the people to take over, 3 years later, they weren't eager to do it because they had

this attitude: "The State has done it for 3 years, why don't they continue to do it?"

Of course, we didn't and they took over the library service. We found there was a danger in that, so now we set a definite period of years, and it has worked in Louisiana.

Mr. GREENWOOD. Are there many districts which refused to take over after you had given a year's demonstration?

Miss FARRELL. That is a very good question, and governing bodies are constantly asking me that when we open new libraries, Mr. Greenwood. Out of all the demonstrations we have conducted in Louisiana, only three parishes out of the total number when the tax election was called failed to vote the necessary millage to support the library.

Mr. GREENWOOD. In other words, the stimulation worked to increase the program.

Mr. HOWELL. Three out of thirty-some?

Miss FARRELL. That is right.

Mr. TACKETT. Where do you live in Louisiana?

Miss FARRELL. My headquarters are in Baton Rouge, but I am really a traveling salesman for libraries, Mr. Tackett.

Mr. TACKETT. My district adjoins Louisiana.

Miss FARRELL. Yes. I was talking with one of your former field representatives who now is working in Louisiana, and she said that you have a regional library, I believe, in your district.

Mr. TACKETT. That is right.

Thank you very much.

Mr. DERRICKSON. Dr. Howard Dawson?

(No response.)

Mr. DERRICKSON. Miss Davis?

STATEMENT OF MISS ANN DAVIS, OAKTON, VA.

Miss DAVIS. Mr. Chairman, I represent the Patrons of the County Library. I found the bookmobile most helpful to me, especially in my Scout work. While working on proficiency badges I needed different books on nature and campcraft. I was able to find these books at the bookmobile, and they helped me a great deal. Without the help of the bookmobile I would not have been able to complete certain requirements. In school I have often needed special information on famous people and foreign countries. Since my school is so overcrowded and many students have to use one book it has been much easier for me to use the bookmobile. This source has also. been helpful with material on hobbies or outdoor camping.

A very important fact I believe in the use of the bookmobile is the wonderful recreational reading which it supplies adults as well as young people, because you are able to go to the bookmobile and find almost any book that you would like to read.

I believe the bookmobile is an asset to any community, and I hope that in the future more people will be able to get the satisfaction and the splendid help that I have gotten through the use of the bookmobile.

Mr. TACKETT. Thank you very much.

Mr. Howell?

Mr. HOWELL. What are you, a Girl Scout leader?
Miss DAVIS. No. I am just a Girl Scout.

Mr. HOWELL. You have really made a lot of use of it where you live? Miss DAVIS. Yes. I have used it for about 10 years.

Mr. GREENWOOD. No questions.

Mr. TACKETT. You live in Oakton?

Miss DAVIS. Yes, Oakton, Va. That is in Fairfax County.

Mr. TACKETT. Thank you very much. We appreciate your testi

mony.

Mr. DERRICKSON. Mrs. Helen Ditman.

STATEMENT OF MRS. HELEN C. DITMAN, PRESIDENT, BOARD OF TRUSTEES, PRINCE GEORGES COUNTY MEMORIAL LIBRARY, HYATTSVILLE, MD.

Mrs. DITMAN. My name is Helen C. Ditman, I am president of the board of trustees of the Prince Georges County Memorial Library in Hyattsville.

Before I make my plea for the measure which the committee has under consideration, I should like to present from the point of view of a library trustee the difficulties that beset us in gaining adequate budgets for rural library service, the kind of service that the library services bill is designed to stimulate.

The public library is ordinarily thought of by the public, including governing bodies, as a building where one may go to borrow books; for this kind of library city commissioners appropriate funds more or less liberally in proportion to the vigor with which librarians and trustees expand and expound the value of libraries in people's lives. The taxpaying public understands and appreciates it, feels pride in it, and is willing to support it.

The rural library, on the other hand, is a service, given for the most part from mobile equipment and from relatively small inconspicuous outlets in rural communities, and until its great value can be shown and testified to by its users it meets with staggering difficulties in competition for public funds. Service to farm people in remote regions requires traveling collections of books carefully selected from a central pool by a professionally trained person who knows the reading interests of the area of the day's visit, a service that closely parallels that given by a good librarian in a city library building; continually rotating collections from the central book pool make available to the visitor to the small library room in the rural community center all the the resources of a large library building; but these things are rarely understood until they can be seen and used. The year my county began rural service, one of the county commissioners told me he thought it highly unethical for us to send out a bookmobile; he considered it a device for drumming up trade and creating an artificial demand for public funds. He said he knew what a library should be, for he had used one in his time; furthermore this thing we were doing was not what the commissioners had in mind when they levied for a county library in the first place. And yet at that time the mobile branch was circulating more books than many a branch of a large city library. We were very nearly disestablished that year just because the concept of the library as a service agency of government had not been accepted.

Still another hurdle in the development of rural library is the small and hesitant fashion in which county officials usually start the new

institution off. Taxpayers, county commissioners, and trustees too, either accept the small, weak, incomplete, limping thing as an excellent service just as it is, never having known better, or they conclude that a rural library system is such a wretched institution in itself that there would be no sense putting more money into it. Having begun small, it has little chance of showing the kind of work it can really do and will remain small.

All these problems can be solved if sufficient funds are ready somewhere along the way to set up a system of rural services in fairly comprehensive fashion, for there is no question about the eagerness with which a good library is accepted wherever it goes. But there are still more troubles in the way of extending to sparsely settled areas this agency that is so readily established in cities.

Even assuming an understanding of the service role our institution plays and a willingness to be liberal in its establishment, we find that counties are so small in many of our States that independent library units large enough to maintain good book collections and means of distribution would be prohibitively expensive on such a small tax base. Several solutions have been suggested for this problem, but outside funds seem required to make them effective. One suggests that contiguous counties levy jointly, always an awkward arrangement from the political point of view; another suggests that a State library or regional office of it provide much of the materials of service. These plans require adequate beginning budgets if the hazards I have already mentioned are to be avoided.

The condition of rural library service in Maryland shows examples of all these problems. We have county libraries that give no rural service because the county commissioners do not understand mobile service and will not appropriate for it; we have county libraries that give such meager service that I doubt that they will expand at all within the next 50 years without some kind of external stimulation; and 9 of Maryland's 23 counties do nothing whatever for their rural readers, most of them being entirely too small to begin.

Where the rural library has been begun on a scale large enough to permit the members of its staff to do the job they were trained to do it has flourished. It has been said that real education begins where schooling leaves off, and rural America recognizes and uses and values the opportunities for real education that the library offers. The library services bill will encourage these opportunities to be used where they have hitherto been poorly developed or entirely unknown. Mr. TACKETT. Mr. Howell?

Mr. HOWELL. I do not believe I have any questions.

Mr. TACKETT. Mr. Greenwood.

Mr. GREENWOOD. Off the record.

(Off the record.)

Mr. TACKETT. Thank you, Mrs. Ditman.

Mr. DERRICKSON. Charles Mohrhardt.

STATEMENT OF CHARLES M. MOHRHARDT, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, DETROIT PUBLIC LIBRARY, DETROIT, MICH.

Mr. MOHRHARDT. Gentlemen, I am very happy to appear here this morning. My name is Charles M. Mohrhardt and I am the associate director of the Detroit Public Library. I have been a professional librarian for 24 years and represent a large public library which will