Letters, prepared statements, articles, etc.—Continued Page North, Robert, Buffalo, N. Y., Library, with data supplied by L. M. Oboler, E. M., past president, Idaho Library Association - - Operating expenditures per capita for local library service.. 9 Price, P. P., State librarian, State of Missouri --- Public Library Services in Rural Areas, chapter dealing with, from Educational Issues of Concern to the 84th Congress - - - Reed, A. L., Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Reid, deLafayette, acting assistant State librarian, Illinois State Rennie, J. G., director, Department of Budget, State of Maryland- Schuckman, Fred A., director of budget, State of Connecticut- Sherwood, Grace M., librarian, Rhode Island State Library. Shivers, Hon. Allan, Governor of the State of Texas - - Simpson, Evelyn, president, Arkansas Library Association - Simpson, Hon. M. L., Governor of the State of Wyoming - Status of public library service, 1954, revised (table), Stoffel, L. L., president, Pennsylvania Library Association. Strand, F. A., field secretary, South Dakota Education Association - - Stromdahl, J. E., president, Massachusetts Library Association----- Sutherland, M. M., assistant director of the budget, Commonwealth Tarbox, M. L., president, New York Library Association-- Those Who Help Themselves, editorial from the Indianapolis Star- 247 78 7 240 232 260 Van Gorder, Dorothy, president, New Jersey Library Association.. Vaughan, D. M., president, New Hampshire Library Association_ Walker, E. P., secretary, South Carolina Library Board -- Wallace, Mrs. G. R., president, Massachusetts Library Trustees Walton, Virginia, president, Montana State Library Association -- Wilcoxon, J. M., director, Department of Finance, State of Ohio - Williams, Clarica, president, Kentucky Library Association - Young, Hon. Cliff, a Representative in Congress from the State of 8 The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10 a. m., in room 429, House Office Building, Hon. Phil M. Landrum (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Present: Representatives Landrum, Metcalf, Green, and Coon. Present also: Fred G. Hussey, chief clerk; John O. Graham, minority clerk; Edward A. McCabe, chief counsel; Russell C. Derrickson, chief investigator. Mr. LANDRUM. The committee will come to order. This committee was constituted and is assembled for the purpose of hearing parties at interest in bills proposing to establish and render Federal assistance to rural public libraries. There are two other members of the committee not now present who are, for a few minutes, detained in other committees, Mr. Metcalf of Montana and Mrs. Green of Oregon. But, with the agreement of the chairman and Mr. Coon of Oregon, we have decided to go ahead with the hearings now, and the other members will come in. The first gentleman to testify this morning is a Member of Congress, Hon. Frank E. Smith of Mississippi. Mr. Smith, will you proceed. STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK E. SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to express my very strong interest in this legislation that you have before you. I don't have any brief for any particular bill or any pattern in the legislation other than generally proposed in the so-called library services bill which has been introduced by a number of Members of Congress. I think that this program, if this committee would initiate it, could be one of the best investments in Federal funds or in Government initiative that we could make at this time. There would be no great cost to our Government, and it would enable the coordination of the program where local interests, in the main, have virtually exhausted the potential resources unless there is some sort of spurring in the form of the library services aid that would be available to the States under this program. 1 As a supplement to this brief statement, Mr. Chairman, I would like to submit for the record a letter which I received from the Mississippi Library Association, which recounts briefly the activities in Mississippi in library work in recent years, and points up the need for the impetus of this library services program that has been proposed to be carried on by the Federal Government. Mr. LANDRUM. Is there objection to the letter being made a part of the record. (There was no response.) Mr. LANDRUM. Very well, it will be made a part of the record. Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much. Mr. LANDRUM. Thank you, Congressman Smith. (The letter referred to follows:) MISSISSIPPI LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, Raymond, Miss., May 19, 1955. Hon. FRANK E. SMITH, House of Representatives, Washington 25, D. C. DEAR MR. SMITH: We need the Library Services Bill. There are 1,218,951 people in Mississippi without even a semblance of public library service. There are 272,439 whose libraries are so inadequately supported that they cannot be called real libraries. But we have been trying to do something about this. In 1949 we spent, at the local level, only $306,659.40 for public libraries. In 1954 we spent $672,483.69. In many sections of the State we have done the best we can. In those places it will mean real library service where it has been financially impossible to make it good. Where we have not made sufficient local effort we assure you that these funds will be used only after we have done our own best. Seven years ago this association, working in close cooperation with the Mississippi Library Commission, the State Department of Education and the University of Mississippi, worked out a sound plan for economical, practical library development throughout the State. Since that time, at every level, we have been working as an association and as individual librarians to implement that plan. This library services bill would accelerate that which is already more than an idea on paper-it is a moving program. We are aware of the terminal point of this legislation and pledge ourselves to build soundly so that what we achieve under its provisions will have lasting results. We will use it to build stronger libraries where weak ones now exist and make it possible for our present strong libraries to extend their services to the million people in Mississippi without books to read. Fully aware are we of the professional, educational, and social responsibility for the welfare of all our people. This will give us the means to live up to what we know that responsibility to be. We need the Library Services Bill. And we ask your support of it, we pledge ourselves to a wise and frugal use of its funds. We have much practice in stretching funds and getting the most out of the all-too-scarce library dollar. We hope that Congressmen from other parts of the United States will regard this as an investment that will yield returns in the higher educational standards of all of our people; that they will know that we are making efforts to provide service for ourselves and that we view the expending of such funds as this bill will provide as a trust; that we know wherein we have fallen down on our local responsibility and we are determined to work even harder to see that we do our part. We are not very proud of our position at the bottom of the educational ladder but we have the energy and the will to climb up; this library services bill will be a helpful and vital push. Sincerely yours, MANIE L. BERRY, President. Mr. LANDRUM. I believe the next gentleman to be heard is a member of the full Committee on Education and Labor, Congressman Carl Elliott, of Alabama. Mr. Elliott, we will be glad to hear from you. STATEMENT OF HON. CARL ELLIOTT, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ALABAMA Mr. ELLIOTT. Mr. Chairman Landrum, I want to thank you and the members of your subcommittee for the opportunity to appear before you this first morning of your hearings in support of my bill, H. R. 2971, to aid the rural libraries of the United States. I want to talk to you about libraries in our rural areas and the service they render to rural people. The lack of adequate libraries is not a local problem, but one that is nationwide. Statistics gathered in 1954 show that nearly 27 million persons in our country do not have access to public library service. An uncounted number of those with access to public libraries have inadequate service, particularly in rural areas. In my own State of Alabama, 51 of the 67 counties fall wholly within my bill's definition of "rural," and part of the other 16 fall within it. Nearly one-third of the people of Alabama have no library service. Another third of them have inadequate service. Books, plus an effective means of getting them to the people, are desparately needed. I represent perhaps one of the most rural districts in the United States. Its largest town has a population of only 8,000. It is a wide, broad area of fine rural people, eager to learn more about America and about the world. There are two bookmobiles serving three of the counties of the district. One other county takes out books by car or truck and leaves them at certain designated locations. The other counties have no service except the small libraries in the towns. These libraries are usually open only at certain hours during the week. Last month, April 13 to be exact, I had the pleasure of making a 1-day trip with the Cullman-Winston Regional Library's bookmobile in Winston County, Ala. It is a most moving experience to see the people await the bookmobile's coming. They are of every age and all sorts of educational backgrounds. Men, women, and children came, asking for everything from purely recreational reading to informational material on Sunday school lessons, nature study, sewing, local and national history, travel, and many other subjects. One stop was by the roadside, but with no residence or store in sight. Yet, almost as soon as the bookmobile stopped beside a path leading up a steep railroad bank, 6 or 8 people returning armloads of books appeared at the top of the bank. Other stops included schools, stores, and small towns. At one stop the county commissioner for the district appeared to tell the bookmobile librarian and her driver that they should take an alternative route to their next stop because of some road construction on their regular route. Then he stepped into the bookmobile to recommend a book he had especially enjoyed to another bookmobile patron. These people have worked hard for their library service. They have raised funds in some cases by public subscription for the purchase of their bookmobiles. They are supporting their library to the best of their ability. They need more books. In Pickens, one of the counties in the district I represent, the first public library has just been opened. This is the result of a number of years of unremitting work by one of the women's clubs of the community. With the aid of the State's library agency and with generous response from the officials and citizens of the town, they now have the good but small beginnings of real library service. A little help will go a long way towards expanding this into countywide service. The spirit of cooperation among the people in rural areas who are interested in library service is another thing that is inspiring to witness. Citizens in the sparsely populated areas are willing to cooperate with other areas and pool their limited resources in order to get better and more economical library service. To my mind, the money thus spent for public libraries is the most efficient and economical expenditure of public funds that I know of. No other public service, I believe, gives so much to so many for so little. For instance, in Alabama last year we circulated 1,400,000 books, over 5 million times to 2,169,242 people for a per capita expenditure of 27 cents. This included all local as well as State appropriations for public libraries. The local appropriations for libraries are increasing steadily but the demands for services are increasing far more rapidly. As a matter of fact, the need for library service is growing so rapidly at the present time that I have been happy to see, as I am sure perhaps some members of this subcommittee, that the women's home demonstration clubs in the rural communities of my State are undertaking, many, many of them, to sponsor local, unaffiliated libraries for their communities. And these libraries, if we had the service that the bills before you would provide if those bills were enacted, these very local small libraries could be tied into the general public library system, and the small libraries could get books from the central storehouse of books and be much, much more efficient themselves than they now are. The life of my bill is limited to 5 years. Over the period of that 5 years it will cost each year exactly what it would cost to buy every man, woman, and child in the United States a pack of chewing gum. It is believed that if we enact this bill it will have the effect of so stimulating the States to continue with a progressive library program that they will themselves be willing and able at the end of 5 years to continue the program which has been set up. The bill properly leaves with the State library agency the formulation of the plans, the selection of the books, the directing of the library demonstrations, in short, the execution of the program. Someone has said: "Life's first danger is an empty mind." In answer to that, we in America may be too prone to say, "We live in the strongest nation on earth; we are building houses at the fastest rate in history; we own more automobiles than any other people; we have conquered the airways; we have broken the barrier of sound; we have cracked the atom.” |