has over 10 percent of its population not served in any way by public libraries, a fifth of its 121 public libraries with yearly budgets of under $500, and 82 with incomes of under $10,000. Oregon has 16 of its 36 counties spending less than 50 cents per capita for library service. Over 300,000 Oregonians have no local public library service at all. Viewing the library picture in Idaho and Montana gives even more justification for hope that the library services bill will be approved by the United States Senate. Idaho, 12th largest State, finds its 600,000 people with only 75 public libraries, practically all in urban areas. The five-sixths of Idaho's population which lives in communities of under 10,000 people would get inestimable benefits from the carrying out of the terms of the library services bill. Montana, like Idaho, has a highly scattered population, in great part rural, which is now not being given anything like adequate library service. Recently the Pacific Northwest Library Association was granted a $60,000 fund by the Ford Foundation which will enable us, for the first time, to have a complete and coordinated presentation of the library situation of the Pacific Northwest. The survey goes into operation July 1, and will be completed within 2 years. If the library services bill is passed by this Congress, the Pacific Northwest will be in a position to use the funds granted under this bill to the best possible advantage, since there will be a complete picture of the library situation available which will permit each State to think in terms not only of its own area, but in terms of the region, when carrying out the terms of the bill. Once again, may I earnestly request that due consideration be given to the urban needs of the book-hungry people of the Pacific Northwest. Here where population pressures are just beginning to develop and where the eduactional and cultural needs of the people could be well served by good library services, we need the kind of help that the library services bill could give us. LAKE CITY, FLA., May 11, 1956. Hon. GEORGE SMATHERS, United States Senate, Washington, D. C. DEAR SENATOR SMATHERS: Several years ago, I was active in my home State, Florida, as a librarian. My work in school, public, and university libraries at that time was augmented by my experiences as an officer in the Florida Education Association and the Florida Library Association. We are temporarily located here due to my husband's assignment by the United States Air Force, but our permanent address and voting registration remain in our home State. Because of my firsthand knowledge of library facilities in Florida, I feel compelled to write you concerning H. R. 2840, which passed the House of Representatives on May 8. In my opinion the library services bill would provide needed impetus to public library development in Florida. It is not necessary to explain to a person so well educated as yourself the educational and recreational opportunities offered by libraries. However, you will probably agree with me that an aggressive library program in a community supplements the public school programs by providing continuity, the fountainhead for the thirsty who want to know more. The library offers services to pre-school-age children, adult groups and our expanding retired age people who are not in the formal education groups. Services to industry and vocations make for economic advancement. Florida's deficiency in the number of libraries is magnified by her rapid growth in population which the State continues to have. Our public library service is very inedequate. In many portions of the State it is nonexistent. With an excellent School of Library Training and Service at Florida State University to train librarians, the greatest need is to establish more libraries and expand facilities of those now in existence. The amount of Federal funds required by bill H. R. 2840 is a small investment which will net large dividends for a better informed citizenry of the future. Sincerely, MARJORIE P. WRIGHT. GLEN ELLYN, ILL., May 23, 1956. Senator JAMES E. MURRAY, Chairman, Education Subcommittee, United States Senate: The Catholic Library Association respectfully request your committee to see fit to approve library services bill, S. 205. REV. VINCENT MALLON, Senator JAMES E. MURRAY, NEW HAVEN STATE TEACHER'S COLLEGE, Chairman of the Education Subcommittee, United States Senate, Washington, D. C. DEAR SENATOR MURRAY: The Connecticut Library Association representing 738 librarians would appreciate your including the following statement in the testimony on the library service bill, S. 205. Passage of the library services bill would help correct existing inequalities in library services in rural areas throughout the United States. Rural citizens are even more dependent on libraries for books and information than are those in urban areas who have access to more sources of information. In Connecticut, passage of the bill would help 8 rural towns without any library service and 114 towns with inadequate library service. The Connecticut Library Association urgently requests a favorable report on Senate bill 205. Sincerely yours, ALICE B. THOMPSON, Federal Coordinator for the Connecticut Library Association. WASHINGTON, D. C., May 22, 1956. Senator JAMES E. MURRAY, Chairman, Education Subcommittee, Labor and Public Welfare Committee, Senate Office Building, Washington, D. C.: We should like to go on record as favoring library services bill, S. 205, scheduled for hearings Wednesday morning, May 23. Complete lack of needed library service in some rural areas and the utterly inadequate service in others has been a matter of serious and continuing concern of the division of libraries for children and young people. The need for an informed citizenry in a democracy is basic. Availability of public libraries is an important means of attaining it. The provisions of this bill will make it possible to demonstrate effective library service and will be a significant step forward in the achievement of minimum standards for all. MAXINE LABOUNTY, President, Division of Libraries for Children and Young People, American Library Association. GREAT FALLS, MONT., May 22, 1956. Senator JAMES E. MURRAY, Chairman, Education Subcommittee, Senate Labor and Public Welfare Committee: Urge early and favorable action in behalf of S. 205. Mrs. ALMA S. JACOBS, "OPERATION LIBRARY," Hon. LISTER HILL, United States Senate, West Memphis, Ark., May 21, 1956. Senate Office Building, Washington, D. C. DEAR SENATOR HILL: It is my understanding that the library services bill will be scheduled for hearings before the Education Subcommittee this week. Of course you are familiar with the progress we are making here in Arkansas with the project of the junior chamber of commerce called Operation Library. A merit citation was awarded the State Jaycees early this month for initiating this project. The award was presented by Arkansas' Gov. Orval M. Faubus. We have found that it is exceedingly difficult to extend library service in those counties where no facilities exist at present due to the educational angle. They simply do not realize the advantages that adequate library facilities afford each individual. Will you kindly point out to the subcommittee during the hearings that this situation exists, and can be remedied by the practical approach offered by the library services bill? And that this is not a guess, but a result of practical experience of a lay group working without compensation to assist in the extension of library facilities? Our national project proposal will be presented to the United States Junior Chamber of Commerce for adoption in July. If the library bill is passed by that time it will be an added incentive for the Jaycees to spearhead an additional movement to create maximum community support. Chairman, Education Subcommittee of the DEAR SIR: For a number of reasons I am impelled to send you a statement about the library services bill. Our public library system is an integral part of American education; as a resource for both practical and liberal learning, it puts a floor under many of our most important educational enterprises. In a system of equal opportunity it is important that all our citizens, those living in rural communities and small towns as well as elsewhere, have good access to the materials of knowledge and better understanding. The problems facing us today are no smaller on the farm or in the village than they are in the metropolis. The number of counties without library service or with inadequate service indicates that we have not taken this fact into account. Education is a lifelong process. It continues beyond grade school, beyond high school, and beyond college. This process is sometimes called adult education. But although there are many adult education programs throughout the country, not many appear in rural areas. To operate most effectively, such programs depend upon materials available chiefly through public library service. It can be said in part that in rural areas where citizens are accustomed to using their own initiative and self-help, public library service is or may become in itself an effective form of adult education. Where the opportunity for such self-education is not available, we should see that it is made possible through a more widespread and adequate library service. The library services bill offers not Federal control but an incentive for States and local communities to improve their educational resources. Ohio is often accounted a comparatively rich State, primarily industrial. Yet 85 percent of its total area is in farm land. We have a number of excellent county and metropolitan public libraries, and we have a fine. State library. Yet.44 counties, exactly half of those in the State, have an income for library services of less than $1 per capita, and of these, 15 have less than 50 cents per capita. A study by the American Library Association shows that minimum public library service requires $1.50 per capita income. The library services bill rightly puts the burden of effort to improve and extend library services on the State library agency and the local communities. Librarians assure me that the bill would make possible more books, an increased personnel, possibly regional or multicounty libraries--all resulting in much broader and more adequate rural service. I respectfully urge your support of the library services bill. Sincerely yours, SAMUEL B. GOULD, President. AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, Senator JAMES E. MUBRAY, Chairman of the Education Subcommitee of the Senate Labor and Public Welfare Committee, DEAR SENATOR MURRAY: I am informed that S. 205, the library services bill, is scheduled for hearings Wednesday morning, May 23, before the Education Subcommittee of the Senate Labor and Public Welfare Committee. Since I will not be present for the hearings but am anxious to have my statement made a part of the records of the hearings I am enclosing it along with this request for its inclusion. Your personal support of this piece of legislation will be appreciated by public librarians and rural residents throughout our Nation. Sincerely yours, MILDRED W. SANDOE, President, Public Libraries Division, American Library Association. STATEMENT OF MILDRED W. SANDOE The public libraries division of the American Library Association, an organization numbering some 6,000 of the public library workers of the country, wishes to emphasize its interest in and its hope for passage of Senate bill 205. I, its president, am at present associated with a large city and county library system, the public library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, but it has been only a few years since I was at work as the field representative of the Ohio State Library. I know therefore, at first hand something about the 27 million people in the United States who are without access to local public library service, for some of them live in Ohio. In fact only since last October have the 50-oddthousand residents of Clermont County, the county to the east of ours, had public-library service of any shape, form, or description. Even now, one small bookmobile is striving to be all things to those people, the information source for the small-business man and the farmer, the source of nontext book information for the teachers and pupils of the county, and an introduction to the best in literature for all the children and adults of the county. And those 50,000 knowledge and inspiration-starved people are lapping up the service offered them. Nor is this the only county in Ohio where library service is almost nonexistent. In county after county, too little money is available with which to build an adequate public-service institution. In fact, in county after county, per capita support for library service runs 11 cents, 25 cents, 48 cents, 31 cents, 36 cents, etc.. when it has been determined that support of at least $1.50 per capita is required to render "minimum" public library service. If the 27 million bookless, filmless, library-less people in this country of ours are to be given the basic educational advantages that are the inate right of all our citizens, a stimulating fund such as is being proposed must start and demonstrate what a little money spent wisely can do toward making accessible the sources of information upon which sound judgments and wise actions must be based. Once before, the Federal Government gave such services a shot in the arm. States which used WPA assistance wisely expanded library service into new areas and greatly improved existing facilities. As a result of this demonstration, new local and State support was voted or granted to continue or further expand the services begun. If S. 205 is passed, I am confident that before 5 years have passed, local and State governments will be voting more money to serve more people--and our citizens of the future will, as a result, be wiser and better men and women. The public libraries division of the American Library Association asks for passage of Senate bill 205. ASSOCIATION FOR CHILDHOOD EDUCATION INTERNATIONAL, Hon. JAMES E. MURRAY, United States Senate, Washington, D. C. DEAR SENATOR MURRAY: I write about the library services bill, S. 205, scheduled for Senate hearings Wednesday, May 23. Miss Hamilton, the executive secretary of the Association for Childhood Education International, has made the following statement supporting this bill: "We believe that children grow, learn, change, and develop each in his own way and that public libraries are vital in the kind of environment which will promote the optimum growth of children. We believe that experiences are basic to the learnings of children and that materials accessible to and properly used by them contribute to their living and learning. Public libraries through the services they render to children can provide many of the experiences which are important to the satisfactory development of children." I should like to request for her that it be made a part of the record of the hearings. Thank you. Sincerely, RUTH JEFFERSON, Associate Secretary. LAWRENCE, KANS., May 21, 1956. JAMES E. MURRAY Chairman, Education Subcommittee, Senate Labor and Public Welfare Commitee; Senate Office Building, Washington, D. C.: Association College and Reference Libraries, national professional organization representing 5,000 American academic librarians, respectfully urges favorable consideration of library services bill. The youngsters coming into colleges and universities from communities with adequate modern library service are better able to take full advantage of their college education. Extension of this library opportunity to young people in rural areas important to American program equal educational opportunity for all. Library services bill well designed for this purpose. ROBERT VOSPER, President, ACRL, Care the University of Kansas Library. Senator JAMES E. MURRAY, GLENVIEW, KY., May 22, 1956. Chairman, Education Subcommittee, Senate Office Building: I hope very much that you and the members of your committee will report out favorably library services bill S. 205. The bill is of tremendous moment to all of us in Kentucky and in other States with large rural populations who have been working for the extention of library services to the very great numbers of people who do not now have them. Sincerely yours, Mrs. BARRY BINGHAM. Senator GORDON ALLOTT, Washington, D. O. FAIRPLAY, COLO., January 25, 1956. DEAR SIR: It has been brought to my attention that the bill S. 205, concerning financial aid to libraries may be in danger of being overlooked as unimportant. For the first time in well over 50 years of my life, I am writing to a Senator. I am advised that letters like this are actually read, and the recipient is impressed by a long list of cogent arguments. Hmm. If you don't know what a measure of this sort can mean in Colorado, especially for those of us who live in the less densely populated sections, you are lamentably unacquainted with local people. Even among the ranchers, there are not a few who are interested in other matters besides the price of beef. And we will be watching the course of this bill in Congress. Very truly yours, JOHN HERTEL. |