We feel that the Federal funds which will be made available under this act will stimulate library development nationally in a way that could never be done without this Federal assistance.

We in Louisiana are enthusiastic about this legislation because it does have a definite terminal point. That, of course, has been reiterated this morning and it is terribly significant, I think.

In Louisiana our State grants to parishes are discontinued at the end of 1 year. Under this legislation, Federal funds would cease at the end of the 5-year period. It would be up to each State to make the best of these grants for the 5-year term. And I do think we are ready for it.

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 services bill for these specific reasons: We sincerely believe that the expanded 5-year program 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 in Louisiana 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, as Mrs. Moore showed you so graphically on the map.

We are glad, too, that under the act each State library agency will have complete 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.

So often when we are considering appropriations for hospitals, schools, or libraries we lose sight of the individual who will profit from these services. I am thinking now about a young 14-year-old boy living in a rural community without a library who, several weeks ago, walked wide eyed into our State library and said, "You mean I can borrow any of these books?"

He went home 25 miles from the State capital with books on pioneering in the West and books on the War Between the States under his arm, happy, tremendously happy in his discovery of the wonderful world of books.

Testimonials such as these explain why librarians, trustees, civic, education, veterans, and farm organizations and library-minded citizens throughout our country are supporting the library services bill. They also are a reason for the bipartisan support this legislation has. And may I read just a few brief testimonials to you.

I do not have the means to go on to college, but, thanks to the library, that cannot keep me from bettering my education.

Another one:

I passed the exam for citizenship, thanks to you for sending the right kind of books for me to read. They really did help me a lot.

Another :

I want to thank you for your kind cooperation in lending me books which have finally enabled me to establish a growing typing and mimeographing business I operate in my home.

And, finally I like this one:

I feel that I'm the richest woman in the world since finding the library.

I remember several months ago a priest who was appealing to a local governing body for funds for a demonstration library in south Louisiana said to the members of this body:

Gentlemen, if this library brings out greatness in but one of your children it will be a good investment.

And, in conclusion, may I say that I agree with the priest, that the expenditures which the library services bill calls for would be a good and sound 5-year investment of public funds. The dividends-in a better informed and enriched citizenry, resulting from an accelerated extension program throughout rural America—will more than justify the cost to our Government.

Thank you very much.

Mr. LANDRUM. Thank you, Miss Farrell.

Miss FARRELL. I wonder, Mr. Chairman, if I might file an article that appeared in a recent issue of the Wilson Libary Bulletin entitled "How To Build a Fire." It is about bookmobile service in Arizona. Would that be permissible?

Mr. LANDRUM. We will be glad to receive that for the files.

(The supplemental information furnished by the witness was accepted by the committee, and is available for reference.)

Do you have any questions, Mr. Metcalf?

Mr. METCALF. Mr. Chairman, the witness has anticipated all my questions. So I have none.

Mr. LANDRUM. Mrs. Green?
Mrs. GREEN. No questions.
Mr. LANDRUM. Mr. Coon?
Mr. Coon. No questions.

Mr. LANDRUM. Miss Farrell, we thank you for your delightful statement. We appreciate your coming.

I would like to ask one or two questions myself.

You are an employee of the State of Louisiana; is that right?

Miss FARRELL. Yes.

Mr. LANDRUM. And you work out of the State capitol?

Miss FARRELL. Yes. I travel all over the State.

Mr. LANDRUM. And you have come here as a representative of the State government and the Division of Louisiana State Library Service Is that correct?

Miss FARRELL. That is right.

Mr. LANDRUM. That is all. Thank you.

Miss FARRELL. Thank you very much.

Mr. LANDRUM. The next witness is Miss Frances Hamilton. You may proceed, Miss Hamilton.

STATEMENT OF FRANCES HAMILTON, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY, ASSOCIATION FOR CHILDHOOD EDUCATION INTERNATIONAL, WASHINGTON, D. C.

Miss HAMILTON. Mr. Chairman, Mrs. Green, and members of the committee, I am Frances Hamilton, the executive secretary of the Association for Childhood Education International.

The purposes of the association are to work for education and the well-being of children through all media that are possible. The association includes 80,000 members, many of whom are teachers; others are librarians, many are parents, and all are concerned with children. I am appearing here today for this association in support of the library services bill to promote the further development of public library service in rural areas.

As an association, our members, each 2 years, prepare for the future 2 years a plan of action. Over the period of time in which this has been the practice each plan of action has stated the need to work for further and greater facilities for the broad social and cultural development of children.

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 their learning, and that materials accessible to and properly used by children contribute to their living and learning.

Public libraries, through the services they render to children, can provide many of the experiences that are important to their satisfactory development.

We are grateful that in many communities children enjoy library experiences. Other children, some of whom live in rural areas, are less fortunate. While appropriate materials are available, many places for children's use, some of them have no opportunities to use them. In some communities there is still inadequate provision for the use of children's leisure time. Many agencies strive for it; many kinds of experiences present themselves; not all are worthwhile learning experiences.

Library extension as an opportunity would make many children able to use leisure time wisely.

We feel that we must all continue to work so that all children may have library resources available to them for work, for study and for pleasure. The provisions in the bills which you will consider would make possible the extension of public library services to children in small towns, villages, and farming communities where those services are not now available or where, at most, they are inadequate.

The association urges the passage of the library services legislation you have before you so that all children may have ready access to books and to the happiness, the satisfaction, and the wisdom to be found in them.

That is all of my prepared statement, but I would like to add this, that, in addition to representing an association of a large number of people who share this concern, I am not from Arkansas, not from Oregon, but I am from Missouri. And I suppose it is because of that that I was particularly intrigued with what has happened in one com

munity that shows the value of books and shows also what the efforts of other interested citizens will do, although Andrew Carnegie was not able to extend himself far enough to reach the small town of Buffalo, Mo.

The library was one that had some books that had been published since 1930. Most of them had been in the under-a-dollar list that came from a supply house. Most of them had no great literary value. A citizen from one of the larger Missouri cities thought that he might be able to do something about it.

So, in small quantities, he placed in the school library good books for children. The good books for children were handled with a kind of care that none of the under-a-dollar books or before-1930 books had been. And the school library extended not its walls but its use to the whole community.

A very noticeable change has taken place there in the reading level, in the reading interest, in the cultural outlook of that community.

We think it important that towns smaller than Buffalo, the crossroads that are scarcely noticeable on the map, be supplied with library service. To perform miracles? Yes, I think for our children. Also for the adults that they know they will become in the future.

I hope that, now that we have recognized that libraries do not have to be built entirely of marble and stone and for the ages but that bookmobiles increase the flexibility of the library and the opportunities that are available, that the library services bill will be passed so that every possible means of making books, of making learning more expressible will be used.

Thank you.

Mr. LANDRUM. Thank you, Miss Hamilton.

Next is Mrs. Kay B. Moore, of Whortonsville, N. C.
Is that correct?

STATEMENT OF MRS. KAY B. MOORE, WHORTONSVILLE, N. C.

Mrs. MOORE. It is now, but it was originally the State of Georgia. Mr. LANDRUM. Why anyone would move from Savannah, Ga., to Whortonsville I don't know.

Mrs. MOORE. You haven't seen Pamlico Sound. It is even prettier than Puget Sound.

I resent all the stories you have been telling on the farmers because I am a farmer, and my stories are on fishermen.

I live on a farm in Pamlico County, N. C. Pamlico County lies on the eastern coast of North Carolina, and is a strictly rural county of approximately 10,000 people. We have no industries, no drugstore, no magazine stands, no department stores, no libraries, and our distances between communities and homes are great. Our largest community has about 500 people, and the nearest town of any size to my farm is New Bern, N. C., which is about 35 miles away. We have only a few school libraries, all inadequate, and they are for schoolchildren only.

They are so inadequate my child came home from school one day and said:

Mammy, I wish you would go and see the school books we have down there. They are so old they are collectors' items.

In 1949, through the initiative and help of the New Bern Library and the library_commission of Raleigh, N. C., a bookmobile service was sent into Pamlico County. This bookmobile operates in two counties, Craven and Pamlico. Since there are 100 widely scattered stops in these two counties it is impossible to visit each of these more than once a month. The bookmobile stops are at people's homes, grocery stores, crossroads, county schools-in fact, anywhere that people can gather. Every effort has been made to arrange for stops so that these people do not have to walk or row a boat more than a mile and a half.

Personally, I was so grateful for the bookmobile that I volunteered my services, and for the past 5 years I have been working as an assistant without pay on the bookmobile when it was operating in Pamlico County, which amounts to 2 weeks in each month.

When the bookmobile first came into Pamlico County most of the people were suspicious and wanted to know what is a bookmobile. And when it was explained that a bookmobile was a library on wheels they were still in doubt about what use it would serve, since probably none of them had ever been inside of a library in their entire lives. They wanted to know what it would cost them to get books from the bookmobile, and when they were told that the bookmobile services were free they culd hardly believe it.

So from that small beginning in 1949 we put out in Pamlico County last year more than 25,000 books, all of which were read, enjoyed, and then returned to the bookmobile.

Not only does our bookmobile supply books to individuals, but it furnishes books to the schools for required reading. We supply fishermen who fish the water of Pamlico Sound with books which they take to sea with them. We supply every community in the county and are reaching into every farmhouse in the county, but we do only a portion of what we could do if we had more books.

We, frankly, are out of books. We allow the children now, today, two books per month to read. When we give books to the schools, we will say a class that has 50 students in it, we only can give them 25 books. We just don't have enough books to go around. And our bookmobile, unfortunately, is falling apart. We have got it wired together with bailing wire to keep it together, and we are pushing it through as best we can. But now we need help.

The people of Pamlico County are hungry for reading material and are hungry to learn. They want to know more about music, painting, history and science, and the bookmobile supplies the only contact with this sort of culture today. Particularly because of interest generated by books from the bookmobile, we have recently, this last year, organized 2 Boy Scout troops and 1 Girl Scout troop. Our county has difficulty in meeting all the demands that are made upon it for the usual governmental services. Yet it has been able to squeeze $600 a year to help defray the expenses of the bookmobile out of a very tight budget. We now need help in North Carolina. We need more books for we do not have enough to meet the demands made upon us. We need newer and better bookmobiles. We are unable to even continue the services we have been giving in the past without additional funds.