Raleigh, July 10—North Carolina may pride itself on its culture, but if the amount of book reading done in the state, as judged from the small number of public libraries and the meagre number of books contained in them, is any indication of this culture, it cannot be very extensive, judging from the comparative figures on books, libraries and book reading given in the current issue of the North Carolina library bulletin, published by the North Carolina library commission, which is just off the press.
To begin with, North Carolinians spend very little on books for the people of the state to read. While $36,614,483 are spent in the United States as a whole on books for public libraries each year, or an average of 32 cents for each person, the expenditure in North Carolina is at the rate of but 4 cents a person, or only $111,024 yearly. This is less than the cost of one copy of a newspaper for a year’s reading per person.
Then out of a total of 6,516 libraries in the United States, North Carolina has but 32 tax supported libraries, although there are 37 more library associations, making a total of only 69 public libraries for the entire state, which contain 1,150,398 volumes this sounds pretty good by itself, but when reduced to books per capita, it is found that it amounts to but 1 ½ books per person. Only 12 counties in the state contribute public funds toward library service, out of a total of 100 counties.
Especially among the negroes is library service lacking, for while there are 58 public libraries in the south for negroes, there are only three in tis state to serve 28,268 negro readers.
The State Library Commission, however, is doing much to correct these conditions and last year circulated more than 9,000 volumes.
From the front page of the Concord Daily Tribune, Saturday, July 10, 1926
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn92073201/1926-07-10/ed-1/seq-1/
No comments:
Post a Comment