“The State and the Rural Library” by Marjorie Beal, secretary and director of the North Carolina Library Commission, Raleigh; presented at the New York Library Association conference in Rochester, September, 1944, as published in the Wilson Library Bulletin, January 1945.
People are being born, growing up, and living all their lives without the privilege of libraries or opportunity to read good books! The rural sections shoulder the responsibility of educating their children, and then the young people move into the towns and cities. One means of keeping rural people contented and informed is the county library. And by the county library is not meant a library located in the county seat or in the largest city and used by those students who can visit it during the limited hours it is open. By a county or by a regional library—several counties contracting together—is meant a live, up-to-date collection of books with some way of moving them about so everyone may have books near at home and may select those books he wishes to read. It’s a simple plan, and it works.
The state-financed nine-months’ school of 12 grades receives local supplementing funds in the cities; in many areas, however, the state support makes possible such schooling as has never before been known. The county is an important governmental unit, and counties number 100. Cotton, tobacco, and corn are the principal agricultural products, but potatoes—Irish and sweet, cabbages, peaches, strawberries are now bringing good returns from northern markets.
Mules and a few tractors are used on the farms, and occasionally one meets on the road a big-wheeled ox cart drawn by one or two oxen. Adding contrast to agriculture are cotton mills, lumber mills, and the only plant in the United States to manufacture cigarette papers. Farm homes in North Carolina are larger than the barns, and many have no cellars. Of the three and one-half million people about 900,000 or approximately one forth are Negroes. Separate schools and separate library service must be maintained for the whites and the Negroes—for North Carolina is that state between Virginia and South Carolina. The Cherokee Indian Reservation is in the western section, and in the east are settlements of Indians. In one county a movie theater has three doors and three separate seatings—one for the Negroes, one for the Indians, and one for the whites. The state and the federal government have acquired large tracts of land in North Carolina. Submarginal land located in the extreme east and west add to the problem of taxation and living conditions.
A Rural State
North Carolina is a rural state, and the rural people are its backbone. Until recently library service was none too good, 68 per cent of the people did not have public library service when in 1927 the Citizens Library Movement was started to wage a battle against ignorance and indifference. But in North Carolina we didn’t begin by talking about “library service,” nor do we talk about it very often now. We talk about “books and reading.” That is what the people want—books to read. The mechanics of obtaining this service comes as a secondary interest. That “we” includes leaders like Dr. Frank Graham, president of the university, officers and members of every club and organization in the state. Providing books and reading is today everybody’s concern. Governor Broughton has stated publicly that the library development with State Aid for Public Libraries has been one of the outstanding achievements of the state in recent years. Every publication and organ has carried library information. The university news letter has devoted several entire issues to the public library. College and school libraries have realized that more books and more reading in the homes mean better students. The radio and the newspapers have given time and space, but the most effective news stories have been those written locally. One year a news woman working with the North Carolina Library Commission wrote good library publicity which was sent to every paper. Her splendid stories weren’t read as much as the articles written by the local librarians. Most libraries opened their doors and offered free service to the people who lived outside the locality.
No one would wish to see a return to the distressing period when WPA projects were necessary. North Carolina benefited by a good WPA library project in charge of an efficient and competent trained and experienced librarian. Libraries were started in many counties, and bookmobiles and books were purchased for demonstrations. A few of the libraries so created have closed, less than six; ten of the bookmobiles and all the books are in use.
No “Good Time”
There isn’t such a thing as “a good time to start a library,” nor is there ever a good time to request state aid. North Carolina tried and then tried again. In 1937 the first request was made to the North Carolina General Assembly for State Aid for Public Libraries. The bill was passed, but all appropriation was stricken out. In 1939 a second request was made. Each time additional legislators were aware of the need in their communities; each time libraries gained friends. In 1941 there were three forces to help: there was a library plank in the Democratic platform, a governor who had been a library trustee for 22 years, and a valuable friend of the library movement who visited each elected legislator between November and January. When the session convened, all pushed the request to a successful vote. For each year of the biennium $100,000 was voted; and this was increased in 1943 to $125,000 for each year.
Distribution
Then arose the problem of distribution. The bill as written included the phrase “for the whole State.” The Library Commission Board was authorized and empowered to allocate the funds. Each of the 100 counties was offered an equal amount whether it was a large or small county, a rich or poor county. Each county cooperating must appropriate funds for county library service and present a plan for such service. The first year, 76 counties shared in the fund; 80 counties shared in it last year, 1943-44, and each received $1,484.35 from state aid.
North Carolina is interested in regional development. A beautiful plan for library regions had been worked out on paper. We expected the state aid would help to develop public library service along these lines. In some places it has done so; in others it will do so. We found in trying to apply our plan that people also had ideas and sometimes prejudices. One person stated it well—that they were temperamentally incapacitated from accepting the plan. One county said, “We couldn’t contract with that adjoining county; they never live up to what they promise to do.” Rivers, mountains, roads, trading areas, habits of travel, all had to be considered. The smaller counties feared that the larger counties would derive all the benefits instead of sharing their books and service.
Some groupings and counties did materialize, however. In opposite sections of the state two regions were formed of three counties each. A trained, experienced librarian, a bookmobile, and books were secured by each region. The headquarters library was located in the trading center; each county had local libraries open to the people who came into town. Trips of the bookmobile were scheduled to take books and the trained librarian into all corners of the region. Books were loaned to schools to supplement the school libraries. A regional library board, with representatives from each county wasd appointed by the commissioners of the several counties. Funds, books, and services were pooled. In other sections tri-county libraries were started. Each county sent books into each section, either by bookmobile, by car, by county officials, or by interested citizens. Some of these counties have now withdrawn from the plan in order to employ full-time librarians for themselves. North Carolina now has five regional libraries of two or more counties and one tri-county plan.
Gradually the people themselves are making a statewide plan of regional library service. And what the people have made for themselves they cherish and develop! When one trustee of a regional library was asked his opinion of the library service, he hesitated a long moment to reflect, then he said: “It’s good! Ten people are now getting books to one when the service began.” That was in one of the smaller and in the poorest county in the state. When the plan had first been discussed with the three county commissioners of that small county, two had stood like cigar store Indians, as though they didn’t hear or understand. Funds were voted, however, and that county became part of the Nentahala Regional Library and shared in state aid. Six months later those two commissioners were so enthusiastic about the books their families were reading that we had difficulty in breaking away from their eager talk.
In one county with several small libraries, dissatisfaction was brewing because count and state funds all appeared to be going to the headquarters library. The small library was constantly using books purchased with the county and state funds, it was being aided and helped by the county library. To make the small library more a part of the county system a share of the county fund was allocated to each library each month for the purchase of books, to be selected by the small library and to be ordered and processed at the headquarters library. The amounts of $300 and $600 a year for books for each library resulted in better cooperation.
State Aid for Public Libraries has not only encouraged local appropriations, but it has also given an assurance of permanency to the whole library program. State aid is only allocated on the county basis, since it was voted for the purpose of providing books and reading materials for rural people. The state fund may be used toward the salary of a trained librarian, for the purchase and operation of a bookmobile, or for the purchase of books. The largest per cent of the fund has been used to purchase books, since books have been everywhere the greatest need.
Increased Appropriations
Local appropriations, city and county, have continually increased; they are used for local expenses such as rent and building repairs, salary of library workers, equipment, supplies, and books. Many localities have employed the workers trained on the WPA library program; they work in the local libraries under the supervision of the trained county librarian.
In a rural state, bookmobile service is the most economical and efficient service since it makes possible regular exchange of books. Bookmobiles serve the remote sections of the county and permit the county librarian to introduce people and books. Forty-two bookmobiles are now serving 46 North Carolina counties. Three bookmobiles were in use in North Carolina before 1930, when the North Carolina Library Association collected funds to purchase a bookmobile for demonstration through the North Carolina Library Commission. In 1936, a Ford truck with a body specially built to shelve books began demonstrating to the counties that North Carolinians would read if they had something to read. Several books had been published which deplored the lack of knowledge and the number of nonreaders in the state. How could they read with nothing to read! Once books were available, they were eagerly used.
Tangible Demonstration
It took such a tangible demonstration as the library commission bookmobile, loaned to counties for one or more months, to make the people understand the importance of such service. The first two counties in which it was used immediately secured their own bookmobiles; in one county the vehicle was a gift from a woman legislator, and in the other county it was purchased by the county commissioners. It is interesting that the library commission bookmobile is still in use and is now serving the three counties in one region. War has retarded the purchase of bookmobiles, but one was secured last summer from Army surplus through the United States Procurement Office. Such purchases will ease the situation until new trucks are again in the market. Gas and tire rationing have made the visits of the bookmobile real occasions for neighborhood gatherings and for an exchange not only of books but of ideas and comments. In the towns and larger settlements where there are no libraries, deposit stations have been established in stores, in homes, or in community centers. Such stations do not contain permanent collections of books; as the locality finishes with books and periodicals, they are exchanged.
In 35 of the 80 counties cooperating in the state aid there are no bookmobiles; other methods of distribution must be used. The home demonstration agent and the county nurse take the librarian and a collection of the books to club meetings and to clinics, where the librarian talks books, tells stories to the children, and circulates books. Other county officials transport book collections. People coming into town bring books for exchange. In some places the librarian’s own car serves as a bookmobile. Books to satisfy special requests are sent by parcel post; volumes are mailed with weather is too bad for regular trips. Reference questions are answered by correspondence.
Reading interest has shown marked improvement. Adults who have read little or nothing since the left school begin by reading books of action and romance, love stories and Westerns. As their reading ability improves, they read more normally, books on the World War, biography, and sciences. Copies of the newest books are bought for county people. Except in a technical way the term “nonfiction” is not used; librarians and readers talk about biography, poetry, travel, history.
Proof of Interest
One proof that many people are concerned about supplying books and information is the story of the mill which purchased, when it was first published, 30 copies of You Can’t Do Business With Hitler; every department of the plant had copies, and every worker had an opportunity to read the book. At one bookmobile stop in a cotton mill village, one mill worker said his family used to spend 50 cents a month for magazines. It was a large family, and the more expensive magazines were not purchased. “Now,” he said, “we don’t have to buy cheap magazines. We get good books free from the county library.” Then he told of the good books his family had been reading.
