An old Polish settler stated that the children sometimes bring books home from the school, but that there is nothing in them for the older people, while the church library is not much, either, for who cares to read of one Sigismund or of one Friedrich der Grosse? The settler concluded by saying that he and his fellow immigrants would like to read American books about America. His colony needed an American public library.
The dean of the extension division of the University of Wisconsin reports that there are 72 per cent of rural communities which are without public libraries. This is in a state where the library facilities are comparatively highly developed. It has been the writers impression, while visiting the Wisconsin backwoods immigrant communities, that though the various traveling and package libraries and library "stations" are successfully operating in other parts of the state, they have not yet reached these wilderness communities to any extent. As a rule the rural immigrants do not even know of the existence of such libraries.
PACKAGE LIBRARIES IN WISCONSIN
Yet the demand for literature among the rural population is great and growing rapidly. Take, for instance, the package library of the extension division of the above-mentioned university. It has more than 10,000 packages. Each package contains collected literature—books, newspaper, and magazine clippings, statistical tables, etc.—dealing with a certain subject. It is sent, under certain conditions, to anyone who requests it. The demand for such packages has more than doubled each year. During 1908 and 1909 there were sent out 524 packages on 116 subjects to 136 localities, and during 1915 and 1916 there were sent out 5,948 packages on 2,404 subjects to 483 localities. The reason why such wonderful carriers of knowledge do not reach the rural immigrants is obvious; the immigrants do not know of their existence. Even if they do know, they do not understand how to order them. In many other states conditions are much worse.
What must be done to make the library common to every rural settlement? What kind of a library is best suited to the needs, and how shall it be extended to the backwoods rural communities?
The recommendation of the writer is that the school libraries be developed and put on a higher level, with special adult and children's sections. A library board should be created in each county as a unit operating under a state law for the purpose of directing and developing a county library system. A library tax should be levied upon each county. Schools, community halls, and stores should be made library stations, so that the settlers could have easy access to the books.
SELECTION OF BOOKS
Then there is the question of the selection of publications for the libraries intended for immigrant communities. In this, the conditions and requirements of the immigrant settlers have to be taken into consideration, for it would be useless and wasteful to select books in which the settlers are not interested and which they do not want to read.
First place must be taken by publications concerning farming. Particularly should there be included in such libraries the publications of Federal and state Departments of Agriculture. Then comes the literature for the learning of the English language: dictionaries, grammars, textbooks on composition, etc. Recreation literature—books on sports in the open, plays, music, etc.—would be also in demand. Then come the publications related to American history, geography, nature, economics, government, and social life, and other serious publications containing information about the country's past and present.
Finally comes fiction. A few immigrants who have acquired the habit of reading fiction prefer to read stories and poems of a more realistic character, like those of Jack London, Upton Sinclair, Ernest Poole, Mark Twain, Arnold Bennett, Longfellow. The traveling libraries need not be voluminous so much as of good quality. Aside from being practically useful, they should try to help the rural immigrant settlers to improve their standards of living and to broaden their intellectual horizon.