In Kentucky the prisons and hospitals are under separate boards, neither of which has done much for the libraries in the institutions under their charge, but both have the matter under consideration and better things are looked for in the future. The prison libraries are represented as inadequate and unsuitable. One only has a fund for the purchase of books and that only $50. The only books in the Houses of Reform are the traveling libraries loaned by the library commission. Two state hospitals have very small libraries and no fund. One has about 800 volumes and an annual fund of $250.
The chairman of the Board of Control of State Institutions in Kansas writes that considerable interest is taken in providing suitable reading for the dependents and defectives of that state and that the institutions are urged to systematic work, but does not state whether all have libraries.
The Maine Insane Hospital has an endowment which yields an income of about $600 annually which is expended for books for the general library, periodicals and medical books. According to the chaplain of the Maine state prison "additions are made to that library from three sources, a few volumes by purchase, some by gifts from individuals, but mostly by gifts from the state library of books no longer useful in the traveling libraries."
The Massachusetts prison commission reports libraries in substantially all the prisons. The larger ones are classified.
Michigan has a state appropriation for books. All the institutions have libraries of some kind, but none are classified or organized according to modern methods. The selections are made by the state librarian.
Minnesota has also an appropriation for books in the state institutions. The public library organizer from the Library Commission pays regular visits to the institutions, selects the books and supervises the work. Not all are classified and several need new books. The two asylums for incurable insane and the hospital for inebriates have only traveling libraries.
In Missouri five institutions have no libraries. Traveling libraries are sent to the insane hospitals. In the boys' training school the library is managed without system. If a boy wants a book the superintendent takes what may be at hand and gives it to him.
Nebraska has a state appropriation of $2,000 made directly to the Library Commission to be expended by them for the thirteen institutional libraries. This is used for books, supplies and periodicals except in two institutions which supply their own magazines. The institutions are asked to furnish cases only and some one to loan the books. Books are selected by the commission and prepared for circulation in the commission office.
In New Hampshire the legislature makes an appropriation for the libraries in the state prisons and state hospitals.
The February number of New York Libraries was made an institutional number and among other things contained reports from the institutional libraries of the state showing libraries in all but two or three institutions which are supplied by traveling libraries. The following editorial comment is made on these libraries: "Of the thirty-six institutions from whose libraries detailed reports are herewith presented, there are not more than two or three whose library conditions would be regarded as up to the standard commonly expected and demanded for public libraries. For not one of them does the state provide a sufficient appropriation for the attainment of such a standard." The committee appointed by the State Library Association on libraries in the penal institutions in the state of New York in making their report recommend a change of title for the committee to include the charitable as well as the penal and reformatory institutions and a request that the legislature pass an act authorizing the appointment of a supervising librarian for the state institutions.