Mr. Huse: What is the use of asking questions that must be governed entirely by local conditions? This matter must be governed by local conditions.
Mr. Brigham: We are trying a line of rural travelling libraries in three counties of our state, in advance of any county or state legislation. Miss Brown, of Lucas county, and myself, in correspondence, could see no reason why a travelling library sent to Sheridan should not go on to another point, and to another point, and so on, and then back to Sheridan, back to me, and then after it had made its rounds, take another start, and so on. We tried the plan and it has worked so well that we are now trying it in two other counties. What the development may be I do not know, but the satisfaction and the gratitude of the people in the small towns it reaches is worth all it has cost of extra effort.
Miss Tyler: The point of the plan is that the librarian of the county-seat library is responsible for the travelling library. She guards the books, watches over them and makes her library the point of distribution. She distributes the books through the county, they come back to her library for exchange, or are passed on to the next exchange, whichever is most convenient; but they come under her direction.
Mr. Dewey: Let me state the point as I understand it. We are all agreed that we must have local libraries for the people. They can go from their homes into the library and take the books into their hands. If they are in the city almost every day they can utilize the large city library. When it comes to the question of sending books by mail or express we are all agreed that each state must have a state library and its own state commission. The question is, Should there be an intermediary point between a state library and the local library? It seems, at first thought, that there should be, because you would have a shorter distance to travel, but all commercial experience is against this. Manufacturers are closing factories all the while and paying transportation, because they can do their work more cheaply in one place. Thus, repair of books, checking lists, and all that kind of work can be done under a single executive at some central point in the state more cheaply than if there was a library in each county. In Wisconsin, with 71 counties, you would have 71 libraries and you would have to duplicate great quantities of books. My experience indicates that we can do this work more cheaply and more economically by putting the books under control of a central library. As to the extra distance, very often the identical trains that would take the books from a county seat would have brought them from the capital as it went through, so that they would have been received almost without delay. Is it going to pay to introduce a new ganglion—that is, the county library?
Dr. Steiner: Take Baltimore county in Maryland. There is a county with 75,000 people; it has an electric lighting system, a police court, fire engine houses; there are towns in that county of a thousand people. There is no government in that county except the board of county commissioners, who are as complete autocrats as the czar of Russia. There is no municipality in the county; there is one town which has 5000 people. You must have a county library with a county administration, because you cannot have anything but the county library; you cannot discriminate between one part of the county and another. That library must send books equally to all parts of the county; you cannot put it where the great centers of the population are, because you cannot deprive any citizen of the county of his right to draw books.
Mr. Dewey: Of course, we are not discussing a peculiar condition such as exists in Maryland.
Dr. Steiner: It is not a peculiar condition; it is the condition of at least one-third of the United States.
Mr. Galbreath: It seems to me that there is nothing peculiar about this condition. Of course, it differs from conditions in the north, but it includes a state government, to which the county is subordinate, and if I understand Mr. Dewey, it is his purpose to do this work from the state as a center, and the question he has raised is whether it is better to do it from the county as a center, or from the state as a center. I think that in our state it would be well to use the county as a center, for a time at least. However, I believe that in our state "benevolent neutrality"—to apply the term that Mr. Putnam used the other day—on the part of the state librarian toward these matters would be more effective than "benevolent assimilation," and we hope for much from the county library system.
Mr. Dewey: It is a question of what we should encourage. Is it wise to do this work by the county unit or the state unit? It is largely an economic question. How can you give the people the best reading for the least amount of money?
R. P. Hayes: In North Carolina we have practically nothing in the library field and the question is, shall we try for county library development or state library development? I would like to get some definite word on that.