One thing has been left out in the various interests which have been brought forward, and that is the part of the trustee in the state association meetings. A librarian may have all possible inclination, and all the enthusiasm that we can give her, but if she does not have the co-operation and the kindly sympathy of her library board, or at least a majority of its members, life is to her a burden. Her condition is worse than when she did not know, and did not know that she did not know. The state associations have not so far been open enough to the trustees. It seems to me that this is a subject well worth taking up, and we should try to do more for the library trustees of the state than we have done heretofore. Necessarily they take rather a material view of the situation, and we should try to lead them away from the dollar-and-cents view of library work. These two things need to be emphasized—keep in mind the small librarian, and educate the trustee. Some one has said that we need a library school for trustees quite as much as we need a library school for librarians, and the more I see of libraries the more I believe that.
Mrs. E. J. Dockery spoke on
HOW A LIBRARY COMMISSION WAS SECURED IN IDAHO.
I bring to you an accurate and complete history of the course adopted by the club women of my state in securing library legislation, as I personally participated in the work with other members of the Woman's Columbian Club, the organization that had the direct and immediate charge of the subject.
It is a somewhat embarrassing confession to make that Idaho, with its area of 87,000 square miles and a population of 164,000 souls, and its sobriquet of "The gem of the Mountains," has not a free circulating library. I make this statement, however, to emphasize the virgin field in which we had to labor and the munificence of our legislators when we consider the various tax burdens are so many and the number so few to bear them.
Boisé City, the capital of our state, with a population of 10,000, is the home of the Woman's Columbian Club of 200 members. This club, among its many achievements, established and almost wholly supports a public library of 2750 volumes at Boisé; and its members stand in the vanguard and do yeoman's service as leaders and in the ranks in all causes to advance the moral, intellectual and material good of all the people of the state that has granted women equal suffrage with men.
The club strongly urges the formation of other woman's clubs throughout the state, and encourages at all times the organization and development of free libraries.
The first really effective and aggressive step of the club in this direction, and which led to important results, was the adoption of the free travelling library scheme. Its zealous members, by united action and individual effort, accumulated sufficient funds to put into circulation 15 travelling libraries with a total of 800 volumes, and invited discussion of this work in the public press.
At the 1899 state teachers' meeting representatives of the club, on invitation, espoused the cause of the travelling library and libraries generally. The demand for library cases soon exhausted the Columbian Club's ability to respond, and then an appeal for legislative aid was determined upon, and systematic methods, principally through the press, were pursued to awaken public sentiment favorable to the election of friendly legislators.
After the election of the legislators in 1900 the Columbian Club sent circular letters to each one, setting forth the merits of the two bills the club had prepared and upon which its energies were concentrated, namely: a bill creating a state library commission, and a bill authorizing common councils of cities and governing bodies of communities to levy a tax not to exceed one mill on the assessed valuation of property for the establishment and maintenance of free reading rooms and libraries.