When it is asked how to secure a state library commission the second question how to secure an appropriation with which to carry on the work of the commission is necessarily involved. In the case of Pennsylvania (just brought to a happy issue,) the active interest of many of the leading newspapers throughout the state was sought and obtained. The editors of these papers were written to in person and a statement describing the scope and needs of the library commission and the amount of the appropriation hoped for was forwarded to each. With one or two exceptions, the editors printed much of this material as news, and a considerable number added editorials urging the importance of the movement. More valuable help could not have been secured. The smaller papers, which of course draw their material largely from the papers published in the larger cities, followed suit, and practically reprinted the same matter. Copies of the papers containing these articles were secured, and marked copies were sent to the representatives from their own neighborhoods. In this manner nearly three hundred of the newspapers throughout the state were communicated with, and their assistance had a great deal to do with the final granting of the appropriation. In this way information was laid before thousands of citizens who would otherwise have been uninformed on the matter. Beyond all this an explanatory letter fully detailing the position of the commission was sent by one of the commission to every member of the legislature and the secretary of the commission issued the excellently prepared circular (above referred to), several copies of which were sent to every member of the legislature and to others. The result has been that an appropriation of $3500 has been passed by both houses, and there is no reason to doubt that the bill will receive the governor's signature when the time comes for him to sign the appropriation bills for 1901-1902.
It would be waste of time at a round table meeting like this to dwell upon the benefits of the travelling libraries movement. The free library commission of Pennsylvania has determined to do its utmost to develop the movement throughout the state, and if a practical answer is to be given to the question, How to secure a state library commission?, I would say, Recognize the importance of the movement, strive early and late, through the newspapers, by means of circulars and by personal interviews, to interest the members of the legislature, and persevere unintermittingly in impressing your needs upon those who have the power to grant the necessary legislation and appropriation. Work early and late and do not stop working until you have secured what you want.
Mrs. Belle M. Stoutenborough spoke on
WHAT WOMEN'S CLUBS CAN DO TO FURTHER THE WORK OF THE LIBRARY.
I trust you will pardon me for adding the word "Nebraska" to my topic. Six years ago last October the Nebraska Federation of Women's Clubs held its second annual meeting at our state capital. Some two weeks before the meeting Mrs. Peabody, a name familiar to every librarian in this room, who was at that time our president, wrote me: "I am very anxious to bring the travelling library movement before the women of our state. Will you talk for 15 or 20 minutes on this topic before the Lincoln meeting?" If she had asked me to talk on the study of comparative anatomy, I should have been just as familiar with the topic, but in the reference room of the Omaha Public Library, I held a consultation with Poole's index, and succeeded in finding just one article on travelling libraries; it was in the January Forum of 1895, and if I am not mistaken, it was a brief history or sketch of the traveling library movement in New York. Here was my opportunity; what had been done in New York, could be done in Nebraska, although upon a smaller scale, by the Federation of Women's Clubs. I shall not forget how I trembled as I stood before that large audience and made my first plea for a travelling library. However, the secretary, in reporting the meeting, was kind enough to say that the audience at once caught the speaker's enthusiasm, and a committee was appointed for the formation of plans for a federation travelling library. A hundred dollars was subscribed, and sixty books purchased and sent out to eight clubs that first year. I know it seems like a small beginning to-day, but it was serious, earnest, and full of possibilities, and to-day the work is an educational factor in our state. I believe that these books which have gone out to the club women have not only enabled them to pursue certain lines of study, which otherwise it would not have been possible for them to have taken, but they have created in the minds of other members of the family a desire to possess good reference books. These books are sent out from my own home. The clubs receiving them are at no expense except in paying express charges for their return. The work is supported by voluntary contributions, and as to the salary of the librarian, she is paid over and over again in the thankful letters which she receives from the people who are using the books.
In 1897, the Nebraska Library Association succeeded in introducing a bill in the legislature, creating a library commission for travelling libraries. It passed the lower house, and went into the senate, where it was "lost to sight, though to memory dear." In 1899, nothing daunted, the Nebraska Library Association was there again with its library bill. It passed the lower house, but it never reached the senate. Last June, the National Federation of Women's Clubs was held in the city of Milwaukee. Mrs. Buchwalter, of Ohio, the chairman of the program committee, planned for a bureau of library instruction or information, and this bureau was located in an upper room in the Milwaukee Public Library. The presiding genius in the room was Miss Stearns; I always think of her as the pioneer travelling library woman of the northwest. A clubwoman from Nebraska was in attendance at that meeting and instead of spending her time listening to the program, she passed the greater part of the week in that upper room, and there she learned the work which is being done by women's clubs throughout the length and breadth of our land in this library field, and she went back to Nebraska determined, if possible, to secure legislation for free travelling libraries in the coming year. It was a strange coincidence, that last October the Nebraska Federation of Women's Clubs again held their annual meeting at our state capital, and as before, the same woman who had presented six years before to that meeting, a plan for a Federation travelling library, was there to present a plan for free travelling libraries and a state library commission for Nebraska. The plan was formally and unanimously adopted, and a committee was appointed to co-operate with the Nebraska Library Association to secure legislation. In all this work, we never had any one who assisted us more ably than Mr. Wyer, the librarian of the state university, who was never too busy to advise us or to see a man that we could not reach, and he it was who drafted our bill and saw it through. To make a long story short, the first thing we did was to send out circulars suggesting that "a library day" be observed in the clubs; this library day was generally discussed throughout the state. Then we sent a petition which was circulated, not only in the towns, but among the farmers and their wives; and finally one March morning I received the following telegram: "Rejoice and be exceeding glad"—and I have been rejoicing ever since, for house bill no. 20, carrying with it an appropriation of $4000 for free public libraries, for free travelling libraries, and for the state commission, had passed, not only the lower house, but the senate. It received the governor's signature, and it means we are to have travelling libraries in Nebraska.
Miss Freeman: Mrs. Morris, of the Wisconsin Free Library Commission and the General Federation of Women's Clubs, will be unable to be with us this morning on account of illness. We are, however, fortunate in being able to hear from Mrs. Youmans, the president of the Wisconsin Federation of Women's Clubs.
Mrs. Youmans: I cannot possibly fill Mrs. Morris' place, but I should not like to have this subject discussed without Wisconsin being represented.
We may gather from the deliberations of this association, that Wisconsin keeps a prominent place in library work among the states of the Union. If this is so, and I do not doubt it, it is, as we all know, due to the enthusiasm and energetic efforts of the Free Library Commission, and this commission will assure you that its members have had no more enthusiastic allies than the club women of the state. Work for libraries was the first work undertaken by Wisconsin women's clubs—the first work outside of their regular literary programs—and since the organization of the federation in 1896, it has been one of its most prominent lines of work. I suppose there are few clubs among the 150 in the federation that have not done something, sometimes important and sometimes unimportant, for the library movement. They have established libraries and free reading-rooms; they have helped to support libraries; they have made donations of books and money; they have sent out travelling libraries on their errands of usefulness; and they have also sent out travelling reference libraries especially for the uses of the study clubs. The federation at the present time is making a special effort toward securing as many of these travelling reference libraries as possible. The club women in the interior of the state have very inadequate reference facilities; we have now only six or seven of these reference libraries, and we feel comparatively rich that we are soon to have half a dozen more.
A great many of the public libraries in Wisconsin are due directly to efforts of club women. The public library of Waukesha is due directly to the efforts of a little coterie of club women; they started seven years ago, with prospects that could not possibly be called brilliant. They kept the library going for seven years from one month to another, in some way securing the money, and finally the burden was taken from their shoulders by the city council. Now, the library is not large; it is not, from a technical point of view, fine; and it certainly lacks many things that we hope to have in the future; but it has 2500 volumes, generally read and much valued by the people, it has become established as a regular necessary part of the municipal life, and I think it is sure of a regular though moderate support from the public funds. In a city a few miles north of here a woman's club has a fund of $500 towards a library building. It does not intend building a library with that sum; it does not intend to go on earning money by rummage sales and private theatricals; but it does expect to use that money and to use the interest of the members of the club as a center for developing library interests in the vicinity.