This work is illustrative of what is being done all over the state, and it is not so much the money that the club women collect for the libraries, nor the books they may secure, nor even the direct work that they do; it is the feeling that they disseminate as to the value of public libraries. The club woman, in her club work, finds the need of a good library; her associations and connections are such that she learns to value books more than she ever did before; she learns, too, that for the intellectual life of her vicinity it is necessary to have a public library; she helps to develop the public spirit that demands a public library; she helps to bring out an atmosphere in which public libraries germinate and grow and flourish. This, it seems to me, is the most important part of club work among club women. This is what they are doing in Wisconsin, and what they will continue to do.
Mr. Hutchins: I have been watching for years the work of the women's clubs and their enthusiasm for libraries. They are accomplishing a great deal, and there is just one thing I would like to say to the club women of the country, "Plan a study club, and in a few years you get a public library. Plan a library, and in a few years you get five study clubs."
CO-OPERATION BETWEEN A. L. A. AND GENERAL FEDERATION OF WOMEN'S CLUBS.
Miss Stearns: The American Library Association has fallen into a most successful alliance with the National Educational Association, as is demonstrated by the continuation of our meeting at Detroit. Now, the A. L. A. has never realized all that the General Federation of Women's Clubs has done for the promotion of library interests. This is the first time in the history of the A. L. A. that the women's clubs have been recognized on our program, and I move that the A. L. A. Council be requested to form an alliance between the American Library Association and the Federation of Women's Clubs for the promotion of library interests. Voted.
In the absence of Miss Marie S. Dupuis, the chairman read by title her paper on
THE WOMAN'S CLUB AND THE TRAVELLING LIBRARY.
The woman's club and the travelling library seem made for each other. So perfectly does the travelling library supply a suitable channel for the energies of the woman's club, and so admirably does the woman's club seem fitted for the work of sending out travelling libraries, that the one seems the natural and perfect complement of the other.
What a box of well-selected reading matter means to a rural community probably only those know who have lived in a rural community without the box. Others must draw upon their imaginations to picture farm homes without other current literature than a weekly local paper whose "patent inside" contains all the news they receive of the world's work; homes where the family Bible—not always present—and the children's school books form the only bound volumes of the family library, where even the deservedly ephemeral literature of the daily paper and the 10-cent magazine are unknown, though rural free mail delivery will soon alter this.
With numberless such communities on the one hand, we have on the other numerous women's clubs organized for self-improvement and "mutual aid," to use the fine phrase of Prince Kropotkin. And so closely are human interests interwoven that "mutual aid" means self-improvement, and self-improvement "mutual aid." It is doubtful if any form of educational endeavor undertaken by women's clubs is so fruitful in good results as the travelling library. It is the most practical form of educational work as yet undertaken by these organizations. The work of the Illinois Federation of Women's Clubs in this direction has been under the supervision of the library extension committee of that organization. More than one-third of the clubs of the state are now engaged in travelling library work. The number of libraries in circulation has doubled in the past year.
The plan usually adopted in the formation of a travelling library is for each member of a club to donate one or more books. A Parmelee or other suitable trunk bookcase is purchased for the collection, usually consisting of about 50 volumes, a record-book is provided, each volume is furnished with a library catalog and the rules for borrowers recommended by the committee, and the library is then ready to begin its travels.