2 Public sentiment needs time to ripen. Frequent short articles running through the issues of a few weeks are better than a few long ones.
3 Make the articles breezy, optimistic, with local application. You can get a library if you are in earnest.
4 Appeal to local pride. Civic patriotism is the basis of civic improvement. Give the names of familiar towns of similar size which have good libraries.
5 Do not rely solely on editorials. Get brief communications from citizens, but have each letter make only one point, and that crisply.
6 Do not waste space rebutting trivial arguments. Refute them by affirmative statements.
7 Get brief interviews with visitors from towns where they have good libraries, and with your own townsmen who have visited neighboring libraries.
8 Keep this fact in mind—Your people want a library and only need pluck and a leader.
9 Remember that the worst enemy of the movement is the talker who wants a library very much, in the "sweet bye and bye," when all other public improvements are completed.
10 When it is time to strike—strike hard. Apologies and faint hearts never won any kind of a contest.
CHALMERS HADLEY,
Secretary American Library Association.