The Caucasian. (Shreveport, La.) 1900-192?, 1909-07-11
NEWS AND NOTES
Items of Interest Gathered by eau
casian Representative.

The New Orleans Library Club. or
gained in 1907, has issued very neat
pamphlet with full information in re-
gard to Louisiana libraries The presi-
dent of the library club in her foreword
says: "The New Orleans Library Club
is the first and only association of IL
| braries in the State, and this handbook
is the result of the first question asked
by the club at the time of its organiza-
ton, namely: What are the library ia
| cilities of the State? The only available
statistics were those in the United
States bureau of education report on
public, society and school Libraries 1903,
and these were known to be meagre and
in some cases incorrect.
The club therefore undertook to pre-
pare its own statistics and for a year
and half has carefully searched the
State for fuller information. If this
handbook introduces the libraries of
Louisiana to one another and arouses
in them the desire to work together for
the library interests of the State it will
have amply fulfilled its mission"
There are twenty-six libraries in the
State situated in fourteen parishes.
Baton Rouge has two, Hill Memorial
library of the State University and the
U. D. c. library and free reading room,
established and maintained by the joan
ma Waddill Chapter U. D. c. Ca1casieu
parish has two public libraries Shreve-
port has two, the Peoples Library and
Central School library New Orleans
including professional Libraries, law and
medicine has nine Of these the public
library has three branches. They were
built in part from Mr.. Carnegies dona-
ton on sites furnished by the city The
Royal branch, on Royal and Frenchn1an
streets is one-story building with
basement. The Napoleon branch, Napo?
leon avenue and Magazine street, and
the Algiers branch. In 1907 by agree
ment between the city and Mr.. Carnegie
the revenues of the library were in
creased to $4,000 annually. Mr.. Car
negie's total gift was $4,000. The new
central building, the gift of Mr.. Carne-
gle, is situated on Lee Circle, and is
built of Bedford stone. The library has
compiled and distributed to the teach
ers of the public schools and the pupils !
of the Normal school, bulletins which
will enable them to make better use of
the library. Arrangements will BE made
for the whole body of teachers and for |
the high school and Normal pupils to
come by classes to the library.
The reference department includes
5000 volumes, S432 of which are in
dexed magazines. The library sub
scribes to 1913 magazines and 26 news
papers and receives a gift of DO maya |
zines and 10 newspapers, making to-
tai of 28I periodicals The staff of the
central library consists of ~ in addition
TO the librarian
The Alexandria Public Library was
founded by the late Mr.. S. S. Bryan and
received a donation of $4,000 from
Mr. Carnegie.
The town of Jennings has a Carnegie
library and also has Lake Charles, sit
uated in the same parish. Each town
receiving $Ioooo for the erection of the
building, which is maintained by the
town at cost of $1,000 per annun.
It is pertinent to ask right here, what
IS the matter with Shreveport, that
Carnegie gift con not be secured for
public library purposes?