The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1912-10-28
LIBRARIES IN
STATE SCHOOL

Bismarck N. D., Oct. 2s-Mrs. Bud
long, of the state library commission.
has Just returned from a trip over the
eastern part of the state where she
visited q number of schools with a.
view OF learning the condition of their
libraries etc. When seen by a re-
porter and asked regarding her trip
Mrs. Budlong said:
Il notice that the North Dakota
Educational association is recon-
mending increased appropriation for
state aid to schools. While on a recent
trip of field work for the Library Com
mission, I noticed one splendid result
or such aid, in the libraries being built
up in our schools. The present law
requires 40 per cent of such aid to
High Schools to be spent in equipment
and / was much impressed with the
quantity and quality of books. There
is usually webster's latest dictionery.
an ~up-to-date encyclopedia such as
the new International or Nelson's
loose e and often 1000 or 1000
volumes of standard works in history,
literature n science. But not in a
single library were these books so
arranged that teachers or pupils could
use them conveniently.
One high school had moved into a
new building in which a large sunny
room was provided for the library but
the books were on the floor in piles
of fifty to n hundred deep just as
they had been carried into the room
months before. Their only use at the
present time Is to accumulate dust
which they are certainly doing in a
manner which means plenty Of work
for future cleaners. All the capital
Invested In those books is going to
waste for want OF some one with
technical training who could classify,
and shelve them in such a manner
that they could be quickly consulted
for reference, superintendent and
teachers are not to blame for such
conditions as their time is fully oc-
cupied in other work. They are only
too glad to furnish any assistance
possible if an organizer will come to
direct the work.
In another library probably one
third of the books have gone to pieces
for lack OF a little mending at the
right ime Two or three hundred
books could be saved to this school
now IL a trained librarian could spend
a few days supervising their cleaning
and mending. High school girls and
often club women are glad to give a
day or two to such work under com
petent Instruction.
TN n high school where the boys
had gone up to manage the thresh-
ing machines for a week the girls
We're used in repairing the school
library. The books when cleaned and
mended must next be shelved. In
many schools suitable cases can be
made by the classes in manual train
ing. In fact all the work needed in
the library q be furnished by the
schools and community except CLASH
fication and cataloguing and these are
technical tasks and require a trained
worker.
Library commissioners in other
states furnish such an organizer when
requested. The fund at the disposal
of the commissioner in North Dakota.
has so far been inadequate for the
field work. There is no question Of the
great need of such work in the state.
| There is at present on the commission
staff no one but the secretary who
has studied library science and it has
been impossible to find time for much
organization except by correspondence.
There should be a trained assistant
who could spend several days in a
library overseeing its systematic ar
rangement.
There is no use in requiring the
expenditure of state money in books
unless the state goes one step further
and sends someone to make the ON
tents OF those books accessible to
teachers and pupils. That is the work
of a library organizer. 1t is not the
number of books standing in a school
room but the number of facts as
simulated from those books that
develops the individual and upbuilds
the state"