The Daily Missoulian., 1913-04-21
professional knowledge Of ordinary IL

brary work
Women have played an important
part in the establishment of the state
| library commissions of the country
and in securing appropriations for Ii
| hrary expenditures. The positions
filled by women having the qualities
| necessary for this work have greatly
added to the library interests of the
country. The most important work of
this kind has been accredited to Miss
Mary Hannah Johnson, as head of the
public library of Nashville. Tenn, and
Miss Anne Wallace of Atlanta. These
two young women have been credited
with having had greater influence
than any others in the development of
public library work in the south. Miss
Johnson was instrumental in founding
the Tennessee State Library commits
sion, and the development of travel
ing libraries which We're sent out to
the smaller towns. The library under
her management had number of
branches and was progressive in each
of it's departments.
In Atlanta, Miss Wallace was COM
as Miss johnson, both having to de-
pend at the beginning of their work,
upon their own bouyant optimism in
securing the necessary funds for it's
development. In addition to her other
work, Miss Wallace founded a lii rary
school in Atlanta, which is the only
one in the south giving full training
i'll all the departments of library work.
Both Miss Johnson and Miss Wallace
We're great faVortes with Andrew
Carnegie, whose aid secured the pres
ent buildings occupied by their re-
spective Libraries. Both of the ladies
have married lately and received the
wedding gift of $1,000 which Mr.. Car
negie seems to take pleasure in pre-
.nting to the girl librarians who for
sake their callngs for the matri-
monial altar Miss johnson married
DR.. Philander p. ClaXton the United
States commissioner of education, and
in her new career is interesting her
self in the development of the library
of that department. as well as in
many matters Of educational and civic
interest in the national capital
The complaint is sometimes made
that the woman librarian is too apt
to be partisan in her office and in one
conservative town complaint was
made because a woman librarian, in
terested in woman suffrage, took ad-
vantage of her position to circulate
suffrage literature and to suggest the
needs of Votes for Women to every
adult who approached her desk. If
this charge is sustained it will be un-
usual, as, in the opinion of those who |
have studied the subject, the women |
is less apt than a man to al
low outside interests to affect her
work. Her daily contact with the pub
lie is apt to be utilized in some eff
fort to become more helpful to those
who come to her for books than for
any personal interest. The influence
or the woman librarian can be incal-
culably good and numerous incidents |
testify that it is so. Miss Maud Camp |
bell of the public library of Passaic |
n. D., who has had much to do with |
helping the immigrants to find books |
in their own language, tells Of one
foreigner who said |
to her one evening: II always thought ,
until l came to your book house that /
an American was too much hurry up |
to make money to take trouble for a |
poor nobody like me-"
There are many strange ideas of |
the purposes and objects of the pub
lie library, and it is the woman IL
brarian that comes most frequently
IN contact with them. An Italian
woman in an eastern town sent her
little girl to spend the day at the
public library because she had the
and was not allowed to go to
school The woman librarian who
undertook to take the child home had
in convincing the mother
that the nursing of sick child was
not included even in the duties of a
ohiidren's librarian.
a woman librarian who had been
in the habit of furnishing for the
daily papers lists and brief reviews
)f the newly added books in the IL
'rary, recently made public a letter
1om a woman belonging to a literary
'iub, asking that she prepare for her
,sratultously, of course). an article
lpon The novels Of Maurice HeW-
ett as "a busy mother with sick
less in the family had no time to
write lengthy articles herself and no
nance to have access to the novels"
Another woman wrote to the woman
n charge of the genealogical depart
nent of library in New England
own and asked her to prepare her a
lst or her colonial and revolutionary
'ncestorS as contained in the numer-
'us books of that library, which she
lad not time to read for herself.
The training for library work in the
Inherent schools, differs but little in
is scope. Most of the public libraries Il
IL large cities have training classes
or apprentices which prepare for
library positions. To Sc
ure a position of any Importance or
esponsibility a diploma from a IL
rafy school is required. THE en-
rance requirements of these schools
re not yet uniform, although they
re tending toward uniformity. Some