The St. Charles herald. [volume] (Hahnville, La.) 1873-1993, 1918-03-30

liOIl W Ut service mas
loose q stream of books
which Is destiEed to become one of the
most powerful factors In winning the
nght for liberty. Already the efforts
'oI the association have been crowned
Dy signal success and this, in spite of
the fact that as late as the end Of last
summer 1t had nothing but a concrete
pian and a determination to put that
Sdea into operation.
Since the association set for itself
fne task Of putting into the hands Of
the soldiers and sailors the books it
felt they needed and would appreciate
| 1t has. by an intensive campaign car
T1ed on last autumn, raised a million
and half dollars; has procured,
through donation and by purchase,
more than half million books which
1T has assorted and sent out with the
aS32O,OOO donated by the Carnegie cor
poration for the purpose, has erected
camp library buildings In "a camps
and has others In the course of con-
:struction; has opened a dispatch sta
zion at one of the points of embarka-
ton from which books are being
shipped to France and has got to-
:gether a force Of trained workers to
carry out its plans on gigantic scale.
The headquarters Of the American
Library Association War Service are
at the library of congress. DR.. Herbert
Putnam. librarian Of congress. Is the
director. Assistants to the director
are Carl Fl. Milan, librarian Of the pub
lic library of Birmingham. Ala, and Jo-
.seph L. Wheeler. librarian of the pub
aic library of Youngstown. o. George
American Library association. is exec
utive secretary Of the war service. VIII
liam A. Slade. head Of the periodical
division of the library Of congress, and
p. L. Windsor. director Of the library
school Of the University of Illinois. are
also on the headquarters staff.
Keep Down Expense.
It has been the determination Of Doc
tor Putnam and his associates in the
war work to keep overhead expenses
important work of the service is being
done by volunteers and experts drawn
from Libraries all over the country
who are working only for the salaries
they receive from their regular occu-
pations. The standard salary Of the
camp librarians is 500 month, and
by obtaining board at the Y. NJ. C. A.
.or at the camp mess the cost Of sub
isistence Is held to low figure.
To the war service the most crafty
ing result Of its work so far is the
tremendous demand for books. a de-
,mand so great and so wide In its range
las to prove conclusively to the asso-
Iciation that 1t has definite field OF |
4endeayor and one which is bringing un-
told happiness to thousands Of men.
AT all the camp libraries system of |
book requests has been installed and |
1T Is giving accurate Information on
what the men want to read.
To the great surprise Of the older
army officers the draft men are call
ling continuously for serious books. |
Fiction naturally leads, but not by so
wide a margin as one who gave bat !
casual thought to the matter might sur
mise. For example, days record at
the camp library at Camp Meade. Nd.
the following subjects were represent
ed:
French history. mechanics and
Itrategy In war. self-propelled vehicles.
land grenades. field entertainments.
ridges. chemistry, physics, astronomy.
zoology, hydraulics. electricity. medf
val history, calculus. civil engineering,
geography. American history. survey
Ar materials OF construction, general
history. masonry. concrete. !