The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-06-15
CIR Gthrartatt's UnrnRr
CONDUCTED BY
FRANK PARKER STocKBRIDGE.
LIBRARIES AND THE FARMS.


~ Association will discuss when it meets in an
nual convention at Asbury Park next week is that
of extending library privileges to rural communl-
ties. The suggestion has been made that the A. Il.
A., in pursuance of its purpose to function more
definitely as an organization hereafter than it for
merly did in peace times, undertake to promote
some plan of programme for giving everybody, no
matter where in the United States he may live,
books to read when he wants them.
Farmers are much like town folks. They will use
library books if it is made easy for them to get
them. The first demonstration Of this was made in
Washington county, Maryland, where the Hagers-
town public library began several years ago to send
a wagon-since replaced by motor car-loaded
with books into every section of the county at regu-
lar intervals. For five years Washington county has
boosted ITSELF probably truthfully as the best read
group of citizens in America.
In Van Vert county, Ohio, there is the only free
public county library in America. 1t has branches
in the smaller towns with the main library at the
county seat. But the people of Van Vert county
don't read as much as the people of Washington
county, for they have to 60 to their nearest branch
library to get their books and very few people are
SuluCIcHuy VI oooiiO " AOod W WV
trouble to 60 to library.
Going to the library presupposes in most cases a
desire for particular book or book on partcu-
lar subject whereas the vast majority of readers,
even those in whom the habit is fixed one, select
their books by chance. And even the desire for
particular book is seldom so acute to justify in
the possessor's mind trip to town, or even stop
at the library when in town on other business.
BY Parcel Post.
In Orange county, New York. another method Of
supplying books to farmers from village public IL
brary has proved so successful that it is being made
the basis for demand for the revision downward
of the parcel post rate on books-a revision, incl
dentally, that publishers and booksellers should
welcome as eagerly as Libraries. Taking leaf out
of the book Of the A L. A library service,
which supplies books by military post direct from
its Paris headquarters to any man in the A. E. F.,
A. L. Spencer, the librarian at Middletown, con-
ceived the idea of parcel post book service to
farmers on the R. F. D. routes centring in his town.
OF course, the parcel post rate on books is pro-
hibitive for any but the well to do, but friend
gave the library a small fund to make up the diff
ference between a practical rate and the charge
made by the post Office, so that Mr. Spencer could
offer to the farmers of Orange county all the books
they wanted at charge Of one cent each way for
the smaller books and two cents for large Ones-a
rate Of postage still infinitely higher than that paid
by the county weekly newspaper, which circulates
free of postage in its home county.
Mr.. Spencer found in a very short time that not
only would farmers and their families read books
if they could thus have them delivered at their
gates but that their. tastes in reading were very
like those of people in town. They want their books
in hurry and they want to make their own selec-
tions. Mr.. Spencer wisely refrained from urging
his new patrons to read the sort of books that all
the hghbrows think all the lowbrows ought to read
but which no ever caught highbrow reading.
Books Back Promptly.
These farmers returned their books promptly
within the time limit set when fines accrued they
were RENTED with the books. In not a single ease,
Mr.. Spencer reports have books been lent from
house to house to save the postage; American farm
are willing enough to pay for service. Indeed,
one sometimes wonders whether the public library