The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-06-08
CONDUCTED BY
A VISION OF SERVICE.


- had considerable contacts with the general
run of Americans say "No" 1t has been mainly
guesswork, but now we are beginning to get facts
We are not book-readng nation. Perhaps no
other nation is, but that is of ours Paul
M. Paine, Librarian of the Syracuse Public LII
brary, president of the New York State Library
Association and incidentally writer of no mean
ability, told the booksellers convention in Boston
the other day some of the facts that had been
unearthed about the American peoples reading
habits
Il know a big university said Mr.. Paine,
Whose Librarian says even the faculty never read
books except in the lines of their own spe
cialties. How is it in cities generalyi Do you
know what percentage of the English speaking pop
ulation of the average American city never read
books at alf Do you suppose it is less than 40 per
cent?
How many of us have any idea or dare to guess,
what the reading is in the American farm housef
had little survey made in school district of On
Ondaga county two weeks ago. Bible was found
in every house of the twelve There four die
tionaries The fiction included Alger, Harold Bell
Wright Harold MacGrath. One classic author, IL
you call Fenimore Cooper classic None Of the
magazines that keep step with social progress. No
book which by any chance could give an idea of
what socialism is or what social democracy is aim
ing at No book that would remove the contempt
from the word immigrant No book which would
give any inkling of international relations. No
cyclopedia except one of human and animal dis
eases.
Minnesota Survey.
II: n
a survey of the reading habits Of young people on
the farms; that was in southern Minnesota Only
As per cent. of the young people were doing any
reading worth mentioning. Only IS per cent. Of
the owners were classed readers at ALL and hard
ly any ever read book Among forty-two houses
there were eight small collections of books, and five
families in which library books were found.
Doesn't it occur to you that one reason why
authorship, book publishing bookselling librarian
ship fall short of the service they should be render
ing is that great part of the socaed reading pub
lie have never been convinced that there is such
thing as good reading except in religious sensei
''1f that is so, then our campaign must begin at
the bottom. 1t should begin with survey of the
reading habits Of the public. 1t should advocate
books, not merely my publishing house or my book
store or my new book or my public library.
"This is the substance of my dream; that laying
aside all petty considerations and rivaries, all who
know books~and believe in Them all who use them
for public education all who publish them and sell
them, and all who lend them, should join in a
great common purpose to increase the number Of
those who read them. And this should be done in
the spirit of service to mankind"
When the American Library Association meets
in annual convention at Asbury Park this
month, this problem of educating the American
public to the of books will be the biggest single
topic to be discussed.
Courage Called For.
Mr.. Paine has pointed way that conservative
librarians for the most part fear to tread-the way
of cooperation between Libraries, publishers, book
sellers and others interested in the manufacture
and distribution Of books. No suggestion is re-
jected more instantly or with greater expressions
of horror by the professionally minded librarian
than that he the professional association to which
he belongs should have any relations with pub
fishers They fear the faint of 'commercialism.
whatever that may mean. If publisher X or book