Arizona republican., 1921-08-14

esting article describing the meth ods and results employed in deliver ..ag the library to the farmers door, Miss Lula NJ Miesse. Nohlesville's librarian. says:
 We tried both adult and juvenile stations in schoolhouses and homes and found the adult section was not well patronized. The country schools are open only five days week and only six months a year. So the house. to- house plan of service was determined upon. We visited some other cities where library autos were in use, and after looking over various chassis and trucks, we decided upon a Dodge Brothers business car. In the first place, it did not need great deal of remodeling for our purpose. It was strongly built and highly rec commended by people who were using it for durability under lard service, which we knew our car must re- ceive
 sThe seats were already comfort able We had the wire screens and
 the entire back removed. The steel
 sides were bent over seven inches and used for shelves in front of the
 bookcases. Inside the car we built
 our bookcases of oak. with glass
 doors opening outward on both sides
 of the truck, so that it. advertises it's
 own wares as it travels over the
 country The shelves slant slightly
 back to hold the books away from
 the glass.
 "Our territory is now laid in 16
 runs, but we must add at least five
 to these in order to cover it. Some
 of our trips are long. Number one,
 for instance, is 42 miles long and begins and ends 10 miles from Nobfes- vile. We have driven our car through fresh gra~-i. mud and over ice. AS we travel four days weeK, we cannot wait for good roads. The work is very interesting and grows more so as the librarians. and the people get better acquainted. The demand for books has been so great that it has been almost impossible to satisfy both the city and the coun- try, as we were not expecting ana not well enough prepared for the voracious appetite for reading mat ter which we created.
 Our library car is called 'Parnas- sus after Christopher Morley's book. .Parnassus on Wheels It is a very interesting little book. about book peddling. We use an old fashioned 1 dinner bell to call our patrons, tnls being more effective than the horn. One side of the car is used for adult and the other for chiidren's books.
 We carry about 300 boo on Tn . shelves and extra fiction and juven- | ile books inside. Fiction is in great est demand, but we also circulate
 books on farming. travel, history literature. music, and Bible litera- 1 ture. We carry fairy stories and
 bear stories for the younger child ren and have introduced many youth 1 f,ll readers to Little Women, Tom Sawyer. and Pinochio. One great ad- vantage of our system to the rural patrons is that there are no fines
 attached to books charged to the IT.
 brary auto cards.
 ssThe people in the country think we made a good choice of a car as It l is a good car, but not the most ex- pensiye. They make many com ments on the car. especially since we 1 have met the men in the homes "The Indiana Library commission l is trying to push the country library 1 idea as are many other states. It IS much better to have a strong central | Iibrary. where decent salaries are paid, than so many small libraries, barely alive, and of not much use in the community. The Indiana hbrar- l ians are very much interested in our 1 work.
 Our car now regularly visits all most 800 homes and has about 1500 patrons, the circulation running from l 100 to 150 per run. We will give more l service when the remainder of our territory is organized. It is the most 1 interesting library work we have ever done and we hope all of 1ndi- l ana may have similar service in the
 near future
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