BOOKS AS SOCIAL SERVANTS

...Books Sent to Homes BUT we all know that in every great city there are many people who could not be induced to go into a library even if it was ne.ct door to them...

...they are merely evidences of what is going on...

...It is the continuous, helpful, inspiring contact of personality with personality, of people who know and love books with those who are learning to know and to love them and with those who have not even been introduced to them...

...These are in the form of movable tiles for the fire-places...

...Cases of books, carefully selected to interest old and young are carried on Saturday afternoons to homes in the poorest districts of the city and are left to circulate in the neighborhood for a week...

...There is, as we have said, a perfect net-work of libraries—there are seven branches, thirteen sub-branches, and a large number of classroom libraries and of library stations in factories, settlements, homes, fire-engine houses and telephone exchanges...

...the latter, pieces to speak on Christmas, Memorial Day, and other holidays and on the birthdays of the poets...

...The other alternative is the better way...

...But there is a net-work of people also, of people who know books and love them, coming into daily, intimate, helpful contact with people who have never had a chance to get acquainted with them and to know the joy and the comfort which which are stored up between their covers...

...but it is not the number of libraries nor the big circulation that counts...

...But the rooms in the libraries are open whenever the clubs want to hold business meetings and for this reason it is natural for the club members to return to the libraries in the fall and to books and debate...

...with other people unacquainted with books but capable of being trained to find companionship in them...

...This is for my father and mother...

...with some people capable of being served, uplifted, and solaced by books...

...Such a course means either that only a small percentage of the possible power can be developed, or that state or national funds must be expended on the work of river regulation and the largest share of the benefit will be reaped by the water-power syndicates...

...It is true that after a lapse of years the rates charged by private water-power companies may be subject to regulation by law, but one recoils before the long vista of agitation, legislation and litigation which such a course would make necessary...

...This has come about because the librarian, Mr...

...For this reason, Cleveland has a system of home libraries...

...The librarians always know when to change the titles for they are in closest touch with the public school work...

...There are pictures in all the ordinary forms in the Cleveland libraries—pictures in books and on walls —but there are pictures also of at least one very unusual kind...

...they mean leading the people to hunger after books and to take them into their hearts and lives...

...The subjects chosen for debate are sometimes, tremendously big—"Resolved that Immigration Should be Restricted," for example—but that does no harm...

...The first is to permit the water-power resources of the nation to be exploited solely by private enterprise and for private enrichment...

...Of these co-workers the chief is Linda A. Eastman, the vice-librarian, who is in sympathy with every move that is made to bring the people to the books or to carry the books to the people...

...Children Have Club Rooms THE CHILDREN'S Department includes, besides a directory, four supervisors, one of Branch Libraries, one of Class Room Libraries, one of Reading Clubs and one of Home Libraries, and in addition, twelve children's librarians and eleven class-room librarians...

...The former contains helpful lists of books...

...Brett and his fellow-workers believe that it is a legitimate part of library-work to give the man or the woman who spends the day in monotonous toil a few moments occasionally in the world of fancy, as well as because they want to give to the children an early acquaintance with good books that the children's department has received special attention, and has been rapidly developed...

...The books are there, to be sure, in great numbers, but they are there not so much for the purpose of being piled up in stacks and enumerated in catalogs as for the purpose of leading the people of the city to better, cleaner, happier lives...

...William H. Brett, loves books much but people more, and having the objects of his affection in this ©rder, people first and books next, he has drawn about him as co-workers, people who, like himself, are interested in books chiefly because they are interested in people, and who like to know people as well as they like to know books...

...There is a weekly story-telling hour in every library in Cleveland...

...But, that is too old for you," said one of the children's librarians to a little boy who had called for the "Blue Fairy Book...

...With the books goes the story-teller to give an intimation of what may be found within them...

...WATER POWER RESOURCES FOR PUBLIC BENEFIT TWO alternatives are before the people of the United States...

...you can say that the circulation is so great now and will be greater next year unless all signs fail...

...The public, through state or federal authorities, should assert its rights to control all undeveloped water powers as well as the increase of power which may be brought about at developed power plants through water storage.—Charles Whiting Baker in The Annals...

...They like fairy-tales," was the reply...

...The libraries even go so far as to publish Teachers' Leaflets and Childrens' Leaflets...

...There is now one building, the Perkins Children's Library devoted to the children alone...

...BOOKS AS SOCIAL SERVANTS How the Cleveland Public Library is Using its Volumes to Brighten the Daily Lives of Men, Women and Children By CAROLINE L. HUNT IF YOU were to visit the Cleveland Public Library, (perhaps it would be better to say libraries, for there is a net-work of them extending all...

...over the city), you might come away with a feeling that you had seen a great many books, but you would be much more likely to come away with the feeling that you had been in close contact with humanity...

...It is the contact of personality with personality that gives strength to the public library system of Cleveland...

...Pictures help too...

...Making People Hungry for Books BY BRINGING books to the people, the staff of the Cleveland library does not mean merely putting the books where they can be easily reached, not merely establishing branches of the main library...

...with people...

...It stands next door to a day nursery, has seats for eighty children, a library of three thousand books and a club- and story-telling room...

...But you could no more convey by means of ink and paper an idea of the work the Cleveland libraries are doing than you could describe the effect of a hearty hand-shake...

...it simply drives the boys and girls to books and shows them their dependence upon them...

...It is because Mr...

...The clubs are chiefly for reading and debating purposes...

...The intimate personal relation must in many cases, particularly in the foreign quarters, be secured through the children...

...when they begin to read Greek myths, Ulysses and Penelope take the place of the early English heroes and heroines...

...The librarian who tells this story in her report adds that it was good to know that the father and mother "who had little to spend on pleasure and little time for recreation were getting a new view of life and were living for a little time with princes and princesses in some king's wonderful palace...

...You can say there are so many branches, so many home libraries, so many class room libraries...

...They are there to be used and they are used, for there is a circulation now of 1,900,000 volumes a year and the number of books drawn is rapidly increasing...

...In the summer there is likely to be a sudden metamorphosis of debating clubs into athletic organizations and a sudden exodus from libraries to open fields...

...When the children of a given district are studying the Arthurian legends they are likely to find scenes from the lives of Sir Galahad and Merlin around the fire place in their library...

...The room in which it is held is next to the room where the children's books are kept and it is easy for the story-teller to guage her success by the demand for books containing the story...

...There are, in fact, club-rooms in connection with all the children's libraries, and the clubs have now grown so numerous that they have been put in charge of a trained supervisor who has the assistance of a large body of volunteer workers...

...Stories and Pictures STORY-TELLING is another means by which people may be introduced to books...