LIBRARIES IN TROUBLE

...In this campaign to break the poverty cycle every weapon of education is desperately needed...

...Backed by Federal, state, and city funds at least a half-dozen projects aimed at the poor are under way...

...If circulation were increased sufficiently, then, and only then, could the library step in with additional help...

...This would be a stronger argument were it not that many suburban libraries show huge increases in circulation on a per capita basis, and not merely the inevitable climb in total book loans due to the suburban population boom...

...Its branches are community cultural centers...

...For a century after the first public library was founded in Peterborough, New Hampshire , in 1833, they were viewed as "working men's academies," the inspiration for self-education for persons of all ages and classes...

...Many libraries, however, lack the money to buy large new book stocks...

...The concerned citizen—especially if banded together with others—can begin to help by studying the health of the local library system, and then pressing for the needed remedies...

...For example, Chicago's libraries circulated 15.5 million books in 1932 but nearly a third less, only 10.5 million, in 1965...

...Some added juvenile patronage is the product of the upsurge in school enrollments and is "forced" by teachers' requirements for outside reading, book reports, and special assignments...

...Mayor Richard Daley became interested...

...What can a city library system do to recover lost ground and contribute to community education, especially in low income areas...

...In Chicago, which is typical, they account for forty-five per cent of total circulation...

...Typical of the bias in book supply is the one against "too many best sellers," the adult titles usually most in demand...

...For culturally-deprived preschoolers in Puerto Rican, Negro, and other neighborhoods, the libraries seek to develop cultural awareness so that youngsters will be better equipped to cope with studies when they enter school...

...Affluent Chicago suburbs such as Wilmette, Win-netka, and Highland Park, which spend about as much per capita as Cleveland, also turn up astounding circulation figures—fourteen to seventeen books per person per year, exceeding even London's often extolled figure of ten books per year...

...Offering more best-sellers —as a retailer advertises "loss-leaders" —might be one way to attract many more adults...

...Some librarians also point to television, paperback books, and a variety of leisure-time activities as culprits who steal potential readers of library books...

...The other half of the drop in the patronage of city libraries results from disinterest among the low income and middle income groups and the middle aged...

...How much does the system spend per capita, and for what purposes...

...One such weapon that has great potential but is too often overlooked, or under-used, is the city—especially the big city—public library...

...Chicago, in contrast, passively watches branch libraries decline as the population changes...

...The bias against what books should go on library shelves is exemplified by these comments from a professional librarian: "Twenty-five years ago a large library thought nothing of having fifty to one hundred copies of the current equivalent of Peyton Place...

...And Cleveland, significantly, spends the most per capita —nearly six dollars per year—of any big city on its libraries...

...They face a dilemma in allocating scarce space and funds between best-sellers, new books of more lasting interest, and replacements of worn copies of classics and reference works...

...There are classes on "Instant Art," Shakespearean interpretations, plays, and other dramatic activities, as well as films on many subjects of educational or entertainment value...

...With today's high employment, adults are said to be too busy to read library books...

...The clergyman proposed that "Because of the low educational level in West Town [a densely-populated, deprived-family community], the library board should make an extraordinary effort to improve the reading habits of the community...

...Typical are such highly affluent suburbs of Chicago as Highland Park and Winnetka...

...But in the past few decades their educational purpose has been all but lost sight of, and the product of this public neglect is that "Most of the nation's libraries are ill-housed, badly equipped, and inadequately staffed"—as Edwin Castagna, American Library Association president and director of Baltimore's Enoch Pratt Library, expressed it before last year's annual meeting of the ALA...

...Other limiting factors of big city library use can be summarized under three broad headings—bias in book supplies, miserly budgets, and passive philosophy...

...Librarians who require public conformity to their tastes not only contribute to circulation losses but, more devastatingly, fail to realize that taste can be improved with reading exposure...

...Because they have the money to afford it they discard books that have few or no borrowers...

...Librarians say that in the depression years of the 1930's the unemployed had more time to read, and did...

...The News published a series of articles about Chicago's languid library system...

...That jolt and spur have yet to benefit the nation's neglected public libraries—particularly those in the big cities—to any important degree...

...The most important change has been the great extent of population substitution...

...It should, and the result should be applauded...

...The words happen to be those of V. I. Lenin, written more than a half-century ago...

...We saw some trends which we thought could be reversed," said Meredith Bloss, New Haven Library director, "and we induced the Ford Foundation to come into the area...

...How well do the nation's libraries meet these standards...

...According to Statistics of Library Service in Illinois, 1964, circulation was fourteen books per capita in Highland Park and seventeen in Winnetka, an increase of more than forty per cent since 1933...

...Other large cities have experienced similarly heavy in-migrations of low income, poorly educated groups...

...When the Russians sent their first sputnik aloft, nine years ago, one major effect was to jolt American public thinking, and spur a flow of public funds on behalf of American schools...

...Three new libraries, all in low income areas, are being built with Office of Economic Opportunity funds...

...The presence or absence of library publicity, of special books and programs for the culturally deprived and for pre-school children and school dropouts, are indications of the library system's genuine interest in and budgetary capability for giving service to the community...

...For this, and other reasons, many librarians currently downgrade the importance of circulation as a valid measure of performance...

...Since 1933 the proportion of Negroes in Chicago's population, for example, has risen from about eight per cent to twenty-seven per cent and is still increasing...

...Most big-city libraries need both additional professional staff and more and better personnel at lower levels...

...New Haven, Connecticut, found the resources to do some pioneering toward these ends...

...It is not called a library but a "Treasure House for Children...

...Part of the diagnosis depends on answers to key questions...

...A prominent alderman held open hearings on the issue...

...Specially planned facilities, reading materials, and programs were aimed at meeting the needs of the community's new residents as determined by neighborhood surveys made by the library staff...

...While school children five to twelve years of age constitute only one-eighth of the population, they borrow nearly half the books lent by the large city libraries...

...The Cleveland system's philosophy is reader-oriented...

...editorials on the Chicago library system began to appear, and the Chicago Sun-Times carried its own study as a Sunday feature...

...If parents read more, children would read more...

...While some other library systems offer somewhat similar attractions to adults and youth, they usually do not publicize them extensively...

...He reports: "We have intensive drives to reach new people...

...There are many explanations offered for the circulation decline in the cities since New Deal days, especially among adults...

...They offer book reviews, talks on voter registration, home maintenance, travel...

...Generally, the more varied the book supply, the better the patronage...

...Too many libraries have too many unwanted books...

...Do people have to wait a long time to borrow a best-seller...

...The citizen can help by asking newspapers, and radio and television stations, to give library news proper attention...

...Story-telling sessions in the library are one technique...

...Three library board members resigned and two new ones, who seem most interested in library potentials and problems, were appointed...

...Educators hope to break the cycle in which ignorance born of poverty fosters new generations of uneducated, unskilled, unemployed, and alienated Americans...

...For dropouts and adults, there are remedial reading programs using special materials...

...Cleveland (eighth in population) leads all large cities in per capita circulation...

...This quotation sounds like the pronouncement of an eminent American library authority...

...For many years only twenty-five per cent of all adults have been library card-holders...

...Library book circulation has actually risen in the past three decades even though the city's total population has remained virtually unchanged...

...Cleveland's latest assault on ignorance is a new type of children's facility for culturally deprived areas, located in one of Cleveland's worst slums...

...Sometimes local news media fail to cooperate, thus frustrating dedicated librarians...

...How many books does the library stock and circulate, and what percentage has no takers...

...For the neighborhood at large, the libraries seek to lead residents into the world of books and magazines...

...Pittsburgh has had far less population in-migration than many other large cities...

...One example, reported by The Chicago Tribune, told of a protest against the inadequacy of library help by a minister in the "inner city," the Reverend William Smith of the Waldensian Presbyterian Church...

...The branch chosen for the first experiment was the "Scranton Branch" in which book loans had plunged from a high of 100,000 annually to 12,000...

...Money judiciously spent on libraries, therefore, appears to stimulate patronage...

...But since few big cities approach the $4.47 per capita expenditure level recommended by the American Library Association, it is no surprise that in 1963 the composite circulation figures for fourteen of our largest cities was only three library books per capita for adults and eleven for juveniles...

...Yet there is a direct relationship between library budgets and circulation...

...The effects of substituting populations can be seen specifically in a comparison, made by one of the authors, of the circulations for Chicago branches serving primarily "white" areas and those serving primarily "colored" neighborhoods...

...It seems to be characteristic that as Negroes come to constitute large proportions of populations, per capita circulations tend to decline...

...One of the authors of this article summarized his library findings about Chicago and sent them to the Chicago Daily News...

...The library programs of both New York City and New York state provide further examples of new and experimental ventures...

...It urgently needs to be revitalized and greatly expanded...

...In many cases, workers are sent into neighborhoods to create interest in library services and to enlist the help of other social agencies in promoting library usage...

...munities as well...

...Strong arguments can be made for stocking "best-sellers" in quantity...

...The libraries of too many major cities have long been kept on thin, if not starvation rations, with the result that today they will require a heavy transfusion of Federal, state, and local funds if they are to make a significant contribution to the educational needs not only of the poor but of millions of other Americans...

...Since suburbs are populated largely with people who own one or more television sets, who can afford to buy paperbacks, and who indulge in a wide range of leisure activities, it does not seem realistic to ascribe the bulk of the patronage-decline of city libraries to the reading of paperbacks, television-watching, and other leisure-time pursuits...

...The need for an activist approach to replace the passive philosophy which has contributed to the enfeebling of so many libraries is demonstrated by a comparison of the Cleveland and Chicago library systems...

...in fact, between 1950 and 1960 many lost population within city boundaries...

...The chief librarian, in contrast to usual practices, is the children's librarian...

...His report served as the basis for that newspaper's further inquiries...

...Limited budgets are perhaps the major reason why the nation may be headed toward an even more acute shortage of qualified librarians in the years ahead—at the very time that the communications explosion is taking on huge dimensions...

...Louis, and many others...

...decor and furnishings of the library, as well as the reading materials, are all child-oriented and largely aimed at the culturally deprived...

...What, then, are the major causes of the decline...

...The Russians did not invent public libraries any more than they invented baseball, but the Soviets' founding father advocated a library concept and goal that Americans devised more than a century ago—"the working man's academy...

...in a neighborhood of 20,000 population, 17,000 persons attended various special events during a one-year period...

...JOHN S. WIGGINS is a Chicago advertising consultant and formerly was sales promotion manager for the Columbia Broadcasting System...

...It also has established standards for the size of library book collections, varying according to community size...

...This, of course, means less circulation...

...On the average, "white" branches circulate from three to four times as many books per adult —and per child—each year, as do their "colored" counterparts...

...On the basis of its detailed studies, the ALA recommends $4.47 per capita per year as the standard of general operating expenditures required for public libraries to give adequate service to their communities...

...Their problems cannot be solved overnight, but if libraries are to make an early and important contribution to the war against poverty and the raising of educational standards in the whole population, they should be provided with additional Federal, state, and local funds promptly...

...Some enlightened suburban systems with large budgets have, in contrast, built phenomenal circulations by acquiring extensive, current book inventories including many best sellers...

...This attitude—that culturally deprived adults should lead their children to culture—that the blind should lead the blind—is not untypical of librarians and library boards in other cities, large and small...

...Inadequate book inventories are often obscured by falsely optimistic figures indicating substantial increases in total book supply, but often these totals include huge numbers of "dead," over-age titles...

...It is small wonder that Cleveland leads all big cities in the number of books borrowed, not only among adults, but among children...

...right at the bottom of the scale of three to ten books for adults, and ten to thirty per juvenile, set by the ALA as minimum standards ten years ago...

...They take the library to the people rather than wait for the people to come to the library...

...One reason is that too many library administrators tend to be passive, not only about attracting readers, but towards the local legislators and budget-makers...

...special grants for books from the Ford Foundation and a local foundation will help stock them...

...Once a person has been exposed to books, even those of less than top quality, it should be possible to stir his interest in better books...

...Corollaries to inadequate library budgets are understaffing and low pay scales...

...Poorly-educated minorities such as Negroes, Puerto Ricans, and poor Southern whites, have replaced many of the better-educated, middle- and upper-income families—the traditional library patrons—who have moved to the suburbs...

...In an increasingly child-dominated country, it is hardly surprising that youngsters ring up impressive statistics at library check-out desks...

...As population substitution increased in Cleveland—the city is thirty-five per cent Negro—its library chief, Ray Lindquist, went all-out to attract the newcomers...

...Most big cities have not grown significantly since the 1930s...

...In fourteen of our largest cities, combined, twenty per cent fewer books are now circulated by public libraries than were lent to borrowers thirty to thirty-five years ago, according to figures compiled by one of the authors of this article...

...In a slum area the library branch should be doing its part to overcome poverty, and making that fact known...

...When the big-city budgets are made up, all too often libraries get little attention...

...It is a concept that Americans have been neglecting for more than a generation...

...The glory and the pride of a public library . . . [depends] on how widely books are circulated among the people, how many new readers are enrolled, how rapidly book requests are filled, how many books are borrowed, and how many children become interested in reading books and using libraries...

...Later he spoke before the Chicago City Club...

...The experience of the Pittsburgh system confirms the picture in Chicago in a reverse sort of way...

...The Treasure House story was told by extensive advance publicity and an elaborate grand opening...

...There are tunnels and secret passages, amusement devices, game areas—all designed to attract youngsters into the building and make them feel comfortable in exciting surroundings where books are transformed into the reward at the end of the rainbow...

...They cite research facilities and other services as equally important justifications for libraries...

...With financial help from the Ford Foundation, the branch was relocated, enlarged, and converted into a library neighborhood center dedicated to bringing the library closer to the people...

...What is true of these suburbs is also true of similar areas fringing most big cities...

...I doubt that many public libraries today would feel justified in ordering more than two or three copies, even if they had a waiting list of a hundred...

...Perhaps the most striking evidence of success is the clamor in New Haven for more such libraries...

...During approximately the same period book circulation dropped in such cities as Buffalo, Detroit, Milwaukee, St...

...It took three decades for the libraries of our largest cities to work themselves into their present fix...

...There is also a real question as to how much circulation classified as "adult" comes from true adults because students over twelve years of age borrow great numbers of non-juvenile books...

...Folders are given out through churches, stores, social agencies, and in every way that cooperating librarians can find...

...The self-image of the Cleveland library is not that of a book dispenser but of a community center focused on learning...

...About half of the circulation loss is evidently caused by changing big-city populations...

...They also need activist library administrators, and public support at the community level...

...Although the neglect of public libraries may be most visible in the cities, it is a condition now common in thousands of smaller American comJIM FUERST, a researcher and free lance writer, has been studying the Chicago public library and other city libraries for several years...

...Libraries in Trouble by JIM FUERST and JOHN S. WIGGINS Tn many cities across the land, school systems backed by Federal aid have joined in efforts to bring the benefits of education to the poor—particularly to pre-school children and teen-age dropouts...

...While it is too early to evaluate results, these vigorous programs seem headed in the right direction...

...An ALA survey based on responses from more than 6,000 libraries in villages, towns, and cities across the country revealed that ninety-seven per cent fell below ALA standards for operating expenditures and sixty-nine per cent had substandard book collections...

...Results: Book loans climbed to 50,000...

...In a speech urging increased Federal aid for libraries, Representative Carl Perkins, Kentucky Democrat, told the present session of the House: "More than fifteen million persons in the United States still have no public library service and it is estimated that more than 100 million persons are provided library services far below their actual needs...

...To which Miss Gertrude S. Gscheidle, the head of Chicago's libraries, replied: "This is the local community's responsibility...