nance.

Report of the Traveling Library Department

J. R. CALLAWAY BROWN, Chief.

The results attained in this department during the past year have in an increasing degree demonstrated the wisdom of its establishment and mainteThe statistical tables of this report show the actual details of the work done. They show that there has been a material advance in the number of libraries maintained in the field during this year over past years; that from one to eleven stations have been maintained in seventy-six counties of the State; and that the books in this department are being worked to the utmost practical capacity.

These results have been accomplished notwithstanding the fact that this year found us at low ebb in respect to the physical condition of the books. By considerate expenditure of our appropriation we have succeeded in largely overcoming this condition by having eight hundred volumes rebound. A properly rebound book will outlast several times over a book in ordinary binding. This improved condition of the books came too late to show results in the way of increased circulation for our report this year, but we can confidently expect an appreciative response from the patrons for next year.

Letters from patrons of the libraries repeat the high tone of appreciation quoted in former reports.

The number of borrowers and readers of the books vary widely with the community. These reports from the local librarians are not always complete, but, as reported, the average circulation of the books in a set continues to advance; many communities have reported several hundred readers of a single set in one season.

As to new books added this year, our heavy rebinding policy curtailed our ability, under the appropriations, to make even the usual additions. We have been able to purchase only seventy-nine new volumes.

The traveling library idea is comparatively new. Like all new ideas, its

practical possibilities are not easily grasped at once by even the most far-seeing. In time, however, all will admit its great value. The most superficial observer will acknowledge the value of a well selected private collection of books to a family. He will readily admit that a good book has done a work many times the value of its purchase price, even though, as is usually the case, it has been read but once by its private owner, and the rest of its life merely occupies shelf room. Extend the idea to a public permanent library in a school community. The value of the collection is multiplied by the number of the families in that particular community. Every community, at least in its school, should have a permanent collection of books, but in time a given collection, having been read by all in the community, becomes more or less stale and its work ends. Valuable as is the work of a permanent community library, the traveling library does a far greater work for good. It works not only in one community, but it may work in a hundred. Each season it visits a new community, bringing repeated freshness and leaving a good work in its trail. Knowing that the stay of the collection is limited, the average citizen will probably overcome the tendency to postpone his reading to a more convenient season, a tendency that is the result of inertia, and will more promptly take advantage of the opportunity presented. Hence the traveling library will be more generally used.

One phase of the State's educational work, which only the traveling library can do, is worth to the State its maintenance-viz., the pioneer work. Just as a permanent public library in a community will stimulate the intellectual life of that community and lead to the purchase of private collections of books by families that otherwise would never know the value of such collections, so a free traveling library will do the first work of showing in a concrete form the value of a permanent public collection to a community which otherwise would be slow in making the necessary outlay for the purchase of such a collection.

It is the great aim of the State not only that the few should be educated, but that the blessings of knowledge should reach all. Considering the means and material at the command of this department, we believe it is doing a remarkable part in stimulating thoughtful reading, bending the minds of the young in the direction of helpful reading, and carrying useful knowledge to all.

Compared with the work that this department, properly enlarged, could do, we have only made small beginnings, but even in this small beginning its influ ence is widespread throughout the State. We believe that the results obtained justify not only its life but its enlargement. Not only has it been a factor in the State's great work of educating all, but the results obtained by an enlargement will be in geometrical ratio, while the cost of maintenance, after the first cost of books, will be in arithmetical ratio. We believe that the results obtained could be doubled at an expenditure of one and one-half the present cost of maintenance and quadrupled at probably less than twice the present cost of maintenance. We hope to see a thousand well selected sets visiting constantly the schools and communities of the State, thus becoming a large factor in educating the young and bringing a leaven of knowledge to the humblest citizen in the remotest district of the Commonwealth.

TABLE.

The following table shows the stations maintained within the past year, giving geographical distribution by counties.

NOTE. The figures in the first column indicate the number of general or special libraries, those in the second column the number of school libraries, maintained in the corresponding stations.