New York.-Permits use of school premises for same purposes as New Jersey law. Also authorizes boards of education to organize and maintain athletics, playground and social center activities. Passed in 1913.

Maryland. School boards, upon application from 25 citizens, may grant the use of buildings for nonpartisan discussions and for civic, social, and recreational activities. Nonexclusive associations of citizens to have free use of buildings. School boards may provide for other civic, social, and recreational activities. Chapter 461, 1914.

Ohio. Upon application of responsible groups, school premises shall be available for use as social centers and civic discussions. Organizations using buildings are responsible for damages. County commissioners authorized to organize and maintain civic and social center activities. The levy of a tax may be decided by a popular referendum. Passed May 9, 1913.

Oregon.-District boards may permit use of school buildings for any proper purposes giving equal rights to all denominations or political parties, but costs for fuel, etc., to be borne by users. No dancing permitted. L. O. L., section 4052, subdivision 27.

Pennsylvania.-School boards may permit use of school premises for social, recreational, and other purposes and may make arrangements with associations for the temporary use of school property for such purposes. Passed in 1911.

Washington.-School boards may provide for public meetings, recreation and other community purposes, and may acquire and disseminate information of use to the farm, home, and community. Passed in 1913.

West Virginia.-Trustees may allow the use of schoolhouses for religious, political, and literary meetings and Sunday-school purposes. Section 62 of the school law. Wisconsin.-School directors authorized to establish evening schools, vacation schools, reading rooms, library stations, debating clubs, gymnasiums, public playgrounds, public baths, and similar activities. Popular referendum authorized to compel school directors to act and provide for a special tax levy. Upon application of voters, school board shall allow use of buildings for free discussions and may allow use of buildings for other civic, social, and recreational activities. Nonpartisan, nonsectarian, and nonexclusive associations of citizens shall have use of schoolhouses free of charge. School board may provide for other civic, social, and recreational activities. Users responsible for damage.

An agitation is now in process in Wisconsin for the passage of an amendment to this law authorizing school boards to furnish for all meetings of the above-mentioned nonexclusive organizations secretarial service by a person to be known as civic secretary of the district. The school principal or other suitable person may be employed for this purpose, and remuneration shall be made out of school funds.

CHAPTER XXII.

LIBRARY ACTIVITIES DURING 1913-14.

By GEORGE B. UTLEY,

Secretary of the American Library Association, Chicago, Ill.

CONTENTS.-General survey-National aid-College and university libraries-Library schools-State aid, library commissions, and traveling libraries-Cooperation-Library work in schools-American Library Association-State library associations-Gifts-American Library Institute-PensionsWork with foreigners-Libraries in commercial houses-Newer forms of service-New buildingsExpansion in large cities-Necrology.

In a general survey restricted to the library activities of a single year the most that can be done is to record briefly those features of the year that stand forth as especially worthy of mention, denoting (1) certain tendencies in library practice, (2) innovations of general interest, (3) noteworthy examples of progress, or (4) important facts in the year's history.

The year has been one of general advance. New libraries have been established in every State; reports from all quarters speak of increased equipment and increased use of libraries; appropriations for public, school, and university libraries have as a rule been larger; new efforts have been made to reach those outside the bounds of library service, particularly in rural sections; more intelligent and systematic attempts have been made to acquaint the general public with what libraries offer and with the educational work they are performing.

Few people have as yet any real conception of the use that can be made of the free library. Therefore it is the task of every able librarian to wage a steady campaign of publicity and enlightenment as to the service his institution can render. According to investigations recently made by the assistant librarian of Los Angeles, not more than one-fifth of the people of the average city use the public library. Of the remaining four-fifths one-fifth have either no time or no desire to read, and another fifth are either illiterate or else too young to read. Two-fifths are prospective readers, and every annual report on library conditions should indicate some increase of the fraction representing actual users. Mr. Bailey, of the Wilmington, Del., library, thinks

that the relatively small number of library patrons is partly because librarians do not know the home conditions of the people, and therefore can not fit the book to the individual or family. He thinks perhaps the final solution for the city as well as the country librarian will be the book wagon, already so successful in country districts. No doubt we are entering the "take-books-to-readers" era.

Dr. Melvil Dewey said recently:

We have broadened our ideas like circles in the water. This is the genesis of accessibility: (1) Books to be consulted only by a favored few; (2) by any who paid the fee; (3) freely by all, but no book to leave the building. Then came loaning: (1) To the favored few; (2) to those who paid the fee; (3) and then this splendid modern conception of free as air or water to all. Now we are in the third age of branch stations and deliveries by wagons, motors, messenger, express, or mail. The new parcel post greatly stimulated the bibliothecal imagination.1

Branches or deposit stations for lending books for home use have been established not only in buildings erected or rented for the purpose, but also in schools, manufacturing plants, park field houses and playgrounds, department stores, fire and police stations, suburban drug and grocery stores, Young Men's Christian Association and Young Women's Christian Association buildings, institutional churches, and elsewhere. Cleveland, Ohio, for example, has 547 agencies for placing books at the disposal of its citizens; Seattle, Wash., 496; and Portland, Oreg., 908 (distributed throughout the county). Extension of library privileges on the part of cities to neighboring communities has been a frequent topic at State library association and library club meetings.

There has been a steady growth of the county library plan. Twentysix California counties have county libraries. Their popularity is growing in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Iowa, Oregon, Wisconsin, Washington, and Montana. Cincinnati and Portland (Oreg.) serve their respective counties with such signal success that other important cities are planning to imitate them. The American Library Association is planning to issue soon a handbook on the subject that will give useful advice to communities and library boards.

Appropriations for libraries have been on the whole more liberal this past year than ever before, and the limit of the tax rate, where there is a limit, is becoming less restrictive. The obligation of the community to furnish and sustain the free library as it maintains the free school is more fully recognized than ever, and as an indication of the welcome accorded the library and the privileges it offers, it is interesting to learn that a petition for a branch library in a certain portion of Chicago was signed by more than 10,000 residents of the neighborhood.

1 Public Libraries, 19: 154.

Eastman, W. R.; in Library Journal, 38: 623.

NATIONAL AID.

The importance and magnitude of the service rendered to the libraries of the country peculiarly impressed those who attended the conference of the American Library Association in Washington, D. C., in May, 1914. According to a handbook compiled for that occasion, there are 137 libraries in the District of Columbia, having an aggregate of 5,674,000 volumes and pamphlets, about four-fifths of which are in libraries supported directly by the Government, and the service represented in this vast collection of books is more or less directly at the disposal of the country at large.

The most important of these agencies is naturally the Library of Congress. The appropriation act for 1914-15 provided means for the extension of its activities by the establishment of a legislative reference department; $25,000 was appropriated to "enable the Librarian of Congress to employ competent persons to prepare such indexes, digests, and compilations of law as may be required for Congress and other official use pursuant to the act approved June 30, 1906." This legislation is regarded as the initial step toward a larger undertaking to embrace service usually contemplated in a legislative reference bureau. The first undertaking under this act is the resumption of the. indexing of the Statutes at Large. This will comprise a supplement to the general laws enacted since 1907, at which point the present index stops; also a separate index to the private and local acts from the beginning. Since its present administration began, the Library of Congress has continuously rendered to Congress a service similar to that of a legislative reference bureau. It has not, however, been equipped hitherto, except in occasional instances, to meet requests from Congress for digests, translations, or comprehensive statements. For bill drafting it has had absolutely no provision.

The accessions to the Library of Congress during the year were: Books, 125,054; maps and charts, 6,489; music (volumes and pieces), 32,675; prints (pieces), 16,318.

The most important accession of the year was Mr. Jacob H. Schiff's second notable gift, consisting of more than 4,200 volumes to reenforce the collection of Semitica given by him to the library in 1912. It includes about 120 manuscripts, chiefly biblical, cabalistic, and liturgical.

Through the services of Dr. Fung, in China, the collection of Chinese literature received an increase of 6,467 volumes, embracing works dealing chiefly with lexicography, history, and physiography, the arts, agriculture, medicine, bibliography, and epigraphy; but including also many collected works, series, and encyclopedias.

1 See section on American Library Association in this chapter.