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LIBRARIES FOR FLORIDA

Sent to you by the Florida State Library Board to awaken your awareness to the creative part more and better public libraries can play in increasing the mental capital of Florida citizens and the material development of our state.

Edited by Thomas Dreier

Vol. 2 FEBRUARY, 1958 No. 5

"Memo From An Inanimate Object"

John R. Tunis, one of the country's most popular writers of books for young people, sent us this "Memo From An Inanimate Object" which he found in The Independent:

Forgive me, I am only a book.

I am paper and cloth, ink and thread. I am a book, and to many people that is like saying I am nothing.

But misunderstand me not.

I am not ashamed to be a book. Even in the country in these times, when millions of adult citizens have never set foot in a book shop and millions more have never visited a public library.

I am a book and proud of it.

In no other medium of communication has man been able to reach his fellow man so directly. In no other way have so many been enriched by the knowledge of what has been before. In no other manner can man reach across the centuries to speak.

I am a book.

I have brought poetry into the lives of bricklayers, I have nourished the hopes of the underdog, given courage to men in many places and during many times when courage was needed.

I educate? True. I entertain? Yes.

I enrich all who trouble to read me. I am the mirror of man's dreams. I warm his heart, bring sparkle to his eyes, and sometimes I caress him with love.

I am a book. I am able to probe men's minds, explore their fantasies and touch their hearts where no surgeon's scalpel has ever reached.

At times, men have tried to burn me, to banish me, to destroy me. But I am invincible. I rise to be read again long after the bookburners have bowed to the victory of the grass.

I am a book and proud of it. And I am your friend. In fact, I am the only friend you have who you can put on a shelf and forget about for months - knowing always that when you call for me again I

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am within reach and without resentment . . . and my friendship for you is as warm as it was the day I was written, the day I was printed.

There are good books and bad books and so-so books - as there are good people and bad people and so-so people. I am related to all books, as you are related to all men.

Have you read a good book lately?

At a library conference at Ocala, Mrs. Edith C. Bloomer of Brooksville, former bookmobile librarian in Alabama, told how regional library and bookmobile service gave small-town and country school teachers access to material previously available only to teachers and pupils in towns and cities big enough to have a public library. One teacher needed material on plastics. Teachers in one town needed special material for a Legion-sponsored essay contest on the Constitution. The bookmobile brought them what they needed.

Many Florida women in the rural regions, when they get bookmobile service, will say just what Mrs. Lettie Coleman of Walker Springs, Alabama, said to Librarian Edith C. Bloomer: "It's the best thing that has happened to us since they paved the road.

What Chancellor Lawrance A. Kimpton of the University of Chicago says about a university may also with equal truth be said about a great library: "A great university is a spirit, a mood, an atmosphere, that somehow transcends men and money and materials, although it is not easy to specify these immaterial things that transmute the baser metals into gold."

Some Florida Libraries Plan Improvements

A number of Florida's public libraries have been surveyed during the past year by invitation of the library board or city officials. Miami Beach and Jacksonville asked chief librarian John Hall Jacobs

LIBRARIES OF FLORIDA FEBRUARY, 1958

of New Orleans Public Library to assess their needs and make recommmendations. Miami Beach immediately started to carry out suggestions. These included a better budget, employment of an associate librarian, more books and improved services to adults and young people. Jacksonville is now in the process of being surveyed.

Assistant librarian Russell Schunk of Albertson Public Library, Orlando, and formerly head of the Minnesota State Library Agency, has surveyed Coral Gables in view of locating a suitable site and suitable size for the new building. He has also conferred informally with the Zephyrhills Library regarding library improvement there. Mrs. Alice Reilly, Public Library Consultant from the State Library has worked with the DeLand and the Pensacola Public Libraries and made suggestions to the board for improvement according to accepted standards. Verna Nistendirk, Director of Library Extension for the State Library, has made a short survey with recommendations for the Lakeland Public Library. There indications lead us to believe that constructive criticism based on the accomplishments of other fine libraries will soon help Florida municipal library development. In 1956 the statewide per capita income for public libraries in Massachusetts was $2.66. The per capita income for public library support in Florida for 1955-56 was 76c as contrasted with 66c the previous year. What fine strides we could make up with an additional $1.90 per capita to bring us up to the standard in Massachusetts. No library can exist on good will alone. It takes funds, an interested intelligent governing body and excellent personnel to bring ideas and information to people. __________________

There Are Jobs For More Librarians These counties are participating in the new Rural Library Development program: Suwannee, Lafayette, St. Lucie, Orange, and Collier. All these counties are giving or planning to give bookmobile service as their bookmobiles arrive. With a network of regularly scheduled bookmobile stops, with community libraries in the larger towns and with maximum use of all the books in the area under the direction of a properly qualified librarian, all citizens should receive a good return on their library dollar. The fly in the ointment at this time is that public librarians are hard to find. Service in the new Suwannee River Regional Library and the Collier County Library is being held up for lack of a librarian. St. Lucie County has ordered their bookmobile and is looking for an assistant librarian who can take charge of the bookmobile service. Orange County, through contract with Orlando Public Library, began their increased services at the beginning of this fiscal year. __________________ Floridans Who Will Boss Library Week National Library Week is March 16-22. The following Floridans form the committee that will work to acquaint other Floridans with the value of books and libraries: Mr. Thomas Dreier, Chairman 1011 Brightwaters St. Petersburg, Florida Mr. James L. LeGate General Manager, WCKT Television Station Miami, Florida Mrs. E. D. Pearce Chairman, Inter-American Affairs Committee of the General Federation of Women's Clubs: Former President, State G.F.W.C. 1604 S. W. 14th Street Miami, Florida Mr. Keith Ball Editor, Miami Daily News Miami, Florida Mr. Philip Wylie (Author) 7450 S. W. 47 Court Miami, Florida Mrs. Ernest Kilroe Florida President, League of Women Voters 1101 Palmer Avenue Winter Park, Florida Dr. Herbert Zim Editor-In-Chief, Our Wonderful World P. O. Box 34 Tavernier, Florida Mrs. W. A. Mussett Florida State P. T. A. President 8825 Colony Road Miami, Florida Mr. B. R. Fuller, Jr. Executive Director, Florida Development Commission Tallahassee, Florida Mr. Frank G. Roche President Florida AFL-CIO 2500 N. W. 26th Street Miami, Florida Miss Alma Warren Home Demonstration Station Service, Florida State University Tallahassee, Florida Miss Audrey Newman Supervisor of Instructional Material, State Department of Education Tallahassee, Florida Miss Dena Snodgrass Florida State Chamber of Commerce 8057 Expressway Jacksonville 11, Florida Mr. John E. Frankel Director of Finance, City of Pensacola Pensacola, Florida Mr. Richard Daniel, Attorney 1100 Florida National Bank Building Jacksonville, Florida

FEBRUARY, 1958 LIBRARIES OF FLORIDA

Legislators Can End This Inequality

That public libraries can and should play an everincreasing part in the lives of the citizens of Florida as more and more people have more schooling and more leisure to cultivate their minds.

That there is a basic inequality in library service in Florida because public libraries get their chief financial support from local real estate taxes; the smaller towns on this tax base simply cannot afford to provide good library service to their citizens and inequalities arise from the same causes within metropolitian areas.

That the state can and should help to reduce these inequalities by providing funds and services where it is impracticable for the community to do so itself, just as the State plays a similar role for similar reasons in schools, highways, law enforcement, defense, and other services; but aid from the State should not go so far as to diminish local pride and interest in libraries.

That many of the larger libraries can and do provide valuable services to surrounding areas, for which they ought to be reimbursed by means of state grants.

That help for the State should be given in such a way to provide an incentive for better local support of libraries.

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Public Libraries Part of Democracy

Final decision in matters of greatest importance to our state and nation are in the hands of the people. Whether those decisions are wise or unwise depends on the information upon which those decisions rest.

Agencies of information, therefore, are of the utmost importance in a democracy. Chief among those agencies are public libraries. It is at once the most available (except in Florida and a handful of other states) and the most independent of agencies such as schools, the press, radio and television, the pulpit, the stage, the screen.

As Gerald W. Johnson explains: "It is not, like the church, committed to a particular point of view. It is not, like the press and radio, primarily concerned with events of the moment, nor, like the stage and screen, hampered by the physical restrictions of its medium. Its influence is not like that of the schools, largely confied to those who will be, but are not yet, wielders of power and who will probably come to positions of responsibility too late to affect the destinies of the world through the predictable future."

It is the responsibility of all citizens with foresight to contribute their efforts to the creation of an adequate public library service for all the citizens of Florida. When you create better public libraries you strengthen the foundations of our democracy.

We Face This Unpleasant Fact

There is no escape from the disheartening fact that the library laws of Florida will not allow a number of countries to levy sufficient funds to operate a standard public library. In 33 counties the maximum tax allowed by law will yield less that $1.00 per capita and in 15 counties the yield will be less than 50c per capita.

Standards back in 1943 stated that $1.50 per capita was needed for minimum good library service prviding the area served had a reasonably large population. Those same standards stated that $25,000 annually was needed to operate a library unit. Today's standards give at least $100,000 as an adequate budget for a library system covering a number of outlets.

Florida has five libraries with an income of over $100,000 and nine additional libraries with an income of over $25,000. 39 libraries have an income of from $5,000-$25,000. 82 libraries have an income of less than $5,000 per year. Eighteen counties have no library service at all.

Florida is progressive. Let's get behind libraries.

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At The Heart Of The Matter

In a talk Willis Kerr, the elder statesman of Southern California librarians, said that books are more important than libraries; that people are more important than books; and finally, that ideas are more important than people.

Therefore, ideas are at the heart of the matter.

Speaking to Friends of the UCLA Library, Librarian Lawrence Clark Powell said the importance of books is that they are the best means man has found to forward his ideas. "Books," he went on, "are more lasting than individual men. Gutenberg has been dead 400 years. The Bible he printed -- the first book ever made by man from movable type -- is as crisp and clean and full of power and beauty as on that day in 1450 when he finished it. Likewise, Shakespeare's immortality is in his books. Of all men's children, books are the most lasting."

Later in his talk he said: "It follows then that a library, which has collected, preserved, and made books available to people, is a sacred place, where the world's ideas are concentrated in usuable form."

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"The book business," says Charles Van Doren, "probably is the most important business in the world, for without books civilization would grind to a halt. The book business depends on anti-social people, people who like to get away and read a book. No doubt, this sort of people will always be with us."

LIBRARIES OF FLORIDA	FEBRUARY, 1958

Library Shelf BETTY BRIDGMAN in the Christian Science Monitor See how the paper remembers what it's told, Letter-perfect, like aspiring actor Rising to recite, whenever called. Speech of Lincoln, Socrates or Hector-- Awake all hours of the twenty-four With every answer ready on its tongue; In language fluent, versed in nature lore, Wise as the ancient, eager as the young. It won't forget the date of Waterloo. It keeps the color of Cleopatra's hair, And map of where the Hanging Gardens grew, Shelley's defiance, Sappho's bright despair. Paper remembers old Mosaic law, And footprints of those birds we never saw.

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They Look For The Right Answers Bert Barnes, an official of the big national organization, United Parcel Service, pays his tribute to public libraries in The Advertiser's Digest, Chicago.

He tells how one smart librarian, to focus attention on the vital part that a public library plays in the life of a community, induced members of a camera club to take color slides showing the many uses of books.

Selected Kodachromes were used in a slide-show. Given before luncheon clubs and other groups it gave citizens a clearer idea of the part played by their library.

"What seemed to impress everyone," wrote Mr. Barnes, "was the great variety of activities for which the library books furnished useful helpful knowledge.

"There were pictures of people engaged in every conceivable hobby and do-it-yourself activity, from flower arranging, weaving and painting to pottery making and boat building, not to mention the interesting shots of students griding out lessons, business researchers trying to find the right answers, and so forth."

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Because they appreciate the value of books, officials of The Port of New York Authority have made it possible for ill employees to request the company librarian to send any books of their choice to their homes. Our hope is that eventually we'll have a public library system in Florida which will fill the book needs of all its people - those who are ill and those in good health.

Florida State Library Board

Thomas Dreier, Chairman 1011 Brightwaters Blvd. St. Petersburg

Mrs. Joe H. Farrington 59 N.W. 10th St. Miami

Louis Capron 218 Westminster Road West Palm Beach

Dr. Dorothy Dodd Secretary and State Librarian

Verna R. Nistendirk Director of Library Extension

Mrs. Alice Reilly Public Library Consultant

FLORIDA STATE LIBRARY Supreme Court Building Tallahassee, Florida

[inside square stamp] BULK RATE U. S. POSTAGE PAID Tallahasse, Fla. Permit No. 27

[yellow stamp] Mrs. Clyde W. Atkinson Ocala Road Tallahassee, Floriday