The rapid and extensive changes in school curricula and the modern methods of teaching, most of which imply considerable use of mate rial outside the textbook, are making the school library more than ever an essential part of the well-equipped school. The rural and small town schools, no less than the schools in the large cities, need fresh books in their libraries. In most cases the funds available for this purpose are inadequate. The traveling library sent by the State Library Commission, the State De partment of Education or other central agency, can fill this need better and at less expense than the local school board. It can supply the books needed to supplement the standard books, the reference books and the supplementary readers and textbooks which the school must have as a permanent part of its equipment. In many cases, the traveling library will show whether or not the desired book is really needed per manently. The value of the traveling library is so well recognized by teachers that practically no central distributing agency can supply the demand made by the schools for this service. In many cities (.g., Rochester, N. Y., Buffalo, N. Y., Cleveland, Ohio, Portland, Ore., etc.), the pub lic library has a regularly organized system of classroom libraries, changed at regular inter vals and intended to supplement the school work. See also SCHOOL. Lisamtres.
Practically every well-devised scheme of edu cational extension, whether lyceum movement, university extension centre, study club, corre spondence course, Chautauqua movement or Sunday school, has recognized the need of a small library to conserve and amplify the re sults of the instruction. The courses on a com mercial basis have rather generally tried to sell personal collectionsto their patrons. Those i without commercial intent have usually seen the need of larger, more flexible collections, able to all taking the extension work and sub ject to changes frequent enough to maintain variety. The traveling library has demonstrated its value in these cases. It has made it possible for the educational work to be varied in subject. It has enabled the ambitious student to go far beyond the limits of the lecture or the pre scribed textbook. It has made true Carlyle's oft-quoted statement, °The true university of these days is a collection of books.° The development of traveling library sys tems has in most cases been followed by the es tablishment of permanent public libraries or the further development of those already estab lished. The advantages of the traveling library are so manifest under such a variety of condi tions that State legislatures have rather gen erally been willing to make some appropriations for their establishment and support. The trav eling library implies a central administrative agency. This has required the formation of a State Library Commission or a similar body charged with the supervision of traveling li brary work. The traveling library, when intelli gently used, has generally shown the need of larger, more stable collections of books than the library commission could supply. The logical
result has been an agitation, by the study club, the school or the other organization using the traveling library, for a permanent public library. Many of the smaller libraries in all parts of the country have originated in this way. The °County system" has been the result as well as the cause of traveling libraries. The contribu tion of the American Library Association's war service libraries deserves special mention. Up to 1 Sept. 1919 the association had given 70 collections comprising 22,325 volumes to reconstruction units, colleges, universities and other permanent organizations in nearly 20 of the present countries of Europe and Asia. These collections are composed of books formerly used in the traveling libraries furnished the army, the navy and the marine corps through the American Library Associa tion and other relief agencies.
Complete statistics of traveling libraries are rather difficult to obtain. As previously inti mated, virtually every State Library Commission, every large public library, many extension departments of universities and an increas ing number of commercial corporations main tain them. Different methods of calculating cir culation and different interpretations of the term '
Many references are in
in Cannons, H. G. T.,