Resultados del método experimental de la harina

Carthage wanted to be the county library. But wanting to be a county library and being able to obtain funds from the county for that purpose are two different things. Additionally, it took a lot of effort even to be allowed to solicit county funds. The story of that effort highlights how public libraries in Moore County, though they might have begun as club offerings, had to become politically involved if they were to survive.

The public library institution may have been established in America for progressive or for conservative reasons, for enabling or for controlling reasons, for all segments of society or for select segments of society. It was not, however, established in a void. The public library exists in a political context and that political context can be as specific and unique as the locale of a particular public library. To understand the political context in which public libraries exist in North Carolina, one must seek to understand where the public library sits in the governmental structures that exist in this state.

The North Carolina Constitution does not designate public libraries as “a necessary expense,” and therefore does not empower local governing bodies to levy any taxes specifically for the support of public libraries.1 North Carolina public libraries have, therefore, had to

survive by seeking and finding support wherever it could be found in the political structure. But what does it mean to use the term “public library,” at least as it pertains to the political context in North Carolina? Daniel Boorstin observed in 1977 that public libraries are

treated by the citizenry and by political decision-makers as a sort of “municipal service.” They are seen as a secondary service institution, an organization that serves the municipality, if not necessarily the people.2 As municipal services, they have been, as Oliver Garceau described

them in his 1949 study of the role of the public library in the political process, “inextricably enmeshed in the jungle of local governmental jurisdictions and the resulting confusion of tax resources”.3

“Enmeshed” is probably a good way to describe the position the public library occupies in the political structure. In the early days of the public library movement in New England, the public library was more accurately at first a voluntary association of people who contributed to a general fund for books, owned in common and available to all members. Libraries evolved into more formal structures such as proprietary libraries (only those members who owned shares could use the enterprise) or subscription/association libraries (only those members who paid a set annual or quarterly fee could use the enterprise). The term “public” was understood to mean that the social/proprietary/subscription/association library was open to anyone who could pay the fee to use it. Such paying structures had their limitations, however. Membership fees or contributions alone could not keep pace with costs, and new funding

sources needed to be found. The most likely source was the taxpayer, through the venue of some sort of governmental agency.4 The New England social/proprietary/subscription

association public library had evolved a board form of government to run the institution. When tax monies were added to the structure, library boards had to be responsive to elected bodies, but they retained much of their older character and were not necessarily under partisan control. From the outset, library boards were primarily focused as agencies whose role it was to guard private endowments and to authorize the spending of public monies. Such a structure and role

170

continues in North Carolina public libraries to the present day. Because public libraries were (and are) perceived as useful and interesting, but not “necessary” or vital, serious politicians showed and show a lack of political interest in them and the semi-independent board form of governance continues to the present day.5

This cursory discussion of the public library board structure is probably a decent way to introduce North Carolina’s public libraries. In this state, the State Library reports that public libraries are organized into nine municipal systems, fifty-one county systems, and fifteen regional (or multi-county) library systems. The story of how each of these structures developed is one of dedicated public library advocates wending their way through the political world, seeking ways to acquire the means to establish these systems.

But even before North Carolina public libraries were able to tap into the taxpayer for the upkeep of the institution, the Southern public library remained “public” in the same sense as Garceau identified the New England social/proprietary/subscription association libraries as public. Speaking of Southern public libraries in 1917, May Crenshaw noted that while “in the strict meaning of the word, a public library is one supported only by public funds, I have used the term in its broader sense, and have included libraries supported by public or private funds, requiring only that there should be general collections, circulating free of charge to all”.6 As

Louis Wilson and Edward Wight pointed out in 1935, anyone could organize and operate a public library, but to be able to act as a public institution, it must be more than group of well- meaning individuals. “In order for the library to have a legal entity (to own property, to incur debt, to make contracts, to sue and be sued), it must have recognized standing before the law.” Once a library has recognized standing, it may attempt to obtain part of its support from a

governmental unit. Having obtained such support, it is, in Wilson’s and Wight’s definition, a public library.7

Obtaining such support has been a political struggle, in part because the society has not been in agreement about the utility of the public library. As Wilson pointed out in 1924,

North Carolinians have not been believers in books as tools. Bankers, manufacturers, farmers, laborers, housekeepers of the state have not

recognized them as absolute necessities, and, consequently, have stood in the way of their advancement not only in the fields of educational and cultural development, but the primary fundamental economic concern of winning bread and butter.8

To better understand why the effort to establish public libraries as one of the

fundamental responsibilities of government is still ongoing, it is useful to understand the political structure in which the effort is undertaken.

BROADER CONTEXT –

NORTH CAROLINA PUBLIC LIBRARIES IN THE POLITICAL CONTEXT