War libraries

              WAR LIBRARIES
OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE WAR SERVICE COMMITTEE
AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION
VOL. I 124 East 28th Street, New York, August 22, 1918 NUMBER 1
A CALL TO SERVICE
A Statement Concerning the American Library Association's
Participation in the United War Work Campaign
T^7E are going to ask the American people, in the week bi ginning
VV November 11, 1918, for $3,500,000 with which to carry on the
Library War Service for another year.
We are going to need the active, enthusiastic, untiring help of
every librarian and member of a Library board in the United States,
to get this money.
We have got to get it!
That admits of no discussion. We have got to get every cent of
$3,500,000—and we ought to get twice as much. Perhaps we ought to
have asked for twice as much in the first place; with the expansion
of the United States Army to 4,000,000 effectives we surely are going
to need it.
If the Library War Service of the American Library Association
is even to approach the ideal aim of supplying every man of the
fighting force with exactly the reading matter he wants and needs,
wherever he is and when he wants it, whether he be in a training
camp on this side, on board a fighting ship or a transport or on duty
overseas, then every member of the Association, every friend, every-one
who can by any means be pressed into service must help to
the utmost in the effort to raise the necessary fund for the con-tinuance
of the work.
It is not going to be easy. The Library Association has joined
forces '.yith three other great war service agencies, the Young Men's
Christian Association, the Young Women's Christian Association,
and the War Camp Community Service, to ask the people of the
United States to give, for their combined work, the largest sum of
money ever asked of a nation as a gift. On November 11 the four
organizations, operating for this purpose as a unit, will undertake to
collect the stupendous sum of $133,500,000 from the public! No such
staggering amount has ever been asked as a gift; except for Gov-ernmental
purposes, no sum so large has ever been named as the
goal of a single public subscription, in all history ! Unless this
auiouiii 15 ovci'subbcribeci, the Library War Service will be seriously
handicapped.
This, then, is a call to service—to a service no less vital, no less
lofty than the service of those who bind up the wounds or minister
to the spiritual needs of the soldier or the sailor. And just as our
fighting forces have been grouped and merged and organized into one
great unit, for more efficient service, so the forces of the four great
organizations that serve the fighters are to be grouped and merged
for the purpose of raising the "sinews of war" to enable them to
continue to serve.
No Merger of War Activities
There is to be no merger of the war services of the Young Men's
and Young Women's Christian Associations, the War Camp Com-munity
Service and the American Library Association. Each will
continue to perform its specific, particular functions in its relations
to the soldier and sailor. The Library War Service will continue
exactly as it has begun, on a constantly expanding programme, to
establish and maintain its own direct service, through camp libraries,
dispatch offices and overseas organization; it will continue, too, to
supply the books for the libraries of the Y. M. C. A., the Y. W. C. A.,
the War Camp Community Service, the Knights of Columbus war
service, the huts of the Je\.ish Welfare Board, the Salvation Army,
tl , Te -
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the Red Cross canteens and convalescent houses, and to any a
,
other relief agencies that may be added to these. But for
pose of raising the money necessary to carry on this work, ai ^' T
. this purpose alone, the combination already referred to has i .^n
effected. '
The call now, therefore, is for team work.
If everyone who would have been eager and glad to help raise the
modest sum which the American Library Association asks, in a cam-paign
for that and nothing else, will join just as eagerly, just as
gladly in the combined campaign and work twice as hard for the
huge subscription that is asked by the combined organizations, enough
and more than enough for the needs of all will be obtained. Unless
everyone helps we shall fail of our goal.
There is but one way to succeed. That is, for every man and
every woman who is interested in any degree in the work and the
service of any one of the four united organizations to work twice as
hard for the combined fund as he or she would have worked for the
interest of the one organization nearest and dearest.
That means that library workers—and we hope that this means
everyone in any remote degree connected with or interested in any
phase of library work-—must realize that in working for the United
War Work Fund they are working for Library War Service no less
than though it were solely a Library Fund campaign.
A Combination for the Common Good
The combination of interests was not of our seeking; it was
brought about, however, from considerations of the common welfare
and the general good, not merely of the organizations involved but
of the fighting men in whose service they are enlisted for the dura-tion
of the war. The American Library Association, in point of
money interest, is the smallest factor in the combination. We want to
show the others—tiiose whose money needs are many times the modest
$3,500,000 we require—that in point of effective work for the common
good we are not the weakest but the strongest. It should be our
pride to do many times more than our share—if the share of any
individual or group in work for our soldiers and sailors can, indeed,
be measured in dollars. The National executives and managers of
war work of the four united organizations have met and planned the
joint campaign in the most admirable and whole-iiearted spirit of
cooperation. If the same spirit is continued down the lino to the
smallest local units and groups, if the strength of each can be
enlisted for the good of all, the huge sum desired can be obtained
—
not otherwise.
It was at the suggestion—perhaps it should be said at the direct
request—of the Secretary of War, through Mr. Raymond B. Fosdick,
Chairman of the Army and Navy Commissions on Training Camp
Activities, that the responsible National heads of the war services of
the various agencies engaged in relief and welfare work for our
soldiers and sailers met and agreed to combine their money-raising
efforts for the coming Autumn and Winter. The following state-ment,
issued by the committee representing the Young Men's Chris-tian
Association, the Young Women's Christian Association, the War
Camp Community Service and the American Library Association,
teUs the story succinctly and comprehensively:
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