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The City of DuBois
Chapter 40
Page 189
CITY OF DUBOIS Page 189
Board got in touch with several persons and selected Miss Inez
Crandall, who had charge of the public library at Mauch Chunk, Pa.,
and who had been very successful in that place. The next question
was to get books and the Board knowing that the Village Improvement
Association had a fine collection, the matter was presented to this
organization, who very kindly turned all their books over to the
free library. This collection of books saved the City several
thousand dollars and the selections the Village Improvement
Association had made would have been sufficient to start the
Library. The Board then asked the citizens to donate books and a
large collection was received in this way.
Miss Crandall came in the month of May. She devoted her
time to securing the necessary furnishings for the library and the
cataloging of the books and the securing of additional books she
deemed expedient for the opening of the library, which was fixed for
the first of September, 1920.
On the opening of the schools Miss Crandall immediately
went to the different schools, telling the children stories taken
from the various books in the library. This immediately started a
thirst for reading in the public schools, and there was a great rush
of the pupils to the library and especially among the juveniles.
The first annual report on the first of September,
1921, gave circulation for that year as 52,301. This turnover in
circulation was based on 8,000 volumes, a large number of which were
works of reference and which could not be taken from the Library.
In three years Mrs. Sparks' residence became so crowded
that new quarters had to be secured. The Deposit National Bank was
prevailed upon to erect a building on their vacant lot, of which
building a part of the first floor to be used for the library. In
less than two years the part of this building allocated to the
Library was so crowded that when the Post Office moved out of that
building, additional room was secured.
The report for 1930 shows a circulation of 103,000
volumes with about 13,000 volumes in the Library, of which probably
more than 1000 volumes is made up of books that do not go out of the
Library.
The City can be proud of the fact that persons who come
here familiar with Library work, state that DuBois has one of the
finest public libraries in the State of Pennsylvania in proportion
to the population. It seems that this Library was the first one to
start in Pennsylvania wholly supported by public taxation.
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