its meetings are well attended, if its
proceedings as published show that the problems of library work are
carefully studied, if the published proceedings are widely circulated,
it is easier to persuade the intelligent part of the public that
the librarian's profession is serious, dignified, and calls to
its membership men and women of ability and zeal. If the public is
persuaded of these things, the position of the humblest as well as
of the highest in the profession is thereby rendered better worth the
holding. To attend diligently to one's business is sometimes a most
proper form of advertising one's merits. To be a zealous and active
member of the A.L.A. is to attend to an important part of one's
business; for one can't join it and work with it and for it and not
increase one's efficiency in many ways.

State associations have been organized in the following states: New
York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan,
Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Vermont, California,
Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa.

The following states have state library commissions: Connecticut,
Georgia, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Vermont,
Wisconsin, Indiana, Colorado, Michigan, New Jersey, Minnesota.

The following cities have library clubs: Buffalo, Chicago,
Minneapolis, New York city, Washington city.

An inquiry for information regarding any of these associations or
clubs, addressed to any librarian in the states given, will receive
attention.

Much of what is said above about the A.L.A. applies with equal force
to the association of one's state or neighborhood. Often, moreover, it
is possible to attend a state association meeting at small expense of
time or money.

CHAPTER XLVI

Library schools and training classes

As libraries have become more thoroughly organized, as they have
become more aggressive in their methods, and as they have come to be
looked upon by librarians and others as possible active factors in
educational work, the proper management of them has naturally been
found to require experience and technical knowledge as well as tact,
a love of books, and janitorial zeal. It is seen that the best
librarians are trained as well as born; hence the library school. The
library school--a list of those now in operation will be found at
the end of this chapter--does not confine itself to education in the
technical details of library man