The Pack Horse Library Project

Before the Bookmobile

Established in 1935, the Pack Horse Library Project provided reading materials to rural portions of Eastern Kentucky with no access to larger metropolitan centers with public library facilities. Librarians riding horses or mules traveled 50 to 80 miles a week up rocky creek beds, along muddy footpaths, and among cliffs to deliver reading materials to the most remote residences and schools in the Appalachian mountains. Some homes were so remote that the 'book women' often had to go part of the way on foot - or even in a row boat.

Materials used by the Pack Horse Libraries were stored in small rooms usually located in the county seat. Collections consisted mostly of damaged books and magazines that larger libraries no longer wished to circulate, as well as out-of-date textbooks once used by schools or churches. (The W.P.A. only funded salaries, not funds for collection development.)

When demand for materials exceeded the supply, scrapbooks of magazine clippings, anecdotes, local recipes, and newspaper clippings were made by the librarians as additional resources. These became very popular in the region, enough so that patrons began making scrapbooks of their own recipes, family history, sewing patterns and child-rearing advice for circulation throughout the community by the Pack Horse Librarians.

By 1936, handmade and donated materials could not sustain the circulation needs of the pack horse patrons. Surveys of readers found that pack horse patrons could not get enough of books about travel, adventure and religion, and detective and romance magazines. Children's picture books were also popular not only with young residents but also parents who were frequently illiterate. Approximately 800 books had to be shared among five to ten thousand patrons.

To help overcome the shortage, Lena Nofcier, Chairman of Library Service for the Kentucky PTA, began the Penny Fund Plan which called on every PTA member in the state to contribute one penny toward the purchase of new books. Ms Nofcier also petitioned the help of boy scout troops, Sunday-school classes, private organizations/clubs and children's school groups to locate or donate books for the Pack Horse Libraries. Through her efforts, existing pack horse collections not only grew but eight new Pack Horse Libraries were also established.

Despite the ongoing shortage of materials, the Pack Horse Library Project was considered very successful, and one of the most unusual library services ever offered in the country. During its height, the program boasted 30 libraries serving close to 100,000 Eastern Kentucky Appalachian residents. Interest in ideas outside the realm of Appalachia, an appreciation for education, and an introduction to global cultures were fostered by this program in an area where one-room schoolhouses and churches were the only means of learning.

Pack Horse Libraries came to an end in 1943 when the W.P.A. withdrew its funding from the project. Consequently, many of the areas served were left with no library service whatsoever. Some effort was made to retain the existing collections being made available in county courthouses. However, the delivery service needed for isolated communities was no longer available leaving some communities without access to books for decades until bookmobiles were introduced to the area in the late 1950s.

Many of these very rural, small communities have extremely limited library services - or none at all - to this day. It is for this reason that 'The Settlement Library Project' was first devised and 'Fotched-On' Librarian created as an original, unique and modern version of the Pack Horse Librarian to address library services, programs, and community informational and organizational deficits within this region.

Thanks to: Dave Tabler located at http://appalachianhistory.blogspot.com/2007/12/pack-horse-librarians.html
Image:http://newdeal.feri.org/library/ab93.htm

Taking a Non-Traditional Route

Following the FirePath

West Virginia is in dire need of librarians throughout small, rural communities. Due to a State-wide information deficit, the West Virginia Library Association has called for trained and willing volunteers. As a true federalist and research project management educator for 16 years, identifying my transferable skills into librarianship only heightened in me an entrepreneurial spirit. As a teacher having practiced information brokering in every age bracket and curriculum subject (including electives), with a strong student (customer) service orientation, I elected to answer the call.

There is a severe educational and informational deficit in Appalachia. Over twenty million people live in Appalachia; a cultural region which covers mostly mountainous and often isolated areas and in which all of West Virginia is contained. Thirty percent of adults in Appalachia are considered functionally illiterate. In the central part of the region, only 68% of the children graduate from high school. According to 2008 Census figures, Appalachians living in poverty has increased to an overall total of 13.3 million. In my little town locally, 60% of the adults between the ages of 35 and 40 did not graduate high school. These people travel very long distances to mediocre paying jobs and have a yearly income of around $30,000.00.

In the true tradition of Settlement Schools and the Pack Horse Library Project initiated at the turn of the 20th century to address extreme isolation and educational poverty of Appalachian families, I have personally devised and adapted a concept to help create, secure and promote library sustainability in rural Appalachia. As a home educator and aspiring librarian with a kinship toward rural communities, and an undying affinity to the mountains, I have originated an educational outreach library initiative which I call ‘The Settlement Library Project’ and a circuit rider known as 'Fotched-On' Librarian after the tradition of the Pack Horse Librarians (see Special Libraries: What is 'Fotched-On'? entry).

Through community participation in decision-making, marketing and the endurance of local history and genealogy via local archiving, ‘The Settlement Library Project’ offers rural communities in the Appalachia region – separated from larger metropolitan areas which offer traditional library services – an opportunity to establish non-traditional libraries designed to provide programs, links to services, and educational development while striving toward the retention of the historical quality and personality of the residents and the community.

The philosophy of ‘The Settlement Library Project’ promotes the idea that a library’s business is people and not every community requires a full-service institution. For those communities separated by distance or economic difficulties, a ‘Settlement Library’ secures a sense of community identity, individual intellectual freedom, information access and constitutional representative republic ideals which will help lead area residents into becoming informed and educated citizens.

The objective of ‘The Settlement Library Project’ is to empower and connect local residents through education and information access thereby helping to repel continued brutal land speculation, unequal labor policies, poor state-wide investments, political hierarchies, bypassed communities which are not considered “growth centers,” limited employment opportunities, prejudice and disconnectedness, and illiteracy.

Through customized programs and services, ‘The Settlement Library Project’ addresses the educational and informational deficits and social needs of the community by promoting cooperative partnering between private individuals and public agencies, and securing an emotional link through the preservation of local historical customs and culture.

What I consider as the last puzzle piece in Appalachia, ‘The Settlement Library Project’ promotes the establishment of cultural community information centers in rural mountain communities as a library outreach initiative by utilizing the very present skills and knowledge of local residents. A ‘Settlement Library’ is a trusted neighborhood think-tank, equitable source for civic thinking, and clearinghouse for community-wide resources.

Image: markhancock.blogspot.com/2008_02_01_archive.html

Symbolic Violence and the New Librarian

Simple Wins in the Image Revolution

Excerpts of this article were published in the

Association of Rural and Small Libraries
Rural Library Services Newsletter
vol.20 issues 4,5 (Sept-Dec 2009)
and
Information Outlook: The Magazine of the Special Libraries Association
Letters to the Editor
vol. 14/n 01 (Jan-Feb 2010)

In the September issue of Information Outlook, words, images and perceptions were identified which have the greatest potential to hurt or help the careers of library and information professionals. As a powerful instrument which dominates culture and through which a continued image of the librarian has had a long and consistent history, the media has fixed a stereotype of the profession in popular culture since the early 1900’s via comic strips, movies and advertising. What is most disturbing about this stereotype is that there is no attempt to deflect from this image because it promotes comedy, or worse yet, horror.


In their article entitled, “Librarians and Party Girls: Cultural Studies and the Meaning of the Librarian,” Marie and Gary Radford (2003) define this trend as being a representation in “contemporary cultural forms” due to culture shaping history (p. 55). Power or force is therefore defined in cultural terms as a “key element in wielding symbolic violence” (p. 59).


It is because of this symbolic violence that professional development cannot be promoted successfully without addressing these stereotypes. As a first step toward this goal, reversing the stereotype by involving media images of the profession in the reverse of this image is foremost: happy and helpful as opposed to fussy or dour. This does not necessarily mean that we should all become young again or a super hero, but rather, show the public and media how happy we are with ourselves, our jobs and how completely enraptured we are with solving their informational needs and requirements.


Another strategy is to substitute a range of positive images for negative imagery: the corporate professional look as opposed to dowdy and frumpy. If it’s true that clothes can make the man or woman, then a few flexible and traditional items in a wardrobe can create a positive impression when dealing with initial perceptions. Updating a wardrobe does not necessarily mean radical or dressing too young for one’s years, but rather simple and comfortable in a polished manner.


The third avenue promoting change is to work within the stereotype to contest it as a means of refuting it. In simplicity, it is really only a struggle with representation. Positive representation possesses the greatest impact. Representing the profession as uniquely dedicated, non-traditional and inventively service oriented is the powder in the keg. It is the library and information professional who is the actual ambassador of the industry.


These challenges are presented as a means to approach an image revolution in the library profession with a new vantage point through cultural studies. These ‘simple wins’ will extend the new vision for the ‘new librarian’ without booting out the not so young, not so bold, and not so beautiful. Because culture helps to shape history, it is up to library and information professionals to reverse this trend and promote the lasting change necessary to free the industry from symbolic violence.

This is the make-over which will encourage the idealized image of the ‘new librarian.’

Radford, Marie L. & Radford, Gary P. (Jan. 2003). Librarians and party girls: cultural studies and the meaning of the librarian. Library Quarterly, 67 (1), 54-69.
Image:anastasiac.blogspot.com/2009_08_01_archive.htm

Library as Social Enterprise

A library is what a library does.
The strategy is to move ahead of the continuously changing information environment; becoming agile and flexible for community use and community dependability. This is the 'Settlement Library' working theory in practice: a learning organization presenting steps toward the changing expectations of users through strategies which appreciate change, accept challenge, and develop new skills. A learning organization which knows, understands, and thinks in line with the community in order to become essential to the community.

Good customer service becomes the foundation for all the organization needs to be.

Adapting new ideas is the beginning of community appropriate programs and services by appreciating the skills, values, and work/social history of residents. Exchanging information and sharing ideas and experiences throughout the region through partnering creates opportunities for creativity and new levels of expertise.

The simplicity of it is to simply focus on the resident's, their culture, and their identity when securing programs, establishing a collection, and creating a learning service oriented organization. Being a shared vision, a 'Settlement Library' is about action. A 'Settlement Library' encourages individual learning and self-mastery as a way to address change - personally, environmentally, socially, and politically - and to explore new ideas while respecting the key concepts of librarianship and community.

A 'Settlement Library' is a social enterprise and symbolic site of collective memory (Augst) for each individual rural community it serves. Small changes can lead to big results.

After all, we must honor the past to create the future (Gorman).

Image: tutor2u.net/.../business-with-a-social-face/

Library Services are Priceless

Moving toward what your library seeks to become.

At a small rural library, the Settlement Library Project discussed strategies to enhance library visibility, service response goals and objectives, and increase user-ability and user-rates. As a circuit-out-rider promoting an eclectic form of librarianship in Appalachia - outside the metropolitan "settlements" - 'Fotched-On' Librarian was there.

As a result of community apathy and economic difficulties, an executive summary for this library focused upon an immediate objective of creating a space in which the community would want to visit. Strategic aims included library board education and training toward advocacy, fundraising, and implementation of library policies. In addition, community focused customer service instruction, innovative services, and creative uses of technology to communicate knowledge were suggested.
As a means to bring the vision to fruition, networking toward a community bridge through partnering and contracting with local resource agencies and community resource individuals; building an educational advancement service through the initiating of basic education programs; building a recreational and historical collection offering local culture through plugging into resident authors and artisans; and building a positive, open, and friendly personality and public image through creative promotional methods were presented as a means to promote this library as an essential communty source.

Embracing the idea of engagement, the Settlement Library Project initiative sought to offer this small rural library relevant and useful suggestions for custom tailored information services equipping the residents of this community.

After all, a library's strategy is the bridge to its future.

The Settlement Library Project from The Settlement Library Project

Community Sturm und Drang

Translation: Storm and Stress, Urge or Yearning

Every township, city, and hamlet has a personality and a story. Local history is a means to define and reach a customer base with appropriate and adequate information expectations and perceptions. The achievement of excellence in the delivery of information products and services requires a commitment to customer service, and customer service is only attainable when the customer is understood.

Bigger is not necessarily better or required. Small, rural libraries possess the greater opportunity to tap into community individuality through personal knowledge of the community and its historical and cultural strivings. The larger metropolitan areas do not have this unique priviledge. Creating and establishing an ongoing community archival project secures a community's culture and identity for generations - serving as a connecting source.

Using the residents of the community itself as historical sources and donators while striving toward retention of the historical quality of the community, and tapping into its native human resources, can easily be established by a volunteer archiving initiative through the library setting. Human history and culture are what extends a library as a traditional champion of information gathering and information access. Community archiving is simply a natural product of the library ideal.

Ground breaking; home-steading; barn raising; water divining; births, deaths, wars, and choices made which altered individual and corporate existence, all constitute the storms, stresses, and yearnings of the human spirit. Library community historical archiving is a means to secure and connect the past with the present - creating a breathable space in between for those who long to know and want to remember.

As the last puzzle piece in Appalachia, Settlement Library community information center's offer a relationship by creating a local, personal historical connection through community participation. Even a small collection serves to establish a unity and camaraderie between neighbors through something very basic which we all share - ancestry and hometown familiarity.

Every community is bursting with human history. A central value of librarianship is the recognition that the past serves as a guide to the future. The library is called upon to not only provide new information, but to also protect the historical record of our communities (Rubin).

After all, libraries serve humanity.

This image of the sturm und drang daylilly can be retrieved at:
http://www.ashwooddaylilies.com/INTRODUCTIONS%201999-04.htm

The Settlement Library Project

A library should be a reflection of its community.

The Settlement Library Project promotes the idea that the library of the future is a cultural center and information resource. It is an evolving, growing member of society solving the information requirements of the immediate community.

The community is the home-base of the Settlement Library Project in that the library institution creates a relationship with the rural community to be served. Resources should be provided to support that which is defined as most important for the community growth and the community good by the community itself. Diverse arenas for cultural expression and historical preservation are all part of the Settlement Library concept and the library of the future which fulfills the information needs, identity, and personality of the residents. Libraries build communities; however, it is the history and culture of the community which give the library its soul and its character. Through capitalizing on opportunities for broader impact, the Settlement Library Project develops innovative ways to provide access to resources and initiate community specific services.

Afterall, a library is a growing organism.

The Settlement Library Project from The Settlement Library Project

Settlement Libraries

Studying Rural Librarianship

Settlement Schools were initiated at the turn of the 20th century to address extreme isolation and poverty of school aged children and their families. Attention focused on Appalachia where communities were identified which would benefit from the establishment of an educational outreach program. A Settlement Institution was then defined as a non-profit, private, rural organization in Appalachia designed to promote and provide programs, services, and development for the immediate community and the nearby surrounding area. The purpose was not intended to proselytize, restrict, or remove traditional customs and manners, but rather to enhance and capitalize on the already rich culture propagated in this region.

One hundred years later, in the true tradition of the Settlement Institution ideal, so it is with the concept of the Settlement Library Project™. As an evolving educational outreach library system intiative - with a focus on native and traditional Appalachian culture, customs, and resources - a Settlement Library can be intiated in an already existing small rural library available to local residents. For those communities separated from larger metropolitan areas which offer traditional library services and the benefits thereof, a Settlement Library offers an opportunity to establish non-traditional - less than full-service - information centers designed to promote and provide programs, services, and educational development while striving toward the retention of the historical quality of the community. A Settlement Library is a local link for rural residents to greater and larger resources.

The objective of a Settlement Library is to empower local residents through educational pursuits, opportunities, linked services, and skills provided by private and public agencies and various organizations working cooperatively: addressing the present educational and informational needs of the community, and securing a link with local historical customs and culture.

Not every rural community requires a full-service library. For those communities separated by distance or economic difficulties supplementing library services for the obtainment of appropriate and adequate information access promotes a sense of community identity, individual intellectual freedom, and Constitutional democratic ideals leading to an informed and educated citizenry.

Libraries build communities; however, it is the history and culture of the community which give the library its soul and its character. Through capitalizing on opportunities for broader impact, the Settlement Library Project™ develops innovative ways to provide access to resources and services.

After all, a library's business is people.

More about Settlement Schools is available at this link:
http://www.ket.org/settlement/index.html

This image available at: http://www.eerc.ra.utk.edu/sightline/VegetationV2N1.html

Special Libraries

What is 'Fotched-On' ?
'Fotched-On' is a term used by mountain folk when referring to Settlement School teachers who left the comforts of home and hearth to navigate uncharted clan-type communities within the Appalachia region at the turn of the 20th century. The actual phrase is "fetched in;" however, regional dialect overtook the pronounciation and configured it into "fotched on." The phrase refers to these teachers having been "fetched" from the city - or outside the settlements - and placed in rural, isolated communities within the region to create educational outreach programs.

'Fotched-On' is used here as a phrase exemplifying a modern concept of maverick librarians who promote an eclectic form of librarianship. Through moving out of metropolitan areas - and the traditional concepts of librarianship - a 'fotched-on' librarian is one who is "called-out" as a type of circuit-out-rider into remote, rural regions which do not have close proximity to a library system. A 'fotched-on' librarian is one who either promotes, establishes, or builds up a non-traditional information center for communities which may or may not have existing library services available.

This blog is being designed to indicate and establish an ongoing interest in special libraries, the special needs of communities requiring customized library services, and the solo or one person information professional who asserts the marketing and advocacy necessary for the creation, implementation, and survival of these unique and specialized emerging units of the modern library system.

More about 'Fotched-On' is available at this link:
http://www.ket.org/settlement/setschools_01.html
This image is available at:
http://maqonline.org/

Traditional and Novel

Librarian Live

A radio show is produced by the North Texas Regional Library System. Here is Librarian Live Episode 40: "The New Questa Public Library." This episode features an interview with Carolyn Anderson, Director of the Questa Public Library in Questa, NM and focuses on how the library, open since January of this year, began in this small community which had previously never had library services.

The Questa Public Library engages all the aspects of a special library becoming visible in a small community (less than 2000). It exemplifies community involvment utilizing a solo librarian and volunteers. I chose this podcast interview for its relaxed, optimistic, and encouraging dialog breathing life into the mission of this blog.

This podcast is available directly at

http://www.clickcaster.com/items/librarian-live-episode-40---the-new-questa-public-library

Solo or One Person Libraries

Welcome to the Solo Librarians Division of SLA

Due to their reputation for "connecting people and information," the Special Libraries Association (http://www.sla.org/) has a blog for Solo's. Under the 'Community' link I located 'SLA Blogs' and chose the blog entitled, "Solos Helping Solos Blog" due to the commonality that many special libraries are manned and operated by one person under budget restraints.

My attraction to this blog was in its simplicity and excitement. This solo librarian discovered a cost effective marketing strategy to boost library popularity and services to her special segment.

This excerpt can be found directly at http://sla-divisions.typepad.com/solo_division_blog/ and scrolling down to "Library Newsletter."

I understand that with the many responsibilities required of a solo librarian, creating a library newsletter may not seem like something of great importance. It's amazing to me, however, just how effective a marketing mechanism a library newsletter can be!

My library's newsletter is not elaborate. Some months it is merely a list of the materials we have on a particular topic. Sometimes I ask other employees to write a few sentences about a book they had checked out and found particularly helpful. These endorsements by peers increase the popularity of the materials they mention exponentially. By reviewing an item for the newsletter, it also seems to increase an employee's sense of connection to the library.

Not only does the newsletter's presence market the individual items in the library, it also reminds people that there is a library and a librarian available to assist them.

Image:  http://catsandlibraries.tumbler.com