Preliminary work
Often it is not well to lay great plans and invoke state aid at the
very outset. Make a beginning, even though it be small, is a good
general rule. This beginning, however petty it seems, will give a
center for further effort, and will furnish practical illustrations
for the arguments one may wish to use in trying to interest people in
the movement.
Each community has different needs, and begins its library under
different conditions. Consider then, whether you need most a library
devoted chiefly to the work of helping the schools, or one to be used
mainly for reference, or one that shall run largely to periodicals and
be not much more than a reading room, or one particularly attractive
to girls and women, or one that shall not be much more than a cheerful
resting-place, attractive enough to draw man and boy from street
corner and saloon. Decide this question early, that all effort may be
concentrated to one end, and that your young institution may suit the
community in which it is to grow, and from which it is to gain its
strength.
Having decided to have a library, keep the movement well before
the public. The necessity of the library, its great value to the
community, should be urged by the local press, from the platform, and
in personal talk. Include in your canvass all citizens, irrespective
of creed, business, or politics; whether educated or illiterate.
Enlist the support of teachers, and through them interest children and
parents. Literary, art, social, and scientific societies, Chautauqua
circles, local clubs of all kinds should be champions of the movement.
In getting notices of the library's work in the newspapers, or in
securing mention of it from the lecture platform, or in clubs, and
literary, artistic, and musical societies, it is better to refrain
from figures and to deal chiefly in general statements about what the
library aims to do and what it has done.