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The Role of the State in the Organization of Statewide Library Service: Essae M. Culver, Louisiana’s First State Librarian

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Title:	The Role of the State in the Organization of Statewide Library Service: Essae M. Culver, Louisiana’s First State Librarian
Author(s):	Jumonville, Florence M.
Subject(s):	Library science --History Information science --History
Abstract:	In 1925 the Carnegie Corporation granted $50,000 to Louisiana, a state then “backward in library development,” to fund a demonstration of rural public library development. Essae M. Culver, a California librarian, was chosen to direct the project. Culver arrived in Louisiana to fi nd that the entire state needed organizing. She concluded that the parish (county) was the appropriate unit upon which to base a system of libraries and adapted California’s demonstration system to the southern state’s needs. Key to Culver’s method was local funding after the demonstration period, and she convinced legislators to fi nance the state library agency. Similarly, voters concurred that their parish libraries were worth keeping, and, despite some early failures during times of fl ood and economic depression, parish libraries eventually were established throughout the state. Culver’s demonstration method was credited with greatly infl uencing library development both in the United States and abroad.
Issue Date:	2004
Publisher:	Graduate School of Library and Information Science. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Citation Info:	In Library Trends 52(4) Spring 2004: 853-876.
Genre:	Article
Type:	Text
Language:	English
URI:	http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1700
ISSN:	0024-2594
Publication Status:	published or submitted for publication
Rights Information:	Copyright owned by Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. 2004.
Date Available in IDEALS:	2007-07-23

 

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• Library Trends 52 (4) Spring 2004: Pioneers in Library and Information Science
  Library Trends 52 (4) Spring 2004: Pioneers in Library and Information Science. Edited by W. Boyd Rayward

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