Page 65 - Training for Librarianship Library Work As a Career

TRAINING FOR LIBRARIANSHIP

by aided in their efforts to earn a livelihood.
Frequently, too, such branches for the
colored offer a means for public lectures and
meetings. In various other ways the public
library, unobtrusively and at times quite un-
consciously, makes of itself a constructive
social factor in the negro community. Thus
it serves not only a definite need and purpose,
helping in the solution of what in some sec-
tions of the country is a problem, but in the
eyes of the negro comes to be regarded as a
living force training him for useful living
and efficient citizenship.
In Louisville, Ky., where the Free Public
Library maintains two branches for colored
readers, negro staffs are also employed. For
those who may desire to prepare themselves
for work in these branches or in colored
branches in other cities of the South, an
apprentice class is conducted each year.
No less concrete has been the service of the
public library to the immigrant and to the
foreign-bom. In the larger cities special
collections in foreign languages have been set
aside either in the public library or in branch
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