Page 183 - Training for librarianship; library work as a career

TRAINING FOR LIBRARIANSHIP

these illuminate and enrich its own ojfH-
cial records.
Inasmuch as legislation requires a knowl-
edge of fundamental and of existing law,
almost all of the state libraries have collec-
tions of law books. The functions of some of
the state libraries are largely those of law
hbraries; this, for example, is the case in
Alabama, Minnesota, Missouri, Oklahoma,
Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin. In
seventeen other states separate law libraries
are maintained by the state in addition to the
existing state libraries.
While the state libraries exist to serve the
citizens of the state, their first service is to
the state legislators, officials and employees
for whose specific use these hbraries have pri-
marily been created. In the early days of the
Republic, national life v/as much more simple
than it is to-day. Communities were smaller,
and the legislator not only understood the
problems confronting his constituents but was
intimately familiar with most of the problems
confronting the nation. To-day conditions
are different, due mainly to the greater com-
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