ILLINOIS~ UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN PRODUCTION NOTE University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library Large-scale Digitization Project, 2007. Library Trends VOLUME 28 NUMBER 4 SPRING 1980 ~ ~~ ~~~ ~ University of Illinois ‘Graduate School of Library Science This Page Intentionally Left Blank Current Trends in Rural Public Library Service JOHN M. HOULAHAN Issue Editor CONTENTS John M. Houlahan 489 INTRODUCTION Ann Drennan 493 RURAL POPULATIONS IN Henry Drennan THE 1970s Lisa deGruyter 513 THE HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF RURAL PUBLIC LIBRARIES Norma J. McCallan 525 DELIVERY SYSTEMS AND PROGRAMS Bernard Vavrek 563 INFORMATION SERVICES AND THE RURAL LIBRARY James W. Fry 579 TECHNICAL SERVICES AND CENTRALIZED PROCESSING FOR THE RURAL PUBLIC LIBRARY: AN OVERVIEW Clifford E. Lange 589 THE RURAL PUBLIC LIBRARY TRIJSTEE: A PRELIMINARY ASSESSMENT Terry L. Weech 599 PUBLIC LIBRARY STANDARDS AND RURAL LIBRARY SERVICE CONTENTS - Continued Daniel Barron 619 ASSESSING THE INFORMA- Charles Curran TION NEEDS OF RURAL PEOPLE: THE DEVELOP- MENT OF AN ACTION STRATEGY FOR RIJRAL LIBRARIANS Wil!iam T. DeJohn 633 THE IMPACT OF TECHNOL- OGY AND NETWORKS ON THE FUTURE OF RURAL PUBLIC LIBRARY SERVICE 649 ACRONYMS i INDEX TO VOLUME 28 Introduction JOHN M. HOULAHAN RURALPUBLIC LIBRARY SERVICE is a distinct, important, and complex problem that affects large segments of the United States population but has lacked the attention and examination of the library community. Allie Beth Martin wrote in 1972, “Rural public library service has been largely overshadowed by urban-suburban crises in recent years.”’ Three-quarters of a decade later, rural libraires and rural public library service are still being neglected and overlooked by scholars and decision- makers, and the national library press and literature. This issue of Library Trends, in its examination of rural public library service, is an attempt to correct this neglect. Rural public library service is not a distinctive and independent system any more than urban and rural society act as separate entities: “The village community by definition has never been a totally isolated entity but a part, however remote, of the national state.”2 Similarly, the rural public library has been a part of and influenced by the national library community. And like the rural village, it is witnessing a decline in its autonomy as it becomes more and more a part of the national scene. This development has come about as the local rural library has increasingly come under the influence of county, regional, state, and network systems. DeGruyter’s chapter on the history and development of the rural library reviews the growing influence that county, regional and statewide services have had on the rural library, while DeJohn discusses the impact of networking. John M. Houlahan is Administrator of theNorthwest Iowa Regional Library, SiouxCity, Iowa. SPRING 1980 489 JOHN HOULAHAN While rural public library service is not perceived as a separate and distinctive library system, it does, however, have unique and specific problems due to its setting which are valid units of study and analysis. Ann Drennan and Anne SheIby wrote, “Significant differences exist between urban and rural areas-in lifestyles, attitudes, and values, in information needs and in delivery system needs.”sTwenty-threedistinct economical, political, and sociological areas were cited by the authors as examples. Central to the rural and urban dichotomy is geographical remote- ness. “Geographic remoteness means a different way of obtaining infor- mation,...lack of knowledge of and access to social service agencies, ...remoteness from adequate education,... from traditional methods of continuing education,...from information for rural businesses, ...from a variety of leisure activities,. ..from special services for young children,.. from choice of mass media.”4 In addition to geographical remoteness, other concerns which need to be addressed when designing, providing and delivering rural library services include low population size, population density, transporta- tion, and poverty and educational levels. Ann and Henry Drennan further explain rural uniqueness in this issue’s leading chapter. In the Drennans’ article, as is the case in each of the chapters, the authors have tried to answer the problem of defining the term rural. This may not be unlike the six blind men and the elephant. Whichever part of the rural problem one grabs hold of may determine that writer’s perception of the beast. Thus, the issue’s authors offer a variety of definitions and descriptions for rural. As an example, the Drennans distinguished concepts of rural, substantially rural and remote. Weech in his chapter on standards identifies the three traditional rural defini- tions generally followed by the library community. Fry, Lange, and Curran and Barron use the traditional definitions, while the other authors in this issue either qualified them or offered alternatives. Defining rural public library service offers the same potential for diversity of opinions as defining rural. For this issue ofLibrary Trends, rural public library service is defined simply as public library service conducted in a rural setting. Rural public library service is often incorrectly perceived as simply a farm problem of only regional importance, which will simply disap- pear as rural populations decrease. But, in fact, it is not just a regional farm problem but a national concern that affects a wide representation of Americans, from the farmer in the Midwest to the fisherman off the New England coast, to the miners in Appalachia, to the textile workers 490 LIBRARY TRENDS Introduction in the Southeast, to the retirees in the Southwest, to the timber workers in the Great Northwest. The belief that the rural problem is lessening and is becoming indistinguishable from urban problems can be attributed in part to a decreasing farm population. Farm population, estimated at 32 million between 1910 and 1920, had fallen to about 9 million in 1975.5 Also decreasing in population nationwide is the very small town of 500 population or less.6 However, what is not often recognized is that cities of 500-2500 have been increasing in population at a rate higher than the national a~erage.~Additionally, although rural population as a percen- tage of the total U.S. population has dropped from a high of 95 percent in 1790 to 26.5 percent in 1970, therural population in real numbers has remained fairly stable at 54 million for the past quarter-century.R Rural population has remained relatively stable but its makeup is changing from farm-dominated to mining, timber, fishing, and manu- facturing. And yet, library planners may be using out-of-date percep- tions and stereotypes of the rural community. In this issue’s chapter on information services, Vavrek cautions his readers to “first acknowledge the realities of library service in the [rural public] library” and then deal practically with it, thereby describing the aims of this issue. Articles here were commissioned to examine the long-overlooked and changing realities of rural public library service. A second purpose is to describe the distinctive, important, and complex problems confronting rural libraries, and third, to identify areas for further study. These goals are accomplished in the descriptions of its people by Drennan and Drennan, its services and programs by both McCallan and Vavrek, its myths by Curran and Barron, its standards by Weech, its governance by Lange, its operations by Fry, its history by deGruyter, and its future by DeJohn. References 1. Martin, Allie B., coord. A Stratqq for Public Library Change: Proposed Pub- lic Library Goals-Feaszbzlzty Study. Chicago, Public Library Association, 1972, p. 30. 2. Halpern, Jorl M. The Changing Village Community. Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall, 1967, pp. 123-24. 3. Drennan, Ann P., and Shelby, Anne. “Library and Information Service Needs of the Geographically Remote.” In Carlos A. Cuadra and Marcia J. Bates, eds. Lzbrary and Information Service Needs of the Nation. Washington, D.C., USGPO, 1974, p. 171. 4. Ibid., pp. 172-76. SPRING 1980 49 1 JOHN HOULAHAN 5. Ford, Thornas K.“Contrrnporary Rural America: Persistence and Change.” In ,?ti. Rural l’.S.A.:Z’rrsi.tlrnrrcindC/innRr.Arncs,1oi~aState~’niielsitSPress, 1978, 1). 6. 6. Ibid., p. 43. 7. Ibid., p. 45. 8. Ibiti., p. 6. 492 LIBRARY TRENDS Rural Populations in the 1970s ANN DRENNAN HENRY DRENNAN A COUNTRY THAT WAS characterized by urbanization even before its for- mation as a nation, the United States has continued its transformation from a rural to an urban society. Now, almost unnoticed, there is the countercurrent population shift to rural areas. This shift seems to be initiating a period of turbulence and change in rural America.* While the dominant characteristic of rural life remains-and, des- pite change, is likely to remain-spaciousness, changes in population distribution create a new countryside: “Growth in urban technology and complexity of life serves to increase the differences between urban and rural areas. Those areas relatively untouched by urbanization become anachronistic; those areas in transition to urbanization become the scenes of a complex identity crisis.”’ The urbanizing trends that transform rural life consist of the “strip development” and the “service villages” that cluster around interstate exits. Any institution, such as library or school, which functions in rural America by distributing its services across distance, faces frequently conflicting cultural, societal, and governmental pressures that make its course a stormy one. Ann Drennan is Education Program Specialist, U.S. Department of Education Steering Committee for Basic Skills Coordination, and Henry Drennan is Acting Chief, Research and Demonstrations Branch, Office of Libraries and Learning Resources, U.S. Depart- ment of Education. *The opinions expressed in this article are the authors’ own. Points of view or opinions stated do not, therefore, necessarily represent official LJ.S. Department of Education position or policy. SPRING 1980 493 ANN DRENNAN & HENRY DRENNAN A Growing Population This growing rural population trend may have taken us by sur- prise.