The Relationship of State and National Library Service Standards to Gran ts-In- Aid Programs

grants-in-aid from state and national governments to local public li-braries, and state and national library service standards? Does a cash grant-in-aid from a higher level of government to a local government for public library purposes affect the service standards of the local public library? Twenty-five of the fifty states had enacted state grants-in-aid to local public libraries in January 1960, according to a tabu-lation by American Library Association headquarters for The Book o f the,States. This number did not include Hawaii, where all support of all public libraries has since the beginning of the public libraries come from the territorial-now state-government. As Hawaii has complete coverage of all its area by county public library systems, the number of states with grants-in-aid to public libraries should, perhaps, for this discussion, be twenty-six, or one more than half of all of the states. The tabulation for The Book of the States excludes all federal grants for public library service. We are not here discussing "state a i d in the form of services, as contrasted to "state grants-in-aid " which are cash financial grants, with or without conditions or standards for receiving such grants to public libraries. Service aid is covered more fully in another chapter of this issue of Library Trends. Such services have, of course, played some part in the establishment and development of much local public li-brary service which exists in localities. All modern local public library standards call for continuance and strengthening of state library serv-ices to local libraries, appropriate to the need. With one more than half of all the United States having state fi-nancial grants-in-aid to or state support of local public libraries, it should be possible to learn what effects these grants have had and are having upon local public library service standards. It should als