Biennial Survey of Education in the United States, 1934-1936. Bulletin, 1937, No. 2. Volume II. Chapter V: Statistics of Public-School Libraries, 1934-35

This report includes library statistics for both public elementary and high schools for the school year 1934-35. The data are based upon replies to a questionnaire, which was sent to 6,327 superintendents of city and county public schools in the continental United States. The items listed on the form called for replies representing totals for all of the schools under the supervision of the superintendents rather than for individual schools. In two instances, Delaware and North Carolina, data were supplied by officials in State departments of education. Since the titles of administrative heads of rural schools vary somewhat in the different States, the term, "county superintendent," for purposes of this report, includes county examiners in Arkansas, parish superintendents in Louisiana, district superintendents in New York and Utah, county commissioners in Michigan, division superintendents in Virginia, union or district superintendents in the New England States, and the State superintendent in Delaware for all schools outside of Wilmington. At the time the questionnaires were sent, 2,901 of the 6.327 school systems in the United States were designated as city systems; 3,180 as county, with rural schools only; and 246 as county unit systems, that is, systems in which both rural and urban schools are under one administrative head. The total number of usable replies received for the three types of school systems is indicated in Table 1. The contents of this bulletin include: (1) Data in this report; (2) Distribution of school systems; (3) Schools served by librarians; (4) Pupils served by centralized libraries; (5) Size of centralized libraries; (6) Number of volumes added to centralized libraries, 1934-35; (7) Librarians in centralized libraries; (8) Types of centralized libraries; (9) Administrative control of centralized libraries; (10) Income for school libraries; and (11) Expenditures for school libraries. The following are appended: (1) Forms used in collecting data; and (2) List of other publications of the Office of Education containing statistics on school libraries. (Contains 42 tables, 6 figures, and 4 footnotes.) [Best copy available has been provided.]