General Public Library Development (from Wisconsin's Comprehensive Long-Range Plan, 1974)

Pages 10 and 11 outlined, with links provided.

Mid-19th century

• "Association" or "society" libraries formed in several communities
• Some for benefit of members
• Some to serve members of the "working class"

The Wisconsin Public Library Act of 1872 

• Public library enabling legislation 
• Allowed municipalities for establish tax-supported libraries
• "Origin of Public Library Law" by Larry Nix (Wisconsin Library Heritage Center)
• "20 to 30" communities did so between 1872 and 1895  

SIDEBAR:    Even though public libraries were the exception rather than the rule prior to 1900, between 1882 and 1900, 20 communities received generous funding from wealthy citizens to create public libraries.  (Wisconsin Historical Society)

Wisconsin Free Library Commission

• Formed in 1895
• Primary mission during its first decades
• Encourage as many communities as possible to establish public libraries
• Encourage use of "traveling libraries"  (deposit stations for rotating collections) in rural areas to establish regular library service
• Incentive of Carnegie Corporation and encourage of Commission led to a total of more than 200 libraries by 1925 (Carnegie libraries in Wisconsin)

Larger units of governance

• National movement to establish county libraries had little impact in Wisconsin
• Wisconsin library community recognizes the need of larger units in 1940s and early 1950s 
• 1941-1953:  State legislature passed 8 bills authorizing state aid to public libraries
• Door-Kewaunee Regional Library Demonstration
• 1949
• Only success story
• “The Wisconsin-Wide Library Idea for voluntary Education through Reading” (1948).

Re-energized:  1956-1964

• Passage of Library Services Act (1956)
• Leadership of S. Janice Kee, Secretary of Wisconsin Free Library Commission
• Study of public library standards
• Early development of the concept of public library systems
• Renewal of Library Services Act (1961)
• Library Services and Construction Act (1964)
• A Design for Public Library Development in Wisconsin:  Standards for Measuring Progress (1963)
• A Statewide Reference Network for Wisconsin (1964)

1965-1974:  The Division for Library Services (DLS)

• 1965: 
• State library agency becomes a division of the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI)
• Development of school library/media programs also assigned to DLS
• December 1971:  passage of public library system legislation
• 1974:  337 public libraries and 8 library systems
• Systems serve 2,035,700 residents, or 44.9 of state's population
• 30 of 72 counties are members
• 126 member public libraries
• $2,195,351 in state aid