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Show Libraries Take On New Informal Look All over the country progressive, progres-sive, streamlined libraries are attracting at-tracting an increasing number of people, writes Don Murray in the November issue of the Reader's Digest, in an article titled "Salesman "Sales-man of Knowledge and Dreams." The secret is simple, good merchandising. mer-chandising. Librarians have come to believe that a library should be a supermarket of information, ideas and dreams. And, like a supermarket, the modern public library should have a big parking lot and glass walls "facing the street so that everyone can see inside and feel welcome." This is no untried theory, Murray says. Studies show that many people peo-ple are afraid to go into the formidable-looking stone libraries built in the past. As a result these are gradually being replaced now by shining structures of glass and steel that I are enticing new readers. Cincinnati's Cincin-nati's new library, for example, has pushed up circulation by a sol- ' id million. ! The writer calls attention to the public library in Est Orange, N.J. which has been one of the most successful in using the merchandising merchan-dising technique. It is directed by I Byron C. Hopkins, an energetic professional librarian with 28 years of top-flight experience. He made ; the library "the liveliest spot" in town. I "There are no SILENCE signs; ' the walls are flame color and irnnt green, and every evening a loudspeaker loud-speaker pipes music over the brightly lit stacks. Street-like crowds, in overalls and gray flan nel suits, in blue jeans and football foot-ball sweaters, browse and borrow bor-row books." Hopkins even broke open the old locked shelf and made books on marriage and sex as available as novels. In five years the circulation has doubled. |