The small beginning will gather to itself strength if the workers are persistent; the collection of books will increase, sentiment will grow more favorable and eventually the movement will be popular. In making such a beginning the Iowa Library Commission should be called upon for the use of the traveling library, form of constitution and by-laws, book lists and other printed matter, and the secretary will be glad to render any assistance possible in forwarding such an enterprise in any town in the state. CO-OPERATION BETWEEN LIBRARY AND COMMUNITY A paper that originally appeared in _The Springfield Republican_, Dec. 1, 1899, and was reprinted in Home Education Bulletin No. 31 of the University of the State of New York. The author, Miss M. Anna Tarbell of Brimfield, Mass. The use of the word cooperation in connection with the public library implies that the library is not simply a collection of books, that it is not a passive institution, a repository of treasure, but an active institution reaching out to bestow benefits. The library spirit means not only cooperating with all uplifting forces in the community, but creating and stimulating such forces. The library spirit seeks to carry brightness into gray and toilworn lives, to give broad vision in place of the narrow and distorted view, to awaken generous sympathies and noble thoughts in place of sordid desires and petty interests. Imbued with this spirit, the librarian will be a lover of humankind, sympathetic, earnest, self-sacrificing, a true missionary, enthusiastic withal and eager to seize upon ways and means by which the library may more and more be made to enrich human life. But however abundant in resources the library, and however zealous and efficient the librarian, there is a limit to the work that can be accomplished on the library side for the promotion of intellectual life and general culture. There needs to be a larger and more intelligent demand on the community side for the supply which the library offers. To stimulate this demand there is needed the cooperation of those people and those institutions in the community that possess special opportunities for increasing the use and influence of the library, or in any way making human life wiser, better and happier. This cooperation may be both direct and indirect, since all culture influences are by nature cooperative with that of the library. I shall dwell specially on the need of stimulating cooperation on the side of the community, for the reason that the library has already taken the initiative, and because library privileges are so abundant in Massachusetts, so freely offered and eagerly extended, without a proportionate response to these privileges on the part of the public.