Editing Works Progress Administration (section)

=== Library Services Program ===
Before the Great Depression, it was estimated that one-third of the population in the United States did not have reasonable access to public library services.<ref>{{Cite journal|date=December 1995|title=Library|journal=MRS Bulletin|volume=20|issue=12|pages=52–53|doi=10.1557/s0883769400045929|issn=0883-7694|doi-access=free}}</ref> Understanding the need, not only to maintain existing facilities but to expand library services, led to the establishment of the WPA's Library Projects.  With the onset of the Depression, local governments facing declining revenues were unable to maintain social services, including libraries. This lack of revenue exacerbated problems of library access that were already widespread. 

In 1934, only two states, Massachusetts and Delaware, provided their total population access to public libraries.<ref name=swain>{{Cite journal|last=Swain|first=Martha H.|date=1995|title=A New Deal in Libraries: Federal Relief Work and Library Service, 1933–1943|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25542771|journal=Libraries & Culture|volume=30|issue=3|pages=265–283|jstor=25542771|issn=0894-8631}}</ref> In many rural areas, there were no libraries, and where they did exist, reading opportunities were minimal. Sixty-six percent of the South's population did not have access to any public library. Libraries that existed circulated one book per capita.<ref name=swain /> The early emphasis of these programs was on extending library services to rural populations, by creating libraries in areas that lacked facilities. The WPA library program also greatly augmented reader services in metropolitan and urban centers.  

By 1938, the WPA Library Services Project had established 2,300 new libraries, 3,400 reading rooms in existing libraries, and 53 traveling libraries for sparsely settled areas.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://dp.la/exhibitions/history-us-public-libraries/libraries-on-the-move/wpa-library-programs|title=WPA Library Programs|work=Digital Public Library of America}}</ref> Federal money for these projects could only be spent on worker wages, therefore local municipalities would have to provide upkeep on properties and purchase equipment and materials. At the local level, WPA libraries relied on funding from county or city officials or funds raised by local community organizations such as women's clubs. Due to limited funding, many WPA libraries were "little more than book distribution stations: tables of materials under temporary tents, a tenant home to which nearby readers came for their books, a school superintendents' home, or a crossroads general store."<ref name=swain /> The public response to the WPA libraries was extremely positive. For many, "the WPA had become 'the breadline of the spirit.'"<ref name=swain />

At its height in 1938, there were 38,324 people, primarily women, employed in library services programs, while 25,625 were employed in library services and 12,696 were employed in bookbinding and repair.  

Because book repair was an activity that could be taught to unskilled workers and once trained, could be conducted with little supervision, repair and mending became the main activity of the WPA Library Project. The basic rationale for this change was that the mending and repair projects saved public libraries and school libraries thousands of dollars in acquisition costs while employing needy women who were often heads of households.<ref name=swain />  

By 1940, the WPA Library Project, now the Library Services Program, began to shift its focus as the entire WPA began to move operations towards goals of national defense. WPA Library Programs served those goals in two ways: 1.) existing WPA libraries could distribute materials to the public on the nature of an imminent national defense emergency and the need for national defense preparation, and 2.) the project could provide supplementary library services to military camps and defense impacted communities.

By December 1941, the number of people employed in WPA library work was only 16,717. In May of the following year, all statewide Library Projects were reorganized as WPA War Information Services Programs. By early 1943, the work of closing war information centers had begun. The last week of service for remaining WPA library workers was March 15, 1943.<ref name=swain />

While it is difficult to quantify the success or failure of WPA Library Projects relative to other WPA programs, "what is incontestable is the fact that the library projects provided much-needed employment for mostly female workers, recruited many to librarianship in at least semiprofessional jobs, and retained librarians who may have left the profession for other work had employment not come through federal relief...the WPA subsidized several new ventures in readership services such as the widespread use of bookmobiles and supervised reading rooms{{snd}}services that became permanent in post-depression and postwar American libraries."<ref name=swain />  

In extending library services to people who lost their libraries (or never had a library to begin with), WPA Library Services Projects achieved phenomenal success, made significant permanent gains, and had a profound impact on library life in America.<ref name=swain />