<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\tAt least as early as October 1925, in Wisconsin, librarians wrote and performed a play to demonstrate county library service for the audience of the Wisconsin Federation of Women Clubs. As former Mexican Board Traveling Service Service Librarian<\/a> Harriet C. Long (Record Series 89\/1\/27<\/a>) describes in a January 1926 Wisconsin Library Bulletin article “WHY NOT? A Drama with a Purpose”, the performance was repeated successfully at multiple sites across the state, including the State Conference of Social Work at Stevens Point, the Madison Women’s Club Good Book Week celebration, and a Fond du Lac County Club meeting too.<\/p>\n With a fictional county map hanging on a wall, the audience was invited to imagine that they were taxpayers at their local county meeting, and they were invited to participate in asking questions. The librarian performers were both on-stage and sitting in the audience with attendees. The performance began with scripted lines to guide the discussion; however, audience participation was anticipated and performers were free to respond extemporaneously. Each librarian performer played the role of a different county stakeholder, ranging from a farmer, to a shopkeeper, to public school administrator, to a housewife, and a lawyer. Each community member asked the fictional County board for explanations of how county library service would benefit them.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the one-act “Bringing Up Nine” January 1929 adaption of a 1923 work “Any Book You Want–Uncle Sam bring it to your door” by another Wisconsin librarian writer and playwright, Mary K. Reely, was published by the A.L.A. in 1930. The 1923 work described how the parcel post system worked and the services of traveling libraries.<\/p>\n The 1929 “Bringing Up Nine” takes place in a farm house sitting room, where a mother of nine children is visited by friend who is astonished by the role books play in helping the mother maintain a calm, orderly household.<\/p>\n In the second half of the act, the guest is also informed about how the services of the county library and traveling library have enabled the family to access many more books than they could have managed on their own.<\/p>\n<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\tBringing Up Nine<\/h1>\n
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