Lois Barbare talks about her philosophy in book selection at the South Carolina State Library during the 1940's and 1950's.
"Well, I don't know that my philosophy ever changed. It had to change. I mean what I did had to change, but we were taught from the word go that a library had nothing but the best. In the children's room we didn't have the cheap series. We had a quality collection. I suppose it was a philosophy, but it was mine at any rate; that you could read anything, that was not going to hurt you, but there was some place you came and you got -- you learned about --quality, and that was the public library. That was pretty much mine and Miss Walker's philosophies. That was the way we were brought up."
Lois Barbare talks about the WPA [Works Progress Administration] library project.
"It was hard for us to realize when we worked for the WPA library project that we weren't just doing library work. Because the way it was set up, there was a strong control in that office, [but] it was [really] a relief project. We had to be constantly reminded that this was to give people jobs. We had training programs that trained the people who worked in school and public libraries."