Statement by the President on the Occasion of National Library Week.

BOOKS AND LIBRARIES and the will to use them are among the most important tools our nation has to diffuse knowledge and to develop our powers of creative wisdom. It is, however, a fact that there is an important gap in the availability of books and libraries to our citizens. As many as 25 million people have no library service, and nearly 50 million have inadequate services. There is a great imbalance of resources among the great educational institutions of our country. A majority of elementary schools has no libraries at all.

The community public library is one of the richest and more enduring aspects of our historical heritage. I hope very much that National Library Week will have widespread citizen participation and that it will serve to encourage all of us to improve libraries and to stimulate reading throughout the nation.