Chapter 8 The Shipboard Library

CHAPTER 8 THE SHIPBOARD LIBRARY One of the main purposes of the Command Religious Program is to maintain the morale of command personnel. Shipboard libraries, which are maintained by RPs, are a very important factor in this effort, Shipboard libraries may range in size from a small paperback book col- lection aboard a minesweeper to a 10,000 volume library collection aboard a giant nuclear powered aircraft carrier. The Navy’s General Library Program, under the control of the Chief of Naval Education and Training (CNET), provides approximately 650 afloat and ashore libraries with an inventory of more than 2-1 /2 million books. The first ship’s library was placed aboard the warship USS Franklin in 1821. This venture was initiated by Mr. William Wood, a New York philanthropist. Just before the Franklin, under the command of Commodore Charles Stewart, sailed for a 3-year cruise of the Pacific, Mr. Wood, with the per- mission of the Commodore, addressed the crew on the subject of a “Seaman’s Library.” Mr. Wood’s remarks were enthusiastically received by the crew and the officers and crew im- mediately subscribed approximately $800. With this money, 1,500 books were selected and pro- cured by Mr. Wood who later performed a similar service for the United States and the Erie. The Commodore promptly set aside a com- partment aboard the Franklin as a library and appointed a librarian. Upon the return of the ship, the books that remained from the Franklin’s collection became the nucleus of the Seaman’s Library at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The shipboard libraries of that era were among the first projects sponsored by Navy chaplains to improve the social and moral con- dition of naval personnel. Similarly, the promotion of learning was among one of the chaplain’s earliest collateral duties. One chaplain serving aboard a ship during this period wrote of “forty men aboard who could read (only) poorly or not at all,” Concerning this situation, the same chaplain wrote: “To remedy in some degree this gross neglect, several of us obtained such books as we were able to get, and, at Gibraltar, we purchased for the crew, at their request and at their own expense, schoolbooks, such as geographies, grammars, arithmetics, etc., to the value of $100. Thus, were many of them furnished with the means of improving their minds; and, so important is the influence of books in making seamen peaceful, contented, and happy, that it would be a good policy on the part of our government to furnish every ship of war with a well-selected and appropriate library for the use of the crew. Some of our larger ships have had libraries of several hundred volumes purchased by the men on board, and great good has resulted from them; but, from having no system on the subject, the books have been disposed of at auction, or by lot, at the end of a cruise, or left to mold and waste away at some naval depot, instead of being carefully preserved and transferred to some other ship, where they might be useful.” Since 1828, when the Navy assumed official responsibility for the provision of shipboard libraries from appropriated funds, the Navy’s General Library Program has been an essential element in meeting the educational, informa- tion, communication, professional, and recrea- tional needs of commands and of individual personnel. Figure 8-1 shows education and training around 1898. Note the distinctive garb worn by a 8-1