b'THE CARNEGIE CLUBHE SAW RE ADING A S A KE Y TO OL FOR SELF\x1fIMPROVEMENT, INCLUDING HIS OWN 2 3books for free. However, not being bound by an apprenticeship Pittsburgh, starting in 1881. But he proposed his first public library the 17 year old was working as a telegraph messenger and operatorin his hometown of Dunfermline in 1879. This was at the end of theCarnegie was excluded and was liable for the two-dollar annual fee.year-long sojourn that became his first book, Notes of a Trip Round So, he wrote to the Pittsburgh Dispatch, urging that the pool of thosethe World. The library eventually opened in 1883 and provided who were eligible be expanded to include him. The letter wasthe paradigm for all future Carnegie libraries: he would build it published and the Anderson librarian agreed that Carnegie couldif the local authorities would agree to staff and run it and, most borrow a book a week for free. The lesson was learned: Carnegieimportantly, keep it free. had taken his first steps in becoming a man of letters. His contribution to book borrowing worldwide is why the Carnegie also came to appreciate that his hard-won erudition wasChartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) a powerful tool in business. He often used a suitable quote from Burnsnamed their prize for best childrens book after him (first Carnegie or Shakespeare to support an argument or intimidate a less well-readMedal winner in 1936: Arthur Ransome for Pigeon Post). rival. In his autobiography he urged young men not to confineHow many libraries owe their existence to him? Estimates themselves to practical books about their chosen profession, but tovary, but A Manual of the Public Benefactions of Andrew Carnegie, read the gems of literature, which find a ready and profitable marketpublished by Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (a cause in the industrial world. They sell high among men of affair, as I foundfor which he campaigned tirelessly in the early 20th century) in 1919, with my small stock of knowledge.the year of his death, stated he or his Carnegie Corporation had Carnegie began his campaign to bring these gems of literaturefunded 2,811 of them, including one in Liverpool that introduced (a phrase he used when commissioning the library at Skibo in 1900)another young lad to the gems of literature and the possibility of to his workers by opening reading rooms at his mills in and aroundbecoming a professional writer. '