{"value"=>"<p>In the fall of 1948, UNESCO contacted CARE about the need for rebuilding European libraries that had been destroyed in the war, and providing scientific and technical books to developing countries. CARE agreed to join with UNESCO in its plans to send such materials overseas, and formed the CARE Book Advisory and Bibliography Committee, chaired by Luther Evans of the Library of Congress. Working with representatives from the American Library Association, the National Education Association, and other groups, the Committee compiled a bibliography of pertinent titles and began a fund-raising campaign for the project, directed mainly at professional associations and civic groups. The CARE- UNESCO Book Program sent its first shipment of books in July 1949, to the Louvain Library in Brussels, Belgium.</p> <p>In October 1950, the Book Program expanded to include a Children's Book Fund, which provided books, mostly by American authors, to school and public libraries overseas. Under the slogan \"Make Friends Through Books\", many U. S. classrooms or children's service clubs \"adopted\" a school or library overseas, raising funds to send packages of books to them.</p> <p>In 1955, the United States Information Service recruited CARE's assistance in distributing its American Bookshelf, a collection of ninety-nine paperback books, mostly literature, history, and biographies, selected for overseas audiences by the U. S. Information Agency as representative of what Americans were reading. CARE included the Bookshelf in its Book Program fund- raising until 1959, when it received objections from the National Information Bureau, a private organization that monitored the activities of non-profit groups for prospective donors. The N. I. B. felt that it was inappropriate for CARE to act as a propagandist for the U. S. I. A., and at its recommendation, CARE ceased its support of the American Bookshelf.</p> <p>While the CARE-UNESCO Book Program, Children's Book Fund, and the American Bookshelf enjoyed moderate support from donors, none of them ever had the mass appeal that food and self-help packages did. By the early 1960s, the Book Program had come to an end.</p> <p>Boxes 474-485 contain the correspondence and subject files of CARE's Book Program personnel, in particular Flavel Barnes, chief of the Education Section of the Self-Help Program, and Patricia Freeman, Director of the Book Program. Boxes 475-479 contain donor and administrative files, roughly two-thirds of which consist of correspondence with donor organizations, especially the American Library Association and the National Congress of Parents and Teachers (P. T. A). Box 480 contains the Children's Book Fund files, chiefly fact sheets, mailings, and other informational literature, and thank-you letters from children and teachers in a variety of countries. Correspondence with fund-raising groups at schools, colleges, and libraries is in Boxes 481-482, filed alphabetically by state. Boxes 483-485 hold correspondence with mission personnel, alphabetical by country. Most concern book shipments to those countries.</p> <p>Boxes 486-487 contain the correspondence of Roy McCorkle, the director of CARE's Self-Help Program in the early 1950s, primarily documenting outreach and fund-raising efforts. American Bookshelf files are in Boxes 488-489; they consist mainly of progress reports and examples of publicity for the Bookshelf, correspondence with individual donors, and with fund- raising organizations such as the Fraternal Order of Eagles and regional Rotary Clubs.</p> <p>The bibliographies of scientific and technical books produced by the Book Program's Advisory Committee are in Box 490. The earliest is dated 1950; there are updated versions through 1961-1962.</p>"}