PREFACE   I hope the reader will allow me the indulgence of prefacing this work with some personal remarks of my own, but the opportunity to write about a Scotsman and libraries--two of my favorite subjects--in the same work may never occur again.   It was nearly thirty years ago when I learned the story of Andrew Carnegie. Although the little Kansas town where I grew up had no library, our household had no dearth of reading materials, for our shelves held scores of books, newspapers and magazines sent to us by our grandparents (who lived in Scotland), as well as from other assorted Scottish and English cousins and great-aunts. That these reading materials were heavily "British" both in content and in tone probably goes without saying, and through them I first came to understand the legacy of Andrew Carnegie.   Scots have a passion for reading--it is no coincidence that the Scottish people have the highest rate of literacy in the world (99%)-- and Andrew Carnegie maintained a lifelong interest in learning. I am reminded that in my own family I come from a long line of "book addicts," for my father's family is full of newspapermen and journalists, and all of my mother's family were avid readers. In a rather charming memoir my mother has written that she can still remember the first time her father took her into the Central Library in Edinburgh "and a whole new world" opened up to her.   I was twenty when I first saw Dunfermline, where Carnegie was born, but I have returned several times since because it is a charming place, steeped, as they say, in history. Carnegie is spoken of in Scotland in much the same manner as we speak of our heroes here--Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson and King--with reverence and gratitude. My cousin- in-law likes to tell of his grandfather, who was born in Scotland, emigrated to the "States," became a friend of Andrew Carnegie, made his million (in dollars), and returned to Scotland to live, where he died at the age of 103.   In doing some considerable research on the individual library histories, I spent many hours reading through old newspapers (always an important tool because they record history as it happens), and confess I found the undertaking a pleasurable one. My eye would get caught by the story of the assassination attempt on the Tsar, or the sinking of the Titanic, or the United States waiting to enter the war (the "Great War"), and nearly as often by such local stories as "Mrs. Boaz Won't Be Good" (the continuing saga of a lady of the night in a southeast Kansas town), or the finding of an entire farm family murdered in their sleep, or of mysterious barn burnings, or the return of a prodigal son. Does nothing ever change?