The Merrimack Valley Branch of the University of New Hampshire became acutely aware of the need for trained library aides to assist in the local schools, industrial and public libraries of the greater Manchester, New Hampshire area. The administration also realized that there were many people in the community interested in (1) furthering their education and (2) increasing their employment potential. They identified the major premise to be that a paraprofessional course of instruction could make significant and urgently needed contributions to New Hampshire's libraries when wisely and efficiently employed in a climate of constructive cooperation. In this way, the service process of a library can be enriched to different degrees by library assistants. They are not intended to replace professional librarians, but to take their place in the total service aspect, as part of a carefully coordinated approach to assistance, which helps deploy the resource appropriate to the need of the clientele. In 1971, the Office of Education, Bureau of Libraries and Learning Resources directed their Title 11-B funding to provide more responsive library services to disadvantaged and minority groups by recommending training members of such groups as well as others so that they too might enter the paraprofessional ranks as library aides. (Author)