LIBRARY MANAGERS OR TRUSTEES.
We now come to consider the management of libraries as entrusted to
boards of directors, trustees or library managers. These relations have a
most intimate bearing upon the foundation, the progress and the
consequent success of any library. Where a liberal intelligence and a
hearty coöperation are found in those constituting the library board, the
affairs of the institution will be managed with the best results. Where
a narrow-minded and dictatorial spirit is manifested, even by a portion
of those supervising a public library, it will require a large endowment
both of patience and of tact in the librarian, to accomplish those aims
which involve the highest usefulness.
Boards of library trustees vary in number, usually from three to nine or
more. A board of three or five is found in practice more active and
efficient than a larger number. The zeal and responsibility felt is apt
to diminish in direct proportion to the increased numbers of the board.
An odd number is preferable, to avoid an equal division of opinion upon
any question to be determined.
In town or city libraries, the mode of selection of library trustees
varies much. Sometimes the mayor appoints the library board, sometimes
they are chosen by the city council, and sometimes elected by the people,
at the annual selection of school or municipal officers. The term of
service (most usually three years) should be so arranged that retirement
of any members should always leave two at least who have had experience
on the board. Library trustees serve without salary, the high honor of so
serving the public counting for much.
The librarian is often made secretary of the trustees, and then he keeps
the record of their transactions. He should never be made treasurer of
the library funds, which would involve labor and responsibility
incompatible with the manifold duties of the superintendent of a library.
In case of a library supported by municipal taxation, the town treasurer
may well serve as library treasurer also, or the trustees can choose one
from their own board. The librarian, however, should be empowered to
collect book fines or other dues, to be deposited with the treasurer at
regular intervals, and he should have a small fund at disposal for such
petty library expenses as constantly arise. All bills for books and
other purchases, and all salaries of persons employed in the library
should be paid by the treasurer.
The meetings of the trustees should be attended by the librarian, who
must always be ready to supply all information as to the workings of the
library, the needs for books, etc. Frequently the trustees divide up the
business before them, appointing sub-committees on book selections, on
library finances, on administration, furnishings, &c., with a view to
prompt action.
If a library receives endowments, money gifts or legacies, they are held
and administered by the trustees as a body corporate, the same as the
funds annually appropriated for library maintenance and increase. Their
annual report to the council, or municipal authorities, should exhibit
the amount of money received from all sources in detail, and the amount
expended for all purposes, in detail; also, the number of books purchased
in the year, the aggregate of volumes in the library, the number of
readers, and other facts of general interest.
All accounts against the library are first audited by the proper
sub-committee, and payment ordered by the full board, by order on the
treasurer. The accounts for all these expenditures should be kept by the
treasurer, who should inform the librarian periodically as to balances.
The selection of books for a public library is a delicate and responsible
duty, involving wider literary and scientific knowledge than falls to the
lot of most trustees of libraries. There are sometimes specially
qualified professional men or widely read scholars on such boards, whose
services in recruiting the library are of great value. More frequently
there are one or more men with hobbies, who would spend the library funds
much too freely upon a class of books of no general interest. Thus, one
trustee who plays golf may urge the purchase of all the various books
upon that game, when one or at most two of the best should supply all
needful demands. Another may want to add to the library about all the
published books on the horse; another, who is a physician, may recommend
adding a lot of medical books to the collection, utterly useless to the
general reader. Beware of the man who has a hobby, either as librarian or
as library trustee; he will aim to expend too much money on books which
suit his own taste, but which have little general utility. Two mischiefs
result from such a course: the library gets books which very few people
read, and its funds are diverted from buying many books that may be of
prime importance.
Trustees, although usually, (at least the majority of them) persons of
culture and intelligence, cannot be expected to be bibliographers, nor to
be familiar with the great range of new books that continually pour from
the press. They have their own business or profession to engage them, and
are commonly far too busy to study catalogues, or to follow the journals
of the publishing world. So these busy men, charged with the oversight of
the library interests, call to their aid an expert, and that expert is
the librarian. It is his interest and his business to know far more than
they do both of what the library already contains, and what it most
needs. It is his to peruse the critical journals and reviews, as well as
the literary notices of the select daily press, and to be prepared to
recommend what works to purchase. He must always accompany his lists of
wants with the prices, or at least the approximate cost of each, and the
aggregate amount. If the trustees or book committee think the sum too
large to be voted at any one time from the fund at their disposal, the
librarian must know what can best be postponed, as well as what is most
indispensable for the immediate wants of the library. If they object to
any works on the list, he should be prepared to explain the quality and
character of those called in question, and why the library, in his
judgment, should possess them. If the list is largely cut down, and he
considers himself hardly used, he should meet the disappointment with
entire good humor, and try again when the members of the committee are in
better mood, or funds in better supply.
It is very customary for boards of library officers to assume the charge
of the administration so far as regards the library staff, and to make
appointments, promotions or removals at their own pleasure. In most
libraries, however, this power is exercised mainly on the advice or
selection of the librarian, his action being confirmed when there is no
serious objection. In still other cases, the librarian is left wholly
free to choose the assistants. This is perhaps the course most likely to
secure efficient service, since his judgment, if he is a person of tried
capacity and mature experience, will lead to the selection of the fittest
candidates, for the work which he alone thoroughly knows. No library
trustee can put himself fully in the place of a librarian, and see for
himself the multitude of occasions arising in the daily work of the
library, where promptness, tact, and wide knowledge of books will make a
success, and the want of any of these qualities a failure. Still less can
he judge the competency or incompetency of one who is to be employed in
the difficult and exact work of cataloguing books. Besides, there is
always the hazard that trustees, or some of them, may have personal
favorites or relatives to prefer, and will use their influence to secure
the appointment or promotion of utterly uninstructed persons, in place of
such candidates as are known to the librarian to be best qualified. In no
case should any person be employed without full examination as to fitness
for library work, conducted either by the librarian, or by a committee
of which the librarian is a member or chief examiner. A probationary
trial should also follow before final appointment.
The power of patronage, if unchecked by this safeguard, will result in
filling any library with incompetents, to the serious detriment of the
service on which its usefulness depends. The librarian cannot keep a
training school for inexperts: he has no time for this, and he
indispensably needs and should have assistants who are competent to their
duties, from their first entrance upon them. As he is held responsible
for all results, in the conduct of the library, both by the trustees and
by the public, he should have the power, or at least the approximate
power, to select the means by which those results are to be attained.
In the Boston Public Library, all appointments are made by the trustees
upon nomination by the librarian, after an examination somewhat similar
to that of the civil service, but by a board of library experts. In the
British Museum Library, the selection and promotion of members of the
staff are passed upon by the trustees, having the recommendation of the
principal librarian before them. In the Library of Congress, appointments
are made directly by the librarian after a probationary trial, with
previous examination as to education, former experience or employments,
attainments, and fitness for library service.
In smaller libraries, both in this country and abroad, a great diversity
of usage prevails. Instances are rare in which the librarian has the
uncontrolled power of appointment, promotion and removal. The requirement
of examinations to test the fitness of candidates is extending, and since
the establishment of five or six permanent schools of library science in
the United States, with their graduates well equipped for library work,
there is no longer any excuse for putting novices in charge of
libraries--institutions where wide knowledge and thorough training are
more indispensable than in any other profession whatever.
In State libraries, no uniformity prevails as to control. In some States,
the governor has the appointment of the librarian, while in others, he is
an elective officer, the State Legislature being the electors. As
governors rarely continue in office longer than two or three years, the
tenure of a librarian under them is precarious, and a most valuable
officer may at any time be superseded by another who would have to learn
all that the other knows. The result is rarely favorable to the efficient
administration of the library. In a business absolutely demanding the
very largest compass of literary and scientific knowledge, frequent
rotation in office is clearly out of place. In a public or State library,
every added year of experience adds incalculably to the value of a
librarian's services, provided he is of active habits, and full of zeal
to make his acquired knowledge constantly useful to those who use the
library. Partizan politics, with their frequent changes, if suffered to
displace a tried librarian and staff, will be sure to defeat the highest
usefulness of any library. What can a political appointee, a man totally
without either library training or library experience, do with the tools
of which he has never learned the use? It will take him years to learn,
and by the time he has learned, some other political party coming
uppermost will probably displace him, to make room for another novice, on
the principle that "to the victors belong the spoils" of office.
Meanwhile, "the hungry sheep look up and are not fed," as Milton
sings--that is, readers are deprived of expert and intelligent guidance.
This bane of political jobbery has not been confined to the libraries of
States, but has invaded the management of many city and town libraries
also. We have yet to learn of any benefit resulting to those who use the
libraries.
In the case of a few of the State libraries, trustees or library
commissioners or boards of control have been provided by law, but in
others, a joint library committee, composed of members of both houses of
the Legislature, has charge of the library interests. This is also the
case in the Library of Congress at Washington, where three Senators and
three Representatives constitute the Joint Committee of both Houses of
Congress on the Library. The membership of this committee, as of all
others in Congress, is subject to change biennially. It has been proposed
to secure a more permanent and careful supervision of this National
Library by adding to the Joint Committee of Congress three or more
trustees of eminent qualifications, elected by Congress, as the Regents
of the Smithsonian Institution now are, for a longer term of years. The
trustees of the British Museum are appointed by the Crown, their tenure
of office being for life.
In several States the librarian is appointed by the supreme court, as the
State libraries are composed more largely of law books, than of
miscellaneous literature, and special knowledge of case law, and the
principles of jurisprudence, is demanded of the librarian.
Where the trustees of a public library are elected by the people, they
have in their own hands the power of choosing men who are far above party
considerations, and they should exercise it. In no department of life is
the maxim--"the tools to the hands that can use them," more important
than in the case of librarians and boards of managers of libraries. The
value of skilled labor over the unskilled is everywhere recognized in the
business of the world, by more certain employment and larger
compensation: and why should it not be so in libraries?