LIBRARIES OF MUNICIPAL REFERENCE
=445. General.=--It is appropriate to devote a brief space to the
consideration of reference libraries of municipal material, because the
Library Association has affirmed the desirability of such libraries;
although, so far as this country is concerned, the matter is in the
prospective stage rather than that of accomplishment. In various
Canadian and American cities such libraries exist and have proved their
utility.
Municipal history would probably furnish many examples of independent
attempts to solve similar local government and administrative problems,
all conducted without that reference to one another which is implied in
organization, and without full profit being derived from the successes
or failures of former workers. It is true that before carrying out
schemes appeal is made by municipalities to their official experts; but
the experience of the latter, however wide, is usually circumscribed,
and they can add to it only by personal visits to and correspondence
with, similar experts. This limited knowledge, and the expenditure of
time and money, could be avoided by any municipality which possessed an
organized library of reference material.
It is, as we have shown, the business of every library to preserve in
its local collection all publications of the authority to whom it
belongs. The value of this limited work is obvious, but it does not
necessarily demand a special department. When, however, an attempt is
made to collect every kind of material, manuscript, printed, pictorial
and statistical, which is likely to throw light on problems of local
administration, including the municipal literature issued by other
authorities, the task becomes so large that a separate and
self-contained department must be devoted to it.
=446.= In almost every municipal office there is to be found a smaller
or larger collection of the more obvious technical books for the
reference use of its staff. Such books are treatises on engineering
details, accountancy, and the Town Clerk has usually a small collection
of acts, manuals, and other literature bearing upon municipal law. The
collections are rarely if ever large enough to possess a representative
and co-ordinate character, nor are they easily available for the whole
of the staff of the local authority or for members of the town council
and the public. There is a certain wastefulness in this method of
providing books. One or two of the greater towns have more general
municipal collections; Glasgow is an example; but there is no town in
the United Kingdom which possesses a systematically arranged and
professionally administered municipal library, or bureau of municipal
research, if the term is preferred. Yet many things may be urged in
favour of such a department. It would be an infinite advantage to any
inquirer, whether an official or a member of the public, to be able to
go to a specially constituted department and to study what has been the
general experience of any question or scheme under consideration or in
prospect.
Within the limits presumed the field of the municipal reference is a
wide one. It would collect all books of an authoritative nature on local
government, and every available municipal document, from the minutes of
the local council to the small paragraph from the newspaper which would
shed light on municipal administration. It is definitely bibliographical
work and should be placed under the control of the libraries committee;
moreover, it is expert work, and can only be conducted satisfactorily by
a man or woman who has been trained in the collection, classification,
filing, and particularly the minute cataloguing and indexing of literary
material; in short, to be effective, it must be placed in the care of a
professional librarian.
=447.= Such a library would demand fairly generous accommodation if it
is to contain the material indicated, and would require a proper staff;
it would cost money. Here, perhaps, we have the crucial factor in the
situation, because it is difficult to convince the average municipal
governor that books can bear a part in the solution of municipal
problems. It is obvious that such a department cannot be supported out
of the present resources of library committees--in fact, it is most
undesirable, even if it is legal, that the cost should fall upon the
library rate. It is special work to assist the government of a town, and
should be paid for by the governing authority as a whole and quite apart
from ordinary library funds. In Milwaukee, where the Public Library
administers such a department, the city makes an annual appropriation of
five thousand dollars from the general city fund to be added to the
library’s revenue, and used only for municipal reference purposes. One
thousand pounds a year would possibly seem an excessive amount to the
average town council, but when it is remembered that such a library, by
the information it would afford, might save many more thousands of
pounds, the investment would seem to be an eminently satisfactory one.
=448.= America has anticipated us in this, as in many other library
matters, and such libraries of this character as she possesses have
proved to be quite successful. A large volume has already been devoted
by Mr J. B. Kaiser to the discussion of the practical methods in vogue
in this and collateral libraries. There, as here, stress is laid upon
the economy resulting from such work. It prevents the adoption of
ill-considered municipal schemes, or schemes which it shows to have been
a failure elsewhere. It provides examples of the successes of other
towns, and, therefore, gives the possessing town the best models upon
which to frame its own work. It is insisted, too, that this is work for
the librarian, and that it is useless to spend money upon the provision
of material and to place it in the charge of people who are not
specially equipped by education, experience, and technical training to
understand and focus the information contained in the library. What is
not so vital in America, because of the _comparative_ wealth of
libraries there (few of them are really over-financed), is the fact that
while this may form an important branch of the public library, it must
have a separate revenue.
=449.= BIBLIOGRAPHY
Kaiser, J. B. Law, Legislative and Municipal Reference Libraries,
1914.
Moore, H. K. Municipal Reference Libraries. _In_ Library Association.
Public Libraries: their development and future organization, 1917.
For articles see Special Libraries, vol. ii., p. 22, 1911; and
Cannons: G 60, Municipal Literature; L 122, Bibliography.