THE COMMERCIAL DEPARTMENT
=450. General.=--The most recent development of library works which has
justified itself in practice has for its aim the provision of
information useful to commercial and business men. It is comparatively
new to this country but has been in vogue in America for some years
past, in particular in the Commercial Museum at Philadelphia, which is a
separate, self-contained institution. In Great Britain commercial
libraries have been established as part of the public library system at
Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, Bradford, Birmingham, Leeds and
elsewhere. The names of these towns indicate an important fact. Separate
comprehensive commercial libraries are expensive institutions, and are
only justified where a large demand for their services may be expected.
Smaller libraries may indeed have commercial departments in connexion
with their reference departments, but it is wiser to limit their stock
and work to the definitely local trades than to attempt a general
commercial service entirely beyond their means and probable needs.
=451. The Commercial Department.=--As distinct from the general
commercial library as established in the great towns we have named, the
commercial section in an ordinary library is a development of the
Information Desk. It specializes in local industries and trade, and on
that subject collects every form of printed and graphic material, the
standard text-books and works of reference, directories, year-books,
codes, reports and periodicals. These are classified and indexed
minutely, and are so disposed that ordinary questions which a business
man may be expected to ask can be answered as rapidly as possible. It is
what the Americans call “quick-fire reference work,” in which immediacy
of need and of its satisfaction are the prime requisites. We do not wish
to set limitations to any branch of library service, and if a librarian
can, without loss or inconvenience in other directions, include further
features from those described in the following sections, he should
certainly consider himself at liberty to do so; but this will rarely be
the case. The separate, highly-developed commercial library is
distinctly a work for the some half-dozen British cities which are
centres of great commercial and industrial populations.
=452. The Commercial Library.=--The need has long been felt in this
country for rapid access to current and standard commercial
intelligence, although it has not always been realized, and the need has
been accentuated by the Great War, which has made Great Britain more
than ever a competitor in the world-struggle. The Board of Trade has
established an intelligence department in London, and chambers of
commerce exist in most towns which have intelligence-work as part of
their reason for existence; but London is too far away for the
provincial man of business who wants immediate information, and the
chambers of commerce do not embrace in their membership more than a part
of the business community. Hence the desirability of fully-equipped,
skilfully-administered libraries.
At Glasgow, Liverpool and elsewhere the commercial library is housed in
a commodious, appropriate department as near to the business centre of
the city as possible. It is administered by the library authority, and
is in the immediate charge of a librarian skilled in classification,
filing and indexing, and the use of works of reference. The stock of the
library has been defined by Mr S. A. Pitt, the chief librarian of
Glasgow, as standard and current; the standard consisting of treatises,
encyclopædic works, code books, Government reports, Parliamentary
papers, and works on commercial law and business method; the current of
all kinds of fugitive papers and material of great temporary, but
probably very transient, interest, such as notices, reports, pamphlets,
leaflets, news-cuttings, catalogues and price-lists. To the standard
would be added directories of every trade, industry and profession, and
of every country, county and important town; atlases, maps, charts and
similar material would form an important part of the collection; and,
perhaps most important of all, every financial journal, trade
periodical, etc., in English, with a liberal supply of those in other
languages. The consular reports, and other Government publications,
including those of the Patent Office and other technical departments of
the Crown, should be included. Some of these can be obtained as a free
grant; many of them, strange to say, can only be obtained by purchase.
=453.= The methodology of such a library resembles that of the ordinary
reference library, with special emphasis on minute filing and indexing.
As much of the current information as possible should be on cards or in
vertical files in the most concise form; the business man has no time to
read lengthy material, nor can he afford to wait for it while the
commercial librarian slowly produces it--that is, as a rule; there are
times when a question demands a reference to London or to some other
place, which involves delay; but in the ordinary course, a quotation,
address, character of a firm, route, code, or some such information, is
wanted, and it should be forthcoming on the instant. The card index and
vertical file, and experience in the needs of readers, should eventually
lead to effective service. Much of the work is done by telephone, and a
complete telephone equipment is an essential of the library. The whole
resources of the general library system of the town are also at the
disposal of the user of the commercial library. The library also keeps
records of the specialities of the various manufacturers, traders, etc.,
of the town, of changes in their scope, management, and so forth; and an
index of translators, typing firms and others required at times by
business people. It must revise its material regularly and
systematically so that it may always be the latest.
=454.= To secure the best results co-operation with exchanges and
chambers of commerce is desirable; and in many places this seems to have
been forthcoming. At Glasgow, Bailie A. Campbell states that the
commercial libraries, as projected by librarians, “are to meet the wants
of the smaller commercial man, the tradesman, the man who pushes his
way, the men who have risen from nothing”; the others, presumably, are
provided for by the exchange and the chamber of commerce. At Manchester,
however, the commercial library is actually in the Royal Exchange, and
other cities have made their present progress through the co-operation
of the representative organizations of commercial men. Unless this is
forthcoming there seems not very much chance of success. It may be that
the commercial library, as now initiated by librarians, will in course
of time become the nucleus of a commercial institution or bureau in
which the branches of the Board of Trade, the Chamber of Commerce, and
the various Consuls may be housed, controlled in its operations by an
expert paid a very high salary, who shall be for the district a sort of
Minister of Commerce capable of guiding the commercial people. But that
is in the region of speculation.
=455. Technical Libraries.=--While the commercial library furnishes
information for the buyer and seller of commodities, the technical
library is concerned with information for the manufacturer and
operative; the question is therefore closely related to the question of
commercial libraries, and in some districts is the more important. In
large American libraries there is usually a separate department of the
reference library devoted to technology, but in this country the supply
of such books as this department would afford has been inadequate.
Lately considerable attention has been devoted to technical libraries,
and we may summarize a few of the results and recommendations.
=456. Local Industries.=--It is clear that municipal libraries have a
special interest in providing all literature possible on local
industries; text-books of the various trades, periodicals, patent
publications, reports, catalogues and similar matter should be collected
assiduously. This does not mean that every trade represented in the town
need be treated in an exhaustive manner, but the leading industries, by
which numbers of the townsfolk live, certainly should be. Examples of
such collections are those on engineering at Coventry, furniture at
Shoreditch, clocks and clock-making at Finsbury, coal-mining at Wigan,
and the leather trades at Northampton. Some of these, however, are
confined to books, in many cases perforce for lack of funds and personal
service; but the ideal, too often unrealized, is a collection of
material of all kinds of which books form only a part. Local means and
opportunities must determine how far any library can carry such a
collection--usually, at present, not very far; but as many works of
recognized value on the predominant industries should certainly be
stocked.
=457. Technical Collections Generally.=--Hitherto it has been the
province of the municipal library to supply general works in
technology, and the special libraries of individual industries have been
provided by the industry. This, in the view of the Ministry of
Reconstruction’s Adult Education Committee (Third Interim Report,
_Libraries and Museums_, 1919, Cd. 9237), should be the prevailing
method of the future. It is obvious that few public libraries can supply
expensive treatises on technical questions in which their own district
is not directly interested; even with a greatly increased library rate
they could not do so in any large measure. The greater cities may
perhaps acquire these books, but they could not supply more than one or
two copies. Too limited a view should not be taken in great towns,
because co-ordination and co-operation such as are implied in the
Joint-Technical Catalogues published at Glasgow bring the whole
resources of a wide area to a focus. In ordinary towns the present aim
should be to obtain the largest possible number of general and special
works in science and applied science, and to leave the supply of the
more expensive, recondite, and valuable but rarely used treatises to a
central reservoir library, which may be developed out of the Central
Lending Library for Students, perhaps with the aid of the special
libraries of the various institutions which represent trades and
professions. The main aim of the Library Association is to have a
central reservoir library established in London from which all libraries
may draw important little-used books; and the Ministry of
Reconstruction’s Committee adopt this idea as the basis of their scheme
for the co-ordination and re-organization of libraries.
In building up technical collections a library benefits greatly by
expert assistance; but the advice of several, and not one only, is very
desirable, since experts rarely agree on minute questions of books, and
each of any two experts cancels the idiosyncrasies of the other. But
experts can usually be found from neighbouring universities, or big
industrial concerns, who will give the library the benefit of their
knowledge, especially in assessing the value of older books. No section
of the library needs revision so frequently as the technical, unless it
be the commercial. This is more especially likely to be the case in
these next few years after the War, when all industrial advances made
from 1914 onwards will probably be recorded, to the superseding of many
previous books.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
=458. Commercial Libraries:=
Dana, J. C, and Bull, S. B. Business Branch. _In_ Modern American
Library Economy, 1910.
Glasgow Corporation Libraries. Adams, Robert. A Commercial Library for
Glasgow, 1913.
---- Pitt, S. A. The Purpose, Equipment and Methods of the Commercial
Library, 1916.
Library Association. Interim Report on the Provision of Technical and
Commercial Libraries. _In_ Public Libraries: Their Development and
Future Organization, 1917, p. 114 [and separately].
Ministry of Reconstruction. Third Interim Report of the Adult
Education Committee: Libraries and Museums [Cd. 9237], 1919, p. 10.
Pitt, S. A., and Others. Commercial Libraries. _In_ Library
Association. Public Libraries (_vide supra_), p. 47.
Power, R. L. Boston’s Special Libraries, 1917.
Special Libraries, vol. i., 1911, _and to date_.
=459. Technical Libraries:=
See all literature in Section 458.
Hulme, E. W., and Others. Technical Libraries. _In_ Library
Association. Public Libraries (_vide supra_), p. 65.
The Library Association Record has been occupied largely with these
subjects from 1916, and reference should be made to its indexes.
For articles see Cannons: C 459-61, Commercial, Industrial and
Scientific Libraries; C 144, Commercial Libraries in U.S.; F 13,
Library in Relation to Industrial Education; G 53, Industrial
Collections; G 76, 78, Industrial and Trade Literature.