LIBRARY ESSAYS
PAPERS RELATED TO THE WORK OF PUBLIC LIBRARIES
LIBRARY ESSAYS
PAPERS RELATED TO THE WORK
OF PUBLIC LIBRARIES
ARTHUR E. BOSTWICK, PH. D.
THE H. W. WILSON COMPANY
NEW YORK
1920
PREFACE
The author of these papers began his service in librarianship in April,
1895. He celebrates his silver jubilee by gathering them into a single
volume. Before becoming a librarian he had worked for many years as
teacher, editor and journalist, and the use of the pen having become
second nature, he took it up in behalf of libraries and librarians,
somewhat sooner, perhaps, than experience would warrant. However, the
papers reflect to a certain extent the progress of library work during
the past quarter century.
A. E. B.
CONTENTS
PAINS AND PENALTIES IN LIBRARY WORK 3
Read at the Magnolia Conference of the
American Library Association, June, 1902.
(_A. L. A. Proceedings_, 1902, p. 29-34)
HOW LIBRARIANS CHOOSE BOOKS 17
(_Public Libraries_, April, 1903, p. 137-41)
THE WORK OF THE SMALL PUBLIC LIBRARY 29
(_Library Journal_, August, 1903, p. 596-600)
LAY CONTROL IN LIBRARIES AND ELSEWHERE 39
Read before the Trustees’ Section of the
American Library Association, at the Niagara
Conference. (_A. L. A. Proceedings_, 1903,
p. 199-202)
THE WHOLE DUTY OF A LIBRARY TRUSTEE: FROM
A LIBRARIAN’S STANDPOINT 49
An address before the Trustees’ Section of
the American Library Association (_A. L. A.
Proceedings_, 1906, p. 40-4)
THE DAY’S WORK: SOME CONDITIONS AND SOME
IDEALS 59
Presidential address before the New York Library
Association, Lake Placid, September
21, 1903. (_Library Journal_, October, 1903,
p. 704-7)
LIBRARY STATISTICS 69
(_Library Journal_, January, 1904, p. 5-8)
OLD PROBABILITIES IN THE LIBRARY--HIS
MODEST VATICINATIONS 79
Read before the Pennsylvania Library Club,
Philadelphia, May 9, 1904. (_Library Journal_,
October, 1904, p. 517-23)
THE LOVE OF BOOKS AS A BASIS FOR LIBRARIANSHIP 97
Read before the New York Library Association,
Twilight Park, September, 1906. (_Library
Journal_, February, 1907, p. 51-5)
THE LIBRARY AS THE EDUCATIONAL CENTER OF A TOWN 111
(_Public Libraries_, May, 1907, p. 171-4)
THE LIBRARIAN AS A CENSOR 121
Presidential address before the American Library
Association, Lake Minnetonka Conference,
June, 1908. (_Library Journal_, July,
1908, p. 257-64)
HOW TO RAISE THE STANDARD OF BOOK SELECTION 141
Read at the meeting of the Library commissions
of the New England States, Hartford,
Conn., February 11, 1909. (_Public Libraries_,
May, 1909, p. 163-7)
LIBRARY CIRCULATION AT LONG RANGE 221
(_Library Journal_, July, 1913, p. 391-4)
CONFLICTS OF JURISDICTION IN LIBRARY SYSTEMS 231
Read before the round table of branch librarians
at the Washington conference, May 28,
1914. (_Library Journal_, August, 1914,
p. 588-91)
THREE KINDS OF LIBRARIANS 241
Read before the Missouri Library Association,
Sedalia, November 18, 1914. (_Public
Libraries_, January, 1915, p. 1-4; February,
1915, p. 47-50)
SCHOOL LIBRARIES AND MENTAL TRAINING 255
(_School Review_, June, 1915, p. 395-405)
THE LIBRARY AND THE BUSINESS MAN 269
A luncheon address to the Advertising Club
of St. Louis. (_Library Journal_, April, 1917,
p. 259-64)
SYSTEM IN THE LIBRARY 153
Read before the Missouri State Library Association,
Columbia, Mo., October 28, 1909.
(_Library Journal_, November, 1909, p. 476-82)
THE EXPLOITATION OF THE PUBLIC LIBRARY 171
Address before the American Library Association
at the Pasadena Conference, May 19,
1911. (_A. L. A. Proceedings_, 1911, p. 60-5)
SERVICE SYSTEMS IN LIBRARIES 183
(_Library Journal_, June, 1912, p. 299-304)
EFFICIENCY RECORDS IN LIBRARIES 199
(_Library Journal_, March, 1913, p. 131-3)
MAL-EMPLOYMENT IN THE LIBRARY 205
Read before the Iowa Library Association.
(_Iowa Library Quarterly_, October, 1912,
p. 247-52)
COST OF ADMINISTRATION 217
Report to the American Library Institute.
(_Public Libraries_, December, 1912, p. 416-18)
POETS, LIBRARIES AND REALITIES 283
An address at the opening of the new building
of the Indianapolis Public Library. (_Library
Journal_, December, 1917, p. 944-50)
THE CHURCH AND THE PUBLIC LIBRARY 299
(_Homiletic Review_, June, 1918, p. 435-9)
THE FUTURE OF LIBRARY WORK 309
(_A. L. A. Bulletin_, September, 1919, p. 50-7)
POPULARIZING MUSIC THROUGH THE LIBRARY 325
Read before the National Association of
Music Teachers and reprinted from the published
Proceedings for 1918.
TWO CARDINAL SINS 341
A MESSAGE TO BEGINNERS 357
LUCK IN THE LIBRARY 373
THE LIBRARY AS A MUSEUM 393
THE LIBRARY AND THE LOCALITY 409
INDEX 429
LIBRARY ESSAYS
PAPERS RELATED TO THE WORK OF PUBLIC LIBRARIES
PAINS AND PENALTIES IN LIBRARY WORK[1]
In somewhat the same way as Irving makes Diedrich Knickerbocker begin
his history of New York with the creation of the world, so we may open a
discussion of this subject with a word on the theory of punishment. We
all know that neither moral philosophers nor penologists are agreed in
this matter. Do we inflict punishment to satisfy our eternal sense of
justice, to prevent further wrong-doing on the part of the person
punished, as an example to others, or to reform the delinquent? So far
as the justicial theory goes, it is unnecessary here to discuss whether
it is founded merely on the old savage feeling of revenge, which having
done its part in ensuring punishment to the wrong-doer in the
uncivilized past, should now be put aside. As a matter of fact the rule,
“Let no guilty man escape,” is a very good one for practical purposes,
whatever its theoretical implications. Why should it be necessary to
proceed according to any one theory in administering punishment?
Practically in the home, at school, and in the courtroom the simple
administration of justice does very well for us, and when we go a little
farther into the matter we see that each of the other elements enters
into consideration. Certainly it is so in the library.
Penalties for the infraction of our rules should be so inflicted that
future wrong-doing both on the part of the culprit and on that of the
remainder of the public becomes less likely than before. Whether we
always do this in the most satisfactory way may be queried.
Punishable acts committed in a library may be divided, according to the
old ecclesiastical classification, into _mala prohibita_ and _mala in
se_; in other words, into acts that are simply contrary to library
regulations and those that are absolutely wrong. To steal a book is
wrong anywhere and does not become so merely because the act is
committed in a library; but the retention of a borrowed book for fifteen
instead of fourteen days is not absolutely wrong, but simply contrary to
library regulations.
The keeping of books overtime is a purely library offence, committed
against the library and to be punished by the library; and with it may
be classed such infractions of the rules as failure to charge or
discharge a book, loud talking or misbehavior below the rank of really
disorderly conduct, such injury to books as does not constitute wilful
mutilation, the giving of a fictitious name at the application desk,
etc.
For all these strictly library offences the favorite penalties seem to
be two in number--the exaction of a fine and exclusion from library
privileges--temporary or permanent. The former is more used than the
latter, and I venture to think unjustly so. From the sole standpoint of
punishment the great advantage of a fine is that it touches people in
their most sensitive point--the pocket. But this is a ganglion whose
sensitiveness is in inverse proportion to its size; in one case the
exaction of a cent means the confiscation of the possessor’s entire
fortune; in another the delinquent could part with a hundred dollars
without depriving himself of a necessity or a pleasure. Of course this
lack of adaptability to the conditions of the person to be punished is
not confined to this one method. Imprisonment, for instance, may be the
ruin of a life to the hitherto respectable person, while to the tramp it
may simply mean a month’s shelter and food. But in the case of a money
penalty the lack of adaptability is particularly noticeable, and hence
wherever it is exacted a large portion of the public comes to forget
that it is a penalty at all. Instead of a punishment exacted in return
for the commission of a misdemeanor and intended to discourage the
repetition thereof, it is looked upon as payment for the privilege of
committing the misdemeanor, and it in fact becomes this very thing.
Thus, in states where there is a prohibitory law, and periodical raids
are made on saloons with the resulting fines, these fines often become
in effect license fees, and are so regarded by both delinquents and
authorities. Where a municipality provides that automobiles shall not be
speeded in its streets under penalty of a heavy fine, the wealthy owners
of motor-carriages too often regard this as permission to speed on
payment of a stated amount, and act accordingly. So in the library, the
fine for keeping books overtime is widely regarded as a charge for the
privilege of keeping the books longer than the formal rules allow. Being
so regarded, the fine loses a great part of its punitive effect, and
largely becomes in fact what it is popularly thought to be. Thus we have
a free public library granting extra privileges to those who can afford
to pay for them and withholding the same from those who cannot afford to
pay--an extremely objectional state of things.
In making this characterization I am aware that the sale of additional
facilities and privileges by a free library is regarded as proper by a
large number of librarians, and that the extension of systems of which
it is a feature is widely urged. It is found in the St Louis plan for
fiction, which has been so successful, and still more in Mr. Dewey’s
proposed library bookstore. That all these plans are admirable in many
ways may be freely acknowledged. In so far as they may be adopted by
endowed libraries they are certainly unobjectionable. But in spite of
their advantages, it seems to me that their use in an institution
supported from the public funds is a mistake. The direct payment of
money to any institution so supported, even if such payment is logically
justifiable, is open to so much misconstruction and is so commonly
misunderstood or misinterpreted, that I would hold up as an ideal the
total abolition of all money transactions between the individual members
of a public and institutions supported by that public as a whole.
The present subject evidently does not justify further discussion of
this point, but its mention here is proper because if library fines have
become in many cases payments for a privilege, that very fact should
lead those who agree with what has been said above to strive for their
abolition.
Another objection to the fine, which is, curiously enough, also the
chief reason why it is almost hopeless to look for its abolition, is the
fact that wherever fines have been applied they have become a source of
revenue that cannot well be neglected. In a village not far from New
York the receipts from bicycle fines at one time nearly paid the running
expenses of the place. Agitation in favor of substituting other methods
of punishing the cyclists who ride on the sidewalks and fail to light
their lamps at sundown would evidently be hopeless here. In the same way
receipts from fines have become a very considerable source of income in
large libraries, and are not to be neglected even in small ones. This
is apparent in the following table[2]:
Income Fines
Boston $309,417.52 $4,621.45
Chicago 285,951.22 7,131.19
Philadelphia 141,954.45 2,385.52
Brooklyn 105,081.19 4,013.26
N. Y. C. F. L 91,613.12 4,648.98
Buffalo 87,946.85 2,951.21
Milwaukee 71,328.80 1,295.99
San Francisco 64,966.31 2,250.85
Newark 43,706.36 1,905.17
Evidently the abolition of fines in these cases would mean a reduction
of income that would make itself felt at once.
Now, of course, the knowledge that the detection of wrongdoing is
financially profitable to the detector results in increased vigilance.
So far, that is a good thing. But it goes farther than this: it makes
the authorities strict regarding technicalities; it may even lead to the
encouragement of infraction of the law in order that the penalties may
reach a larger amount. In the town that is supported by bicycle fines we
may fairly conclude that no resident calls the attention of the unwary
cyclist to the warning sign, past which he wheels toward the sidewalk.
To do so would decrease the village revenue and raise taxes. So too,
what librarian would wish to adopt any course that will certainly reduce
the money at his disposal for salaries and books?
Supposing, however, that this loss can be made up in some way, is there
anything that can be substituted for the fine? It has already been
stated that suspension from library privileges is in use as a penalty to
a considerable extent, and there seems to be no reason why this should
not be extended to the case of overdue books. There might, for instance,
be a rule that for every day of illegal retention of a book the holder
should be suspended from library privileges for one week. The date of
expiration of the suspension would be noted on the holder’s card, and
the card would not be returned to him before that date.
This plan would probably have interesting results which there is not
time to anticipate here. But as long as books cost money and librarians
refuse to work altogether for love, financial considerations must play a
large part in library changes. The only way in which fines can be
abolished without decreasing income is to make the abolition a condition
of an increased appropriation, which, of course, could be done by the
appropriating body. The making of such a condition is extremely
unlikely. Hence, if we agree that fines are undesirable we must regard
their abolition as an unattainable ideal. We may, however, treat them so
as to minimize their bad effect, and this, I believe, may be done in
either or both of the following two ways:
(1) We may emphasize the punitive value of the fine and at the same time
increase its value as a source of revenue by making it larger. This
would doubtless decrease the number of overdue books, and the exact
point where the increase should stop would be the point where this
decrease should so balance the increase of fines as to make the total
receipts a maximum; or, if this maximum should greatly exceed the
revenue received from fines under the old arrangement, then the rate
could be still farther increased until the total receipts fell to the
old amount. The practical method would be to increase the fines by a
fraction of a cent per day at intervals of several months, comparing the
total receipts for each interval with that of the corresponding period
under the old arrangement; and stopping when this sum showed signs of
decrease.
(2) We may give the librarian the option of substituting suspension for
the fine whenever, in his judgment, this is advisable. This is the
course pursued by the law when it gives to the trial judge the option of
fining or imprisoning an offender. In cases where a fine is no
punishment at all, and where books are kept overtime deliberately,
suspension from library privileges would probably prove salutary. A
variant of the second plan would be to allow the culprit himself to
substitute suspension for his fine. This in effect is what the offender
in the police court does when he avows that he has not the money to pay
his fine and is sent to jail to work it off. At present when a library
offender is manifestly unable to pay his fine there is usually no
alternative but to remit it or to deny the culprit access to the library
until it is paid--in many cases an unreasonably heavy punishment.
Of course there is no reason why all these modifications of existing
rules should not be made together. According to this plan fines would be
raised and suspension would be substituted in any case at the
librarian’s option and in all cases where the person fined avows that he
is unable to pay his fine. The rates can be so adjusted that under this
plan there is no decrease of revenue, but rather a net increase.
Of course the adoption of such rules would be regarded by a large
portion of the public as a curtailment of privileges, but such an outcry
as it would probably raise ought not to be objectionable as it is a
necessary step in the instruction of the users of a library regarding
the proper function of penalties for infraction of its rules. These
rules are for the benefit of the majority and the good sense of that
majority ought to, and doubtless would, come to the rescue of the
library authorities on short notice.
As long as the library fine is a recognized penalty, numerous petty
questions will continue to arise regarding its collection, registration,
and use. Any exhaustive treatment of these is impossible in the limits
of a single paper and I have chosen to neglect most of them in order to
dwell on the question in its larger aspects. It is the exaction of the
fine, after all, that is the library penalty--the money is part of the
library income and its collection and disposition are properly questions
of finance. One point, however, regarding the disposition of the fines
bears directly on what has been said. In municipal public libraries like
that of Boston, where the city requires that the fines shall be turned
directly into the public treasury and not retained for library use, the
substitution of a different penalty would presumably involve no
diminution of income. From ordinary considerations of equity, however,
it seems to me that this disposition of the fines is objectionable. If
the fines are to be turned into the city treasury they should be placed
to the credit of the library appropriation as they are in Brooklyn.
Regarding the collection of fines there are one or two points that bear
directly on their efficiency as a punitive measure. First, shall fines
be charged? It seems a hardship to refuse a well-known member a book
because he does not happen to have with him the change to pay a 15 cent
fine. This point of view, however, loses sight again of the element of
punishment. When the delinquent who is fined a dollar in the police
court does not have the money with him, does he request the magistrate
to charge it and send in a bill for the month’s penalties all at once?
The true method, I am convinced, is to insist on cash payment of fines,
and if this is done promptly their character as penalties will be more
generally recognized.
Another point in regard to the collection of fines is their effect on
the assistants themselves. In every library a stream of money passes in
at the desk in very small amounts. This must all be accounted for, and
we have the alternative of requiring vouchers for every cent or of
simply keeping a memorandum account and seeing that the cash corresponds
with it at the close of the day.
This latter plan, in some form, is usually adopted. To misappropriate
funds under these circumstances is not difficult, and I submit that it
is not right to place a large number of young girls in a situation where
such misappropriation is easy and safe. In spite of Mark Twain, who
prays that he may be led into temptation early and often, that he may
get accustomed to it, I do not believe that this is a good general
policy to pursue. We all know of cases where assistants have fallen into
temptation, and we should not hold the library altogether blameless in
the matter. But on general principles such a plan is not good business.
Every one who is responsible for money collected must show vouchers that
he turns over every cent that has been given to him. Why should the
library assistant be an exception? I look to see some form of cash
register on every charging desk in the ideal library of the future, nor
can I see that its use would be a reflection on the honesty of the
assistants any more than the refusal of a bank to cash an improperly
endorsed check is a reflection on the honesty of the holder.
This is on the supposition that we are to retain the fine as a penalty.
Such considerations, of course, weigh down the balance still more
strongly in favor of its abolition.
I have devoted so much space to the penalty for keeping books overtime
because the rule on this subject is the one that is chiefly broken in a
free public library. Other offences are usually dealt with by
suspension, and very properly so. For the loss or accidental injury of a
book, however, a fine is again the penalty, and here, as the offence is
the causing of a definite money loss to the library, there is more
reason for it The money in this case, indeed, is to be regarded as
damages, and its payment is rather restitution than punishment. Even
here, however, the argument against money transactions with a free
institution seems to hold good. There is no reason in the majority of
cases why he who loses or destroys a book should not give to the library
a new copy instead of the price thereof, and for minor injury suspension
is surely an adequate penalty.
Here we may pause for a moment to ask: What right has a library to
inflict any penalties at all? I must leave the full discussion of this
question to the lawyers, but I am quite sure that libraries, like some
other corporations, often enact and enforce rules that they have no
legal right to make. To cite an instance that came under my own
observation, the Brooklyn Public Library’s rules were for more than a
year, according to good authority, absolutely invalid because they had
not been enacted by the Municipal Assembly, and that library had no
right to collect a single fine. Yet during this time it did collect
fines amounting to several thousand dollars, and not a word of protest
was heard from the public. In this and similar cases we are getting down
to first principles--the consent of the governed; which, whether based
on ignorance or knowledge, is what we must rely on in the end for the
enforcement of law in self-governing communities. I am afraid that it is
this general consent, in a good many instances, that is enabling us to
enforce our regulations, rather than any right derived from positive
law. To take a related instance, it is by no means certain that
libraries are not breaking the law of libel every time they send out an
overdue postal notice. The courts have held that a dun on a postal is
libellous, and our overdue cards specifically inform the person to whom
they are addressed that he owes money to the library, and threaten him
with punishment if the debt is not paid. Yet although occasional
delinquents remark that the law is violated by these postals, public
libraries in all parts of the United States continue to send them out by
thousands daily with few protests. This seems clearly a case where the
public consents to a punitive measure of doubtful legality, and approves
it for the public good.
The second of the two classes into which we have divided infractions of
library rules consists of those that are also contrary to statute law or
municipal regulation. How far shall these be dealt with purely from the
library standpoint, and when shall they be turned over to the public
authorities? If a small boy yells at the desk-assistant through door or
window he is a disturber of the peace; if he throws at her some handy
missile, such as a vegetable or a tin can, as occasionally happens in
certain sections of unregenerate New York, he is technically committing
an assault; shall he be handed over to the police?
Of course one must not treat trifles too seriously. Yet probably
libraries have been somewhat too timid about dealing with petty
offences. There is an unwillingness to drag the libraries into the
police reports that seems to be a relic of the days when all libraries
were haunts of scholarly seclusion.
The modern public library cannot afford to be considered an “easy mark”
by those who wish to indulge in horse play or commit petty misdemeanors,
and in some cases it is in danger of getting this reputation.
When we come to more serious offences, the library’s duty is clearer.
Theft, wilful mutilation of books, or grave disorder must of course be
punished. In many cases, however, the detection of the first two
offences is very difficult. Theft from open shelves is easy. For the
thousands of books lost yearly in this way hardly a culprit meets
punishment. I have known a professional detective to confess that the
open shelf baffled him. “If you will only shut the books up,” he said,
“I can find out who takes ’em; but here everybody is taking out books
and walking around with them.” When the professional acknowledges
himself beaten, what shall the librarian do? Mutilation is even harder
to detect. In both these cases the offender has simply to wait his
opportunity. Sooner or later there will be a second or two when no
assistant is looking, even if the man is under long-standing suspicion,
and in that brief time the book is slipped into the pocket or the leaf
is torn out. Even when the offender is caught in the act, the magistrate
may not hold, or the jury may fail to convict. A persistent mutilator of
books in one of our branch libraries escaped punishment last winter
because the custodian of the reading-room where he was caught did not
wait until the leaf on which he was working was actually severed. The
man asserted that the sharp lead pencil that he was using to separate
the leaf was merely being employed to mark a place, and thus by
confessing to a minor defacement he escaped the penalty of the more
serious offence.
For a library that is thus forced to appeal continually to the law to
protect its assistants, its users, and its collections, a manual of
library law would be useful, and I am not sure that the appointment of a
committee of this Association to take the matter in charge would not be
eminently justified.
It is the misfortune of this paper that it has been obliged to dwell on
the darker side of library work. It is hardly necessary to remind an
audience of librarians that this is not the prominent side. All users of
a library are not delinquents or law-breakers, and the assistants have
other and better work than to act as fine-collectors and detectives. The
sombre effect of what you have just heard should have been dispelled by
a paper on “Rewards and delights of library work,” but this the Program
Committee has seen fit to omit, probably because it is not necessary to
emphasize the obvious.
HOW LIBRARIANS CHOOSE BOOKS
The form in which this subject is stated removes it from the region of
ethics and brings it down to the hard realms of fact I am not to tell
you how librarians ought to select books, but how they do select them. I
shall assume, however, that you do not care to have this paper filled
with instances of abnormal and unprofitable selection, but that you wish
to hear of the normal and the unobjectionable. Booksellers tell us that
many buyers of books are governed in their choice by the color of the
covers, and I have suspected that some librarians are influenced in the
same way. Some librarians appear to object to works that are less than
one century old; others are on record as discouraging the purchase of
fiction less than one year of age. Some librarians have a prejudice
against certain classes of books and an inordinate love for others.
The only things that should be considered by the librarian in buying
books for his library are the needs of the community that he serves, the
capability of the various books under consideration to satisfy those
needs, and the financial ability of the library to secure what is
needed.
I shall take up these points in order. First, the needs of the
community. These are not necessarily to be measured by its demands,
otherwise the librarian’s labor would be considerably lightened.
Unfortunately, when a community needs a given class of books very
desperately it is often serenely unconscious of the fact. To the
librarian falls the task not only of determining what the need is and of
filling it, but also of arousing a wholesome consciousness of it. In
this educational work he may be, and often is, aided by the teacher, the
clergyman, or even by the users of the library themselves. Hence the
importance of getting in touch with all the agencies that may do work
along this line. There is nothing that calls for more tact. With the
children it is comparatively easy to point out a deficiency, but a
direct attempt with a self-respecting adult may end in disaster, and a
season or two of well-meant effort may result in weakening the
librarian’s influence or even in losing him his position. But one can
rarely teach tact to the tactless, and tact is something that every
librarian must have, so that this lopping-off process, after all, may
simply be regarded as a phase of nature’s elimination of the unfit. One
way of ascertaining the proportional demand for various classes of
literature in a community, is by examining the class-percentage of
circulation. By comparing these with the corresponding volume
percentages we may see whether the demands of the community are being
met, and by comparison with the percentages of an ideal library we may
see whether such demand ought to be met or not. Of course, the ideal is
somewhat indefinite. One may accept the suggested proportions in the
A.L.A. catalog, or average those of several libraries of high class; or
one may construct an ideal of one’s own. In any case, the ideal
proportions will evidently vary with conditions of place and time. To
show how this test may be applied, consider the percentage of science
circulated last year in the New York Public library. This varied from 3
to 28 per cent in the various branches, and was 9 per cent for the whole
library. The percentage of science on the shelves similarly varied from
6 to 18 per cent, and was also 9 for the whole library. In our library
sociology and philology are included in the science report, and the
percentage of these three classes combined in the old A.L.A. catalog is
17. If this is to be taken as the standard, therefore, the library as a
whole falls below it, though individual branches approach or even exceed
it. As a whole, however, the demand and the supply balance pretty well.
There is no doubt, however, that in this and most other libraries the
demand in this class is too small and needs stimulation. Of course, this
is brought up merely as an instance of how fertile this comparison of
percentages is in information, and how valuable in ascertaining whether
the demands of a community are supplied, and whether they ought to be
supplied, along any given line.
We will assume that either in the ways indicated, or in some other, the
librarian has satisfied himself that he understands what his community
needs. How shall he find the books that will satisfy that need, and when
they are found (or, still more, when they obtrude themselves on his
notice) how shall he know that they are what they claim to be?
In order to find what he wants, the librarian naturally turns at first
to such classed bibliographies as he has at hand, including publishers’
trade lists. Unfortunately, books very rapidly become out of print, and
if his bibliography or list is even two or three years old he cannot be
sure that his work of selection is not in vain. The value of the A.L.A.
catalog has been much impaired by its inclusion of out-of-print books,
and as, now that it is several years old, the number of these is
increasing daily, its use has become more and more vexatious, both to
librarians and publishers. It is to be hoped that in the new edition
now preparing the out-of-print books will be omitted. Fortunately we now
have at our disposal yearly alphabetical lists of in-print books. Such
are the index to the Trade list annual and the United States catalog for
American editions, and the Index to the reference catalog of current
literature for British books.
If the needs of your library require that some one class should be
largely replenished, you may call in expert knowledge. Some teacher or
student who is a specialist in that subject is generally not hard to
find, and his advice will be of the greatest value. Special
bibliographies are valuable in inverse ratio to their length--a complete
list of works on Egyptology, for instance, is hardly more valuable to
the ordinary small library than a full, unclassified list of books
in-print on all subjects.
The majority of the small library’s purchases are books as currently
issued. For these the _Publishers’ weekly_ is indispensable. Some
librarians prefer to look at every book before purchasing, and arrange
with publishers or booksellers to send large numbers of books weekly or
even daily on approval. This, if there is sufficient time, is a good
plan, but it is certainly wasteful. There are many books which we can
surely reject or accept from the author and title entry in the
_Publishers’ weekly_ as well as if the actual book were in hand. If a
mistake is made it will be, or should be, discovered as soon as the book
is received, and the volume can then be exchanged. Only the doubtful
books need be asked for on approval, and these will generally be found
to constitute a relatively small percentage of the whole.
The data on which the librarian may rely to accept or reject from a mere
list of books are: 1) the author’s name; 2) the title, with such brief
annotation as may follow it; 3) notices in the book magazines; 4) the
publisher’s name. The author stands for much--the style, method of
treatment, the fitness to print of what he has to say, the readableness
of his book, and so on. We all know that there are authors whom we can
absolutely rely on in these respects, either for acceptance or
rejection. It is thus necessary that the librarian may know the
uniformly good author and the uniformly bad ones; but experience must be
his guide, as this lies somewhat without the scope of the present paper.
The title should tell us something about the contents of the book, but,
unfortunately, the aim of the title-maker is too often not to give
information but to stimulate curiosity. In some cases this is carried so
far that the title of a book leaves us in absolute ignorance as to
whether it is sociology, travel, or fiction. One is, therefore,
generally obliged to refer to some kind of descriptive note to get the
desired information. Such notes are often appended to lists and the
librarian does well to remember that they are generally not intended to
be critical. For criticism we must go to the reviews, and here I have
always felt, and still feel, that the librarian has a real grievance.
The book periodicals are many, and every daily paper has its critical
page. This mass of matter is made accessible through the recently issued
Index to books reviewed. Yet with it all there is not one place where
the librarian may look for brief notes on current books, telling him
just what he wants to know and no more, and with the confidence that the
information is quite free from bias. In saying this I am quite ready to
give credit to our best book reviews for their many good qualities. What
I mean is, that the reviews are written for the reader or the
bookseller, never for the librarian. In making use of those at his
disposal the librarian must learn to discriminate, to weigh
authorities, and to pick out the occasional sharp needle of valuable
criticism from the haystack of discursive talk.
Lastly, the selector may rely on the name of the publisher. This may
tell him much or little, but it may at any rate guarantee good
paper and type, and it may also assure him that the book
contains no improprieties. Unfortunately, it cannot insure against
dullness--publisher’s readers are but mortal, and the best will
occasionally reject a pearl and take in a pebble.
When all is said and done, of course the intelligent man who has read a
book carefully knows more about it than he could have found out by
reading all the annotations and reviews in the world. The librarian of a
small library can read every book under consideration. The head of a
large library cannot do this; the larger his daily or weekly order, the
more he must rely on the recommendations and opinions of others, and
even the books that he orders on approval he cannot read himself.
Here, perhaps, is the place to note that not every librarian is his own
selector. The responsible decision in these matters rests, of course, in
most libraries, with a committee of some sort; but if the librarian is
one in whose judgment this committee has confidence (and no other should
hold the position at all) he will have a practically free hand. For
decision in regard to doubtful books, especially current fiction, some
libraries have special reading committees, often composed of ladies, but
it can hardly be said that the results arrived at in this way are
satisfactory. It is vastly better for the librarian to select a few
persons, either on his staff or outside of it, on whom he can rely to
give him information, after reading a book, on specific points regarding
which he may require it. Especially in considering current fiction
should the reader be able to distinguish between mere outspokenness,
such as we find in the Bible or Shakespeare, and immoral or degrading
tendency. The ordinary woman reader, especially the young woman, will
often condemn a book for frankness when its tendency is decidedly good,
and pass a clever, pleasant tale whose influence on many persons is bad,
though conveyed entirely by indirection. Of course the librarian or the
committee may make a general rule to exclude frankness, which,
personally, I think is a mistake, though I am free to acknowledge that
there are boundaries beyond which even a well-meaning writer should not
be allowed to go.
Of course, I can say but a word here on the trash question in fiction.
But be not, I pray, too stern a censor. When selecting for a free public
library judge books largely by their fruits. If a story sends a boy out
with a pistol to play robber--somewhat too much in earnest--it is surely
bad; if it makes him love justice and incline to pity, it cannot be
altogether out of place in a library though it may be unreal and inane.
Its characters may be wooden puppets to you, while to the young reader
they are heroes, full of the divine qualities of courage, sympathy, and
tenderness. As the reader thinketh so is the book--not as you, wise
critic, in your plentitude of knowledge, would have it to be.
The third consideration that must govern us in our choice, though I have
put it last, is really the controlling one. Unless there is something in
the treasury we may choose books all day, and our selection is as
unavailing as the street child’s choice of jewels in a shop window; and
the more money one has at one’s disposal, the easier it is to spend it.
I must speak of the library’s finances here, however, only as they
affect the librarian’s choice of books. Given a specified book
appropriation, the librarian must often have to decide upon the best way
to spend it, and upon the proper distribution of expenditure over the
year.
All these things influence his choice more or less. From one point of
view it seems well to expend the greater part of the amount as soon as
it becomes available, especially if a large number of pressing needs
have been waiting for satisfaction. The trouble is that one cannot
foresee what needs will also press for satisfaction during the coming
year. Another plan is to distribute the expenditure pretty evenly
without making any too strict rule in the matter.
With the first arrangement the librarian will be apt to buy a good many
of the larger and more expensive works--and, perhaps, be sorry for it
afterward. With the latter he will purchase more current literature and
satisfy his readers better, though the general quality of his purchases
may not be so high.
Perhaps a compromise may bring the best results. He who decides at the
outset what reference works he can afford to buy during the year, and
how much he must spend at once on replacements and duplicates, and after
deducting these fixed charges from his appropriation divides the
remainder into weekly or monthly portions for current purchases, will
not go far wrong.
To the financial section of this discussion belongs also the question of
editions. Shall the librarian choose the best or the cheapest? Which is
the best and which is the cheapest for his purpose? In the first place,
we may exclude the extremes. Editions de luxe have no place in the
ordinary free library, and, on the other hand, we should not think of
offering to a self-respecting reader books printed on bad paper with
worse type, simply because they can be purchased at a phenomenally low
figure. But between these two there are many grades of beauty and
durability. Here, as elsewhere, there is safety in the golden mean. As
far as bindings of exceptional durability go, the question of paying
extra for them depends on the use that is to be made of the book. If it
will circulate so little that the ordinary binding will last twenty
years, why spend money for anything stronger? Again, if it get such hard
treatment that it must be replaced in a year’s time, why put on it a
binding that would outlive ten years of such vicissitudes? Still again,
with current books of popular interest, the library cannot wait to have
them put into special bindings, but for standard, popular works, which
will have steady but not hard use, and which can be ordered three months
before they are to be used, money spent on special bindings may be
economy in the end. Here, however, we are drifting a little way from our
subject.
The three points that we must take into consideration in selecting
books, namely, the community’s need, the determination of what books
will satisfy it, and the consideration of how far the library’s
financial condition will allow it to go in that direction, have been
treated separately, but it must be evident that they are in reality so
closely connected that they act and react on each other. No one of them
can in practice be considered apart from the others. Thus the first
necessity of the library may be books on music, and a secondary need may
be books on water supply. It may so happen, however, that a complete and
up-to-date work on the latter subject, we will say, has just been issued
at a moderate price, while the works on music most needed are expensive.
The result would be quite different from that reached by a
consideration of the first point alone. Again, we will take the case of
a large library with a book appropriation large enough to buy
practically all that it wants in current literature. This fact drops
point third out of consideration entirely and modifies both the others
considerably. If the library wants both music and hydraulics, and has
money enough for only one, we must consider carefully which can best be
spared; but if the funds are at hand for both, all this thought is not
needed. In like manner, even if there are funds for both, but only for
one or two books on each subject, we must select the books we need most,
which we need to do if we have money to buy all we want on both
subjects. In short, the work of selecting is more difficult, as has been
said, with a few books than with many, but the consolation must be that
the result is better. The temptation, when one has plenty of money, is
to let selection go by the board altogether and to garner in wheat and
tares alike, trusting to the public to do the sorting.
We may be almost alarmed to learn from the physiologist of the
complicated vital processes that go on within us, of which the cessation
means death, and yet of which we remain in daily ignorance. These things
often regulate themselves. The selection of books, like the inflation of
the lungs, may be performed almost automatically, yet with substantial
success. It is instructive to see how nearly the class percentages in
the ordinary library approximate to the average without any conscious
regulation by the librarian. The community is apt to get about what it
needs in fairly good quality and without running its library into debt.
Yet there can surely be no harm in analyzing a little the work of
selection, nor can there be any objection to supplementing by conscious
action work that has gone on, however well, chiefly in the combined
subconsciousness of a librarian and the community.
Especially is this desirable in making the distinction, already
emphasized at the opening of this paper, between what the community
wants and what it needs. The fever patient who needs acid sometimes
cries for a pickle, and thus cures himself in spite of his nurse; but it
is more commonly the case that the patient’s need is masked by some
abnormal desire, and that he cries for pork-chops or lobster, or
something else that would kill him. We can hardly give up the nurse,
therefore, provided she knows her business, and part of that business is
to realize the difference between a mere want and a vital need.
So with the librarian, the nurse of the reading public. Left altogether
to themselves her patients may kill themselves with pork or lobster; it
is her business to see that such an untoward event does not occur.
Those of us to whom this duty has been intrusted, whether we are
librarians, trustees, or the members of book-committees, deserve both
the good-will and the sympathy of the public; and, like the western
organist, I pray that we may not be shot. We are doing our best.
THE WORK OF THE SMALL PUBLIC LIBRARY
We cannot too often remind ourselves of the fact that a circulating
library is a distributing agency, and as such has points in common with
other such agencies. The whole progress of civilization is dependent on
distribution--the bringing to the individual of the thing he wants or
needs. The library’s activities are, therefore, in the same class with
commerce, and the tendency of modern changes in the library is to make
the analogy closer and closer. To recognize this fact is by no means to
degrade library work. All workers fall into the two great classes of
producers and distributors. Civilization can get along without neither;
we must have the farmer to grow the wheat and the railway to market it;
we must have the author to write the book and the publisher and the
bookseller and the librarian to place it in the hands of those who can
use it. The librarian is not a producer; he takes the product of other
people’s brains and distributes it; and his problem is how to do this
most effectively.
Do not misunderstand me. There have been some recent protests against
treating the library as a commercial instead of an educational
institution. The free library is not a commercial institution, but it
_is_ an agency for distributing something, and there are also hundreds
of other agencies for distributing other things. The objects and the
methods of distribution are various, but certain laws apply to all kinds
of distribution. Hence we may learn a good deal about library work by
examining to see what it has in common with other kinds of distribution
and in what respect it differs from them.
Now, the prime factors in any kind of distribution are: 1, the products
to be distributed; 2, the persons to whom they are to be distributed; 3,
the distributors and methods of distribution. I know no better way of
laying the basis of an efficient and successful distribution than the
brief study, in order, of these three factors.